Essential Internet Marketing Acronyms Explained

by Azam Corry

[Bold entries added by Andrea.]

If you're new to Internet marketing, the many acronyms and abbreviations often used in discussions on the subject can be confusing. To help you get up to speed quickly, here are the meanings of the most important:

ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange - A universally recognized set of digital codes that represent each of the letters, punctuation marks, and other symbols you can type on your computer. What people usually mean by "plain text."

ASP - Application Service Provider - Company that offers access to software applications and related services over a network or the Internet. (Also see PHP.)

B2B - Business to Business - Refers to trade between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers

B2C - Business to Consumer - Refers to businesses selling products or services to end-user consumers.

CGI - Common Gateway Interface - A way web servers pass information to and from application programs (to process forms for example). CGI programs or "scripts" can be written in several programming languages, including C, C++, Java and Perl.

CMS - Content Management System - A way for a Web site owner to add content to their site themselves, without hiring a Web designer. Some common options are: XSite Pro, Site Build It!, Joomla, Drupal (you will need a Web designer/developer to implement Joomla or Drupal), Macromedia Contribute® (your Web designer needs to set this up for you via Dreamweaver®).

CMYK - Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black - In print design, colors are defined as a percentage of each of these four colours. Web colours, on the other hand, are defined in RGB.

CPA - Cost Per Action - Cost to an advertiser for each visitor that takes a specific action in response to an ad, such as subscribing to an ezine, requesting a free trial, or making a purchase. Also used to describe advertising employing this model.

CPC - Cost Per Click - Cost to an advertiser for each click on a promotional link by a site visitor or newsletter reader. Also used to describe advertising employing this model.

CPL - Cost Per Lead - Advertising expenditure required to obtain each new sales lead.

CPM - Cost Per Thousand - The amount charged per thousand impressions (showings) of an ad ("M" is the Roman numeral for 1000). Whilst websites sell ad impressions in blocks of 1000, with newsletters the number of subscribers determines the final price. Also used to describe advertising employing this model.

CPS - Cost Per Sale - Advertising expenditure divided by sales generated to determine the cost to make each sale; or the commission payable for each sale generated by an affiliate.

CR - Conversion Rate/ Ratio - The percentage of respondents to an ad, or readers of a sales message that complete the action desired (usually making a purchase, but can also be subscribing to a newsletter, for example).

CRM - Customer Relationship Management - Improving interaction with customers through better understanding, with the aim of increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty (thus increasing profits).

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets - Used to globally define how elements in a Web page are displayed instead of relying on HTML code in the page. Makes designs more flexible and reduces HTML file sizes.

CTR - Click-Through Rate/ Ratio - The percentage of website visitors or newsletter readers who click on a particular link. Used to measure response to ads or sales messages.

DSL - Digital Subscriber Line - An Internet connection that allows for transfer of high-bandwidth information to a user’s computer. DSL uses ordinary telephone lines. A DSL line can carry both data and voice. The data part of the line is a dedicated connection to the Internet and does not interfere with use of the telephone line it is connected to.

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions - Often used as the title of a page on websites that answers commonly asked questions about a product or service.

FFA - Free-For-All Links - Web pages that allow anyone to add a link back to their own website, usually in exchange for accepting promotional messages from the FFA page owner.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol - A standard network protocol used to ransfer (upload/download) files over the Internet. Typically used to transfer Web pages and images from a local computer to a Web-based computer (server) that allows access to these files over the Internet (e.g., a hosting service).

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format - A bitmap image format that supports up to 8 bits per pixel, allowing a single image to use up to 256 distinct colors from the 24-bit RGB color space. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of 256 colors for each frame. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color, but it supports transparency and is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.

GUI - Graphical User Interface - A type of user interface which allows people to interact with electronic devices. A GUI offers graphical icons, and visual indicators, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation to fully represent the information and actions available to a user. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements, usually by clicking with a computer mouse, or by touching a screen for touch-screen devices.

HTML - HyperText Markup Language - The programming language used to make Web pages. Web pages are created by writing HTML code in a text editor such as Windows Notepad or by using a Web editor program, such as Dreamweaver® or XSitePro®.

HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol - The protocol for moving Web page files (hypertext files) across the Internet. This requires an HTTP client program on one end and an HTTP server program on the other end.

IM - Instant Messaging - Application that allows users to instantly message each other via the Internet (cell phones use SMS to communicate via text messaging).

IM - Internet Marketing - IM is a form of Direct Marketing. It leverages the marketing aspects of the Internet to advertise products or services.

ISP - Internet Service Provider - A telecommunications company that provides connectivity to the Internet for customers. This is usually done for a set yearly or monthly fee.

JPEG/JPG - Joint Photographic Experts Group - JPEG is the format used for image files with a wide range of colors. For this reason, the JPEG format is more appropriate than the GIF format for photographic images.

MRR - Master Resale Rights - You sell others the right to resell your product and to sell resale rights to your product, usually with a stipulation that resellers are not allowed to give away or sell your product below a set price point.

OTO - One Time Offer - Internet marketers use this term for a restricted one-time offer. It is often used in sales letters to encourage the prospect to buy now or miss out on the offer!

