Community Newspapers - Hear Them Roar

Here is the glossary of advertising, journalism and Internet terms so far. It will grow continually. If you’d like to share a term you don’t find here, or would like to see one added you don’t understand just post a comment and I’ll add it to the glossary.

A

A la carte  - An unpackaged advertising buy; the advertiser can pick and choose separately-priced media, schedules, products and features.

 

AA –  Average audiences; the number of coverage households tuned to a particular cable TV network during the average minute of the program.

 

ABC – Audit Bureau of Circulation. A long-established independent auditing firm that studies and publishes paid circulation of newspapers, but has now ventured into the realm of the Internet. When paid newspapers quote their circulation figures they’re quoting the figures that ABC has verified.

 

Above the fold – an old newspaper term for stories that were visible on the top side of the newspaper when it was folded in half horizontally. It has come as well to mean the part of the Web page that is visible prior to any scroll.  

ABVS – Audit Bureau of Verification Services – Part of ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations, ) ABVS performs third party audit verifications for media other than print.

 

AC  - adult contemporary radio format; refers primarily to its music.

 

ACD – referred to as either automated or alternate call distributor, this is the telephone system that provides for an organized delivery of calls throughout a call center. With an ACD system, the calls are distributed in order, with no rep getting more than her or his even share of calls. Its predecessor, UCD, delivered calls to rep one until rep one was unavailable, at which time rep two received the call.

 

 

Across the board –  A broadcast program played at the same time every day. Also referred to as a strip.

 

 

Actives – adults who call radio stations in response to contests etc., as compared with those who listen to the station’s programming but don’t take part.

 

 

Ad ID – A unique number assigned to a print ad, which a consumer uses to search for the corresponding ad and more detail on the Web. Also referred to as Web ID.

 

 

Advertorial - An advertisement whose typeface and format resemble a news article more than an advertisement. The theory is that doing so will generate a greater rate of response.   Advertorial also refers to the editorial content that is included in a publication’s special advertising page or section.

 

 

Affiliation - An advertising relationship in which a Web site displays hyperlinked banners,  logos or some promotion of another Web site at no charge.  The hosting site is paid for any click through to the affiliate’s site (see CPC)  or based on sales generated as a result of that click through (see CPA.) Most affiliation is reciprocal, with both affiliates placing their banners on each other’s sites.

 

 

Agate – the standard type size of classified line ads in a print publication. Generally 6.5 point.

 

 

Aggregator – a Web site that goes out to other Web sites, gathers their information and displays it in an organized fashion as one database on its own Web site. An aggregator site generally doesn’t solicit direct ad placement to its site.

 

 

Alert – Generally used with e-mail, it is an electronic function enabled by the end user that lets the user know each time an online ad or news content within the predetermined parameters appears somewhere on the Internet. It directs the user to the alerted information. 

 

 

Algorithm – A finite set of software instructions, generally undisclosed to outsiders, that determines how a search engine or other online product or vendor will complete its search tasks. 

 

 

Anonymizer – Providing an anonymous “handle” or e-mail address to protect user’s privacy.

 

 

API – application program interface, such as Windows or Unix; also stands for American Press Institute, the oldest and most expansive center devoted solely to professional development and training of those in the news industry and journalism educators. 

 

 

Application – another term for software program. 

AQH - average quarter hour; the  average number of persons listening to a particular radio station for at least five minutes of a 15-minute period

 

 

ATS –  Applicant tracking system. Often accompanies a recruiter’s job advertising package on major search engines or newspaper job sites. Generally web-based features include the ability to create folders to organize resumes, invite to interviews, communicate with applicants and store and revive expired ads.

 

 

Attention-getter – also referred to as a dingbat, this is a graphic or bold text message in other than the publisher’s traditional text font, that provides some eye appeal for print or online classified line ads.

 

 

Audience – Persons who view, read or listen to an advertisement.

 

 

Audimeter – also called a People meter, it is an automated device of the A.C. Nielsen Company; it attaches to a radio or television set to record usage and station information.

 

 

B

Bandwidth – in signal processing (radio, e.g.)  the width of a range of frequencies, measured in hertz ; in computing it’s a rate of data transfer, measured in bits per second    

 

Banner  - Graphic, generally hyperlinked,  that appears on a web page. It could be in GIF, JPEG, Flash, HTML, Java, JavaScript or other formats. Many banner ads are displayed at the top of the Web page.

  

Banner burnout – A situation in which  a banner has been shown to the same visitor(s) so often that the rate at which users click through has dramatically dropped.

 

 

Behavioral marketing – An online advertising strategy that targets consumers based on their behavior on Web sites, rather than solely by the content of pages they visit. Behavioral marketers respond to this information by serving ads to predefined categories or segments.

 

 

Below the fold – a print term that has carried over into the Web, it means the content, advertising and graphics that are not visible on a broadsheet newspaper when it is folded horizontally.  On the Web, it refers to that portion of the Web page that is not visible without scrolling.

