A/E - An account executive (A/E) is an advertising agency employee assigned to a client and responsible for overseeing the services provided to the client.

Above The Fold - Any area of a web page that is viewable without the viewer having to use the vertical scroll bar. Ad space in this area is usually more expensive since it is more likely to be viewed by the visitor.

Acquisition Cost - The cost to an advertiser to gain a new customer. Advertisers take into consideration the amount of revenue potential from a potential customer over a life time in order to determine the maximum acquisition cost.

Ad Flight - The duration of time for which an advertising campaign is live.

Ad Network - An advertising company that usually serves as a broker between web site publishers and advertisers. Larger ad networks aggregate sites into general categories so that they can offer advertisers targeted buys. The majority of banner advertisements on the Internet are sold and served by ad networks.

Ad Server - A computer, normally operated by a third party, that delivers and tracks advertisements independent of the web site where the ad is being displayed. Use of an ad server helps establish trust between an advertiser and publisher since the statistics are maintained by an objective third party.

Ad Space - The space on a web page reserved for the displaying of advertisements. Typically at the top or bottom of a page or if a small advertisement in the right or left column. The most desirable ad space is above the fold.

Ad Units - A way of classifying ad types. Ad units on the Internet include banners, buttons, micro buttons, pop ups, skyscrapers, text links, interstitials, superstitials, etc. Ad units are usually defined by the IAB as voluntary guidelines.

Advertorial - An advertisement styled to resemble the editorial format and typeface of the content in which it runs. Often generates higher response rates.

Affiliate Marketing - A type of advertising system based on the CPA payment method whereby web sites run advertiser's banners for free but get paid on any sales or registrations that result from visitors that click on the banner.

Affinity Marketing - Any marketing effort including email promotions, banners or offline media aimed at consumers on the basis of established buying patterns. For example a book store might send an email advertisement to all customers who had previously bought mystery books with a headline of "New mystery books released this week."

Agency - An advertising company that represents other companies by providing advertising related services such as planning, creating, buying and tracking an advertisement on behalf of their client.

AIDA - Stands for attention, interest, desire, and action (AIDA). This is a historical model of how advertising works, by first getting the consumer's attention, then their interest, etc.

Ajax - shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

Ala Carte - Terms used to describe the way services are offered at some advertising agencies. For example, if an ad agency chooses to provide only the services that a client wishes to purchase instead of providing all services for a set price it would be offering their services Ala carte.

Alt Text - Short for alternative text (Alt Text). Alt text is HTML code that allows an HTML coder to add text to a graphic that is visible to those that have images disabled or those that hover their mouse over a banner advertisement. Often used by advertisers to reinforce a message or call someone to action such as: "Click Here".

Applet - A program written in Sun's Java programming language which allows viewing of simple animation on web pages.

B2B - Business to business (B2B) is a business model by which a business's main customers are other businesses. Common B2B web sites include online marketplaces where companies can buy raw materials, supplies & equipment.

B2C - Business to consumer (B2C) is a business model in which a business's main customers are consumers. Common B2C web sites include online stores selling books, music & videos.

Backbone - That part of the Internet infrastructure consisting of high speed telecommunications lines that carry the bulk of Internet traffic to smaller regional networking companies and ISPs. If there is a problem on the backbone web pages and banner advertisements may not load as fast or at all.

Bandwidth - The amount of data (text, video, sound, images, animations) that can be moved through an Internet connection. The amount is typically measured in bits per second (bps). A high speed Internet connection such as a cable or DSL modem provides more bandwidth than a 56K dial up modem. Also know as throughput.

Banner - A graphic that appears on a web page that is usually hyperlinked to an advertisers web site. May be in a variety of formats including GIF, JPEG, Flash, HTML, Java, JavaScript & more.

Banner Burnout - A term used to describe an event when a banner has been shown to the same visitor(s) to the point where the click through rate has dropped dramatically. Rotating banners helps to reduce banner burnout.

Banner Exchange - A Internet service that provides free banner impressions to those willing to place free banners on their sites. A typical exchange ratio is for every 2 banners one shows for free, they get one of their banners shown for free on some one else's site. The company running the banner exchange takes the other impression and tries to sell it.

Blind Link - A text or graphical hyperlink which does not clearly indicate where the hyperlink leads to.

Blind Traffic - Web visitor traffic that is generated using blind links.

Blog - Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.

Boutique - An agency that provides a limited service, such as one that does creative work but does not provide media planning, research, etc. Usually, this refers to a relatively small company.

BPS - Bits Per Second (BPS) is a measurement of how much data, called bits, can be transferred through a network connection in one second. When the amount goes over 100,000 bps it will often be shorted to 1 mega bit per second (mbps).

Browser - A computer software program that enables one to access and view text or graphical web pages on the world wide web (WWW). Two popular browsers include the Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

Button - A type of advertising unit that is smaller than a banner and usually placed in parts of a web page where space is limited such as in narrow columns on the left or right side of a page.

Cache - A type of computer memory that stores previously accessed documents locally so that they can be accessed faster should they be needed again. If you go back to a web page that you have previously visited, much of the pages content may be able to be accessed from your cache instead of requesting the data from the server again thus decreasing the time it takes to load the page.

Cache Bursting - This process, also known as "defeating cache", is accomplished by adding a random number to the banner HTML each time the page is reloaded. This causes a separate banner request to be sent to the server, thus insuring the banner is not cached and banner advertisement impressions are not undercounted.

Campaign - The process of planning, creating, buying and tracking an advertising project from start to finish.

