Definition
Affiliate link
An affiliate link is a URL that identifies the affiliate who shared it, usually through a parameter such as ?via= or ?ref=.
Its most common form: https://yoursite.com/?via=marie. The parameter carries the referral code. On first load the tracking script reads it, records the click, sets the cookie, and can strip the parameter from the displayed URL so the visitor never sees it.
Which domain should the link point to? Two schools. Some platforms route through a redirect on their own domain; others send straight to the merchant's site. The second is better on every axis that matters: the visitor sees the brand they know instead of an unfamiliar domain, click-through is higher, and no intermediary appears between the affiliate and their audience.
The link is not the only way to attribute a sale, which is worth knowing before building a whole program on it: a tracked coupon attributes a sale with no link ever clicked, and a deep link sends visitors straight to an internal page rather than the homepage.
At earnwithaffiliate
The link featured in the affiliate portal points at the merchant's domain, not ours. Our domain is only a fallback when no site address has been set.
Related terms
Referral code
A referral code identifies an affiliate inside a program. It is what appears in every shared link and, often, in the matching coupon.
Deep link
A deep link is an affiliate link pointing at an internal page — pricing, an article, a feature — rather than the homepage.
Tracked coupon
A tracked coupon is a discount code tied to an affiliate: any sale using it is attributed to them, even if nobody ever clicked their link.