Digital Glossary for Marketers

Advergame – Advergaming is the practice of using video games to advertise a product, organization or viewpoint.

Ad Impression – An ad impression occurs each time a consumer sees an ad.

Ad Serving – Delivery of online adverts to an end user’s computer by an ad management system. The system allows different online adverts to be served in order to target different audience groups and can serve adverts across multiple sites. Ad Technology providers each have their own proprietary models for this.

Ad Unit – Any defined advertising vehicle that can appear in an ad space inside of an application.

Affiliate Marketing – An affiliate (a web site owner or publisher), displays an advertisement (such as a banner or link) on its site for a merchant (the brand or advertiser). If a consumer visiting the affiliate’s site clicks on this ad and goes onto perform a specified action (usually a purchase) on an advertisers site then the affiliate receives a commission.

Algorithm – The set of ‘rules’ a search engine may use to determine the relevance of a web page (and therefore ranking) in its organic search results. See also organic search results and Search Engine Optimisation.

Application Service Provider (ASP) – An online network that is accessible through the Internet instead of through the installation of software. It is quickly integrated with other websites and the services are easily implemented and scalable.

Avatar – A picture or cartoon used to represent an individual in chat forums, games or on a website as a help function.

Bandwidth – The transmission rate of a communication line- usually measured in Kilobytes per second (Kbps). This relates to the amount of data that can be carried per second by your internet connection.

Banner – A long, horizontal, online advert usually found running across the top of a page in a fixed placement. See also Universal Advertising Package, embedded formats.

Behavioural Targeting – A form of online marketing that uses advertising technology to target web users based on their previous behaviour. Advertising creative and content can be tailored to be of more relevance to a particular user by capturing their previous decision making behaviour (eg: filling out preferences or visiting certain areas of a site frequently) and looking for patterns.

Blog – An online space regularly updated presenting the opinions or activities of one or a group of individuals and displaying in chronological order.

Broadband – An internet connection that is always on and that delivers a higher bit rate (128kbps or above) than a standard dial-up connection. It allows for a better online experience as pages load quickly and you can download items faster.

Button – A square online advert usually found embedded within a website page.

Call to Action (CTA) – A statement or instruction, typically promoted in print, web, TV, radio, on-portal, or other forms of media (often embedded in advertising), that explains to a mobile subscriber how to respond to an opt-in for a particular promotion or mobile initiative, which is typically followed by a Notice.

Click-through – When a user interacts with an ad and clicks through to the advertiser’s website.

Click-through rate (CTR) – Frequency of Click-throughs as a percentage of impressions served. Used as a measure of advertising effectiveness.

Click to Call – A service that enables a mobile subscriber to initiate a voice call to a specified phone number by clicking on a link on a mobile internet site. Typically used to enhance and provide a direct response mechanism in an ad.

Contextual advertising – Advertising that is targeted to the content on the Web page being viewed by a user at that specific time.

Cookie – A small text file on the user’s PC that identifies the user’s browser and hence, the user so they are ‘recognised’ when they re-visit a site eg: it allows usernames to be stored and websites to personalise their offering.

Conversion rate – Measure of success of an online ad when compared to the click-through rate. What defines a ‘conversion’ depends on the marketing objective eg: it can be defined as a sale or request to receive more information…etc.

1-Cost per Action (CPA)– A pricing model that only charges advertising on an action being conducted eg. a sale or a form being filled in.

2-Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – Cost to acquire a new customer.

Cost per Click (CPC) – The amount paid by an advertiser for a click on their sponsored search listing. See also PPC.

Cost per Mille (CPM) / Cost per Thousand (CPT) – Online advertising can be purchased on the basis of what it costs to show the ad to one thousand viewers (CPM). It is used in marketing as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium. Rather than an absolute cost, CPM estimates the cost per 1000 views of the ad.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management.

Deep-linking Advert – linking beyond a home page to a page inside the site with content pertinent to the advert.

E-Commerce (Electronic Commerce) – Business that takes place over electronic platforms, such as the Internet.

EPC (Average Earnings Per One Hundred Clicks) – A relative rating that illustrates the ability to convert clicks into commissions. It is calculated by taking commissions earned (or commissions paid) divided by the total number of clicks times 100.

Expandable banner/skyscraper – Fixed online advertising placements that expand over the page in the response to user action eg: mouseover. See also Rich Media.

