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A
Ad Impression – A single instance of an advertisement (banner ad, paid search listing, etc.) being served to an Internet user. Paying by ad impression is one of the common ways of paying for Internet advertising.
Ad Network- A company that sells advertising space on a group of affiliated websites. Because the Internet is fragmented into so many small channels (the “long tail“), it is very difficult to reach all of your target audience in one place, so ad networks offer the ability to reach larger groups based on their commonalities (behavior, geography, demographics, etc.). Examples of ad networks are Jumpstart Automotive Media, Weblogs, Inc., and Google Adsense.
Ad Server- An ad server is a system that stores advertisements from various sources and transmits them to affiliated web sites as they are requested. This happens when an end user brings up a web page that has advertising space on it. When the ad is “served” to the end user, the server records information about the user, including geographic information and any cookie data that is available about the user’s previous Internet activity.
Ad Tag- An ad tag is a piece of HTML or other code that provides an ad server with information about the user’s behavior prior to clicking on the ad.
Ad Unit- A means of classifying ad types. These can take many forms, including banners, buttons, pop-ups, interstitials, tag lines and more. A single appearance of an ad unit to an end user is referred to as an impression.
Aggregator- A feed aggregator, also known as a feed reader, news reader or simply aggregator, is client software or a Web application which aggregates syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing.
Application- An application (or “app”) is a stand-alone program designed to perform some useful function. Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, iTunes and Internet Explorer are all examples of applications. Typically, applications are designed to function with only a single operating system or family of operating systems (i.e. Windows, MacOS, Linux). Many applications have plug-ins available to augment or customize their functions.
Auction-An open market for bidding on Internet advertising space. This is becoming a much more common way of selling advertising on the Internet, as Google and other search engines use it to manage their paid search sales. In most cases, these are handled in an automated fashion, like when you set your maximum bid on eBay.
B
Banner Ad- A banner ad is a graphical advertising unit. Banner ads come in many different shapes and sizes, but the primary objectives of banner ads, in general, are to brand an advertiser/product, and to entice the user to “click-through” to the advertiser’s home page or other “landing page.” Banner ads are most often sold based on the number of impressions an advertiser purchases, but there is a growing trend of advertisers demanding that banner ads be sold on a pay-per-click basis. Click here for an example of a banner ad.
Behavioral Targeting- A method of delivering ads to an end user based on their activity on the web, which is recorded from “cookies” left on his/her computer by the web sites that they visit. By compiling this information, the advertiser’s goal is to determine the user’s state of mind and how well he/she fits the advertiser’s target audience. Ad networks often sell inventory based on behavioral targeting criteria.
Blog- A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Branding- Branding is the process of impressing upon a customer base the name, values and slogans of a company or product. It is the first stage in the “purchase funnel,” and is essential in persuading consumers to purchase your product or service.
Browser- A browser is a program used to view content on the World Wide Web. There are many different browsers available, with different features and compatible plug-ins designed to make them more useful. The most commonly used browsers are Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Safari (Apple), Firefox (Mozilla) and Chrome (Google). Browsers are also housed in other Internet-capable devices like cell phones, PDAs, video game consoles (Wii, Playstation), and even some set-top box devices (WebTV). Most web pages are optimized for use on the major computer-based browsers, but some companies will create specific versions of their sites for use with mobile devices like cell phones and PDAs. (See WAP Pages)
Button- A small advertising unit, typically smaller and less expensive than a banner.
C
Click-Through- A click-through is the act of clicking on or otherwise interacting with an ad unit. They are one of the primary methods of determining the effectiveness of an advertisement on the Internet. Click-throughs most often redirect the user to the advertiser’s own website, but they can be recorded in other ways as well. “Mouse-overs” and “in-unit clicks” can also result in click-throughs being recorded by an ad server.
Click-Through Rate- Click-through rate, or CTR, is a metric used to determine the performance of an Internet advertising campaign. It is calculated by dividing the number of times a click-through was recorded by the number of impressions served. CTR is one of the major measures used by marketers, and, when combined with some other factors, can help a company determine the real value of a campaign.
Clickstream- The clickstream is the recorded path of a user through a web page or several web pages. Recording a user’s clickstream (through the use of cookies and ad tags) can allow a marketer to better understand what things customers are looking for on their website, and where they may be losing traffic because of poor site design.