 

 

Benchmarking – A standard by which something can be judged. In advertising, benchmark generally means a study of several similar products or firms, with a look at specific statistics and practices.

 

 

Beta – Generally used in reference to the trial launch of a site or a vendor product, a client who agrees to use the beta product is the “guinea pig” for the product, trying it out for little or no charge in return for evaluation of the product.

 

 

Bizdev – slang for business development.

 

 

Blog – Derived from the combination of the words “Web” and “log”, it is a personal or business page whose contents are often similar to a diary; blogs often contain many interactive features such as the ability for others to post comments.   There are now more than 70 million blogs on the Internet.

 

 

BM – beautiful music. One of the first FM radio formats.

 

 

Brand advertising – Advertising whose purpose, rather than to sell a particular product or service, is to create a favorable and memorable image of the firm.  

 

Brand manager – The person who oversees the marketing of a specific brand.

 

 

Branding– A marketing tool that incorporates colors, logo, slogans and art to create name recognition for a brand and a firm.  

 

 

Broadband – Cable-based Internet access  at a high rate of data transmission. 

 

 

Broadsheet – standard newspaper size, as opposed to tabloid size. A broadsheet newspaper folds in half horizontally, has width of six SAU (standard advertising units) each 2 ¼ inches wide.  Broadsheet depth is 21 ½ inches. 

 

 

Browse  - An Internet term that, in contrast to a search, allows the consumer to wander through the aisles of the Internet world. A browse is far less specific than an online search. To explain it in brick and mortar terms a browse would be comparable to seeing what new suites J.C. Penney had in. A search would be a concerted effort to find just the navy pant suit.

 

 

Browser –  A computer software program that enables one to access and view Internet pages. Two popular browsers include the Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Another one coming into favor with “techies” is Firefox.

 

BTA – best time available; this broadcast term is a bulk commercial advertising purchase plan in which the station’s traffic department will fit the commercials into its available time locations. Also known as Run of Station (ROS.)

 

 

Bulletin board – a computer system that provides software that allows users to dial in over a phone line, download software and data, upload data, read news, and exchange messages with other bulletin board users.  

 

 

Bundled – This advertising plan is a “one-price-for-all” package in which the advertiser pays one fee for two or more advertising products. A bundled newspaper recruitment advertising buy could, for example, include a print ad for 7 days, that same ad on the paper’s Web site for 30 days, and the option to look through the paper’s resume database as well.

 

 

Button – An advertising unit smaller than a banner, generally placed on parts of a web page where space is limited, such as the left or right rails.  

 

 

 

C

Cache –Computer memory that locally stores previously accessed documents for faster access.

 

Camera-ready – In the days before the Internet and automated pagination camera-ready ad copy for print meant a velox copy of the ad that was ready to be pasted down on the page and “shot” by the camera for publication.  Camera-ready has come to mean “ready for publication.”

 

 

Car card -  An advertisement displayed in or on a bus, subway, or train car.

 

 

Card rate  - The rate that broadcast advertisers pay for advertising time or space if they have no advertising contract and, thus, no discount.  In newspapers, this is referred to as the open rate.

 

 

Chain - A broadcast network, or a newspaper or magazine group with the same ownership or part of the same corporation.

 

 

Churn – The turnover of subscribers due to disconnects and cancellations, or the addition of new subscribers.

 

 

Circulation –The number of newspapers distributed through paid subscriptions and rack sales.

 

 

Citizen journalism – This is known by several different names such as participatory journalism, or user-generated content. It simply means that citizens other than professional media-assigned and paid reporters and editors play an active role in collecting, researching, disseminating and publicly responding to the news content of a particular site or page.

Classifieds – Line or display advertising organized by category; any ad that falls into the vertical categories of recruitment, automotive, real estate, service directory, or merchandise sold by private parties.  

 

 

Click Density - a new Web analytics feature. Decision makers can now open A Web page to see where visitors clicked; compares favorably with the prior need to pour over data. Also called site overlay.

 

 

Click fraud – An Internet crime, this is the practice of clicking on a pay-per-click online ad for purposes other than interest in the advertised product or service.  A common example would be a company clicking on a competitor’s site multiple times for the purpose of depleting that firm’s advertising funds without generating any revenue from its click throughs.

 

 

Click or click through –A click is the use of a mouse to drill down to the elements of a Web site or an online ad.  Clicks, plural, generally refers to the total click throughs that result from users clicking on a banner and being redirected to an advertiser’s Web page.

 

 

Click Through Rate - The percentage of total impressions that result in a user’s click through. This is also commonly known as a click rate.

 

Click to call – This service lets an online user click a button embedded on an ad banner, an e-mail, a search engine, or an online directory listing to immediately speak with a representative of the site.  Customers can place a call over the computer using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) or can enter their phone number to request an immediate or scheduled call back from the advertiser. Unlike a toll-free phone number, click-to-call services gives advertisers the ability to monitor and control who, what, when, and where users use the  service.

