A/B Testing - In A/B testing, you unleash two different versions of a keyword, advertisement, website, web/landing page, banner design or variable and see which performs the best. You test version A vs. version B to see how different versions perform.
Above the fold - With reference to the top part of a newspaper, the term is used in Internet marketing to describe the top part of the page that the user can see without scrolling down.
Ad Clicks - Number of times users click on an ad banner.
Ad Groups - A group of ads within a Campaign.
Address - A unique identifier for a computer (IP Address) or site online, usually a URL for a web site and an email address. Literally, it is how your computer finds a location on the information highway.
Ad Scheduling - In internet marketing, Ad Scheduling is the practice of scheduling the day into several parts, during each of which a different t advertising rule is applied based on advertising objective, budget, and competitors.
Ad Views (Impressions) - Number of times an ad banner is downloaded and presumably seen by visitors. If the same ad appears on multiple pages simultaneously, this statistic may understate the number of ad impressions, due to browser caching.
Advertising Network - an aggregator or broker of advertising inventory for many websites. Advertising networks are the sales representatives for the Web sites within the inventory.
Affiliate - A marketing partner that promotes your product or services under a pay-for-results agreement.
Algorithm (SEO Service) - The process a search engine applies to web pages so it can accurately produce a list of results based on a search term. Search engines regularly change their algorithms to improve the quality of the search results. Hence search engine optimisation tends to require constant research and monitoring.
Anchor - A word, phrase or graphic image, in hypertext, it is the object that is highlighted, underlined or "clickable" which links to another site.
Anchor Text - Anchor text refers to the visible clickable text for a hyperlink. For example: < a href="http://www.website.com/" >This is the anchor text< /a >The text usually gives visitors or search engines important information on what the page being linked to is about.
Alexa (SEO Service) - Founded in April 1996, Alexa Internet grew out of a vision of Web navigation that is intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users. Along the way Alexa has developed toolbars, one of the largest Web crawls and an infrastructure to process and serve massive amounts of data.
Apache - Apache is a free, open-source web server software system that is pervasive on UNIX, Linux, and similar operating system types. It is also available for Windows and other operating systems. Google Analytics' admin system is powered by a variant of Apache.
API - Application Programming Interface often used to link in widgets and payment systems to a site.
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
Applet - An application program written in Java which allows viewing of simple animation on web pages.
ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency) - The U.S. Department of Defense agency that, in conjunction with leading universities, created ARPAnet, the precursor of the internet.
ASP - Microsoft Active Server Pages. Also know as Application Service Provider.
ASPX - Microsoft Active Server Page Framework
Auditor - Third-party company that tracks, counts and verifies ad-banner requests or verifies a Web site's ad reporting system.
Avatar - A digital representation of a user in a virtual reality site.
Average Page Depth - The average number of pages on a site that visitors view during a single session.
Average Response Value - The average revenue value of each click, calculated as total revenue divided by total clicks.
Business-to-Business (B2B) Targeting - The targeting of online advertising to websites that cater to business users or targeting the business users directly.
Bandwidth - Digital throughput capacity. A measure of how much digital signal or information can be passed through a device or interconnect. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second. A 2400 baud modem can handle 2.4 kilobits per second. A T3 industrial interconnect can handle 45 megabits per second. A 100 base-T ethernet interconnect can handle 100 mega-bits-per-second.
Banner - An interactive online advertisement in the form of a graphic image that typically runs across the top or bottom of a webpage, or is positioned in a margin or other space reserved for ads. Banner ads are historically GIF images. Many ads are animated GIFs since animation has been shown to be more effective. The standard banner is 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high. The standard banner is still the mainstay of online advertising, but is quickly giving up ground to newer, potentially more effective forms of online advertising, such as email and interstitials.
Banner Burnout - Overexposure of advertising creative that contributes to a drop in click-through rates. Frequency control reduces burnout for a particular creative or campaign.
Blog - Originally known as a Weblog.
Booked Space - Website advertising space that is already sold or otherwise unavailable to receive new campaign commitments.
