Whenever I go to industry events and participate in message boards, I come accross a variety of synonyms for affiliates. They are sometimes publishers or partners or associates or whatever other name du jour.
This muddy semantic landscape can be confusing for outsiders and insiders alike. So I thought I’d ask a bunch of affiliates if they consider themselves to be affiliates or one of the other namesakes.
The results of my poll were that the majority, nearly 60%, of affiliates consider themselves to be affiliates.
A little less than 25% of affiliates refer to themselves as publishers. Only about 8% think of themselves as partners, and less than 3% as associates.
The remaining 5% of affiliates prefer to go by their own titles, such as “traffic driving and conversion specialist” or the hybrid, “affiliate partner.”