CASIE - The Coalition for Advertising Supported Information and Entertainment (CASIE) is an advertising industry trade group founded in 1994 by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) for the benefit of those involved in the interactive advertising industry.

CGI - The common gateway interface (CGI) is a popular scripting language that enables programmers to create dynamic web pages. An example of a CGI powered web site feature might be be a web site's feedback form or banner rotation program.

Click Rate - The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click through, calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. For example if a banner was click on 13 times after being displayed 1000 times, the banner would have a click rate of (13 ÷ 1000 = .013 ) 1.3%. This is also commonly know as a banners click through rate.

Click Through - The action of clicking on a banner and having ones browser automatically redirected to the web page a banner is hyperlinked to.

Click Through Rate - The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click through, calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. For example if a banner was click on 13 times after being displayed 1000 times, the banner would have a click rate of (13 ÷ 1000 = .013 ) 1.3%. This is also commonly know as a banners click rate.

Clicks - The number of click throughs that have occurred as a result of a user clicking on a banner and being redirected to an advertiser’s web page.

Clickstream - The path a visitor takes while navigating from site to site or from page to page within a web site. Useful to publishers to see what path people are taking before leaving their site.

Comparative - An advertising appeal that consists of explicitly comparing one product brand to a competitive brand. Can be effective when one brand has a major advantage over another and they are priced the same.

Console - A type of popup window. Pop up windows that launch when a visitor leaves a site are often called exit consoles.

Contextualized Creative – An ad that delivers timely and relevant information to the audience.

Conversion - Term used to describe the process of getting a web visitor to accept an offer or become a paying customer. Advertisers strive for high conversion ratios.

Cookies - A process by which a small file is sent from a web server to the local users’ computer to store information unique to that browser. Often used by advertisers to keep track of the number and frequency of advertisements that have been shown to a visitor or by sites to help them determine the number of unique visitors.

Copy Writing - The process of writing text for an advertisement that gets readers attention, generates interest, and desire and prompts for action.

CPA - Cost per action (CPA) is one of the online payment models by which advertisers pays for ever action (sale or registration) completed as a result of a visitor clicking on their advertisement. Prices typically range from $1 to $25 or if a percentage of a sale 5% to 25%. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who want to guarantee only the number of customers generated as a result of an advertisement.

CPC - Cost per click (CPC) is one of the online payment models by which advertisers pays for each click through made on their advertisement. Prices typically range from 1¢ to over 50¢ per click through. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who need to guarantee they only pay for those viewers of the banner that click on it and visit a page on their site.

CPI - Cost per inquiry (CPI) is the same as cost per lead, CPL.

CPL - One of the types of CPA, a cost per lead (CPL) method allows advertisers to pay for every lead or customer inquiry that resulted from a visitor who clicked on a their advertisement. Prices typically range from $1 to $10. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who want to guarantee only the number of potential customers with an interest generated as a result of an advertisement. Also known as cost per inquiry (CPI).

CPM - Cost per thousand (CPM) is one of the online payment models by which advertisers pays for every 1000 impressions of their advertisement. Prices typically range from $1 to over $50 per thousand impressions. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who want to guarantee only the number of people who sees their banner. The "M" in CPM is from the Roman numeral for 1000. The Roman numeral M was derived from the Latin word "mille" meaning "thousand".

CPS - One of the types of CPA, a cost per sale (CPS) method allow advertisers to pay whenever a visitor who clicked on their advertisement generates a sale. Prices typically range from $1 to $25 or if a percentage of a sale 10% to 25%. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who want to guarantee only the number of paying customers as a result of a advertisement.

CPT - One of the types of CPA, a cost per transaction (CPT) method allows advertisers to pay whenever a visitor who clicked on their advertisement generates a transaction usually through a sale. Prices typically range from $1 to $50 or if a percentage of a sale 10% to 50%. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who want to guarantee only the number of paying customers as a result of an advertisement.

CPTM - The cost per targeted thousand impressions (CMPT) is the same as CPM but used when referring exclusively to a targeted campaign.

Creative - The technology used to create a banner or other type of advertising material. Common creative types include GIF, JPEG, Java, HTML, Flash or streaming audio/video.

CTR - Abbreviation for click through rate. The rate at which viewers click on an advertisement.

Defaults - Term used by ad networks to describe a type of banner that is served to a site when no paying banner is available. Usually a PSA type of advertisement unless the ad network permits publishers to specify their own default advertisement.

Defeating Cache - This process, also known as "cache bursting", is accomplished by adding a random number to the banner HTML each time the page is reloaded. This causes a separate banner request to be sent to the server, thus insuring the banner is not cached and banner advertisement impressions are not undercounted.

Demographics - Information regarding the size and characteristics of a particular population of people of interest to advertisers Such as their age, sex, income, education, size of household, ownership of home, etc. This does not include psychographics such as classification by subjective attitudes or opinions of consumers.

Direct Marketing - The process by which an advertiser sends their advertising message directly to their customers or potential customers. Two popular forms of this are direct marketing by telephone and mail.

Direct Response - A type of advertisement that allows recipients to respond directly to the sender to order a product/service or get more information. Common methods of response include mail, telephone and email.

DNS - A domain name server (DNS) is a computer on the Internet that helps to translate domain names into IP addresses. Without it web sites could not be found when typed into a browser.

Domain Name - The part of an Internet address including and immediately preceded by the domain extension. For example adratesonline.com is our domain name. The domain name is part of a web sites URL. Each web site has its own unique domain name.