Jargon Buster A-D

Abandon - When a user does not complete a transaction.

Advertiser - Also called Merchant, Retailer, E-retailer, or Online Retailer. Any website that sells a product or service, accepts payments, and fulfills orders. An advertiser places ads and links to their products and services on other websites (publishers) and pays those publishers a commission for leads or sales that result from their site.

Advergame - Advergaming is the practice of using video games to advertise a product, organization or viewpoint. The term "advergames" was coined in January 2000 by Anthony Giallourakis who purchased the domain names Advergames.com along with Adverplay.com. (Wikipedia)

Ad Impression - An advertisement impression transpires each time a consumer is exposed to as advertisement (either appended to an SMS or MMS message, on mobile web (WAP) page, within a video clip, or related media).

Ad Serving - Delivery of online adverts to an end user’s computer by an ad management system. The system allows different online adverts to be served in order to target different audience groups and can serve adverts across multiple sites. Ad Technology providers each have their own proprietary models for this.

Ad Unit - Any defined advertising vehicle that can appear in an ad space inside of an application. For example for the purposes of promoting a commercial brand, product or service.

Affiliate Marketing - An affiliate (a web site owner or publisher), displays an advertisement (such as a banner or link) on its site for a merchant (the brand or advertiser). If a consumer visiting the affiliate's site clicks on this advertisement and goes onto perform a specified action (usually a purchase) on an advertisers site then the affiliate receives a commission.

Algorithm - The set of ‘rules’ a search engine may use to determine the relevance of a web page (and therefore ranking) in its organic search results. See also organic search results and Search Engine Optimisation.

Application Service Provider (ASP) - An online network that is accessible through the Internet instead of through the installation of software. It is quickly integrated with other websites and the services are easily implemented and scalable.

Avatar - A picture or cartoon used to represent an individual in chat forums, games or on a website as a help function.

Bandwidth - The transmission rate of a communication line- usually measured in Kilobytes per second (Kbps). This relates to the amount of data that can be carried per second by your internet connection. See also Broadband.

Banner - A long, horizontal, online advert usually found running across the top of a page in a fixed placement. See also Universal Advertising Package, embedded formats.

BARB – Broadcasters Audience Research Board is responsible for the measurement of TV viewing.

Behavioural Targeting - A form of online marketing that uses advertising technology to target web users based on their previous behaviour. Advertising creative and content can be tailored to be of more relevance to a particular user by capturing their previous decision making behaviour (eg: filling out preferences or visiting certain areas of a site frequently) and looking for patterns.

Blog - An online space regularly updated presenting the opinions or activities of one or a group of individuals and displaying in chronological order.

Broadband- An internet connection that is always on and that delivers a higher bit rate (128kbps or above) than a standard dial-up connection. It allows for a better online experience as pages load quickly and you can download items faster.

Business to business classifieds – Classified advertising that is directed towards business customers.

Button - A square online advert usually found embedded within a website page. See also Universal Advertising Package, embedded formats.

Buffering - When a streaming media player saves portions of file until there is enough information for the file to begin playing.

Cache Memory - Used to store web pages you have seen already. When you go back to those pages they'll load more quickly because they come from the cache and don't need to be downloaded over the internet again.

Call to Action (CTA) - A statement or instruction, typically promoted in print, web, TV, radio, on-portal, or other forms of media (often embedded in advertising), that explains to a mobile subscriber how to respond to an opt-in for a particular promotion or mobile initiative, which is typically followed by a Notice (see Notice).

Click-through - When a user interacts with an advertisement and clicks through to the advertiser’s website.

Click-through rate (CTR) - Frequency of Click-throughs as a percentage of impressions served. Used as a measure of advertising effectiveness.

Click to Call - A service that enables a mobile subscriber to initiate a voice call to a specified phone number by clicking on a link on a mobile internet site. Typically used to enhance and provide a direct response mechanism in an advertisement.

Commission - An amount of income received by a publisher for some quantifiable action such as selling an advertiser’s product and/or service on the publisher’s website.

Content sponsorship - Advertiser sponsorships of content areas (e.g. entire website, homepage or a specific channel) to include the total value of the package including any embedded or interruptive formats. This category also includes revenue related to email advertising or prioritised listing of results in search engines that are included as part of the sponsorship deal.

Contextual advertising - Advertising that is targeted to the content on the Web page being viewed by a user at that specific time.

Cookie - A small text file on the user’s PC that identifies the user’s browser and hence, the user so they are ‘recognised’ when they re-visit a site eg: it allows usernames to be stored and websites to personalise their offering.

Consumer classifieds (Jobs & recruitment) – An advertiser pays for space to display a classified ad relating to jobs and recruitment. Although some of these may include images, we think of classifieds as being listings rather than graphical adverts, in a way that mirrors the classified adverts you find in the regional and national press. Unlike search advertising, classified ads are typically listed according to a common category (in this case recruitment) and quite often on a website that is dedicated solely to that category.

Consumer classifieds (All other listings) – Classified adverts relating to any category beyond recruitment – e.g. automotive. Reported revenues should relate only to the direct cost of listing the advert rather than money generated from additional services.


Conversion rate - Measure of success of an online ad when compared to the click-through rate. What defines a ‘conversion’ depends on the marketing objective eg: it can be defined as a sale or request to receive more information…etc.

1-Cost per Action (CPA)- A pricing model that only charges advertising on an action being conducted eg. a sale or a form being filled in.

2-Cost per Acquisition (CPA) - Cost to acquire a new customer.

Cost per Click (CPC) - The amount paid by an advertiser for a click on their sponsored search listing. See also PPC.

Cost per Mille (CPM) / Cost per Thousand (CPT) - Online advertising can be purchased on the basis of what it costs to show the ad to one thousand viewers (CPM). It is used in marketing as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium. Rather than an absolute cost, CPM estimates the cost per 1000 views of the ad. (Wikipedia definition)

CRM - Customer Relationship Management.

Deep-linking Advert - linking beyond a home page to a page inside the site with content pertinent to the advert.

Display advertising on email - Advertising that appears around the unrelated editorial content of email newsletters. This can take the form of embedded formats like banners, or as sponsorship, and includes both opt-in (sent to customers specifically requesting it) and opt-out (sent to customers with the option to be removed at their request) emails.

Domain Name - The unique name of an internet site eg. www.iabuk.net

Downloading – the technology that allows users to store video content on their computer for viewing at a later date. Downloading an entire piece of media makes it more susceptible to illegal duplication.

D2C - Direct to Consumer

DRM - Digital Rights Management is a set of technologies used by publishers and media owners to control access to their digital content. Access can be limited to the number of times a piece of content is accessed from a single machine or user account; the number of times access permissions can be passed on; or the lifespan of a piece of content.

Dynamic Ad Delivery - Based upon predetermined criteria, Dynamic Ad Delivery is the process by which a mobile advertisement is delivered, via a campaign management platform, to a publisher’s mobile content.