Code- The term “code,” or “source code” refers to the file that contains the original instructions for a program or web page. Code is written in a programming language, such as HTML or Java.
Content- Content is, literally, the “stuff” on your web page. Everything on it, including text, pictures, videos, links, the very HTML code itself and more are classified as content. Optimizing your site’s content will help people find your site more easily.
Conversion Rate- This is an important metric used in evaluating advertising, search and email campaigns. The conversion rate indicates how effective the campaign was in achieving specific goals (sales, downloads, click-throughs, etc.). The conversion rate is calculated by taking the total number of “conversions” and dividing by the total number of impressions for an ad in a given time period.
Cookie- A cookie is a file that sent from a web site to an end user’s browser and stored on his/her computer. The file contains information about the user’s behavior on the site, the amount of time he/she has spent there, and from where their IP address originates.
Cost Per Click- Cost per click, or CPC, is a measure of the economic value of a click on an ad unit. It is used both as a measurement by marketers (if they are purchasing a total number of impressions), and as a measure of payment as well (if they are using a pay per click pricing scheme). A typical cost per click is between $.20 and $2.00.
Cost Per Lead- Also referred to as “Cost Per Inquiry,” it means that the advertiser pays for advertising space based on the number of leads submitted by visitors to the site. It is one of the most difficult methods of pricing for an Internet advertising buy. CPL buys must be carefully monitored for their return on investment, to determine the quality of the lead generated by the hosting site.
Cost Per Thousand- Cost per thousand (CPM), is a method for measuring the number of impressions purchased. A $10 CPM for 100,000 advertising impressions would cost an advertiser $10,000. The “M” is used in the abbreviation because “M” is the Roman numeral representing 1,000.
D
Domain- A domain is the basic, root-address of a group of web pages. Examples include www.cmasseconsulting.com or www.toyota.com.
Dynamic Ad Placement- The process of serving an ad for a user at the time of the click, instead of it being programmed into the content of the page. In other words, web pages are often built with “windows” in them, and when the page is loaded, ads sent from an ad server are plugged into those “windows,” which allows the web page to show more than one different advertisement at a time. Often, these ads are served based on behavioral targeting or geo-targeting criteria.
Dynamic Content- Dynamic content is information on a page which is served up based on the users’ settings or configuration. For example, if you visit Yahoo.com, and you are not signed in to a Yahoo account, Yahoo will serve you the weather forecast for the city in which your IP address is located. The term can also refer to items that change on a web site based on your interaction with them. For instance, if you hover your mouse pointer over a spot on a page and a graphic changes, that would be referred to as dynamic content.
E
End User- The end user is the person who actually uses and benefits from the use of an item. If you are viewing a web page, you are the end user of that page. If you are using Microsoft Word to create a document, you are the end user of Microsoft Word. It is a distinction from an online user who creates the content, like a blogger or other “content creator.” In practical terms, your “audience.”
F
Folksonomy- “Folksonomy” is a system that uses tags created by multiple users to classify content. The word comes from a portmanteau of “folks” and “taxonomy;” taxonomy being the science of classification. The power of folksonomies are that they allow many tags to be applied to a single file based on the thought processes of different users. The end result is data that is more easily searchable because it does not rely on a single mode of thought in order to be navigated. An example of this is Delicious, which allows sharing and bookmarking of web pages that are determined to be of interest by users. See Social Bookmarking.
Free Text- Free text is content on your site that is rendered in regular text, instead of as part of a graphic or other application. Having free text on your web site is important because search engines use the words you type to help classify and categorize your site, which in turn allows them to serve it up to users who are trying to find it. Also see Search Engine Optimization.
G
Geo-Targeting- Geo-targeting means targeting an ad based on the location of the user. For example, if a dog grooming service operating in Coral Springs, Florida, wants to advertise its services online, with many online advertising outlets it is possible for them to serve their ad only to people who live in and around Coral Springs, FL.
H
Header- The header of a web page is a section of its code that is dedicated to items that are “underneath” the page’s appearance; things that either contribute to the page’s appearance indirectly (like Java scripts), or things that are there for the benefit of web spiders (like meta tags).
Hosting- Hosting is the act of containing or housing an electronic file, in the context of Internet advertising, it means housing a file in a way that makes it accessible via the Internet.
HTML- Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, is the foundation of the World Wide Web. It is a programming language that provides browsers with a set of instructions for how to format and arrange text and graphics on a page. Almost all websites use it or some variation of it.
