Simple Website Advertising Terms

Listed below are some commonly-used terms in advertising. Before you begin placing your ads on other websites, equip yourself with this knowledge:

Ad copy: The printed text i.e. description of your website, products, services or special offers in an advertisement.

Banner: A Banner is a graphic that you will need in order to place advertisements. Just like you see sign boards and hoardings etc., a banner will advertise your business on other websites. A banner may be of many shapes and sizes. This is what a banner of size 468x60 looks like:

Banner Sizes: The website where you choose to advertise will mention its requirements for particular sizes of banners. These are the generally accepted sizes for banners, although certain websites may ask for different sized banners as well:

468x60 - 125x125 - 120x60 - 120x600 - 720x98

Banner Formats: You will be required to send in banners of a particular 'file type'. Generally, GIF and JPG formats are accepted all over. Larger websites will also accept Rich Media files i.e. interactive multimedia files made in Flash.

Creatives: The banners and rich media files needed to run your advertisement are also referred to, as Creatives or Ad Creative.

CPM: Some websites offer advertising on 'CPM' basis. CPM means 'cost per thousand'. This means that you will be charged a certain amount for every thousand times that your ad is shown to their visitors. CPM is irrelevant of the number of people that click on your banner.

Example: If CPM rate is $5, you will be charged $5 for every 1000 ad impressions (number of times your ad gets shown to visitors). So, for 10,000 ad impressions, you will be charged $50.

CPC: CPC means 'cost per click'. In this form of advertising, you pay only when your ad gets clicked upon. The CPC rate will generally be much higher than CPM as you will pay only when you receive a guaranteed click. CPM is generally more popular than CPC.

CTR: CTR stands for 'Click-through Rate' and is associated with CPM form of advertising. CTR tells the percentage of clicks your banner has had out of the total number of ad impressions. This is usually a percentage based on the total number of clicks divided by the number of impressions that an advertisement has received. The average industry click-through rate is 0.05 - 0.25 %.

Demographics: Demographics of a Website's visitors are a breakdown of their visitor statistics based upon geographical location, age, sex, income, education etc. You can see the type of visitors that website has and decide for yourself if they are your targeted customers or not.

Impressions - The number of times an advertisement is viewed by web surfers.