SEO Glossary - Paid Advertising

A B C D E G I J K L P R S T

ABM

abbr. Automated Bid Manager

AdWords

a web service that uses keywords to precisely target the delivery of advertisements to people seeking out information about a particular product or service. Advertisers choose which keywords they want their ads associated with, then their ads appear alongside Google search results and on web pages with information related to that keyword. AdWords appear as clean, simple text and are clearly identified as promotional, thereby respecting and enhancing web users' efforts to find useful information. Google AdWords offers cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so advertisers only pay when an ad is clicked on. Advertisers can take advantage of an extremely broad distribution network, as ads can appear alongside google.com search results, with search results on Google's partner sites (AOL, Ask Jeeves and others) and on targeted content pages on leading websites. Advertisers can choose the level of support and spending as is appropriate for their business. AdWords is available on a self-service basis, in which advertisers control the details of their campaign creative, keyword choices, and daily budget via online tools and with email support. Advertisers with more extensive campaigns and budgets can receive strategic services, which include an account team of experienced professionals that will help them set up, manage and optimize their campaigns.

Affiliate Marketing

a method of promoting web businesses in which an affiliate is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer and/or sale provided through their efforts. Compensation or commission may be made based on a certain value for each impression (CPM), click (pay-per-click), registrant or new customer (pay-per-lead or cost-per-acquisition), sale (usually a percentage, pay-per-sale or revenue share) or any combination of them. The advertisers/merchants are typically referred to as affiliate merchants and the publishers/sales people are referred to as affiliates.

Affiliate Program

a relationship between an online merchant (the company) and another website (the affiliate) in which the company pays the affiliate a bounty for each action generated (click on a banner or text link, click to fill out a form on an affiliate site and other clickthroughs that result in actual leads or sales).

a form of advertising on the World Wide Web. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page.

a graphic image, usually a GIF or JPEG that can be placed anywhere on a web page, most frequently centered across the top. The tile ad is a smaller counterpart, typically grouped with other tile ads along a side margin. The standard banner ad is 468 x 60 pixels; the most common size for tile ads is 125 x 125 pixels.

Beacon

a line of code placed in an ad or on a web page that helps track the visitor's actions, such as registrations or purchases. A web beacon is often invisible because it's only 1 x 1 pixel in size and has no color. Also known as web bug, 1 by 1 GIF, invisible GIF or tracker GIF.

any advertisement that is not a banner, such as an interstitial or a pop-up ad.

Bid Management

controlling the amount of money you spend maintaining your visibility in the sponsored listings. Usually you try to detect the best converting keywords and keyword groups, in order to increase bids on them as well as decrease or take off bids on keywords that don't break even.

Bid Price

the amount of money you are prepared to pay for every click on your pay-per-click ad on a search engine and thus a visit to your website. The bid price is usually just referred to as "bid". In PPC advertising an advertiser bids for search terms and the search engine ranks ads based on a competitive auction as well as other factors.

Call-To-Action

ad copy that encourages users to take a defined action. Examples range from "Click here" or "Buy now" to "Enter now to win a free trip to Hawaii" or "Click to download a free white paper".

Call-To-Action Link

a link that guides a reader to a new action step. Call-to-action hyperlinks could lead a prospect to a new web page, an email form, a text section within a page or a shopping cart. Correctly written, call-to-action links increase micro-conversion rates and can affect key phrase relevancy.

Click-Down Ad

an ad that allows the user to stay on the same web page, while viewing requested advertising content. Click-downs display another file on the user's screen, normally below or above the initial ad. Click with ins allows a user to drill down for more information within the ad.

Click Fraud

when a person, automated script or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating an improper charge per click.

Clickthrough Rate

the number of clickthroughs divided by the number of impressions, multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage. For example, your CTR is one percent if 100 people are shown your ad and one person clicks through to your site. CTRs typically range from 0.5 percent for banner ads to 3.0 percent for text links. Also known as Ad Impression Ratio or Yield.