Branding - A traditional advertising method used to elicit a latent response from a target based on cumulative impressions and positive reinforcement. The most successful brands are considered "trustmarks" and enjoy loyal, lifelong customers.
Browser - An application used to access files from the Internet. Common browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
Business-to-Business (B2B) - Businesses doing business with other businesses. The term is most commonly used in connection with e-commerce and advertising, when you are targeting businesses as opposed to consumers.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) - Same as above but with Consumers instead of Businesses.
Button - An interactive online advertisement in the form of a small graphic image that typically resides in the margin of a webpage. Buttons are typically 88 x 31 pixels. The same button is often recurring for every page view on a particular site. Affiliate programs and sponsorships often use buttons to drive traffic.
Click through Rate (CTR) - Number of clicks / Number of impressions. Click through rate is a common internet marketing measurement tool for ad effectiveness. This rate tells you how many times people are actually clicking on your ad out of the number of times your ad is shown. Low click through rates can be caused by a number of factors, including copy, placement, and relevance.
Cloaking (SEO) - Showing a search engine spider or bot one version of a Web page and a different version to the end user. Several search engines have explicit rules against unapproved cloaking. Those violating these guidelines may find their pages penalized or banned from a search engine's index. As for approved cloaking, this generally only happens with search engines that offer a paid inclusion program. Anyone offering cloaking services should be able to demonstrate explicit approval from a search engine for what it is they intend to do.
Content Management System - Content Management Systems allow Web site owners to make text and picture changes to their Web sites without specialised programming knowledge of software like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage. Content Management Systems can also control email campaigns and landing pages and can be edited by anyone with basic word knowledge via an internet connection. No need for lengthy or costly web development contracts or need to wait on someone outside your company to make changes.
Content Tags (SEO Service) - HTML tags which define the essence of the content contained within them and readable by search spiders. These include Header and Alt Tags.
Contextual Advertising - A feature offered by major search engine advertisers allowing your advertisement to be placed next to related news articles on other web pages. Contextual advertising seeks to match web content from the display page with your advertised search term(s). Like Behavioral Targeting, contextual advertising has come a long way since its conception, but is still an area of internet marketing being refined.
Conversion Rate - This statistic, or metric, tells you what percentage of people are being converted into customers (usually) but is equally important for lead generation, enquiries etc depending on what your online marketing objectives are. The definition of “conversion” depends upon your goals and measurements. It could mean a sign up for free information, a completed survey, a purchase made, or other.
Cookie - When you visit a website, some sites stick a cookie on your browser to follow you around. You can then go back to and watch where you're going and where you've been. Cookies do provide direct benefits to surfers, including remembering passwords and bringing you offers in which you are genuinely interested
Cost per Acquisition (CPA) - An online advertising cost structure where you pay per an agreed upon actionable event, such as a lead, registration, or sale.
Cost per Click (CPC) - A common way to pay for search engine and other types of online advertising, CPC means you pay a pre-determined amount each time someone clicks on your advertisement to visit your site. You usually set a top amount you are willing to pay per click for each search term, and the amount you pay will be equal or less to that amount, depending on the particular search engine and your competitors’ bids.
Cost per Impression (CPM) - A common internet marketing cost structure, especially for banner advertising. You agree to pay a set cost for every 1,000 Impressions your ad receives. Search engine marketing may involve CPM (Cost per Millennium) costs for Contextual Advertising. This internet advertising pay structureshould really be called Cost per Thousand Impressions.
Crawler (SEO Service) - Component of a search engine that gathers listings by automatically "crawling" the Web. A search engine's crawler (also known as a Spider or robot) follows links to web pages. It makes copies of those pages and stores them in a search engine's index.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Software solutions that help enterprise businesses manage customer relationships in an organized way. An example of a CRM would be a database containing detailed customer information that management and salespeople can reference in order to match customer needs with products, inform customers of service requirements, etc.
Data Reporting - The presentation and delivery of publisher website and advertiser campaign data. Data reporting is typically a combination of tabular and graphic presentation.
