Glossary

Bait (or Bait Piece): A premium used to increase response to the offer of an advertisement. Typically free. Examples of bait include special reports, white papers, and e-books.

Bid (or Maximum Bid): The amount of money a company is willing to pay for each click on his or her company's listing. Note that this is different from "cost per click" or "CPC."

Bid Gap: The difference between two bids, typically between two bids in successive ranking.

Body: The text immediately below the headline of an advertisement. The body expounds on the headline in more detail.

Click Through Rate (CTR): The number of clicks divided by the number of impressions all multiplied by 100.

Content Matching: The medium in which some listings appear in news articles or related websites.

Control: The best performing advertisement.

Conversion Rate: The number of particular actions you want the user to take divided by the number of clicks all multiplied by 100. The actions could be anything—purchasing a product, requesting information, or subscribing a newsletter.

Cost Per Click (CPC): The amount of money a company actually pays for each click on his or her company's listing. For most PPC search engines, to maintain your rank, they charge $.01 more than the maximum bid of the company ranked immediately below you. Note that this is different from "bid" or "maximum bid."

Google AdWords: The pay per click program sponsored by Google. Widely considered the best pay per click program in the world.

Headline: The title or caption of an advertisement. The purpose is to entice the user to read the body of the advertisement.

Impression: Each time an advertisement is seen by a user.

Keyword (or Key Phrase): The word or phrase that a user searches for. An example of a keyword would be "click" or "pay per click." A keyword can be more than one word long.

Landing Page: The page that the user sees immediately after clicking on the advertisement. Landing pages are also used in other marketing disciplines such as email marketing, direct mail, or print advertising.

Lead Generation: The act of finding leads.

Lead: A potential customer; a user that has requested information about your products or services but has not yet purchased.

• Lever: A tool; a means of accomplishing; a variable that when improved, improves the entire pay per click campaign. In pay per click, there are five levers.
• Lever 1 - Search Venue Selection: The medium in which your listings will appear. Pay per click appears on search engines as well as in articles or related websites (known as content matching).
• Lever 2 - Keyword Discovery: The process of finding words and phrases that relate to your business.
• Lever 3 - Bidding Strategy: The plan for bidding on keywords.
• Lever 4 - Ad Creation: The process of writing a headline and body related to a keyword.
• Lever 5 - Landing Page Creation: The process of writing and laying out a landing page.

Listing (or Sponsored Listing): The headline and body that is displayed in the results when a user searches for one of your keywords.

Offer: Similar to bait. The main aspect of the marketing campaign that persuades a user to respond. For example, Barnum and Bailey's circus might advertise that they are offering 10% off a ticket to the circus. This is the offer. They might also advertise that for every caramel apple you purchase, you get it covered in free nuts. Free nuts is the bait for the caramel apple.

Opt-In: The permission a user gives you to add him or her to your mailing list.

Overture: The first pay per click company. Recently purchased by Yahoo! Widely considered the second best pay per click program in the world.

Pay Per Click: A method of sending potential customers to your website using search engines. You choose words or phrases (collectively known as keywords) that are related to your company, and when someone searches for those keywords, your company's listing appears in the results.

Primary PPC Search Engine: The pay per click search engines that generate the most traffic. Google AdWords, Overture, and FindWhat are considered the primary PPC search engines.

Prospect: Potential customers that have an immediate need for your product or service and an immediate interest in speaking with a company representative.

Rank: The position you hold within a search engine's listings.

Return on Investment (ROI): The amount of profit divided by the amount spent to achieve that profit all multiplied by 100.

Secondary PPC Search Engine: The pay per click search engines that generate the second most traffic. Often considered lesser search engines that the primary's, the main differences are in the amount and quality of traffic they generate. Kanoodle, Enhance (formerly Ah-Ha), and LookSmart are considered secondary PPC search engines.

Suspect: Potential customers that have a need for your product or service some day but not today.

Traffic: Users that search for phrases on a search engine.

USP (Unique Selling Proposition): The characteristic that makes you or your product or service unique. Sometimes also called a "hook."

White Paper: Document that argues a specific position or solution to a problem. When used as bait, they are typically delivered as PDFs.