Contextual Advertising Network

spreading ads on relevant websites that form a network. Thus your ad can reach a vast and highly-targeted audience. AdSense is the Google's contextual advertising network.

Content Integration

advertising woven into editorial content or placed in a special context on the page, typically appearing on portals and large destination sites. Also known as Web Advertorial or Sponsored Content.

Content Targeting

the ability to run relevant ads on content websites, rather than on search results pages. The first generation of content targeting (also known as contextual advertising) required manual insertion of relevant ads on informational sites related to the search query. Now content targeted advertising can also be dynamic: the ad system sees you are viewing a page about travel (the "content"), by having examined words on the page and other factors and therefore delivers up an ad related to travel (the "context"). Also known as Content-Targeted Advertising.

Conversion

a defined action in response to your ad's call to action. A conversion may be a sale or it could be a registration, download, or entry into your lead database, depending on the goal of your campaign. In other words it is the successful completion of specific activities by the site visitors that somehow result in a positive contribution to your online business.

Conversion Rate

the number of visitors who respond to your ad's call to action divided by the number of impressions, multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage. For example, your conversion rate is one percent if 100 people are shown your ad, five people click through to your site and one person makes a purchase. Conversion rates are distinct measurements that determine how many of your prospects take your preferred action step. Typically, micro-conversions (for instance, reading different pages on your site or signing up for a newsletter) lead to your main conversion step (making a purchase or contacting you for more information).

Cost-Per-Action

the number of actions in response to your ad. An action may be defined as a sales transaction, a customer acquisition or simply a click. Also known as Cost-Per-Transaction or Cost-Per-Acquisition.

Cost-Per-Click

the number of clicks your ad receives. A typical range is 5 cents to $1 per click. Also known as Pay-Per-Click or Cost-Per-Customer.

Cost-Per-Lead

the number of new leads generated by your ad. For example, you might pay for every visitor that clicks on your ad and successfully completes a form on your site.

Cost-Per-Order

the number of orders received as a result of your ad placement. Also known as Cost-Per-Transaction.

Cost-per-Sale

the number of sales or transactions your ad generates. Since users may visit your site several times before making a purchase, you can use cookies to track their visits from your landing page to the actual online sale. Also known as Cost-Per-Acquisition or Pay-Per-Sale.

Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions (CPM)

the number of impressions served over a period of time. A $50 CPM means you pay $50 for every 1,000 times your ad appears. ("M" is the Roman numeral for 1,000.) Also known as Pay-Per-Impression.

Counter

program that tracks the number of impressions to a web page.

CPM

abbr. Cost-Per-Thousand-Impressions

CTR

abbr. Clickthrough Rate

Customer Life Cycle (CLC)

the progression of steps a customer goes through when considering, purchasing, using and maintaining loyalty to a product or service. The customer life cycle breaks up into four distinct steps: Reach, Acquisition, Conversion and Retention. In other words this means getting a potential customer's attention, explaining them what you to offer, turning them into a paying customer and then keeping them as a loyal customer whose satisfaction with the product or service urges other customers to join the cycle.

Dynamic Rotation

delivery of ads on a rotating, random basis. Dynamic rotation allows ads to be served on different pages of the site and exposes users to a variety of ads.

EPV

abbr. Earnings Per Visitor.

a banner ad that can expand to as large as 468 x 240 pixels after a user clicks on it or after a user moves the cursor over the banner.

Geo Targeting

the distribution of ads to a particular geographical area. For example, you can use a place name in your keyword, such as "London museum" or "Kiev symphony orchestra". Some search engines allow you to target specific countries and languages without using keyword relevance.

Impression

an ad served to a user's browser. Number of impressions determines the cost of online ads in CPM pricing models. Also known as Exposure.

Insertion Order

a contract that specifies the details of your search advertising campaign, including placement options, keywords, ad creative, landing page, pricing, geo targeting and language options.

