Online Marketing Terms

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 costs for Contextual Advertising. This internet advertising pay structure should really be called Cost per 1,000 Impressions.

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.

Click through Rate

(CTR) # of clicks / # 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.

Header Tags

(or Heading Tags) HTML heading and subheading tags are critical components of search engine marketing, as often times both are graphical, thereby unreadable to search engine spiders. Optimally, page titles should also be included to clearly define the page's purpose and theme. All of the header tags should be used according to their relevance, with more prominent titles utilizing <h1>, subheaders using <h2>, and so on.

Affiliate Marketing

A type of internet marketing in which you partner with other websites, individuals, or companies to send traffic to your site. You will typically pay on a Cost per Acquisition (CPA) or Cost per Click (CPC) basis.

Directories

A type of search engine where business listings are gathered through submissions, information pulled from data aggregators (e.g. Acxiom), or a combination of the two. Websites are often reviewed and placed in a relevant category. Directories can be utilized for strengthening local SEO and providing relevant referral traffic.

Google Forwarding Number

A unique phone number that replaces the companies standard number on their landing page.

Domain Name

A website's main address. Direct Online Marketing™'s domain is directom.com.

Google AdWords Editor

AdWords Editor is a free downloadable application for managing AdWords advertising campaigns. It allows the advertiser to manage multiple accounts at the same time, make bulk changes, copy or move items between adgroups and campaigns, and more. Also, it allows you to keep working offline.

AdWords

AdWords is Google's paid search marketing program, the largest such program in the world and in most countries with notable exceptions such as China (Baidu) and Russia (Yandex). Introduced in 2001, AdWords was the first pay per click provider offering the concept of Quality Score, factoring search relevancy (via click-through rate) in along with bid to determine ad position.

Ad Extensions

Added information that is included in your text ad. These can include extra features about your business, such as your location, phone number, links to certain product or services pages, and call-outs.

Dynamic Retargeting

Ads shown to users who have already been to your site containing images and information about the exact item they viewed.

Aggregate Data

Data that details how a group of consumers interacts with your marketing efforts or websites. This can be how an audience views videos, ads, pictures, etc and what actions are taken after viewing. This can give a comprehensive view of how your target market is engaged, as a whole, through marketing efforts, as opposed to individualized consumer data.

Day Parting

Day parting refers to serving ads at different times of the day and days of the week, or even changing bids or copy / creative at different times. For example, you may not want your ads to show from 11AM-2PM on Tuesdays. This can be done manually in most online platforms, or automatically in some such as Google AdWords. Automated day parting is not currently available directly through many social media advertising platforms such as facebook ads and LinkedIn direct ads.

Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)

Defines how HTML elements such as layout, colors, & fonts will be displayed. External style sheets can be stored in CSS files which allow for faster loading pages, smaller file sizes, and other benefits for visitors, search engines, and designers.

Conversion Rate Optimization

Depending on what your site deems as a conversion, there are steps that can always be taken to improve the likelihood that visitors to your site will perform a conversion driven action. Typically, this means changing certain aspects centered around the conversion. For example, if you have an ecommerce site, you may change the orientation of certain elements or their physical appearance like the color of the "Add to cart" button or removing certain steps to make it easier to purchase an item. Conversion rate optimization relies heavily on A/B testing as what may work for one website may not necessarily work for another.

Domain Authority

Developed by Moz, domain authority is a score ranging from 0 * 100 that predicts how a website will rank on search engines. It is often used by SEOs to compare one site to another as well as tracking the improvement overtime.

Content Network

Each major search engine offers a form of a content network within its paid search interface, typically referred to as content networks, although Google just renamed their content network the Google Display Network.

Email Campaign System

Email is perhaps the most overlooked and underutilized (based on cost and effectiveness) form of internet marketing today. Email campaign systems allow organizations to send out emails to their email lists with a standard look and feel. Features often include the ability to segment lists.