Demographics - Statistical data that describes the makeup of a given user base, and includes information such as age range, gender, education levels, and average household income. Demographic data is one of the tools used to match ad space with an advertising campaign.
Digital Creative - Advertising creative that is in digital format. Digital creative is easily stored, retrieved and delivered online. Common forms of digital creative include hypertext, HTML files, GIF image files, MPEG video files and AVI audio files.
Direct Response - A traditional advertising method used to elicit a direct response from a target by providing immediate access to the means to make a purchase. The interactivity of the internet is ideal for the implementation of direct response advertising campaigns.
Email - Electronic Mail, text or html files that are sent from one person to another.
EPC - Earnings Per Click. This number is given by dividing your revenue earned by the number of clicks you sent to the offer. For example, if you send an offer 100 clicks and earn £5.00 then your EPC would be £0.05
eZine - Magazines that are published digitally, rather than on paper. Some are mainstream, others are oddball and cover almost every topic imaginable.
Favicon - a small icon that is used by some browsers to identify a bookmarked web site.
FFA (SEO Service) - free-for-all links list, where there are no qualifications for adding a link.
First-mover advantage - a sometimes insurmountable advantage gained by the first significant company to move into a new market.
Flash - multimedia technology developed by Macromedia to allow more interactivity to fit in a relatively small file size. Flash was heavily used to build websites that were ‘cool’ but the reality is that flash websites presented other problems particularly with search engines and now websites may incorporate flash but nowhere as many are being built completely in flash.
Forum - an online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest.
Frames - a structure that allows for the dividing of a web page into two or more independent parts. Sites built using frames are not search engine friendly.
Frequency Cap - restriction on the amount of times a specific visitor is shown a particular advertisement.
Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) - A common graphics format that can be displayed on almost all web browsers. GIFs typically display in 256 colours and have built-in compression. Static or animated GIF images are the most common form of banner creative.
Geo-targeting - Serving of ads to a particular geographical area or population segment.
Hang - When a webpage is prevented from loading completely or at all due to a technical difficulty at the server end or at the user end. Online advertising that is poorly served may have the tendency to hang pages, thus irritating the user and publisher alike.
Hit - The sending of a single file from a web server to a user's computer. Most webpages contain several files, including all HTML, graphics, audio, etc. Hit is not the same as impression, page view, or number of unique visitors. Information about hits is valuable to the provider for server loading and bandwidth predictions, but used alone, it is of little value as a metric of online advertising, or online use in general.
Host - The individual or website that displays online advertising.
Hybrid Campaign - An advertising campaign pricing model based on combining different individual pricing models into one. A CPM/CPA hybrid campaign combines the benefits of branding and direct response into the same campaign. The relative weighting of each individual model is adjustable within the hybrid campaign, and can be modified during the campaign run to maximise ROI (Return on Investment).
Hyperlink (SEO Service) - This is the clickable link in text or graphics on a webpage that takes you to another place on the same page, another page or another website.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) - A coding language used to make hypertext documents for use online.
Hypertext - The text version of the hyperlink.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) - The networking protocol that allows hyperlinks to work.
Impression - The display of a single creative to a consumer on a website also called an ad or page impression. A single page view can have more than one impression if there is more than one advertising location on the page, or if dynamic ad rotation is used.
Interactive Agency - An advertising agency or division of an advertising agency dedicated to interactive advertising primarily published online.
Interactive Media - The internet is the primary interactive media for advertising. It is dubbed interactive because the user can typically interact with the content and advertising.
Interactive Creative - A digital creative that uses a hyperlink to transfer the user to another website or open a separate interactive window.
Interstitial - Advertising creative placed in-between the origin website and the destination website, either physically or in time - also called a pop-up window. The interstitial is like the advertising inserts in a magazine that usually go straight in the bin. Newer concepts called superstitials or metastitials attempt to be more acceptable to consumers by being less intrusive, subtle and more interesting with the use of rich media components such as video or widgets.
