Performance Marketing
Performance marketing is an umbrella term for digital marketing where advertisers pay based on measurable results — clicks, leads, or sales — rather than upfront for exposure, with affiliate marketing as a core channel.
In performance marketing, budget is tied to outcomes: CPC for clicks, CPL for leads, CPA for actions or sales. This makes spend accountable and ROI easy to measure compared with brand advertising billed by impressions.
Affiliate marketing is the classic performance channel because affiliates are paid only for the conversions they drive. Performance marketing also spans paid search, paid social, and programmatic buying optimized to a cost-per-result goal.
See also
- Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing model in which a business pays external partners a commission for each customer or sale they refer.
- CPA (Cost Per Action)
CPA, or cost per action (also cost per acquisition), is a pricing model where the advertiser pays only when a specific action — a sale, signup, or lead — is completed, aligning cost directly with results.
- CPC (Cost Per Click)
CPC, or cost per click, is the amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks their ad or link, a common pricing model in paid search and display and a key metric for PPC affiliates.
- Partner Marketing
Partner marketing is a broad discipline of growing revenue through external partners — affiliates, referrers, resellers, ambassadors, and integration partners — encompassing affiliate marketing and extending into strategic and channel partnerships.
- Conversion
A conversion is the qualifying action — such as a sale, signup, lead, or subscription — that triggers an affiliate commission.
Turn the theory into a live program
Afflio handles tracking, commissions, and payouts so you can run the program these terms describe — start free in an afternoon.
Find brands to promote →