Banners

Picture advertisements placed on websites. Such advertising is often a staple of internet marketing branding campaigns. Depending upon their size and shape, banner ads may also be referred to as buttons, inlines, leaderboards, skyscrapers, or other terms. When using specifics, banner ads refer to a 468×60 pixel size. Banner ads can be static pictures, animated, or interactive. Banner ads appear anywhere on a site - top, middle, bottom, or side. Banner costs vary by website and advertiser; two of the most popular pay structures are Cost per 1,000 Impressions (CPM) and flat costs for a specified period of time.

Cloaking

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.

Incoming Links

or Inbound links. Related to back links

ccTLD

ccTLD's are "Country-code" TLD's showing what country a site is focused on or based in. Using Google and the United Kingdom as an example, Google UK is google.co.uk. Sometimes these ccTLD's are two sets of letters separated by a period (e.g. "co.uk" for the UK or "com.au" for Australia) and sometimes they are just one set of letters (e.g. ".fr" for France). Use of separate websites on unique ccTLD's is typically viewed as the best way for exporters to target other countries via search engine optimization. However, site owners can also target outside countries through other means such as through country-focused subdomains or even subdirectories.

Forum

A place on the internet where people with common interests or backgrounds come together to find information and discuss topics.

Eyetracking

A process that allows testing of websites for usability or any other purpose. Eye tracking is performed by a small number of companies utilizing high-speed cameras to monitor and record where the eyes of test subjects actually move on screen.

301 Redirect

A 301 redirect automatically causes one URL to redirect to another and tells the Web (and search engines) that this redirect is permanent, as opposed to a temporary (302) redirect. 301 redirects are generally preferable for Search Engine Optimization purposes and are therefore often referred to as search engine friendly redirects.

Doorway Page

A Web page created to rank well in a search engine's organic listings (non-paid) and delivers very little information to those viewing it. Instead, visitors will often only see a brief call to action (i.e., "Click Here to Enter"), or they may be automatically propelled past the doorway page. With cloaking, they may never see the doorway page at all. Several search engines have guidelines against doorway pages, though they are more commonly allowed through paid inclusion programs. Also referred to as bridge pages, gateway pages and jump pages and not to be confused with Landing Pages.

Canonical Tag

A canonical tag tells (most) search engines which page is preferred when two URLs are similar or duplicate. In most instances this tag is used when you have products or content that is accessible by multiple URLs or in some cases, even websites. The tag is part of the HTML head code using the attribute rel=canonical.

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. Also referred to as Pay Per Click (PPC) or Paid Search Marketing.

Automated Rules

A feature in Google AdWords that automatically adjusts your ad statuses, budgets, and bids based on the specific parameters that you set.

Contextual Advertising

A feature offered by major search engine advertisers allowing your advertisement to be placed next to related news articles and on other Web pages. Contextual advertising seeks to match Web content from the display page with your advertised search term(s). Contextual advertising isn't perfect (what in life is?), but it's come a long way from its inception to the point where it can provide great value to advertisers when used correctly.

Enhanced Bidding

A feature specific to Google AdWords. When you select to utilize enhanced bidding, you're giving AdWords the power to adjust your bidding in order to increase conversions. With this feature, you can pay up to 30% over the keyword bid that you set. Think of it like a hybrid between CPC and CPA bidding, albeit still more heavily weighted toward cost per click. Be careful with enhanced bidding, many search engine marketers will tell you that they have had poor experiences with cost per acquisition bidding within AdWords.

Google My Business

A free business listing in Google Maps that help businesses show up when people do a local search.

Advertising Network

A group of websites where one advertiser controls all or a portion of the ads for all sites. A common example is the Google Search Network, which includes AOL, Amazon,Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves), and thousands of other sites. In Google AdWords, they offer two types of ad networks on the internet: search and display (which used to be called their content network).

Ego Keyword

A keyword an individual or organization feels it must rank for in either or both natural listings or paid search results regardless of cost and Return on Investment. Read more about ego keywords.