Hyperlink- A hyperlink is a line of text that has been programmed so that when a user clicks on it, he is brought to another page of content, or another location on the same page.
I
In-Unit Click- An in-unit click is when an end user clicks on an interactive banner or other ad unit that causes a change in the content of the ad – clicking a banner to “see today’s specials,” for instance.
Interstitial- An interstitial is an advertisement placed in between two web pages. For instance, if you are reading an article on USAToday.com, when you navigate from the home page to one of the other sections, it is not uncommon to have an advertisement pop up before you get to the page you were looking for.
IP Address- An IP address is a unique identifying series of numbers that allows computers to tell each other apart on the Internet. Typically, each individual Internet-capable device has its own IP address, and can be identified by it. IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be between 0 and 255. So an example of an IP address would be 128.33.255.1.
J
Java- Java is a computer programming language. It is designed for use on the Internet.
JavaScript- JavaScript is a scripting language developed by Netscape to enable Web authors to design interactive sites. Although it shares many of the features and structures of the full Java language, it was developed independently. JavaScript can interact with HTML source code, enabling Web authors to spice up their sites with dynamic content.
K
Keyword- A keyword is a word or small group of words that you type into search engines in order to find pages you are looking for. Keywords can be anything from “doctors in jacksonville florida” to “hubcaps for a 1991 camaro.” In order to find the page you’re looking for, search engines use web spiders to seek out web pages that contain these keywords in their content.
Keyword Rank- Keyword Rank is the position of a particular listing in search results related to a particular keyword.
Keyword Research- Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search. It is very important to know how people are reaching your site, but also, to find out words you may be missing in order to provide more traffic for your site.
L
Landing Page- The first page a user sees when they click on an ad or link. It is important to consider what page visitors land on when they come to your site, because a good landing page will engage them and lead to conversions based on what they were looking for when they came to it.
Lead Quality- Lead quality is a difficult-to-quantify, but important measure of marketing campaign performance. “High quality” leads are leads that come from the target audience, and result in sales. What makes a lead’s quality difficult to assess is the fact that several factors can cause poor sales performance and interfere with your ability to judge a lead’s quality on its own merits.
Long Tail- The “Long Tail” is a statistical phenomenon common to many areas of statistical study. It describes a frequency distribution that starts out very high frequency occurrences and stretches out into a very long line of much less frequent occurrences. In practical terms, what it means in relation to Internet marketing is that there are a few sites that garner huge amounts of traffic – Google, Yahoo, ESPN, CNN and so on – and many, many more that get much less traffic. If you were to make a graph of traffic from those sites to more specialized ones, you would see the amount of traffic trail off and form a “long tail.” Understanding how to market to customers while they are visiting the sites in the “long tail” is a way to increase efficiency and decrease cost.
M
Meta Tags- The term “meta tag” refers to a particular type of metadata contained in HTML web pages. A meta tag is a string of words or characters in the header of a web page. The most common types of meta tags are “keywords” and “description” tags. The keywords tag should typically contain a list of words related to what the web site’s purpose is. The description is a short description of the site’s purpose in sentence form. The “keywords” tag is not as important as it once was, but the “description” tag still gets a lot of use, as it is what shows up to describe your web site when it comes up in a Google search.
Metadata- Metadata is “data about data.” In simple terms, metadata is information used to classify and retrieve other information. The most common form of metadata is tagging, but the term can be used to refer to other information about a file – its size, author, date of creation, or location.
Micro-Site- A micro-site is a page or series of pages created to enhance an advertiser’s ad presence. They are often used to highlight a single product or campaign and thus are temporary creations. For instance, with the launch of a new vehicle model, a car company will often create a micro-site that focuses solely on that vehicle. Another example is a site created for a specific promotion or partnership – like Burger King’s movie tie-in glasses.
Mouse-over- A mouse over is an event that happens when an end user moves the mouse pointer over an interactive banner. For instance, if you move your mouse pointer over some banners, they expand to fill more of the screen, or some animated motion in the image is triggered.
N
O
Operating System- The operating system (OS) of a computer is the set of programs that control all of its basic functions, including power management, disk drive operation, video and sound output and peripheral function. The most common OS families are Windows (XP and Vista) and MacOS.