Inventory - The ad space available for sale on a website. Ad inventory is determined by the number of ads on a page, the number of pages containing ad space and an estimate of future page views.
Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) - The numerical system used to identify the components of the Internet. Every system connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. In the current system (IPv4), there are only 4.3 billion unique IP addresses.
Javascript - A client-side scripting language that can be embedded into HTML documents to add dynamic features.
Key phrase (SEO Service) - A phrase that targeted prospects or customers are likely to use when seeking information on a topic or searching for your product or service.
Keyword (SEO Service) - A term or word that targeted prospects or customers are likely to use when seeking information on a topic or searching for your product or service.
Keyword Density (SEO Service) - is a measure of the frequency that a word appears on a webpage in comparison to the total number of words on a webpage. Keyword density is measured by dividing the number of times a keyword is showing on a webpage in comparison to the total number of words on a web page. The higher a keyword density is the better; but over-optimising may lead to Keyword stuffing which is penalised by search engines.
Keyword Frequency (SEO Sevrice) - is a measure of the frequency that a word appears on a webpage in comparison to the total number of words on a webpage. Keyword density is measured by dividing the number of times a keyword is showing on a webpage in comparison to the total number of words on a web page. The higher a keyword density is the better; but over-optimising may lead to Keyword stuffing which is penalised by search engines.
Keyword research (SEO Service) - The process of researching and identifying the terms and phrases that searchers use. Keyword research revolves around the selection of the best keywords/key phrases. There are a multitude of keyword research tools out there, which will help you discover the best possible keywords for which to optimise a website.
Keyword stuffing (SEO) - Writing copy that uses excessive amounts of a particular keyword, the objective of which is to improve the page's ranking for that keyword. Search engines penalise sites heavily for keyword stuffing.
Landing page - The page a user reaches when clicking on a paid or organic search engine listing.
Link (SEO Service) - A link is a URL imbedded on a webpage. It can be a link from one web document to another web document or to another position in the same document. Most major search engines consider links as a vote of trust.
Link Building (SEO Service) - The process of building high quality links to your website from external websites. Search engines evaluate links to a website as signifiers that the website is authoritative, relevant and trustworthy.
Link Popularity (SEO Service) - The number of links pointing at a website. For competitive search queries link quality counts much more than link quantity.
Link Reputation (SEO Service) - The combination of your link equity and anchor text. Link equity is a measure of how strong a site is based on its inbound link popularity and the authority of the sites providing those links.
Meta Description (SEO Service) - The meta description tag is typically a sentence or two which describes the content of the page.
Meta Keywords (SEO Service) - The meta keywords tag is a tag which contains terms and phrases which represent the content of a webpage.
Meta Tags (SEO Service) - Meta tags are indicators to search engine spiders about the content of particular web pages. It's important that your Meta tags are optimised for the targeted key phrases and are relevant to the page content.
Mirror Site - A site which mirrors or is a duplicate of the contents of another website. This is usually where a company will more than one domain name particular for geographical search engines.
Natural listing (Organic SEO Service) - The natural results of search engines that appear as a consequence of a search engine algorithm. Algorithms are based on the relevancy between the term or phrase entered into the search engine and the web page returned. The results are in sequence according to relevancy. These pages are not paid advertisements.
Navigation Scheme - The organisation of pages on a website to help website users to understand where they are, where they have been, and how that page relates to the rest of your website. It is essential your navigation is user friendly. If the users can’t easily find their way, they won’t travel deeper into your site.
No Follow - Attribute used to prevent a link from passing link authority. Commonly used on sites with user generated content, like in blog comments. No follow can also be used in a robots meta tag to prevent a search engine from counting any outbound links on a page.
Offline/Online Integration - This term refers to how a business uses both online and offline marketing strategies and tools to achieve its marketing objectives. Typically a business would use offline marketing (eg a television ad) to encourage customers to obtain further information from an online source (eg its website).
Online Banking - Electronic banking encompasses any transaction involving a bank that is performed over the internet.