Analytics

Also known as Web Metrics. Analytics refers to the collection of data about a website and its users. Analytics programs typically give performance data on clicks, time, pages viewed, website paths, and a variety of otherinformation. The proper use of Web analytics allows website owners to improve their visitor experience, which often leads to higher ROI for profit-based sites.

AMP

An acronym for the Google-backed Accelerated Mobile Pages Project was announced by Google in October 2015. It was designed as an open-source initiative for publishers to create content that loads quickly on mobile devices. AMP consists of three parts: AMP HTML, AMP JS & Google AMP Cache. For more information see the AMP Project website.

Behavioral Targeting (BT)

An area of internet marketing becoming increasingly refined, behavioral targeting looks to put ads in front of people who should be more receptive to the particular message given past Web behavior, including purchases and websites visited. The use of cookies enables online behavioral targeting.

Drip Marketing

An electronic form of marketing communications that are written in advance of delivery, and then sent to prospective customers or current customers at pre-determined intervals in their buyer or customer journey. The "drip" moniker of this online marketing strategy was devised by the way the messages are crafted and sent. Typically, these email messages are sent one at a time, about one specific product or service, with a pre-determined amount of time between the next email being sent.

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.

E-Marketing

Another synonym for online marketing, internet marketing, or digital marketing. Marketing strategies (like SEO, PPC, retargeting, social advertising, etc.) that are deployed using web based technology in an effort to generate sales leads or e-commerce revenue.

Graphical Search Inventory

Banners and other types of advertising units which can be synchronized to search keywords. Includes pop-ups browser toolbars and rich media.

Bing Ads Editor

Bing Ads Editor is a free downloadable application for managing Bing Ads advertising campaigns. It allows the advertiser to manage multiple accounts at the same time, make bulk changes, copy or move items between adgroups and campaigns, and more. Also, it allows you to keep working offline.

adCenter

Bing Ads powers paid search results on Microsoft's bing, Yahoo! (as of November 2010), and other sites within its network. Bing Ads was formally known as Microsoft adCenter and is now the second largest paid search provider in the United States.

Bing Merchant Center

Bing Merchant Center is a tool that helps you upload your store and product data to Bing and make it available to Bing Shopping.

bing

Bing is Microsoft's search engine, which replaced live.com in June 2009. Bing results now power Yahoo!'s search for paid (except display; through Microsoft adCenter) andorganic (except local listings) through an alliance entered into between the two Web giants in December 2009. The deal cleared regulatory concerns in early 2010 and was fully completed in November of the same year.

CSS

CSS is short for Cascading Style Sheet

Image Maps

Clickable regions on images that make links more visually appealing and websites more interesting. Image maps enable spiders to "read" this material.

Feed

Coming in an XML language that uses either RSS or Atom formatting are an extremely popular way for organizations to get their messages through the clutter and into the hands of interested parties. With the simple click of an orange button (right), users can stay connected to a site's content (Blogs, news, podcasts, etc.) automatically anytime their computers are connected to the internet. That button will connect you to the feed for the Found Blog.

Crawler

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.

Content Management System

Content Management Systems (CMS) allow website owners to make text and picture changes to their websites without specialized programming knowledge of software like Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft FrontPage. Content Management Systems can be edited by anyone with basic word knowledge via an internet connection. No need for length or costly web development contracts or need to wait on someone outside your company to make changes. CMS examples include WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla.

Golden Triangle

Eye-tracking studies show an "F" shaped pattern that most people tend to look at most often when looking at Search Engine Results Pages. These patterns vary slightly among the different Search Engines, but show the importance of placement among Natural Listings and Pay-per-Click ads.

Buyer Persona

Fictional depiction of your target customers that serve as a valuable points of reference for various digital marketing strategies. Marketing professionals take considerations from buyer goals, industry research, customer data, demographics, and natural human behaviors when forming buyer personas. The ultimate goal of this practice is to create an image of your ideal customer. That way, you can personalize your site layout, develop new content, or tailor any marketing strategies to increase the chances of acquiring the customers you need to grow your business.

