Internet glossary: Does your whole company understand media today?

1. Hits: An out-of-date term that signifies almost nothing. Technically hits is the count of each graphic image a web page, making this term useless and indicative of amateurs in the business. Don’t use it.

2. Impression=page view: Each page that is “looked at” ie served up to a visitor. This is a basic unit for CPM (cost per thousand) buys and usually counted monthly.

3. UVs=Unique visitors: Number of Visitors to the site, counted monthly. In actuality each visitor "counted" is an ISP address, or a computer, visiting rather than a person.

4. Sessions: A user session is each visit, not each visitor, on a computer.

5. Engagement: The depth of involvement that visitors have with the site, usually measured in pages per visitor, or pages per session. The higher the engagement, the better sales opportunity for the site since engaged visitors are more likely to respond to ads, and also because traffic will be higher.

6. Bounce rate: The percentage of people who depart the site from a web page. For example, if the front of your site has a 70% bounce rate, that means 70 of 100 people left without clicking through to another page.

7. ISP address: The address assigned to each computer. These addresses have a geographic tag, so are currently used in some geo-targetting.

8. URL: The web adress of a site on the internet.

9. Quantcast.com: A free site that lets visitors search to find a site's traffic.

10. Comscore: A paid service that provides better information on site traffic that is widely used by media companies and large agencies.

11. Search: While traditional media used a "broadcast" model to push information at consumers, the internet lets users "find" what they want. Search happens at the "bottom" of the sales funnel, so delivers more trackable results.

12. Google analytics: A dashboard where site owners can use tools to check things like site traffic, main key words and pages looked at.

13. Organic: Free, natural results that show up on search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

14. Paid results: Text ads in the “L-bar” at the top and right of search results. These can also be display ads.

15. Google AdWords: Paid ads on search results, usually small text ads. Some media companies bundled AdWords into a campaign to create more response.

16. Resellers: Media who have agreements to sell outside products such as Google Adwords, or other separately branded advertising products.

17. Google AdSense: Web sites and media companies can sign up to be part of Google's "content network" which means text ads from Google advertisers will run on their site. The web site owner receives a small revenue share.

18. PPC= Pay per click: Standard model for advertisers paying on Google AdWords.

19. CPC=Cost per click: is the price in AdWords of each click in the PPC buy. AdWords is a moment-by-moment auction between bidders who “listed” their CPC bid.


20. PPL = Pay per Lead: usually associated with pure play sites, yellow page bundles, also called a “bucket of clicks,” and some large high ROI verticals, such as doctors, lawyers and schools.

21. CPM=Cost-per-thousand: Interactive media sometimes charges on a CPM basis, using a cost per thousand page views of banners and buttons on a site. Local CPM sales are usually around $5 to $12 per thousand; national sales through ad networks are very low, around .50 to a dollar.

22. Content marketing: This term refers to contest (news, articles or broadcasts) that looks a lot like journalism, but is paid. Today, the practice is accepted if clearly marked and a growing source of new revenues.

23. Sixpack: An older term for the map and geo-results for small businesses when searched on Google with a locational key word. Small businesses used to opt in by filling out a form and recieving password in a postcard, or if the listing is in a Internet Yellow Page company who has a relationship with Google, it was automatic. Today, all the listings on Google maps are actually GooglePlus pages. Businesses can manage their listing at the Small Business Center.

24. Quality score: The secret algorythm that Google uses to rank businesses in search results. A business with a high quality score for a set of key words that people use to search for something on Google, is more likely to appear at the top of organic listings. So what is in the Quality Score? A number of factors including the already existing history of click-throughs; how well key words match words in the businesses web page, called "relevancy"; and number of links into the site among other factors.

25. Relevancy: Match of key word search term with title, content, ad, landing page. Think “literal”. Bing has tried to make this more semantic, but so far, relevancy is the key ingredient in search. That is, sites with a higher relevancy for a search term have a better chance of appearing at the top of the search rankings.

26. Key words: The words that searchers type in the search box.

27. Meta-tags: Additional words included in the html code, but not showing up on the site, that help search engines find relevant article.

28. SER=Search engine ranking: Where a site appears in a search engine result, which may change with each search. The first half of the result page that shows up on the computer screen or mobile device is prime real estate because studies show those businesses get the more than half of all responses. AdWords placement, is controlled by a secret formula based on Quality Score X CPC, or what the site owner bid for that word.


30. Circulation: Generally refers to the number of newspapers that delivered or picked up.

31. Readership: Generally refers to the number of readers of a publication, which can be measured by a telephone survey of the market or extrapolating from an in-paper survey.

32. Audience: Generally refers to people reached by broadcast and radio.

33. Share of audience: Here is where it gets tricky; selling share of audience today also means the audience that is reached through interactive media. Share of voice indicates how much of a branded site's audience will see the ad campaign.

34. Distribution: This use to refer to the area of a newspaper's delivery, as in "do you have distribution in Salinas?" Today the term "distribute" refers to the delivery of information whether ads or other content, through different technologies such as computers and mobile devices.

35. Flat rate: An advertiser is charged one rate monthly, often for “set positions” or “sponsorship” of set areas. The term is important because of the vanity factor, advertisers get to “see” their ad, which they can't if it is rotating, so the perceived value is greater even if impressions are fewer. Typically flat rates are higher than cpm rates because the "share of audience" is 100%.

36. Remnant space=Unsold space: Most ad inventory on large sites is unsold, or called remnant space. This space, much as 50% of the site, is purchased bulk by “ad networks” who aggregate all this inventory and resell it to large advertisers for around $.5 to $1. Local sites have a “love hate” relationship with ad networks because they need them to monetize unsold inventory, but overall ad network depress the rates of display ads.


