Glossary of Internet Related Advertising Terms

Adwords - Name of the Google pay per click program.  The Adwords advertisements appear in the top two positions above the natural listings and in boxes on the right side of the page.  Google Adwords are visible in Google as well as their partner sites including AOL and AskJeeves.  If  “content match” is activated the ads will also show up next to magazine articles and other pages throughout the web. 

Affiliate Marketing - A form of marketing wherein individuals promote a business in exchange for a percentage of the sales they generate. 

Auto Bidding – In the Overture/Yahoo pay per click program you can either set an exact bid manually or put in the maximum amount you are willing to pay per click for that particular search term and set the term on auto bid.  With auto bid you will pay no more than your maximum bid and only $.01 more than the next bidder below you in rank.  For example if your maximum bid for the term “used dvd players” is $1.57 but the next advertiser below you is bidding $1.41 your actual cost per click will be $1.42.

Bid – How much money the advertiser is willing to pay for a click to their web site.  The bid determines not only how much you pay for a web site visitor but you rank in the listings for that term on that search engine and their partners. 

Broad Keywords – Keywords which are not specific.  A term such as “Honda cars” is a broad or general term.  One such as “used 1989 honda civic” is a specific term.  In both Google and Overture/Yahoo a term can be marked to have it only appear when the searcher types all the words in or when only one or more terms in the search term are entered.  In the above example: “used 1989 honda civic” if the term is marked as broad match it will appear if the user simply types in “Honda civic”. 

Click – The action of a user clicking on your ad in the sponsored links or banner ad and going to your site.  When this action occurs your account is charged the bid cost for that click.  Also called a click through.

Click Fraud – Any click that is made on a search term with malicious intent, including the intentional depletion of a competitors pay per click advertising budget or depletion of their daily budget thus eliminating that competitor for the remainder of that day.  This can be done manually by having friends or employees click on competitors ads or by setting up an automated program.  Affiliate programs are also becoming an increasing source of fraud.  Several programs are now available on the market to monitor and spot fraudulent click activity. 

Content – The words and information on a web page.  An article in a magazine about home remodeling would contain content on this subject.  The term is used in internet advertising when referring to pay per click ads placed on a content page of a web site.

Content Advertising – A pay per click ad or banner that appears on the content page of another site such as CNN, NY Times or related business web site. 

Conversion – If you have an order form or some kind of sign up page on your site it is possible to track where these orders or sign-ups come from if they are from one of the pay per click engines.  When someone clicks through to your site and fills out a form or orders a product this is called a conversion. 

Conversion Rate – The number of click throughs it takes to get a sign up or sale.  The more clicks it takes to get a result in terms of sign-up, sale, phone call or email the lower your conversion rate.  This is usually calculated in the number of clicks as well as cost per click.  If you sell a product for $25 where the cost to you is $5.00 and it takes five clicks at $0.47 per click to get a sale your cost per conversion is $2.35.  With a profit of $17.65 you would have a high conversion rate.  The higher the conversion rate the better your advertising campaign is working. 

Conversion Tracking – If you have some kind of order or sign-up form with a confirmation page on your site, Yahoo/Overture, Google and Findwhat all provide an easy means of tracking the conversions received from your search terms.

CPA – Cost per Acquisition.  How much money was spent in click charges in order to obtain a new client or sale.

CPC – Cost per click.  How much does it cost to get a click through to your site.  For a specific search term this is usually the same as your bid price, the bid price determined by auto-bidding (in Overture/Yahoo) or the bid price adjudicated by the Google Adwords program.  Once you set your maximum cost per click, these search engines will not go above that bid price.  They may go below it in determining the cost per click.  Obviously the cost you pay per click has a large bearing on your cost per acquisition and return on investment.  This is why the selection of search terms and bidding strategy are so vital to a successful pay per click campaign. 

CTR – Click Through Rate.  The average of number of click throughs to your site per number of impressions.  This results in a percentage which is the CTR.  If a term gets searched for 1000 times and your site was on the results page every time and your ad was clicked on 100 times this would give a 10% click through rate.