Interactive Advertising

the use of interactive media to promote and/or influence the buying decisions of the consumer in an online and offline environment. Interactive advertising can utilize media such as the Internet, interactive television, mobile devices (WAP and SMS), as well as kiosk-based terminals.

Internet Marketing

the use of the Internet to advertise and sell goods and services. Internet Marketing includes pay-per-click advertising, banner ads, email marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, search engine marketing, (including SEO), blog marketing, article marketing and blogging.

Interstitial Ad

an ad page that appears for a short period of time before the user-requested page is displayed. Also known as Transition Ad, Splash Page or Flash Page.

Inventory

advertising space available for purchase on a website. Based on projections, inventory may be specified as number of impressions or as a share of voice. Also known as Ad Avail.

Jump Page Ad

a microsite reached by clicking a button or banner. The jump page itself can list several topics, which can link to your site.

Keyword Purchasing

the buying of search keywords from search engines, usually to control banner ad placement.

Landing Page

an active web page where Internet users will "land" when they click your online ad. Your landing page doesn't need to be your home page. In fact, ROI usually improves if your landing page directly relates to your ad and immediately presents a conversion opportunity whether that means signing up for a newsletter, downloading a software demo or buying a product. Also known as a destination URL or clickthrough URL. Landing pages are pages that users would click through from a PPC campaign or XML feed. For best results, these pages are highly targeted for the reader and specific to the PPC ad or feed description (for instance, if a PPC ad advertises a coat sale, sending prospects to the company home page would invoke frustrations and decrease conversions). Rewriting landing pages is one of the easiest ways companies can increase their conversion rates.

Lead

a typical most wanted response, mostly referring to a potential customer's contact details. Many companies don't sell online but rather use their sites to generate leads that are then followed up. Many affiliate programs also reward affiliates on a per-lead basis rather than a per-sale basis.

Link

a text or an image that connects two web pages together.

Paid Inclusion

guaranteed inclusion to search engine results in exchange for payment, without any guarantee of how high the listing will appear. A paid inclusion appears to a user as an editorial listing rather than as a sponsored link. Pricing is typically based on a flat fee or index fee.

Paid Placement

a guaranteed listing that appears next to search results, usually in relation to specified keywords. Many search engines clearly identify paid placements as "sponsored links" and run them separately from the editorial portion of the page. Paid placement programs are typically based on cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) pricing and the cost is higher than paid inclusion ads. Also known as Pay-For-Placement.

Paid Sponsorship

when an advertiser pays a flat fee to a search engine. In return, a search engine shows the advertiser's ads together with search results for pre-selected keywords.

Pay-For-Inclusion

services designed for webmasters that are having trouble getting pages listed in spider-based search engines. A main benefit of PFI is fast respidering (every 48 hours or so), giving site owners and webmasters instant positioning feedback and the ability to change content frequently. Also, site owners can submit deep-linked pages and be guaranteed that the URL will be included. The typical PFI program is an annual URL-based subscription with regular refresh cycles and click-based reporting.

Pay-For-Performance (PFP)

pay per click, pay for inclusion and paid sponsorship. As opposed to organic search results (free by nature), the majority of search engines offer pay-for-performance options. Pay-for-performance lets you promote your site by paying for search engine exposure, rather than by relying on solely organic listings determined by your SEO efforts.

Pay-Per-Click

a type of search marketing where advertisers pay a set amount every time their ad is clicked by a prospect (otherwise known as a clickthrough). Some search engines, such as Yahoo! Search Marketing (former Overture), specialize in this type of advertising medium, although pay-per-click is not limited solely to the pay-per-click engines.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

the advertiser bids for search terms and the search engine ranks ads based on a competitive auction as well as other factors. PPC advertisement is a short advertisement that typically appears alongside the search engine results pages and leads visitors to your site. When running a PPC campaign, you pay whenever someone clicks on your ad.

