| Abandonment |
When a user fails to complete a transaction before the session ends. With registered accounts abandonment definition vary. |
| Affiliate Marketing |
An agreement between two sites in which one site (the affiliate) agrees to feature content or an ad designed to drive traffic to another site. In return, the affiliate receives a percentage of sales or some other form of compensation generated by that traffic. |
| Application Programming Interface (API) |
An API is a documented interface that allows one software application to interact with another application and facilitates their interaction; an example of this is the Twitter API. |
| Aspect Ratio |
The width to height ratio of a picture or video frame. |
| Blog |
Generic name for content management systems that allow people to add content without the need of HTML coding. WordPress, Blogger, and LiveJournal are some of the best known platforms. |
| Bounce Rate |
A visit that consists of a single page. |
| Click-stream |
1) the electronic path a user takes while navigating from site to site, and from page to page within a site; 2) a comprehensive body of data describing the sequence of activity between a user’s browser and any other Internet resource, such as a Web site or third party ad server. |
| Click-through |
Number of times a link was clicked by a visitor. |
| Click-through Rate/Ratio |
The number of click-throughs for a specific link divided by the number of times that link’s page was viewed. |
| Comment |
A comment is a response that is often provided as an answer of reaction to a blog post or message on a social network. Comments are a primary form of two-way communication on the social web. |
| Conversion |
The number of times a desired outcome was accomplished. |
| Conversion Rate |
The ratio of conversions over a relevant denominator; calculation requires consistency between numerator and denominator, both with units (visits or visitors) and with segments. |
| Cookie |
A small piece of information (i.e., program code) that is stored on a browser for the purpose of identifying that browser during audience activity and between visits or sessions. |
| CPC (Cost-per-click) |
Cost of advertising based on the number of clicks received. |
| Demographics |
Common characteristics used for population or audience segmentation, such as age, gender, household income, etc. |
| Direct Navigation (No Referrer) |
The referrer value is empty or null. An empty referral string is often assumed to indicate that the user either directly entered the URL or selected from a list of bookmarks, but. this is not always the case. Some user agents such as email clients, news readers, ad servers, and others may not set the referrer value in the request header and thus the referrer is unknown. |
| Display Advertising |
A form of online advertising where an advertiser‘s message is shown on a destination web page, generally set off in a box at the top or bottom or to one side of the content of the page. |
| E-mail Advertising |
Banner ads, links or advertiser sponsorships that appear in e-mail newsletters, e-mail marketing campaigns and other commercial e-mail communications; includes all types of electronic mail (e.g., basic text or HTML-enabled). |
| Entry Page (Entries) |
The first page of a visit. |
| Exit Page (Departure) |
The last page on a site accessed during a visit, signifying the end of a visit/session. When this is the same as Entry Page it is considered a Bounce. |
| Experience Rating |
An agragate value of interaction by volume and quality. |
| Fold |
The line below which a user has to scroll to see content not immediately visible when a Web page loads in a browser; Ads or content displayed above the fold are visible without any end-user interaction; monitor size and resolution determine where on a Web page the fold lies |
| Forums |
Also known as a message board, a forum is an online discussion site. It originated as the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system |
| Frequency |
The number of times an action was performed by a unique visitor over a period of time most often associated with either a visit or a purchase |
| Geolocation |
Associating a geographic location with the Internet Protocol (IP) address, MAC address, RFID, hardware embedded identification number, embedded software identification number, invoice, Wi-Fi connection location, or device GPS coordinates, or other self-disclosed information. |
| Geotargeting |
Displaying (or preventing the display of) content based on automated or assumed knowledge of an end user‘s position in the real world; relevant to both PC and mobile data services. |
| Impressions |
Number of times a piece of content was delivered to a user’s browser. |
| IP Address |
Internet protocol alpha-numerical address assigned to each computer on the Internet so that its location and activities can be distinguished from those of other computers. |
| IRC (Internet Relay Chat) |
1) a facility that allows people to chat in real time. The chats, or forums, are typed remarks, and they can be either public or private; 2) a protocol that allows users to converse with others in real time; IRC is structured as a network of servers, each of which accepts connections from client programs |