Hashtag

Formerly called the 'pound sign', this symbol (#) is used on social media (primarily Instagram and Twitter), as a way to group tweets or pictures by category or phrase. The '#' is placed directly in front of the text. A popular example of this on Instagram is #TBT (Throwback Thursday) where people post a picture referencing an earlier point in time (generally hideously dressed in 90's gear).

Google Partner

Google AdWords offers the most extensive certification process of any of the paid search marketing providers. The Google Partner program replaces the earlier Qualified Google Advertising Company / Individual program.

Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP)

Google Display Network campaigns that allow advertisers to show ads in Gmail. Custom ads can be created in the AdWords ad gallery. You pay when someone clicks to expand your ad in their inbox. Any clicks on the expanded ad are free.

Google Merchant Center

Google Merchant Center is a tool that helps you upload your store and product data to Google and make it available to Google Shopping and other Google services.

Google Panda Update

Google is always trying to serve the best and most relevant search results to satisfy their users. Part of their method involves looking at the length of content for a target keyword. Previously, sites with a relatively low amount of content could compete against sites with lengthier and, theoretically, better content. Another aspect that the Panda update looks at is duplicate content. Essentially, if two or more pages on a site have the exact or very similar content, Google will devalue these duplicate pages in search rankings. In February 2011, the Panda update to their algorithm sought to favor sites with more content than those with "thin" content. The most recent version reportedly rolled out as of July 2015 (Panda 4.2), but has since been rolled into Google's ongoing algorithm updates.

Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a highly efficient way to increase customer acquistion using the most effective tactics available to engage a specifc buyer persona. Typically deployed in the "Software as a Service" industry or startup environments, growth hacking often involves multiple marketing strategies and nimble product development practices to create a solution that rapidly scales the user base of a product/service. SEO, PPC, social media advertising and retargeting can all be core components of a growth hacking strategy, based on the goals of the business.

ALT Tags

HTML tags used to describe website graphics by displaying a block of text when moused-over. Search engines are generally unable to view graphics or distinguish text that might be contained within them, and the implementation of an ALT tag enables search engines to categorize that graphic. There is also talk that business websites will all be required to utilize ALT tags for all pictures to comply with certain American Disability Act requirements.

Content Tags

HTML tags which define the essence of the content contained within them and readable by search spiders. These include Header and Alt Tags.

Description Tags

HTML tags which provide a brief description of your site that search engines can understand. Description tags should contain the main keywords of the page it is describing in a short summary - don't go crazy here with Keyword Stuffing.

Consumer Data

How an individual interacts with marketing efforts or website. This is a very specialized, linear approach to interpreting digital marketing data, and allows a brand to hone in on key influencers, rather than the audience as a whole. Going off of this information, a brand can better target marketing efforts to a particular segment of their audience.

Digital Marketing Funnel

How companies attract and retain clients through search marketing.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language, the programming language used in websites. Developers use other languages that can be read and understood by HTML to expand what they can do on the Web.

Daily Budget

In PPC advertising, an average daily budget is set for each campaign. You choose the daily budget based on your goals and how much you would like to spend.

Google Penguin Update

In an effort to combat websites that may have participated in questionable link building practices in order to manipulate search engine rankings, Google launched the infamous Penguin update in April 2012. This update pertained mostly to sites who may have obtained backlinks by purchasing them or through established link networks. Essentially, sites should distance themselves from these practices and avoid using them in the future.

Content Marketing

In opposition to traditional online advertising methods, content marketing is an inbound marketing practice that seeks to generate leads and traffic through the creation and distribution of content that caters to the needs of a defined audience of prospective customers. Content marketing as a strategy for SEO service providers achieved critical mass in the latter part of 2012 following the release of the Penguin algorithm update by Google, which adjusted a number of spam factors and affected a high percentage of search queries.