Online Capability - This term refers to the level of adoption of ecommerce by an organisation. High online capability means that an organisation has implemented ecommerce strategies in many of its business processes and activities.
Online Catalogue - An online catalogue is a direct alternative to a physical product catalogue. Rather than being made of paper and distributed to your customers by mail, your customers can view your products online by visiting your internet based web site.
Online Competitions - Online competitions are basically the same as traditional competitions and have a similar purpose however, they are conducted via your web site.
Online Consumers - People or organisations that purchase products and / or services on the Internet.
Online Journey - The steps businesses may take to adopt ecommerce.
Online Marketplace - An online marketplace uses information and communication technologies to provide geographically dispersed traders with the information necessary for the fair operation of the market. An online marketplace brings together product, price and service information from many or most suppliers of a particular class of goods or in a specific trade sector.
Online Newsletter - An online newsletter is simply an electronic version of a traditional paper based newsletter. Instead of distributing the newsletter via the mail, an online newsletter is either emailed to your subscribers or is available for your clients to download from your website.
Online Purchasing - Buying goods and / or services over a computer network, especially the internet.
Online Research - Refers to investigating and accessing information over a computer network especially the internet.
Online Sales - An online sales capability on your website enables your customers to browse your online catalogue find the product they're looking for and then to purchase that product via your web site on the internet.
Online Surveys - Refers to questionnaires/surveys designed to collect information from customers and/or potential customers. They are similar to the traditional paper based forms but they are either emailed to recipients or placed on a business's website (requesting visitors to complete the survey).
PDF - is short for "Portable Document Format". PDF is a file format developed by Adobe Systems. It captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing and word processing applications, making it possible to send formatted documents and have them appear on the recipient's monitor or printer as they were intended.
Permission Marketing - Permission marketing ensures that the customer wishes to receive a business's marketing messages (eg emails). Customers can choose how often and what type of messages they receive, thus creating a more meaningful relationship with the business. Customers should always have the choice of opting out of a business's marketing communication.
Podcast
Promotion - Promotion can be thought of as "communications for the purpose of influencing attitudes or behaviour". An effective promotional strategy can be broken down into elements called the promotional mix i.e. advertising, sales promotions and public relations.
Primary Research - Primary research is the process of gathering new information that helps reveal the answers to your particular marketing questions.
Privacy - is defined as the right to freedom from unauthorised intrusion. Increasing use of email and other technologies has made it easier to gather volumes of information about individuals including buying and spending habits, finances, lifestyles, preferences, and movements. The Data Protection Act is very clear about how peoples personal information should be gathered, stored and used and now many websites post privacy policies disclosing how they collect, use, and share information. These often include opt-in or out buttons.
Rate card - document detailing prices for various ad placement options.
Reciprocal links - links between two sites, often based on an agreement by the site owners to exchange links.
Return days - the number of days an affiliate can earn commission on a conversion (sale or lead) by a referred visitor.
Rich media - new media that offers an enhanced experience relative to older, mainstream formats.
Run of network (RON) - ad buying option in which ad placements may appear on any pages on sites within an ad network.
Run of site (ROS) - ad buying option in which ad placements may appear on any pages of the target site.
Secondary Research - Secondary Research is the process of utilising existing information that helps reveal the answers to your marketing questions. Many people and organisations gather information that may be useful to you. An example of traditional secondary research is visiting an industry association to get the latest information they have on trends in your industry sector/s.
Spam - Unsolicited email or junk mail.
Search Engine - Any of several databases available on the Internet that allow users to find websites based on words included on those pages. Some, such as Google, Yahoo and Alta Vista, are huge indexes.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO Service) - Search engine optimisation or SEO is the process of getting your web site address or URL as close as possible to the top of the search results (SERPS) when someone using the search engines is looking for the products/services you sell.
Security - Security is extremely important in protecting the programs and data stored on a computer network or an individual computer. The most recognizable security application is antivirus software.
