PublisherSpot

Below is a glossary of commonly used advertising and technical terms. If there is a term you do not understand that is not listed here, please notify us.

Ad Network

An advertising company that serves as a broker between publishers and advertisers in exchange for a shared commission.

Above The Fold

Any area of a web page that is viewable without the viewer having to use the vertical scroll bar. Some ad networks require certain ads to be above the fold, usually when they are CPM. Above the fold usually refers to a resolution of 800x600 unless otherwise stated.

Affiliate

A person or company that takes part in a merchant's affiliate program by trying to sell their products and/or services. In return, the affiliate earns commissions from leads or purchases made through the links on his site.

CPA

Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition. The CPA is a payout model that requires the user to perform an action before the publisher receives a commission. An action usually refers to filling out a form (CPL) or making a purchase.

CPC

Cost Per Click. The cost or payout whenever an ad is clicked. If an ad has a CPC of $0.50 and is clicked 10 times, it would yield a total of $5.00.

CPL

Cost Per Lead. A payout structure that pays an affiliate a flat rate for every lead generated from the affiliate's site. This differs from a standard affiliate payout strucutre that typically only pays when a product or service is actually purchased.

CPM

Cost Per Thousand (M being the Roman numeral for 1000). An alternative to CPC where each click is paid for, CPM is a flat fee per 1000 ad impressions. For example, an ad with a CPM of $0.50 that receives 1000 impressions and 750 clicks will still only receive a $0.50 payout.

CPS

Cost Per Sale. A payout metric that pays an affiliate based on a successful sale of a product or service. This differs from a CPL (Cost Per Lead) in that an actual transaction, or sale, must take place.

CTR

Click Through Rate or Click Through Ratio. The percentage of clicks received in comparisson to how many times an ad is displayed. If a banner is displayed 1000 times and gets clicked 30 times that would be a CTR of 3%.

Default

The term used by ad networks to describe a type of ad, usually a banner, that is served to a site when no paying ad is available. This is usually a PSA ad unless the publisher specifies their own default advertisement.

EFT

Electronic Funds Transfer. The method of electronically transferring money directly to a bank account rather than by check, cash, or e-wallet such as PayPal.

Exit Traffic

A payout model that pays when a visitor leaves a site and then clicks through an advertisement, most often either a popup or popunder.

Impression

An impression is the display of an ad. If a banner ad is displayed on a webpage 50 times, a total of 50 impressions were shown.

Interstitial

An extremely intrusive advertisement that loads inbetween pages on a website that typically either take up the entire browser or the majority of it.

Leaderboard

An ad format with the dimensions of 728x90 pixels. Leaderboards have started to replace 468x60 banners as more people are using larger resolutions and the 468x60 has less impact as it once did.

Pop-Under

A pop-up that appears underneath the web browser window, as opposed to a pop-up which appears on top of the window. Pop-unders typically pay less as a result.

Pop-Up

A type of advertisement that is automatically displayed in a second smaller browser window apon loading or unloading a normal web page.

PSA

Public Service Announcement. An advertisement which serves the public interest and is generally used as a default by ad networks when no other paying advertisements are available, and are thus not paid when shown.

Publisher

A publisher is basically a webmaster or owner of a website that distributes advertisements on their website. Publishers seek ad networks to find advertisers, whereas advertisers seek ad networks to find publishers.

Rich Media

A type of advertisement that typically refers to more advanced uses of ads through the means of technology such as audio, video, DHTML, or flash. Unlike static or animated GIF banner advertisements, rich media advertisements often enable users to interact with the banner without leaving the page on which it appears.

Skyscraper

A type of ad usually referring to either a 120x600 or 160x600 banner.

Unique Visitor

A unique IP and thus specific person who visits a website in a 24-hour period. Even if this person visits the Web site 12 times in one day, he/she is still considered only one unique visitor (not 12).