Affiliate and Advertising Jargon

Understanding the jargon that advertisers and affiliates throw around is the first step in your success. Each term will help you determine how traffic is measured and sold, and you'll gain an idea of what might work best for you. The following is not a complete list of terms but it is a list of some of the most common terms that are used.

CPM - CPM stands for Cost Per Thousand, M being the roman numeral for thousand. CPM is the cost per thousand times an advertisement gets shown (referred to as an impression), not neccessarily viewed or clicked. For example, if you sold advertising space on your site for $5 CPM, someone would pay you $5 for every 1000 impressions of their ad you displayed. CPM rates vary from advertiser to advertiser.

CPC - CPC stands for Cost Per Click. This is the amount charged for each time an ad is clicked. Cost per click is effective for advertisers because they only pay for clicks not for their ad being displayed, and no matter how many times you display an ad on your site, you only make money if the ad is clicked. If you match advertising to your content you have a better chance of getting a click and making money.

CPA - CPA stands for Cost Per Action. Unlike paying for (or getting paid for) impressions or clicks, CPA relies on a user action on the advertiser's site, typically by signing up for something or making a purchase, depending on the advertiser's terms. As with CPC, this is when you really want to match advertisements as close to your site's content as possible. If you run a site about mountain biking and have an advertisement for auto parts displayed, the likelihood of a visitor to your site being interested is considerably less.

CTR - CTR, or Clickthrough Rate, refers to the percentage in which an advertisement is clicked versus the amount of impressions the advertisement has had. For example, if an ad is shown 100 times and is clicked on 2 times, that ad has a CTR of 2%. An ad's value is usually determined by it's CTR.

Datafeed - A datafeed refers to an organized list of a merchant's products that you can manipulate and use. The most common use is storing the datafeed in a database and dynamically displaying the products on a website via PHP or related programming language.

EPC - EPC, or Earnings Per Click, is a way to gauge how much revenue you generate based on the amount of traffic you send to the merchant's site. Dividing your earnings by the number of clicks (visitors) will determine your EPC. For example, if you send 100 clicks to the merchant and 2 people make purchases that earn you $20, then your EPC is $0.20 ($20 / 100).

Interstitial - An interstitial is an "in between" page, typically being a full page ad between pages a visitor is viewing. If a visitor comes to your site (Page A) and wants to visit Page B, the user clicks a link but instead of immediately seeing Page B might see a full page ad instead. From there the user can click through (or be automatically forwarded to) Page B.

Pop-up - You may see these alot around the Internet. Pop-ups are advertisements that open a new browser window (usually sized to the ad) over the web site being viewed.

Pop-under - Similar to a pop-up, these ads spawn a new browser window but open up behind the web site being viewed. These are less intrusive and the idea is that the ad will be sitting there waiting should the visitor minimize or close their original browser window.

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