Account Coordinator/Manager: This is a customer service representative that is specifically assigned to work with you and your account. They are generally only available during normal business hours. Not all companies offer this service.

Clickthrough: The action of arriving at a website by clicking on a link. In PPC advertising, this refers to a visitor entering your site by clicking your ad on a search engine.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR): Generally refers to media that is sold on a CPM basis. The clickthrough rate is the percentage found when you divide an ad’s total number of clickthroughs by the ad’s total number of impressions.  

Contextual Advertising: Targeted advertising that matches ads to a site's content. For example, if you are reading an article about a movie, you might see a banner, receive a pop-up, or see a PPC advertisement for Netflix or Fandango.

Conversion: Having a website visitor achieve your goal, be it purchasing, filling out a form, reading a certain number of pages, etc.

Conversion Rate: Measured in percentages, this is the number of visitors required before a conversion is made (e.g. a 1.5% conversion rate means that you receive one sale for every 150 visitors to your site).

Conversion Tracking: The act of monitoring your conversions. Although a few PPC companies offer this as a free service, it is best to use a third-party software program, of which Omniture is currently the best.

CPA: Cost Per Acquisition. The amount of money spent on a conversion.

CPC: Cost Per Click. The amount of money charged for each clickthrough.

CPM: Cost Per Millennia (Cost per 1,000). Most banner advertisements are sold on a CPM basis, that is x amount of dollars for 1,000 impressions of the banner.

Description: Click here

Distribution (Distribution Partner): The search engine or website where pay per click ad appears.

Domain: The name of your site (www.ppccompass.com). When your domain appears at the bottom of your listing it is completely for show. See URL.

Geographical Targeting: This feature limits your ad to only appear in predetermined geographical regions.

Impression: The appearance of an ad. With pay per click, you pay for each clickthrough to your site, not for impressions. Banner advertisements are often purchased on a per impression bases (every time your banner appears on a site you are charged).

Keyword: The word or phase searched on a search engine.

Listing: The ad that you create for each keyword you are bidding on.

Organic Listings: Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN display websites based on their relevancy to the keyword searched. Those listings are known as organic, natural, or relevant listings.

Pay Per Click (PPC): Click here for an excellent definition of pay per click advertising.

Paid Inclusion: Certain search engines require that you pay a fee (usually annual) to appear in their organic listings.

Proxy Bidding (Auto-Bid): If you are familiar with ebay, this feature should be easy to understand. This feature allows you to stay in 1st place by automatically raising your bid $0.01 above the second place bid until you reach a predetermined maximum amount.

ROI: Return on Investment. This is your revenue to advertising cost ratio. For example, a 100% ROI means that you broke even, and a 200% ROI means that you brought in twice as much as you spent on advertising.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization. The process of making a website rank higher on a search engine’s organic listings.

Title: Click here

URL: The exact page of a site (http://www.ppccompass.com/definitions). If the domain is a book cover, the URL would be the pages inside of the book. The domain on your PPC ad is just for looks, but the URL is where your ad will actually be directed. If you create your own PPC ad, make sure that you copy and paste the URL or you might end up wasting a lot of money sending visitors to an invalid URL.

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