Guide
Influencer Marketing Basics
Both
A glossary of 21 core terms in influencer marketing — from upfront payment and performance commission to attribution window, ROAS and Consent Mode. Each entry is a short, self-contained definition with a link to the full guide if you want to go deeper.
This glossary defines the 21 terms you'll run into most often in influencer marketing — from payment models like upfront payment and performance commission to tracking terms like attribution window, ROAS and Consent Mode. Each entry is a short, self-contained definition. Want the full depth on a term? Every definition links to the dedicated guide.
A paid collaboration between a brand and a creator, where the creator introduces, demonstrates or recommends the brand's product to their own audience, in their own voice. Payment can be an upfront fee, performance commission, or a combination (a hybrid deal). → What is influencer marketing?
Photo or video content produced by a creator that the brand owns the usage rights to and runs in its own channels — ads, product pages, email. Unlike influencer marketing, UGC doesn't necessarily come with organic reach; the creator often doesn't post the content themselves. → What is UGC?
A fixed fee paid to a creator for a collaboration, regardless of how many clicks or sales the content generates. Usually paid before or on delivery. The opposite is performance commission, where pay depends on results. → Upfront vs commission
Payment as a percentage of sales that can be tracked back to a specific creator via a unique link or discount code — also called CPA (cost per acquisition) or CPS (cost per sale). The creator carries part of the risk, but has a direct incentive to drive sales, not just views. → How much commission should influencers get?
A payment model that combines an upfront fee with performance commission. The creator gets a guaranteed minimum plus upside if the content performs. It's the model most mature influencer programmes land on, because it splits the risk between brand and creator. → Hybrid influencer deals
A variant of influencer marketing where pay is commission-only on tracked sales, with no upfront fee at all. The line to classic affiliate marketing — which often has no curated relationship to the individual affiliate at all — is blurry; see the difference in influencer marketing vs affiliate marketing. → Affiliate influencer marketing: how the model works
Software — often paired with a service — built to solve four jobs: finding relevant creators (discovery), managing briefing and approval (campaign management), handling fees and commission (payment), and measuring what a collaboration actually delivered (tracking). Distinct from an agency (people do the work) and a UGC platform (delivers content, not reach). → What is an influencer marketing platform?
The four common size categories creators are typically sorted into by follower count, from nano (the smallest, often most niche group) to mega (celebrities and the very largest profiles). A higher follower count doesn't automatically mean better results — engagement rate and audience relevance often matter more than reach alone. → Nano, micro, macro or mega influencers
The two most common ways to attribute a sale to a specific creator: a unique tracking link (logs a click and sets a cookie) or a personal discount code (recorded directly at checkout, independent of cookies). The two have different strengths — a link captures click behaviour, a code captures sales even after a cookie has been cleared or never set. → Discount codes vs tracking links
The period of time after a click on a tracking link during which a subsequent purchase is still credited to the creator who generated that click — typically between 24 hours and 90 days, depending on setup. Too short a window under-reports a creator's real contribution; too long a window can credit sales the creator had no real influence over. → Attribution windows in influencer marketing
The method used to split credit for a sale across multiple marketing channels or multiple creators a customer interacted with before buying. Last-click gives full credit to the final click before the sale; multi-touch spreads credit across several touchpoints; an incrementality test measures how much of the sale genuinely wouldn't have happened without the channel, using a holdout group that isn't exposed. → Influencer marketing attribution explained
The ratio of tracked revenue to what was spent on the influencer collaboration: ROAS = tracked revenue ÷ total spend. A ROAS of 4 means every krone spent generated 4 kroner back in tracked revenue — illustrative example, not an industry benchmark: DKK 40,000 in tracked revenue divided by DKK 10,000 in spend gives a ROAS of 4. What counts as a "good" ROAS depends on margin and business model. → What is a good ROAS for influencer marketing?