Optimization- (also see Search Engine Optimization) Optimization is a term that can have many different connotations. In buying online media, optimizing means evaluating and changing your campaigns as necessary to generate more positive results. This is one of the great powers of Internet advertising that isn’t available in traditional media. Because it is a constant flow of single instances of contact (users opening web pages), it works like a faucet or garden hose. You can manipulate the flow of ad impressions in real time, changing creative, placement, and even which outlet you are using very easily. By contrast, other forms of advertising (TV, Cable, Direct Mail) are more like water balloons. You fill them up and throw them (broadcast, mail, etc.), then fill up and throw them again. You have no fine control over where the “Water” (your message) goes.
Organic Listing- Also called “natural listing” or “non-paid” listing, this is the search engine listing that comes up when a user enters keywords into a search engine based solely on the page’s relevance to the search query. Search engine optimization is the process of editing and maintaining your web site to maximize the frequency with which you appear in search engine results.
P
PageRank- PageRank is a proprietary measurement used by Google to determine the importance of a web page within the universe of the World Wide Web. The PageRank algorithm is generally considered the main contributing factor in Google’s early success – it allowed Google to serve up more useful search engine results than other search engine companies.
Paid Search Listing- A listing that an advertiser pays for on a search engine through a paid placement or paid inclusion program. Relevance is still an important factor in determining placement, but it is offset by the amount the advertiser is willing to pay for the placement.
Paid Search Marketing- Paid search marketing is the practice of paying for search listings in order to gain attention for your web page.
Pay-Per-Click- Paying per click on an ad unit is the most common way to measure the cost of a paid search campaign, and it is evolving into the method of choice for other types of advertising campaigns as well, since it is a much more direct-response oriented approach. In simple terms, you only pay for the people that see your ad and are moved to click on it, which is perceived as less wasteful than typical CPM campaigns.
Peripheral- A peripheral is a device that is plugged into your computer in order to function, instead of something built into it. Examples of peripherals include keyboards, mice, iPods, printers, and speakers.
Plug-In- A plug-in is a program that is meant to be used as an addition to a larger program. Examples of plug-ins include Shockwave, Flash and the Google Toolbar. Plug-ins can be very useful to users, but often are a source of frustration since many of them are not programmed to work together, or are programmed to only work with a specific version of the program they supplement.
Podcast- An audio program in a compressed digital format, delivered via an RSS feed over the Internet to a subscriber and designed for playback on computers or portable digital audio players, such as the iPod.
Pop-Up- A pop-up is an ad unit that appears in front of the desired content on a page (”pops up”) when a new page is loaded. Pop-ups are often regarded as a nuisance by users and should be used carefully and sparingly.
Post-Click Activity- Post-click activity is the tracking and measurement of what actions a user takes after the click on an ad unit. This can include making a purchase, submitting a lead or making a phone call. Paying attention to post-click activity can help in determining if your campaign is effective.
Programming Language- A programming language is a set of symbols, commands and syntax that, when combined, provide instructions for a computer to execute its functions. Examples of programming languages include C++, Java, Fortran, HTML, Perl and VisualBasic.
Purchase Funnel- The “purchase funnel” is a theoretical model that describes the typical shopping process that leads to purchase of an item or service. It is generally represented by five steps, which narrow down from the larger population of shoppers to the small population of owners of a product. The five steps are: awareness, consideration, preference, purchase and retention.
Q
Query- “Query” is a technical term for a request for information from a computer system. If you open your “My Documents” folder, what you are actually doing is making a query- asking the computer to show you the contents of your “My Documents” folder. Likewise, if you type in “chiropractors in Duval county,” you are asking a search engine to give you information on chiropractors in Duval county.
R
Relevance- Relevance is a measure of how your site relates to a particular set of keywords. The higher your relevance, the more likely your site is to be served to a user when they search. PageRank is one measure of relevance, but it is only used by Google.
Rich Media- Rich media refers to technologies that enhance interaction between users and the ad unit or other web content. Some rich media can require a plug-in like Shockwave or Flash in order to run properly.
RSS- RSS stands for “Rich Site Summary,” but is often referred to as “Really Simple Syndication.” RSS is a powerful tool for marketers who create consistently updated content (this site has an RSS link at the top of the page). RSS is literally a short summary of each of the entries created on the site – usually only the page title, first paragraph, and the date/time that it was created. RSS “feeds” can be picked up from sites by programs called “aggregators.” Aggregators can collect the feeds from several sites chosen by the user and display them on a single page. This allows a user to view the most recent content from many sites that he/she is interested in without having to visit each one individually.