PFI - Pay For Inclusion - Paying to have web pages included in a search engine's database and regularly updated.

PHP - Hypertext Preprocessor (the name is a recursive acronym) allows web developers to create dynamic content that interacts with databases. PHP applications are normally found on Linux servers and in conjunction with MySQL databases. It provides those servers with functionality similar to that provided to the Windows platform by Active Server Pages technology.

PLR - Private Label Rights - A common trend in Internet marketing, you buy a product that you're expected to modify to give it your own stamp or flavour, and thereby turn it into your own product. You then resell the resulting product. Articles are the most popular PLR product. They can be published on your Web site and in article directories, or turned into ebooks, reports, videos, newsletters, autoresponder series, tip sheets, etc.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics - A bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) as an image-file format not requiring a patent license. PNG supports 24-bit RGB colors, greyscale images and transparency. PNG was designed for the Internet, not print graphics, and so does not support color formats such as CMYK.

PUR - Private Use Rights/Personal Usage Rights - A product is sold to you for your use only. You cannot resell or give away the product or the resale rights to the product.

PPA - Pay-Per-Action - Affiliate commissions where a set amount is paid for generating a specific action, such as taking a free trial or subscribing to an ezine. PPL, PPC and PPS are usually considered as PPA.

PPI - Pay Per Impression - Where an advertiser pays for each display (impression) of their advertisement (usually a banner-type ad).

PPL - Pay-Per-Lead - Where a commission is paid for each sales lead generated by an affiliate. A "lead" is usually defined as somebody who signs up for a free trial, or requests further information, etc.

PPC - Pay Per Click - Ad sales or affiliate commissions where a set amount is paid for each click on a promotional link by a consumer.

PPCSE - Pay Per Click Search Engine - A search engine where the results are composed of advertisers who pay a fee for each click on their listing. Using a bidding system, the advertiser willing to pay the most is ranked highest.

PPS - Pay-Per-Sale - Where a commission is paid for each sale generated by an affiliate. The commission is usually a percentage of the sale, although sometimes it's a fixed amount.

RGB - Red-Green-Blue - In web design and design for computer monitors, colours are defined in terms of a combination of these three colors. For example, the RGB abbreviation for the colour blue is 0-0-255 (Hex: #0000FF). In contrast, print designers typically define colours using CMYK.

ROI - Return on investment - How much profit is made after advertising and other costs have been subtracted. A measure of how successful a marketing campaign is in terms of the returns on money spent.

RON - Run of Network - Where ads (usually CPM banners) are shown (rotated) across the pages of the entire network of sites owned by a company, or controlled by a particular advertising network. Cheaper than only having the ad appear on selected sites.

ROS - Run of Site - Where ads are rotated across the pages of a single site. Cheaper than only having the ad appear on selected pages.

RR - Resale Rights - You give others the right to resell your product, but not to sell resale rights to your product (the latter requires Master Resale Rights).

SE - Search Engine - A searchable database of pages on the Web. Different from an Index (like Yahoo) in that pages are not reviewed by a human editor before inclusion.

SEM - Search Engine Marketing - Similar to SEO (below), and sometimes used to emphasize that generating quality targeted traffic is of greater importance than simply obtaining high rankings. Can also include PPCSEs and other search engine advertising.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - The process of optimizing web pages to achieve high rankings in the search results of a search engine, in order to attract more visitors.

SEP - Search Engine Positioning - Getting your page listed on the search engine results page. Similar to SEO.

SERP - Search Engine Results Page - The page of listings displayed upon completion of a search at a search engine.

SMS - Short Message Service - SMS is a feature available with practically all modern mobile phones that allows users to send and receive short text messages.

SSI - Server Side Include - A way for a web server to include variable values and information from an external source into a web page as it is requested by the browser. Uses include automatic display of data like the Last Modified date of the page, or storing common page elements in their own files, enabling site-wide updates by modifying a single file.

WSO - Warrior Special Offer - Members of the long-standing, well-repected Warrior Forum offer special deals for members.

URL - Universal Resource Locator - A URL includes the transfer protocol (e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, FTP), the domain name (or IP address), and additional path information (folder/file). On the Web, a URL may address a Web page file, image file, or any other file supported by the HTTP protocol. Here is the URL for this Web page: http://www.xsiteprodesigns.com/xsitepro-templates-acronyms.html

USP - Unique Selling Proposition - The reason why somebody should buy from you and not your competition. The unique benefits that your products or services offer consumers. What it is that makes you special, different.

UV - Unique Visitor - One individual visitor to a Web site. If one person visits several pages on the same site it is still one unique visitor (UV).

XSP - XSitePro - Unique software application that allows the Web owner to build and maintain their own Web sites. Has remarkable built-in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

I suggest you print this article out and keep it somewhere handy. Refer to it whenever you're not quite sure what something stands for, and before you know it you'll be an old hand!

© 2003 Azam Corry "Do it Better. Do it Faster. Do it Right!"

Online since 1998, Azam Corry Helps Newbies Develop a Winning Web Marketing Strategy with Great Free Guides, Tools and Resources. Also Discover Resale Rights eBooks & Resell Kits That Make Money Fast!
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