Understanding Key Terms
Whether you're operating your own online business, wanting to
start one, running affiliate programs, or wanting to advertise
in e-zines - or sell advertising in your own e-zine or on your
web site, it's important to know and understand the relevant
terms used in e-business today.
Hits:
You see this term everywhere, and often, it is misunderstood and
misused. Each hit to a web site doesn't necessarily represent
one visitor. Generally, hits refer to not only the web page
itself, but all files requested, including all graphics.
Therefore, if a page has 25 graphics, each visitor to that page
represents 26 hits - one hit for the page and 25 for the
graphics. As you can see, hits can be very misleading when
representing web site traffic.
Page View - Also known as Impressions:
As the term indicates, this refers to the number of times each
page on your site is viewed by a visitor. If your site has 20
pages, and a visitor goes to all pages, that visitor generated
20 page views. Keep in mind, every time that same visitor
returns to your site, they will again generate more page views,
regardless of the time between visits. Please note that some
affiliate programs use the term page views or impressions
synonymously with unique visitors.
Unique Visitors:
This, by far, is the best and most reliable measure of traffic.
A unique visitor is one visitor to a web site, regardless of how
many pages he or she visits or how many pages or files/graphics
the site contains. Unique visitors are counted only once for a
specific period of time - depending upon how the site statistics
are configured. Generally, a visitor is only counted once in a
thirty day period, no matter how many times they may have
returned during that time. Keep in mind, this time period varies
wildly in the industry, so when talking about unique visitors,
make sure you know how long it takes for a visitor to be counted
again.
CTR - Click Through Ratio:
Used primarily in affiliate programs and advertising, this is
the ratio between the total impressions of a banner or link and
the number of times a site visitor actually clicks on (or
executes), the banner or link. For example, if a banner/link had
10,000 impressions in a month, but the advertiser's banner/link
was only actually clicked 2,000 times during that same period,
the CTR would be 20%.
CPC - Cost Per Click:
This represents the amount of money (or other consideration), an
advertiser would pay to the site owner each time their banner or
link was clicked by a site visitor.
CPI - Cost Per Impression:
This represents the amount of money (or other consideration), an
advertiser would pay to the site owner each time their banner or
link was viewed by a site visitor.
CPM - Cost Per Thousand:
This is the amount an advertiser would pay a site owner for
every thousand units. I'm using the term UNITS to represent
whatever the site owner and advertiser agreed to base payments
on - per click, per impression, per subscriber (in e-zine
advertising), etc. For example, if you were being paid $.20
cents for each click through, and in a month your site generated
10,000 click throughs for a specific advertiser, you would be
paid $2,000.
There are many more terms you should become familiar with, but
these are the most commonly used terms with regard to web site
traffic, affiliate programs, and web site and/or e-zine
advertising.