37. Banners and buttons: The “display” ads you see on the site. Best for offers, events or sponsorships. Often these are sold low cost as part of ad network buys.

38. Pre-rolls are commerecials that launch just before a video. Typically they are just 10 seconds, and only one in three videos can run pre-rolls without creating site “abandonment” issues.

39. Overlays appear on top of videos as they are shown. Overlays on editorial videos allow advertisers to appear without interrupting the programming. Overlays on video ads allow have conversion tools such as clicks to a jump page, or e-mail forms.

40. Video advertorials: Short interviews or other video of advertiser that may be included as premium content.

41. Slideshow format is a quick, inexpensive way to executive video ads. Four or five static images are shown in rotatin

42. On premise Video: A brief video advertisment show at the advertiser’s business. Yellowbook.com sells these.

43. Premium content: Extra content usually is designed to be sold (to advertisers or to subscribers) either because it is of high value to advertisers (health, finance, pets) or to high value to subscribers (research, discount clubs).

44. Directory: Most media also have an online business directory strategy, and may have an upsell to a “profile” with video. Because these products are designed to help the company get organic search traffic, they are considered search products.

45. Bundling: The practice of putting together banner, search and other products into packages easy for sales reps to sell and Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB’s) to buy. A typical bundle would include a banner with an offer, a search optimized landing page on a directory, and “some” Google Adwords that also ink to that page.

46. Integrated sales:The practice of selling traditional media and interactive media on the same sales call.

47. Data Collection: The process of collecting electronic information about visitors and potential consumers, usually starting with gathering an e-mail address with an "opt'in" permission check box. The more information when the data is collected, the more targeted the marketing can be later on. Contests are a key way of collecting data; babies and pets are huge. Also merchants can collect this from their own customers (business card drawings, etc.).

48. Customer loyalty programs: After businesses have collected enough e-mail addresses from people who have opted in, they can send notification of discounts to these loyal customers through texting or e-mail.

49. Short Code: A text address that customers enter and send, like "Happy hour", expecting to receive a return message. In this case, “Happy Hour” is the short code. Some companies “rent” these short codes as part of an advertising campaign that involves discounts or contests.

50. Online shopping malls – Standalone sites that allow media to aggregate stores and offers into virtual malls.

51. Geo-targetting: Allow opt-in consumers to be targeted by where they physically are, right now targeting is only by ISP and opt-in. Some hyper-local sites use the sub-url as a built in “geo-target”.

52. (SEO) Search Engine Optimization: Adjusting words and other areas of a site or campaign so that it shows up higher in the search engine results. This is done primarily by making elements (site description, landing page, title) match key words, using a key word strong URL (such as name of city or product), adding depth and video, being part of a network. Some companies offer sophisticated optimization software.

53. Paid search: Mostly refers to Google Adwords, in which the advertiser is buying text ads on a pay-per-cick model.

54. Online display ads: Mostly buttons and banners, wraps and pop-ups. Any online ad that is not a text ad.


55. Reseller: This refers to media who “resell” other products, such as Google AdWords, in their suite of advertising products.

56. Yahoo Consortium: Partnership of media groups with Yahoo, allows media to sell banners on a package that includes the media site plus the Yahoo search results. The advertising are served through on the Yahoo platform.

57. Hosted: Which platform the site or ads reside. Hosted solutions mean that the software is not actually on the media’s own site, but on the supplier’s site. Can be problematic for branding (in which case the software can be “private labeled” or “skinned” to match the media brand).

In addition to Yahoo, Google AdWords, Microsoft also has a partnership via Bing that allows behavioral targeting.

58. Behaviorial targeting: Pushing ads at visitors based on the history of what they looked at on the site. For example, pushing a banner for a sports event to visitors (think ISP address) that looked at the sports section.

59. Inquiries: A fancy, but much better name for the leads, clicks, emails or other trackable interactive devices that advertisers get from their compaigns.

60. Conversions: Usually this refers to an actual sale, not just a lead. In some sales departments a "conversion" refers to whatever the advertiser has agreed will count as a result.

58. Cloud platform: Uses storage on the internet instead of on a computer, allowing access from a variety of other users. The "cloud" is just a metaphor for the internet.

59. Integrated sales force: A sale force that seels both legacy media and interactive products. Most sales forced are now intergrated, with the exception of Advance communications.

60. Legacy media=Mainstream media=Traditional media

61. IYP=Internet Yellow Pages

62. Interactive media: The main advantage of digital media – or any digital media – is interactivity. People u se this phrase to stress functionality over the form (online, sms, etc.)

63. Churn: Churn is what happens when advertisers do not renew. The “churn rate” is the percentage that do not renew.

64. Value proposition: The key reason that a customer will buy the product, usually a price and a unique characteristic or some combination, ie the only auto repair service that comes to your car, or Repair everything in your car for one low guaranteed price.

65. Enterprise=business: Sometimes a comment like “enterprise scale” means sized for business, as opposed to consumer, use.

66. Scalable: Means that it can be replicated at greater sizes. For example, a mapping technology that can locate a restaurant is “scalable” if it can be used to map all restaurants at all Yellow Pages.

67. AdServer: Software that hosts ads and schedules them on web sites.

68. ROI: Return on investment, or revenues from the campaign divided by the investment made in an advertising campaign.

69. ROE: Return on expecation, the return from an advertising campaign as compared to all qualitative and quantitive goals defined by the client.

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.

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