The share of a creator's followers who actively react to a post — typically likes, comments, saves and shares divided by follower count (or views), multiplied by 100. A high follower count paired with a low engagement rate is a warning sign of bought or inactive followers. → Influencer engagement rate: how to calculate it
Tracking where conversion data is sent directly from the brand's server to the platform (e.g. Meta's Conversions API or TikTok's Events API), instead of relying on a cookie set in the user's browser. More resilient to browser cookie restrictions, but requires technical setup on the brand's side. → Server-side and cookieless tracking in influencer marketing
Tracking methods that don't rely on a browser cookie at all — a unique click ID in the URL, or a personal discount code recorded directly at checkout. Distinct from server-side tracking, which can still be built on a cookie, just sent from the server instead of the browser. → Server-side and cookieless tracking in influencer marketing
Google's system for adjusting what Analytics and Ads are allowed to measure, based on the consent a visitor gave in the cookie banner — governed by four signals (ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization, analytics_storage). A declined consent is invisible to Google's modeling, and for an influencer tracking cookie there is no equivalent modeled substitute: the sale is simply untracked. → Consent Mode and influencer tracking in the EU
The technical infrastructure behind a tracking link or discount code: a cookie is set on click and typically stored for up to 30 days, with an IP-based backup for up to 3 months to catch sales from in-app browsers, where cookies are often restricted or cleared quickly. → How influencer tracking actually works
The right to reuse a creator's content outside its original organic post — as a paid ad, on product pages, or in email. Usage rights are a separate agreement from the collaboration itself and should specify how long and where the content may be used. → UGC usage rights explained
The EU's data protection regulation, which governs how brands and creators may handle personal data — shipping addresses, payment details, and tracking data like a click ID or IP address. Distinct from disclosure rules, which govern when a post must be marked as a paid partnership, not how data is handled. → Influencer marketing and GDPR: what brands need to know
Features that let a brand run paid ads directly from a creator's own profile — Meta's Partnership Ads and TikTok's Spark Ads are the most widely used. The ad appears to come from the creator, borrowing their credibility, but requires the creator's approval and a time-limited authorization. → Creator whitelisting, Spark Ads and Partnership Ads explained
A longer-term collaboration where a group of creators represents the brand over an extended period — typically a quarter or more — rather than a single post. Often combines a fixed fee with performance commission and gives the brand a more consistent presence with the same audience over time. → How to run an influencer ambassador program
It's our experience that most disagreements in influencer marketing aren't disagreements about facts — they're brands and creators using the same word to mean different things. "Commission" can mean 10% or 30% depending on who you ask; "attribution window" can mean 24 hours or 90 days. A shared glossary doesn't resolve every disagreement, but it removes the friction that comes purely from imprecise language. We built Make Influence as a performance-based marketplace that puts several of the terms above into practice — hybrid deals, link- and code-based tracking with a cookie of up to 30 days and an IP-based backup for up to 3 months, and a service fee that follows the outcome. The platform has generated €65M+ in revenue (incl. VAT) across 930,000+ tracked sales, with €8M+ paid out in commission to 5,000+ approved creators. That's our model — not a claim that it's the only correct way to use the terms above.
An upfront payment is a fixed fee regardless of outcome; performance commission depends on tracked sales. Most mature programmes combine the two into a hybrid deal. See upfront vs commission for the full trade-off.
No. Affiliate marketing is an open, network-based model without necessarily any relationship to the individual affiliate. Influencer marketing is relationship-based — you choose, brief and approve. See influencer marketing vs affiliate marketing for the full comparison.
The attribution window is how long a click gets credit for a sale. The attribution model is how credit is split when multiple channels or creators were involved in the same sale. The two answer different questions and are usually used together.
Most brands don't pick only one. Links capture click behaviour well but lose sales if the cookie is cleared; codes capture sales directly at checkout but rely on the customer remembering to enter them. See the full comparison in discount codes vs tracking links.
Because definitions and benchmarks are two different things, and most "good" numbers (engagement rate, ROAS, commission) depend too much on niche, margin and business model to have one right answer. Every entry links to the full guide, where the relevant figures and worked examples are sourced and explained in context.
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