PFI

abbr. Pay-For-Inclusion. Used by various search engines that guarantee your site will be listed in a search engine database. Google is a notable exception that does not offer such a service.

Pop-Up Ad

an ad that appears in a separate window above or beneath the user's current page. A pop-under ad is concealed until the top window is closed, moved, resized or minimized. A pop-up ad is similar to a daughter window, but without an associated banner.

PPC

abbr. Pay-Per-Click

Promotion

the fourth element of the ubiquitous 4P marketing mix (Product-Price-Place-Promotion). It is disseminating information about a product, product line, brand or company. It is comprised of four subcategories: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity and public relations.

Referral Fees

paid in exchange for delivering a qualified sales, lead or purchase inquiry. For example, an affiliate drives traffic to other companies' sites, typically in exchange for a percentage of sales or a flat referral fee.

Remnant Inventory

a low-cost advertising space that is relatively undesirable or otherwise unsold.

Run-Of-Site

the scheduling of ads across an entire site, often at a lower cost than the purchase of specific pages or sub-sections of a site. A run-of-site ad campaign is rotated on all general, non-featured ad spaces on a site.

a relative portion of inventory available to a single advertiser within a defined market sector over a specified time period.

Skyscraper

a tall, thin ad unit that runs down the side of a web page. A skyscraper can be 120 x 600 or 160 x 600 pixels.

Sponsorship

a customized payment model where an advertiser agrees to pay a website a fixed amount for preferred placement throughout the site.

Syndication

an option that allows you to extend your reach by distributing ads to additional partner sites.

Text Ad

an ad designed for text delivery, with concise, action-oriented copy and a link to your website. Because they are not accompanied by graphics, text links are easy to create and improve page download time. Also known as Sponsored Link.

Text Optimization

the process of constructing a web page that will be seen by search engines specifically to promote the relevancy of a certain key phrase. Good text optimization should not utilize random key phrases, but should maximize the value of existing content, such as specific informational topics or product information.

Time on Error

the total time that your server had the Alert status (in minutes). This number is a grand total of all the intervals your server was not reachable by all the tests conducted. If several tests failed about the same time, the interval includes the earliest and the latest time your server was not working. For example, if the ping test failed at 11.25 AM, then was successful again at 12.20 PM and the test connection over HTTP also failed at 11.30 AM and then was back at 12.21 PM, the 'Time on Error' report would reflect the interval between 11.25 AM and 12.21 PM.

Timeouts

the parameter that indicates the number of times your server failed to respond. This includes all the timeouts recorded by all the Site Monitoring tests within a selected time period.

Title

the text contained between the opening and closing Title tags. This text is associated with a web page containing these tags and is displayed at the top of the browser window. The Title text is important because it normally forms the link to the page from the search engine listings and because the search engines pay special attention to the Title text when indexing a page. Don't confuse this text with the heading text within a web page which often looks like the title.

TITLE Tag

syntax <title>Web Page Title</title>. An HTML tag in the Head section that defines the title of a particular web page. The content of the Title tag displays is displayed at the top of the browser window. Do not use more than one Title tag, because some search engines strongly disapprove this.

Titles with Keyword

how many web pages have your keyword in their titles. It helps you estimate how many web pages have been optimized for your target keyword because Titles are very important for SEO.

TLD

abbr. Top Level Domain

Token

a tracer or tag attached by the receiving server to the address (URL) of a page requested by a user. A token lasts only through a continuous series of requests by a user, regardless of the length of the interval between requests. Tokens can be used to count unique users.

Top 10 Ranking

a web page that is listed in the first 10 search results for a search query.

Top-Level Page

some search engines call your default page (usually something like index.html, index.htm, default.asp, etc.) your top-level page. When they say "submit only your top-level page", it means that they probably have a spider that will find the rest of your pages from there. It's always a good idea to have a link from your top-level page to your sitemap.