Backlinks

Links from other websites pointing to any particular page on your site. Search engines use backlinks to judge a site's credibility; if a site links to you, the reasoning goes, it is in effect vouching for your authority on a particular subject. Therefore, Link Building is an incredibly important part of Search Engine Optimization. How many links, the quality of the sites linking to you, and how they link to you all are important factors. Also called Inbound Links.

Inbound Marketing

Marketing services and strategies that successfully cause prospective customers to navigate to a website on their own accord, usually due to the consistent creation of engaging content. Examples include SEO, content marketing, blogging, and email marketing to a list that is self-curated. In contrast to traditional advertising methods that get the attention of prospective customers paid advertising promotions.

Brand Stacking

Multiple page one listings from a single domain. Prior to 2010, a site would be fortunate if it had three first page results for branded searches. Since Google tweaked its algorithm to include Brand Stacking, that number has risen to as many as eight of the top search rankings

Hyperlink

Often blue and underlined, hyperlinks, commonly called "links" for short, allow you to navigate to other pages on the Web with a simple click of your mouse. This hyperlink takes you to a page with more information about Direct Online Marketing™'s free consultations.

Blog

Short for Web log, blogs are part journal, part website. Typically the newest entry (blog post) appears at the top of the page with older entries coming after in reverse chronological order. Several blogging platforms exist; our favorite is WordPress.

Baidu

Serving primarily China, Baidu is the largest non-US based search engine in the world (although it was started in the United States). Sites can be optimized for Baidu and they offer their own paid search service.

404 Server Code

The 404 or Not Found error message is a standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested.

Final URL

The URL address for the page you're sending traffic to from your ads. This can be different than the Display URL, but must use the same root domain.

eCommerce

The ability to purchase online. eCommerce also goes by other super-snazzy names like etail. Website features that allow ecommerce are commonly called shopping carts.

Geo-Targeting

The ability to reach potential clients by their physical location. The major search engines now all offer the ability to geo-target searches in their Pay-Per-Click campaigns by viewing their IP addresses. Geo-targeting allows advertisers to specify which markets they do and don't want to reach.

EdgeRank

The algorithm Facebook uses to rank business / brand pages, groups, celebrity pages or individual accounts to determine which posts from those accounts will appear in the Newsfeed of users connected to those pages and profiles (or pages and profiles tagged in the posts). The higher the EdgeRank, the more likely your posts will appear in the Newsfeeds of your followers. Originally this algorithm was primarily influenced by the level of engagement accounts receive from their posts, but has since been updated to take more factors into consideration. Facebook does not release this data publicly, nor does it use the term internally.

Anchor Text

The clickable words of a hypertext link; they will appear as the underlined blue part in standard Web design. In the preceding sentence, "hypertext link" is the anchor text. As with anything in SEO, it can be overdone, but generally speaking, using your important keywords in the anchor text is highly desirable.

Index

The collection of information a search engine has which searchers can query against. With crawler-based search engines, the index is typically copies of all the Web pages they have found from crawling the Web. With human-powered directories, the index contains the summaries of all the websites that have been categorized.

Impressions

The number of times someone views a page displaying your ad. Note that this is not the same as actually seeing your ad, making placement and an understanding of the site's traffic particularly important when paying on a Cost per 1,000 Impressions basis.

Black Hat SEO

The opposite of White Hat SEO, these Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, tactics are (attempted) ways of tricking the Search Engines to get better rankings for a website. If not immediately, using black hat methods will eventually get your site drastically lower rankings or banned from the search engines altogether. While there are completely legal and ethical techniques you can use to improve rankings, if you design and market a website mostly for humans and not for the search engines' Spiders, you should be okay.

Above the Fold

The part of the page you can see without scrolling down or over. The exact amount of space will vary by viewer because of screen settings. You often pay a premium for advertisement placements above the fold, which will add to the costs of internet marketing services, but may also add to results.

