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Marketing and Advertising Glossary

Understanding Digital Media


Ad Click: A measurement of a user clicking on an advertisement unit on a Web site (banner, button, or text link).

Ad Click Rate: The percentage measurement of users who click on a clickable advertisement (banner, button, or text link).

Ad Impression: Number of times an ad is served to the user's browser, and presumably seen by visitors.

Banner: A graphical image (GIF or JPEG files) on a web site used as an advertising unit. The most common banner ads measure 468 pixels wide and 60 pixels tall.

Beyond the banner: Online advertising units not involving standard GIF & JPEG banner ads. The ad units could be interstitials, streaming video ads, etc.

Browser: A software that allows a user to view Web sites. Typical browsers are Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Button ad: A graphical advertising unit, smaller than a banner ad, typically measuring 120 x 90 pixels.

Cache: memory used to temporarily store the most frequently requested content/files/pages in order to speed its delivery to the user. A cache file can be saved locally, on the user's browser or on the user's network.

Cache Ad Impression: The delivery of an advertisement unit to a browser from local cache or a proxy server's cache. When a user requests a page that contains a cached ad, the ad is obtained from the cache and displayed.

Click-through: The measurement of a user responding to an advertisement unit by clicking on the ad causing a re-direct to the advertiser's destination, either another Web location or another frame or page within the advertisement.

Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of Web visitors who click on a clickable advertisement (banner, button, or text link).

Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.

Cost-Per-Action (CPA): Advertising payment model based on specific actions of the user in response to an ad. Actions may include a sales transaction, a customer acquisition, or a click.

CPM (Cost per thousand): A term to describe the cost of 1,000 ad impressions.

Customer Acquisition Cost: The cost associated with acquiring a new customer.

Cost-per-click (CPC): Advertisement payment model based on the number of clicks received or per click-through.

Dynamic Ad Placement: The process by which an ad is served into a page based on a user's request, demographics, specific interests or usage history.

Dynamic Rotation: The process where advertisement units are delivered based on a rotating or random basis so that users are exposed to different ads and ads are served in different pages of the site.

E-mail campaign: An advertising campaign distributed via e-mail. Not to be mistaken with e-mail spam, e-mail campaigns can be based on an opt-in email or opt-out email campaigns.

E-newsletter: An electronic newsletter or magazine, delivered via a Web site.
Frequency: The number of times an ad is delivered to the same browser in a single session or time period.

HTML banner: A banner ad using HTML elements, often including interactive forms, instead of (or in addition to) standard graphical elements.

Hybrid Pricing model: This is usually an advertising payment model whereby there are a combination of two or more online marketing payment models, such as a combination of a CPM pricing model and a performance-based pricing model.

Incentivized traffic: Visitors who have received some form of compensation for visiting a site.

Interactive Advertising: Refers to all types of advertising through the Web, wireless and interactive television advertising. Interactive advertising can include banners, site sponsorships, e-mail campaigns, search engine marketing, classified ads and interactive television commercials
Interstitials: Also known as transition ads, intermercial ads, splash pages and Flash pages is an basically an ad that appears between two content pages.

Keyword Marketing: Commonly used in search engine marketing where advertisers can purchase keywords from search engines companies to be listed as sponsored listings when a user is searching fro that particular keywords or keyphrase. Besides search engine companies, many Web sites also allow keywords to be purchased in order to direct the hyperlink opportunity to the advertiser's site or to serve an ad related to the user’s search.

Opt-in: Refers to the act of a user giving a company permission to use his/her information to market the company's products and services.

Opt-in e-mail: Describes an e-mail address that a user has voluntarily given to a site, and signed up to receive commercial e-mail about products and services from the company or from the company’s marketing partners.

Opt-out e-mail: An e-mail address of a user that is acquired from a Web site when the site owner states that it plans to market its products and services to the user via e-mails unless the user specifically asks to be removed from the company's mailing list.

Pay-per-click: Similar to cost per click, this is an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay for advertisements only when users click on the online ad or e-mail message.
Permission Marketing: Refers to a marketing campaign when an individual has given a company permission to market its products and services, usually through e-mails, to the individual. Please refer to opt-in e-mail.

Pop-up ad: An ad that displays in a separate new window on top of a current window that the user is seeing.

Rich media: A term used to describe enhanced technology online ad format that usually incorporates animation, sound, video, and/or interactivity.

ROI: Stands for "return on investment."

Run-of-network (RON): Ad buying option in which ad placements may appear on any pages on sites within an online publishing network. The advertiser usually forgoes premium positioning in exchange for more advertising weight at a lower CPM.

Run-of-site (ROS): Ad buying option in which ad placements may appear across an entire site. This type of placement option would be usually be at a lower cost to the advertiser than the purchase of specific site sub-sections.

Skyscraper ad: An online ad unit that is significantly taller than the 120x240 vertical banner. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau guidelines recommend two sizes of skyscrapers: 120 X 600 and 160 x 600.

Sponsorship: is when an advertisers pays to sponsor either content, usually within a section of a Web site or within an e-mail newsletter. Sponsorships are usually involving beyond-the-banner placements. When associated with specific content, sponsorship can provide a more targeted audience than run-of-site ad buys.

Static ad placement/Static rotation: An ad placement where the ad will remain on a Web page for a specified period of time.

Superstitials®: An interstitial ad format developed by Unicast which is fully pre-cached before playing. Specs are 550 x 480 pixels (2/3 of screen), up to 100K file size and up to 20 seconds in length

Text ad: Online advertisement using text-based hyperlinks. Text ad are useful when targeting audience with slow internet connections and those who have text-only browsers.

Viral Marketing: Any form of advertising and/or marketing techniques that "spreads" like a virus by getting passed on from consumer to consumer and market to market.

 

  • Glossary