| Landing Page |
1) A page that is intended to be the first page viewed after a marketing message(PPC, Display, e-mail, etc.) 2.) The Entry Page for a visitor. |
| Login |
The identification or name used to access a computer, network, or site. |
| Mobile Device |
A device that functions independent of terrestrial connections. Employing batteries and cellular and/or wi-fi connections to access the Internet from multiple locations. |
| New Visitor |
A visitor with no known previous visits. This can be outside cookied range or never before. |
| Opt-in e-mail |
A lists of Internet users who have voluntarily signed up to receive commercial e-mail about topics of interest. |
| Opt-out |
A list of users that have requested no contact from your business or e-mail list. |
| Page Exit Ratio |
Number of exits from a page divided by total number of page views of that page. |
| Page View |
The number of times a page was viewed. |
| Page Views per Visit |
The number of page views in a reporting period divided by number of visits. |
| Persistent Cookie |
Cookies that remain a client hard drive until they expire (as determined by the website that set them) or are deleted by the end user. |
| PII (Personally Identifiable Information) |
Information such as an individual‘s name, mailing address, phone number or e-mail address that indicates who they are. |
| Platform (Portal) |
A specific social media site. |
| QR Code |
consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data. |
| Quality Score |
used to measure the number of mentions or comments you receive on the original mention indexed against other mentions and their corresponding dialog. |
| Reach |
the potential network of people who could be influenced by your social media campaign. |
| Recency |
Time since a unique visitor performed a specific action of interest typically either a visit or a purchase. |
| Referrer |
a generic term that describes the source of traffic to a page or visit; it should specify the frame of reference, either a page referrer, session referrer, or visitor referrer. This can be both external site or website internal page. |
| Registration |
a process for site visitors to enter information about themselves; sites use registration data to enable or enhance targeting of content and ads; Registration can be required or voluntary. |
| Repeat Visitor |
The number of Unique Visitors with activity consisting of two or more Visits to a site during a reporting period |
| Return Visitor |
The number of Unique Visitors with activity consisting of a Visit to a site during a reporting period and where the Unique Visitor also Visited the site prior to the reporting period; again, determined by cookies, so there are some caveats |
| Search Engine Marketing (SEM) |
An inclusive term that covers both paid and organic search marketing. |
| Search engine optimization (SEO) |
SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines’ organic (algorithmic) search results |
| Sentiment |
A filter mechanism that can be used to gauge how people feel about your brand based on the dialogue data found on the web. |
| Single Page Visits (Bounces) |
A visit that consists of one page view. |
| SMS (Short Message Service) |
Standard for sending and receiving short (160 character) text messages via mobile handsets. |
| Social Media |
User generated content created under a consistent and socially connected identity. |
| Text Messaging (Texting) |
A common term for the sending of “short” (160 characters or fewer) text messages, using the Short Message Service, from mobile phones; See SMS |
| Unique Visitors |
The number of inferred individual people (filtered for spiders and robots), within a designated reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to a site. Each individual is counted only once in the unique visitor measure for the reporting period. Because most sites do not require a user login, the most predominant method of identifying unique visitors is with a persistent cookie that stores and returns a unique id value. |
| User Agent String |
A field in a server log file which identifies the specific browser software and computer operating system making the request. |
| Viral Marketing |
Marketing efforts that are championed, propagated, and curated by user collaboration. |
| Visit Duration (Time Spent) |
The length of time in a session. Calculation is typically the timestamp of the last activity in the session minus the timestamp of the first activity of the session |
| Visits (Sessions) |
A visit is an interaction, by an individual, with a web site consisting of one or more requests for a page. If an individual has not taken another action (typically additional page views) on the site within a specified time period, the visit will terminate by timing out. |
| Visits per Visitor |
The number of visits in a reporting period divided by the number of unique visitors for the same reporting period |
| Wi-Fi |
Any of a family of wireless LAN data standards (IEEE 802.11) used fairly ubiquitously for corporate and home connectivity; Also available as “hotspots†in public areas such as cafes and airport terminals, either for free or for a one-time use charge or subscription fee |