Geotargeting – The process of only showing adverts to people on a website and in search engines based on their physical location. This could be done using advanced technology that knows where a computer is located or by using the content of website to determine what a person is looking for.

GPRS – General Packet Radio Service or ‘2.5G’ is an underlying mechanism for the networks to deliver Internet browsing, WAP, email and other such content. The user is ‘always connected’ and relatively high data rates can be achieved with most modern phones compared to a dial-up modem. Most phones default to using GPRS (if capable), and Incentivated is able to develop services that utilise this delivery mechanism.

Hit – A single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server.

Image Ad – An image on a mobile internet site with an active link that can be clicked on by the subscriber. Once clicked the user is redirected to a new page, another mobile internet site or other destination where an offer resides.

Impressions – The metric used to measure views of a webpage and its elements- including the advertising embedded within it. Ad Impressions are how most online advertising is sold and the cost is quoted in terms of the cost per thousand impressions (CPM).

Interstitial Ads – Which appear between two content pages, it is also known as splash pages and transition ads. See also Rich Media.

Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) – The use of a broadband connection to stream digital television over the internet to subscribed users.

Lead – When a visitor registers, signs up for, or downloads something on an advertiser’s site. A lead might also comprise a visitor filling out a form on an advertiser’s site.

Meta-tags/ descriptions – HTML tags that identify the content of a web page for the search engines.

Microsite – A sub-site reached via clicking on an ad. The user stays on the publisher’s website but has access to more information from the advertiser.

Natural search results – The ‘natural’ search results that appear in a separate section (usually the main body of the page) to the paid listings. The results listed here have not been paid for and are ranked by the search engine (using spiders or algorithms according to relevancy to the term searched upon.

Online Video Advertising – Video advertising accompanying video content distributed via the internet to be streamed or downloaded onto compatible devices such as computers and mobile phones. In its basic form, this can be TV ads run online, but adverts are increasingly adapted or created specifically to suit online. Video advertising can be placed before (pre-roll), during (mid-roll) and after (post-roll) video content. There are also a variety of other methods of delivery including:

• Embedded within rich media adverts – a video advert can be triggered by a user clicking on a banner ad.
• Subsite – a video advert loads in a separate browser window behind the site a user is looking at. The video advert then starts playing automatically when the user leaves the original site.
• In-text video – allows video footage to be delivered when a user rolls over a double underlined word within editorial.
• Email – allows video to be embedded within an email.

Opt-in – An individual has given a company permission to use his/her data for marketing purposes.

Opt-out – An individual has stated that they do not want a company to use his/her data for marketing purposes.

Organic search results – The ‘natural’ search results that appear in a separate section (usually the main body of the page) to the paid listings. The results listed here have not been paid for and are ranked by the search engine (using spiders or algorithms) according to relevancy to the term searched upon.

Overlay – Online advertising content that appears over the top of the webpage.

Paid Inclusion – In exchange for a payment, a search engine will guarantee to list/review pages from a website. It is not guaranteed that the pages will rank well for particular queries – this still depends on the search engine’s underlying relevancy process.

Paid for listings – Paid-for listings within general search services. This includes all of the non-graphical search advertising formats from keywords to direct feeds, local search and pay per call. Search is sold on a pay-per-click basis where the advertiser pays only when a visitor to the search website clicks on their advert. This does not include the search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques that can be used to make a website ‘search engine friendly’, nor does it include services specifically designed for recruitment, automotive, property and other traditional classified sections which should be counted in the classified section. See also Organic search results, PPC (Pay Per Click).

Pay per lead – The commission structure where the advertiser pays the publisher a flat fee for each qualified lead (customer) that is referred to the advertiser’s website.

Pay per sale – The commission structure where the advertiser pays a percentage or flat fee to the publisher based on the revenue generated by the sale of a product or service to a visitor who came from a publisher site.

Pay Per View (PPV) – Is an ecommerce model that allows media owners to grant consumers access to their programming in return for payment. Micro payments may be used for shorter programming whist feature films may attract larger sums.

Podcasting – Podcasting involves making an audio file (usually in MP3 format) of content –usually in the form of a radio program- that is available to download to an MP3 player.

Polite loading – Fixed online advertising placements that load and display additional Flash content after the host page on which the advert appears has finished loading.

Pop-under – An ad that appears in a separate window beneath an open window. Pop-under ads are concealed until the top window is closed, moved, resized or minimised.