S
Script- A script is a short piece of code that describes a single function of a web site. For instance, a “mouse-over” script would change the picture displayed when the mouse pointer moves over a particular area of a page.
Search Engine- A search engine is a program that takes stockpiles of data and analyzes them, allowing a user to search the data to find the information they are looking for more quickly. In its most common usage, the term “search engine” refers to web sites that catalog and classify other web sites for retrieval based on user queries.
Search Engine Marketing- Search engine marketing (SEM) is a term that is applied to a couple of different practices. In the broader sense, SEM refers to all actions taken to improve website traffic and conversions through the use of search engines. In this way it is inclusive of Search Engine Optimization. Often, though, it is used as a term to refer only to paid search marketing campaigns.
Search Engine Optimization- Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of editing and improving web sites so that they are more easily found and searched by web spiders. By emphasizing key topics relating to the site’s purpose, selecting relevant keywords and properly labeling pictures and pages, it is possible to attract more searchers to your site.
Skin- A skin is a colorful, customizable set of graphics and type styles. Skins are interchangeable, and allow users to customize their experience with an application or web site without changing its overall functionality. “Skinnable” applications are growing in popularity and are becoming a valuable marketing tool to reach new audience. In addition, skins are typically very small files, so they are easy to download and transfer, and thus popular skins spread quickly through the Internet.
Social Bookmarking- Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of tags that collectively and/or collaboratively become a folksonomy.
T
Tag- Not to be confused with ad tags, “tags” in this context refers to a list of keywords used to describe a particular file, picture, video or audio clip in order to identify and classify it, which allows search engines to find it. Tags are usually chosen by the author or creator of the content, and typically an item will have more than one tag associated with it. “Folksonomies” are systems that use tags created by many users to describe content.
Tag Line- The simplest of all ad units, a tag line is often no more than a single line of hyperlinked free text words promoting a product or company.
U
Unique Visitor- A unique visitor is a person who has visited a website at least once. “Unique Visitors” is a very valuable measure for web site performance, as each individual is counted only once, regardless of how many times they visit the site. It allows a web site owner to determine the true reach of their efforts to draw traffic to the site. Whether or not someone is a unique visitor is determined by one of three methods: 1) self-identification (registration with the site), 2) the cookies on his or her computer or 3) tracking the ip addresses if visitors.
URL- The acronym URL stands for “uniform resource locator,” which is the absolute address of an item on the web. In common usage, a URL is a web address, like http://www.yahoo.com.
User Experience- User experience is a term that describes the overall experience and satisfaction a user has when interacting with a web site or application. Carefully considering what people see and are required to do when visiting your web site is an important step in making sure your site is fully optimized.
V
Vlog- A vlog is a blog whose content is primarily presented in video format.
W
Web 2.0- Web 2.0 is a term coined by Darcy DiNucci in an article written in 1999. It does not refer to any technical specifications or changes in the Internet, but rather in the evolution of how software developers and end users have made use of the Internet. It is characterized as facilitating information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration through the World Wide Web. Examples of “Web 2.0″ applications are blogs, wikis, video sharing sites like YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, and folksonomies.
Web Site Metrics- Web site metrics are usage statistics about the web site. Traffic counts, unique visitors, referring domains, etc. are metrics that are used to determine the effectiveness of your web site.
Web Spider- A web spider, or “crawler” or “robot” or “bot” is a computer program used by search engines to interpret and catalog web pages for later retrieval by users.
Wireless Access Page- A wireless access page, or WAP, is a page designed to have very simple menus and limited graphics, so that it runs smoothly and quickly on the small screens and slower Internet connections of wireless devices like cell phones and PDAs.
Widget- A widget is an application embedded or integrated into a web page and adds content to the page. Examples of widget functions include calendars, weather reports, and clocks.
Wiki- A wiki is a website that enables the easy creation of several interlinked web pages, often used to help encourage collaboration between several parties in developing a knowledge base. Wikipedia is perhaps the best know wiki. Wikipedia allows anyone to add to and edit content in their online encyclopedia, allowing them to include information on many subjects without a single office or team being responsible for it. Wikis are a powerful technology for allowing communities to share and catalog information.
World Wide Web- The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents that can be accessed via the Internet.
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