SET (Secure Electronic Transaction) - A system for encrypting e-Commerce transactions, such as online credit card purchases. Developed by Visa, MasterCard, Microsoft and several major banks, SET combines 1024-bit encryption with digital certificates to ensure security.
Supply Chain - A series of business transactions starting with raw material and ending with the sale of the finished product or service.
T&C - Terms & Conditions
Tags (SEO Service) - Individual keywords or phrases for organising content
Targeted Marketing - Banners or other promotions aimed, on the basis of demographic analysis, at one specific subsection of the market.
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol works with IP to ensure that packets travel safely on the Internet. This is the method by which most Internet activity takes place.
Throughput - The amount of data transmitted through Internet connectors in response to a given request.
Tiny MCE
Title (SEO Service) - An element of a web page which appears in the top left of most browsers. It is also the part of a directory submission that represents the title of the website. Arguably one of the most important parts of SEO is ensuring an optimised title or unique titles across all pages of a website.
Tracking Domain - A domain specifically created to measure traffic delivered to a website.
Traffic (SEO Service) - Generally measured by the amount of visitors to a website.
TXT - Text File (file.txt)
Unique Users - The total number of different users or different computer terminals which have visited a Web site. This is measured using advanced tracking technology or user registration.
Universal Search - Universal search pulls data from multiple databases to display on the same page. Results can include images, videos, and results from specialty databases like maps and local information, product information or news stories.
Upload - To send a file from one computer to another via modem or other telecommunication method.
URL - Uniform Resource Locator is an HTTP address used by the World Wide Web to specify a certain site. This is the unique identifier, or address, of a web page on the Internet.
Usenet - Internet message boards also known as Newsgroups. Each board has a theme, and there are tens of thousands of usenets concerning every imaginable topic. Many of them cover professional subjects and societies and are rich sources of business information; others are junk and contain little but mindless drivel.
VGP - Very Good Positioning
Valid Hits - A further refinement of hits, valid hits are hits that deliver all information to a user. Excludes hits such as redirects, error messages and computer-generated hits.
Viewer - Another name for a help application
Viral Marketing - Any advertising that propagates itself. When Hotmail users send email, they unwittingly infect the recipient with the tag line at the bottom of the message.
Virus - These are programs that can be downloaded onto your computer or network from the Internet. Some are harmless, others are programmed to destroy your system, trash your files and disable your software.
Vlog - A vlog is a video blog.
Visits - A sequence of requests made by one user at one site. If a visitor does not request any new information for a period of time, known as the "time-out" period, then the next request by the visitor is considered a new visit. To enable comparisons among sites, I/PRO uses a 30-minute time-out.
Vortal - Also known as a vertical industry portal, a vortal is a Web site that provides information and services to niche markets.
VPN - Virtual Private Network
WAI - Web Accessibility Initiative
Web 2.0 - A term that refers to a second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis and communication tools.
Web page - An HTML (Hypertext markup Language) document on the web, usually one of many together that make up a website.
Webmaster - The individual assigned to administering a corporation or organisation's website. This person lays out the information trees, designs the look, codes HTML pages, handles editing and additions and checks that links are intact. In addition, he or she monitors, routes and sometimes responds to email generated by the site as well.
Website - The virtual location for an organisation's presence on the World Wide Web, usually making up several web pages and a single home page designated by a unique URL.
WAIS: (Wide Area Information Server) - WAIS, pronounced "ways," search for data through online gopher databases. Unless you are looking for scientific or technical information, look somewhere else.
Widget - A widget is a live update on a website, webpage, or desktop. Widgets contain personalised neatly organised content or applications selected by its user.
Wiki - A web application that allows users to add content, as on an internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (i.e. Wikipedia).
World Wide Web - The web allows computer users to access information across systems around the world using URLs to identify files and systems and hypertext links to move between files on the same or different systems. The web is a client/server information system that supports the retrieval of data in the form of text, graphics and multimedia in a uniform HTML format. Allowing hypertext links and interactivity on an unprecedented level, its introduction transformed a sleepy, academic communications system into a powerful marketing tool linking businesses and customers around the world.