| Ad Clicks |
Number of times users
click on an ad banner. |
| Ad Click Rate |
Sometimes referred to
as "click-through," this is the percentage of ad views that
resulted in an ad click. |
| 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.
Corresponds to net impressions in traditional media. There is
currently no way of knowing if an ad was actually loaded. Most
servers record an ad as served even if it was not. |
| B2B |
B2B stands for
"business-to-business," as in 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. |
| Backbone |
A high-speed line or
series of connections that forms a large pathway within a network.
The term is relative to the size of network it is serving. A
backbone in a small network would probably be much smaller than
many non-backbone lines in a large network. |
| Bandwidth |
How much information
(text, images, video, sound) can be sent through a connection.
Usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of text is about
16,000 bits. A fast modem can move approximately 15,000 bits in
one second. Full-motion full-screen video requires about
10,000,000 bits-per- second, depending on compression. |
|
Banner |
An ad on a Web page
that is usually "hot-linked" to the advertiser's site. |
| Browser Caching |
To speed surfing,
browsers store recently used pages on a user's disk. If a site is
revisited, browsers display pages from the disk instead of
requesting them from the server. As a result, servers under-count
the number of times a page is viewed. |
| Button |
Button is the term
used to reflect an Internet advertisement smaller than the
traditional
banner.
Buttons are square in shape and usually located down the left or
right side of the site.
The
IAB
and
CASIE
have recognized these sizes as the most popular and most accepted
on the Internet: |
| |
|
Standard Internet Ad Sizes |
| 468 x 60 |
Full banner |
| 392 x 72 |
Full Banner/
Vertical Navigation Bar |
| 234 x 60 |
Half Banner |
| 125 x 125 |
Square Button |
| 120 x 90 |
Button #1 |
| 120 x 60 |
Button #2 |
| 88 x 31 |
Micro Button |
| 120 x 240 |
Vertical Banner |
|
|
CASIE |
CASIE stands for the
Coalition for Advertising Supported Information and Entertainment.
It was founded in May of 1994 by the Association of National
Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising
Agencies (AAAA) to guide the development of interactive
advertising and marketing. |
| CGI |
Common Gateway
Interface. An interface-creation scripting program that allows Web
pages to made on the fly based on information from buttons,
checkboxes, text input, etc. |
| Click Through |
The percentage of ad
views that resulted in an ad click. |
| CPC |
Cost-per-click is an
Internet marketing formula used to price ad banners. Advertisers
will pay Internet publishers based on the number of clicks a
specific ad banner gets. Cost usually runs in the range of $.10
-.$20 per click. |
| CPM |
CPM is the cost per
thousand for a particular site. A Web site that charges $15,000
per banner and guarantees 600,000 impressions has a CPM of $25
($15,000 divided by 600). |
| Cyberspace |
Coined by author
William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," cyberspace is now
used to describe all of the information available through computer
networks. |
| Domain Name |
The unique name of an
Internet site; for example www.cyberatlas.com. There are six
top-level domains widely used in the US: .com (commercial) .edu (educational),.net
(network operations), .gov (US government), .mil (US military) and
.org (organization). Other, two letter domains represent
countries; thus; .uk for the United Kingdom and so on. |
| DTC |
DTC stands for
"direct-to-consumer." The term is commonly used to denote
advertising that is targeted to consumers, as opposed to
businesses. Television ads, print ads in consumer publications,
and radio ads are all forms of DTC advertising. |
| Gross Exposures |
Each time a Web
server sends a file to a browser, it is recorded in the server log
file as a "hit." Hits are generated for every element of a
requested page (including graphics, text and interactive items).
If a page containing two graphics is viewed by a user, three hits
will be recorded - one for the page itself and one for each
graphic. Webmasters use hits to measure their server's work load.
Because page designs vary greatly, hits are a poor guide for
traffic measurement. |
| Hit |
Each time a Web
server sends a file to a browser, it is recorded in the server log
file as a "hit". Hits are generated for every element of a
requested page (including graphics, text and interactive items).
If a page containing two graphics is viewed by a user, three hits
will be recorded - one for the page itself and one for each
graphic. Webmasters use hits to measure their server's work load.