Pop-up – An online advert that ‘pops up’ in a window over the top of a web page.

Portal – A browseable portal of links to content, pre-configured usually by the network operator, and set as the default home page to the phone’s browser.

Pay per Click (PPC) – Allows advertisers to bid for placement in the paid listings search results on terms that are relevant to their business. Advertisers pay the amount of their bid only when a consumer clicks on their listing. Also called sponsored search/ paid search.

Post-roll – The streaming of a mobile advertising clip after a mobile TV/video clip. The mobile advert is usually 10-15 seconds.

Pre-roll – The name given to the adverts shown before, or whilst an online video is loading. There can be more than one and although they all vary in length, they average 21seconds in duration.

Reach – The number of unique web users potentially seeing a website one or more times in a given time period expressed as a percentage of the total active web population for that period.

Real time – No delay in the processing of requests for information, other than the time necessary for the data to travel over the Internet.

Rich Media – is the collective name for online advertising formats that use advanced technology to harnesses broadband to build brands. It uses interactive and audio-visual elements to give richer content and a richer experience for the user when interacting with the advert.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) – Software that allows you to flag website content (often from blogs or new sites) and aggregate new entries to this content into an easy to read format that is delivered directly to a user’s PC. See also blogs.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – The process which aims to get websites listed prominently in search-engine results through search-engine optimisation, sponsored search and paid inclusion. See also PPC and SEO and Paid Inclusion.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – The process which aims to get websites listed prominently within search engine’s organic (algorithmic, spidered) search results. Involves making a site ‘search engine friendly’. See also organic listings.

Simulcast – watching an existing TV service over the internet at the same time as normal transmission.

Site analytics – The reporting and analysis of website activity – in particular user behaviour on the site. All websites have a weblog which can be used for this purpose, but other third party software is available for a more sophisticated service.

Skyscraper – A long, vertical, online advert usually found running down the side of a page in a fixed placement. See also Universal Advertising Package.

Social Media – We refer to social media, in a commercial sense, as: the creation of useful, valuable and relevant content and applications by brands, or by consumers with specific reference to brands, that can be shared online, facilitated by web 2.0 technology.

Solus email advertising – where the body of the email is determined by the advertiser, including both text and graphical elements, and is sent on their behalf by an email list manager/owner. Solus email advertising is conducted on an opt-in basis where the recipient has given their consent to receive communications.

Sponsored Search – See PPC (Pay Per Click).

Sponsorship – Advertiser sponsorships of targeted content areas (e.g. entire website, site area or an event) often for promotional purposes.

Superstitials – A form of rich media advertising which allows a TV-like experience on the web. It is fully pre-cached before playing. See also Rich Media, Cache.

Tenancy – The ‘renting’ out of a section of a website by another brand who pays commission to this media owner for any revenue generated from this space. EG: dating services inside portals or bookstores inside online newspapers.

Text Ad – A static appended text attached to an advertisement.

Text Link – Creative use for mobile advertisements – represented by highlighted and clickable text(s) with a link embedded within the highlighted text. Usually limited to 16-24 characters.

Traffic – Number of visitors who come to a website.

Unique users – Number of different individuals who visit a site within a specific time period.

User generated content (UGC) – Online content created by website users rather than media owners or publishers – either through reviews, blogging, podcasting or posting comments, pictures or video clips. Sites that encourage user generated content include MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia and Flickr. See also blog, podcast.

Video On Demand (VOD) – Allows users to watch what they want, when they want. This can be either ‘pay per view’ or a free service usually funded by advertising.

Viral Marketing – The term “viral advertising” refers to the idea that people will pass on and share striking and entertaining content; this is often sponsored by a brand, which is looking to build awareness of a product or service. These viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, images, and even text.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) – Technology that allows the use of a broadband Internet connection to make telephone calls.

Web 2.0 – The term Web 2.0 – with its knowing nod to upgraded computer applications – describes the next generation of online use. Web 2.0 identifies the consumer as a major contributor in the evolution of the internet into a two-way medium. See also user generated content.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) – Standard for providing mobile data services on hand-held devices. Brings Internet content such as news, weather, travel, etc to mobile phones and can also be used to deliver formatted content such as wallpapers, ringtones, video, games, portals and other useful links. Incentivated provide the mechanisms to write and deliver mobile Internet content to subscribers.

Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) – The ability to connect to the internet wirelessly.