Bounce Rate

The percentage of people who visit your website but leave without visiting any other page.

Astroturfing

The process of creating fake grassroots campaigns. Astroturfing is often used specifically regarding review sites like Google Places, Yelp, Judy's Book and more. These fake reviews can be positive reviews for your own company or slander against your competitors. Not a good idea.

Algorithm

The term search engines use for the formulae they use to determine the rankings of your Natural Listings. Search engines will periodically send a Spider through your website to view all its information. Their programs analyze then analyze this and other data to value your site and fix whether or not, and how high or low pages on your site will appear on various searches. These algorithms can be very complicated (Google alone currently uses 106 different variables) and search engines closely guard their algorithms as trade secrets.

Expanded Text Ads

These are text ads with double the characters compared to standard text ads. The new ads feature two 30-character headline fields, one 80-caracter description field and two 15-character paths in the display URL field. Also, ETAs are mobile-optimized, so you can reach potential customers on desktop and mobile devices with the same ad.

Cookie

Think of cookies like Batman's Bat Tracer. When you visit a website, Batman sticks a cookie on your browser to follow you around. Batman can then go back to his Bat Cave and watch where you're going and where you've been. A little Big Brother-ish to be sure, but cookies also provide direct benefits to surfers, including remembering passwords and bringing you offers in which you are genuinely interested (see Behavioral Targeting above).

Display URL

This is the URL that is displayed along with your ads. This URL can vary from the Destination URL, but must use the same root domain. You are allowed 35 characters for a Display URL in AdWords.

Broad Match

This is the default matching option. With this bid type your ad may show if a search term contains your keywords in any way. Your ads may show for synonyms of your keywords, related searches, and other relevant variations or phrases. This match type is best when trying to reach the largest possible audience with your keywords.

Exact Match

This is the most specific of the match types. With this type your ad will only show if the search term contains your keywords exactly as they are written.

Average Position

This statistic describes what position your ad typically appears in on the search results page.

Conversion Rate

This statistic, or metric, tells you what percentage of people is converting (really!). The definition of a "conversion" depends upon your goals and measurements. It could mean a sign up for free information, a completed survey, a purchase made, or other.

Domain Name Monitoring

Watching Domains across various extensions. Some companies offer to do this for, say a .com site by checking the same domain name in .net, .org, .eu, etc.

Banned

When pages are removed from a search engine's index specifically because the search engine has deemed them to be violating their guidelines. Although procedures are starting to loosen up somewhat, typically a search engine will not confirm to you that your site has been banned or why it has been banned. If you knowingly did something against the rules (written or unwritten) that got your site banned, you can probably clean up your act and get back in the game. We hear stories, though, from time to time of companies hiring Search Engine Optimization companies that deliver great, fast results, leave town, and then their website mysteriously disappears from the rankings. Google won't tell them why their site got banned, so the company ends up left out in the cold unless another company can come in and backwards engineer the issues, unravel the work, and get the search engine to reinclude the site.

Delisting

When pages or whole websites are removed from a search engine's index. This may happen because, but not necessarily, they have been Banned.

Facebook Retargeting

While this term can also refer to other forms of retargeting, it is most often used to mean serving ads to prior site visitors while those visitors are on facebook. Facebook opened its ad exchange in December 2012 to allow partners to offer Facebook retargeting.

Categories

Words or phrases used to organize blog posts and other pieces of information, such as albums for photos. Categories are generally broader than tags and used in instances when there will generally be multiple posts or other data points per category.

Beacons

are a form of technology that allows companies, primarily retailers and marketers, to connect and engage wirelessly with consumers via their mobile devices. The appeal is that companies can use the Bluetooth signal to deliver geo-specific promotions, personalized messages, and push notifications, when the customer is in range of the beacon, and can even act as an analytics tool to decipher steps taken to reach a purchasing decision.