Because page designs vary greatly, hits are a poor guide for
traffic measurement. |
| Host |
An Internet host used
to be a single machine connected to the Internet (which meant it
had a unique IP address). As a host it made available to other
machines on the network certain services. However virtual hosting
has now meant that one physical host can now be actually many
virtual hosts. |
| HTML |
Hypertext Markup
Language is a coding language used to make hypertext documents for
use on the Web. HTML resembles old-fashioned typesetting code,
where a block of text is surrounded by codes that indicate how it
should appear. HTML allows text to be "linked" to another file on
the Internet. |
| Hypertext |
Any text that that
can be chosen by a reader and which causes another document to be
retrieved and displayed. |
|
IAB |
IAB stands for the
Internet Advertising Bureau. The IAB is a global nonprofit
association devoted exclusively to maximizing the use and
effectiveness of advertising on the Internet. The IAB sponsors
research and events related to the Internet advertising industry. |
| Internet |
A collection of
approximately 60,000 independent, inter-connected networks that
use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from ARPANet of the late
'60s and early '70s. |
| Interstitial |
Meaning in between,
an advertisement that appears in a separate browser window while
you wait for a Web page to load. Interstitials are more likely to
contain large graphics, streaming presentations, and applets than
conventional banner ads, and some studies have found that more
users click on interstitials than on banner ads. Some users,
however, have complained that interstitials slow access to
destination pages. |
| IP Address |
Internet Protocol
address. Every system connected to the Internet has a unique IP
address, which consists of a number in the format A.B.C.D where
each of the four sections is a decimal number from 0 to 255. Most
people use Domain Names instead and the resolution between Domain
Names and IP addresses is handled by the network and the Domain
Name Servers. With virtual hosting, a single machine can act like
multiple machines (with multiple domain names and IP addresses). |
| IRC |
Internet Relay Chat
is a worldwide network of people talking to each other in real
time. |
| ISDN |
Integrated Services
Digital Network is a digital network that moves up to 128,000
bits-per-second over a regular phone line at nearly the same cost
as a normal phone call. |
| Java |
Java is a general
purpose programming language with a number of features that make
the language well suited for use on the World Wide Web. Small Java
applications are called Java applets and can be downloaded from a
Web server and run on your computer by a Java-compatible Web
browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet
Explorer. |
| JavaScript |
JavaScript is a
scripting language developed by Netscape that can interact with
HTML source code, enabling Web authors to spice up their sites
with dynamic content. |
| Jump Page |
A jump page, also
known as a "splash page," is a special page set up for visitors
who clicked on a link in an advertisement. For example, by
clicking on an ad for Site X, visitors go to a page in Site X that
continues the message used in the advertising creative. The jump
page can be used to promote special offers or to measure the
response to an advertisement. |
| Link |
An electronic
connection between two Web sites (also called "hot link"). |
| Listserv |
The most widespread
of mail lists. Listervs started on BITNET and are now common on
the Internet. |
| Log file |
A file that lists
actions that have occurred. For example, Web servers maintain log
files listing every request made to the server. With log file
analysis tools, it's possible to get a good idea of where visitors
are coming from, how often they return, and how they navigate
through a site. Using cookies enables Webmasters to log even more
detailed information about how individual users are accessing a
site. |
| Newsgroup |
A discussion group on
Usenet devoted to talking about a specific topic. Currently, there
are over 15,000 newsgroups. |
| Opt-in e-mail |
Opt-in email lists
are lists where Internet users have voluntarily signed up to
receive commercial e-mail about topics of interest. |
| Page |
All Web sites are a
collection of electronic "pages." Each Web page is a document
formatted in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that contains text,
images or media objects such as RealAudio player files, QuickTime
videos or Java applets. The "home page" is typically a visitor's
first point of entry and features a site index. Pages can be
static or dynamically generated. All frames and frame parent
documents are counted as pages. |
| Page Views |
Number of times a
user requests a page that may contain a particular ad. Indicative
of the number of times an ad was potentially seen, or "gross
impressions." Page views may overstate ad impressions if users
choose to turn off graphics (often done to speed browsing). |
| RealAudio |
A commercial software
program that plays audio on demand, without waiting for long file
transfers. For instance, you can listen to National Public Radios
entire broadcast of All Things Considered and the Morning Edition
on the Internet. |
| Rich Media |
Rich media is a term
for advanced technology used in Internet ads, such as streaming
video, applets that allow user interaction, and special effects. |
| ROI |
ROI stands for
"return on investment," one of the great mysteries of online
advertising, and indeed, advertising in general. ROI is trying to
find out what the end of result of the expenditure (in this case,
an ad campaign) is. A lot depends on the goal of the campaign,
building brand awareness, increasing sales, etc. Early attempts at
determining ROI in Internet advertising relied heavily on the
click-rate of an ad. |
| Server |
A machine that makes
services available on a network to client programs. A file server
makes files available. A WAIS server makes full-text information
available through the WAIS protocol (although WAIS uses the term
source interchangeably with server). |
| Splash page |
See
jump page. |
| Sponsorship |
Sponsorships are
increasing in popularity on the Internet. A sponsorship is when an
advertisers pays to sponsor content, usually a section of Web site
or an e-mail newsletter. In the case of a site, the sponsorship
may include banners or buttons on the site, and possibly a tag
line. |
| Sticky |
"Sticky" sites are
those where the visitors stay for an extended period of time. For
instance, a banking site that offers a financial calculator is
stickier than one that doesn't because visitors do not have to
leave to find a resource they need. |
| T-1 |
A high-speed (1.54
megabits/second) network connection. |
| T-3 |
An even higher speed
(45 megabits/second) Internet connection. |
| TCP |
Transmission Control
Protocol works with IP to ensure that packets travel safely on the
Internet. |
| Unique Users |
The number of
different individuals who visit a site within a specific time
period. To identify unique users, Web sites rely on some form of
user registration or identification system. |
| UNIX |
A computer operating
system (the basic software running on a computer, underneath
things like data bases and word processors). UNIX is designed to
be used by many people at once ("multi-user") and has TCP/IP
built-in. Unix is the most prevalent operating system for Internet
servers. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