Email Marketing – Any email campaign whether it is to your own personal opt-in list, or to a purchased targeted list or to millions of general email addresses is called email marketing.  You can also buy opt-in addresses from various email list providers.  Although bulk and targeted email sending is not illegal, provided you work within the established guidelines, it is often considered the low end of internet marketing and advertising approaches.  Sending to your own opt-in list should be considered a standard marketing program.  Email addresses can be collected in a variety of ways including having a place on your web site where people can sign up for a newsletter, offers of specials or updates on the current state of a particular market.

Impression – When an individual types a term into a search engine and a page comes up on which your ad is displayed this is termed an impression.

Internet Advertising – Any method used to promote and advertise a web site on the Internet.  This includes Pay Per Click, Content Advertising, Pay for Inclusion, Search Engine Optimization,  Email marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Banner and Pop-Up advertising, Pay Per Call and others.

Keyword – A word or series of words used to advertise or search for a site in a search engine.  Also called a search term, keyword phrase or search string.

Keyword Bid – The amount of money an advertiser is willing to spend per click to get a prospect to their site.

Keyword Phrase – A series of words used to advertise or search for a particular product, service or type of information in a search engine.

Keyword Research – The process of finding and deciding upon the best keyword phrases on which to bid in order to advertise a particular web site.  This includes factors such as the frequency for which a term is searched, the amount of bid competition and price, how general or specific a certain term is and potential return on investment.

Maximum Bid – the largest dollar (or cent) amount an advertiser is willing to pay for each click through to their web site from that particular search term in that group of search engines.

Natural Listings – Also called organic listings, natural listings are those that appear in the search engines in an area other than “Sponsored” listings.  The presence and order of these listings are subject to the evaluation of that search engine’s algorithm and editorial policies.  Search Engine Optimization is a process of trying to determine exactly what each engine is looking for and how to make the web site pages answer those requirements.

Niche’ Keywords – Very specific search terms that relate to a niche’ market.  These types of  keywords, if selected carefully, can achieve amazing results in click-throughs and return on investment.

Overture – Originally called “Go.com", Overture was the originator of the pay per click search model in 1998.  Recently Overture was purchased by Yahoo.

Organic Listings - Also called natural listings natural listings are those that appear in the search engines in an area other than “Sponsored” listings.  The presence and order of these listings are subject to the evaluation of that search engine’s algorithm and editorial policies.  Search Engine Optimization is a process of trying to determine exactly what each engine is looking for and how to make the web site pages answer those requirements.

Paid Inclusion – Some search engine such as Yahoo, Looksmart, Exactseek and Lycos use a pay for inclusion model.  Here you pay a fee to have an editor look at your site and decide if they want to include it in their index.  With some paid inclusion search engines you are guaranteed that your site will appear somewhere in their listings and with some you are not even guaranteed that much.  The fees for paid inclusion vary.  With Looksmart you pay both the listing fee and a pay per click charge.

Pay Per Click Search Engine – Any one of many search engines that put sponsored ads at the top of, bottom or to the side of their natural listings.  The two top tier pay per click search engines are Google and Yahoo (which recently purchased Overture).  Findwhat has now joined with Espotting and Comet Systems under the name Miva and is now the third largest pay per click engine.

PPC – Pay Per Click

PPC Advertising – Currently the largest and most popular form of Internet advertising.  An advertiser pays for each click through to their site from a search on one of the Pay Per Click search engines

Ranking - The relative position held by a web site for a given search term in a search engine.

ROI – Return on Investment.  The amount of money you make as a result of the money spent on an advertising campaign.

Search String – Also called search term, keyword, or keyword phrase.  The words typed into a search engine by the user.

Search Term – Also called search string, keyword or keyword phrase.  A word or series of words typed into a search engine.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization.  The altering of the content and meta tags of a web site in order to make it more “search engine friendly”.  The goal of search engine optimization is to get a site to rank as high as possible in the natural listings for a particular search term.

Web Site Marketing – The marketing of a particular web site to get the maximum exposure across the Internet.  An effecting marketing campaign would be one that got the maximum attention to and results from a web site for the least amount of money.  Web Site marketing includes such things as email campaigns, pay per click advertising, content advertising and paying for inclusion.