 

 

Clickstream - The first Web analytics method, it is the reporting of what users click on in their travels through a site.

CMS – Web-based content-management computer software system used to create, edit, manage, and publish online content that is consistently organized.

 

Co-branded –  Shared name recognition and identification on a mutual product; when two or more organizations – typically vendor and publisher clients or collaborators –  are all identified on the site.

 

 

Column inch – A newspaper print term, it differs depending on whether it is an ROP (run of paper) page or a classified page. Newspaper pages, other than most classified pages, are sized in SAU inches. SAU means standard advertising units. These are 2 ¼ inches wide. An ROP (retail)  column inch is one column wide by one inch deep – 1×1. What this measures, then, is 2 ¼ inches wide by 1 inch deep. A classified column inch is either 3 1/16 or 3 1/8 inches wide by one column inch deep, depending on whether the classified format for the publication is 9 columns wide or 10 columns wide. Occasionally smaller community newspapers will publish their classifieds in SAU sizes.

 

 

Common platform – The online practice of a media group that gathers its several publication members onto one primary Web site and database into which each publication’s content and ads feed.

 

 

Communitainment – Recently coined by investment analysts at Piper, Jaffray & Col, this is defined as a trend involving consumers moving communication beyond a mere exchange of information to facilitate an exchange of content, ideas and entertainment within an online social context.

 

 

Community – when referring to a newspaper it generally means a small to mid-sized newspaper whose geographic reach is considerably smaller than metropolitan dailies.  An online community is a group of users of a particular site, blog or other Web-based location who come together in a common interest and communicate with each other through feedback, ratings, reviews, chats, video and photo sharing and so forth.

 

 

Contextual advertising – Online advertising targeted to the specific habits of users.  A contextual ad system scans the text of a Web site for keywords and returns ads to the Web page based on what the user is viewing, either through ads placed on the page or pop-up ads. For example, if the user is viewing a site about sports, and the site uses contextual advertising, the user might see ads for sports-related companies, such as memorabilia dealers or ticket sellers. Contextual advertising also is used by search engines to display ads on their search results pages based on what word(s) the users has searched for.

 

 

Contiguity rate - A discounted broadcast advertising rate due to sponsorship of two or more successive programs. 

 

 

Contract –An advertiser that has committed to an extended advertising period or volume in return for a lower advertising rate throughout the run of the commitment.

 

 

Cookies – A process by which a small file is sent from a Web server to the user’s computer to store information unique to that browser. Often used by advertisers to help them determine the number of unique visitors.

 

 

Copy – Text, as opposed to images or graphics.

 

 

Cowcatcher - A brief radio or TV commercial announcement at the beginning of a program.

 

 

CPA – Cost per Action, an online payment model by which advertisers pays for every sale or registration completed as the results of a user’s click on the ad. 

 

 

CPB – Corporation for Public Broadcasting,  the non-profit that provides the financial backing for PBS and NPR (public broadcasting TV and radio.)

 

 

CPC – Cost per click, an online payment model by which an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on the ad, whether it results in a sale or not. 

 

CPI - Cost per inquiry; also known as CPL, cost per lead, a business model by which an advertiser pays for each customer inquiry resulting from a click on the ad. 

 

CPM – cost per thousand; in print advertising this means the advertising rate paid for every 1000 of a newspaper’s paid print subscribers. In online advertising or broadcasting it means the cost to reach 1000 online visitors or 1000 broadcast audience members. CPM is generally used as an advertising comparison tool, a way of breaking apples and oranges down to a manageable sales tool. 

 

 

CPP – Cost per person; a TV advertising term that means the price paid to reach each audience member; this is determined by dividing the advertising rate by the total audience. 

 

 

CPP - Cost per point, also called cost per rating point.  In broadcast advertising, it means an estimate of the price the advertiser pays to reach one rating point (one percent) of total listeners.

 

 

Cross posting – The act of posting the same message to multiple forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. It is also less generally used to define the act of a national aggregator or Web site accepting advertisements posted to its site and then reposting those ads on the sites of collaborating online partners.

 

 

Crossplugs – A broadcast practice that takes place during alternating sponsorships; each advertiser inserts one announcement into a broadcast program during the weeks in which the other advertiser is sponsoring. 

 

 

Crowdsourcing – Open solicitation of information from site visitors.

 

Cume – A ratings measure for radio that means the number of people who have sampled the particular radio station. 

 

 

Cumulative Audience – a cable TV research phrase that means the unduplicated audience for a TV program or commercial that has aired multiple times. 

 

 

Cumulative reach - The number of households exposed to a campaign or medium during a specific time.

 

 

Cutline  - A publication’s photo caption. 

 

D

Data Democracy - A company’s practice of sharing relevant data to all that need it on a regular basis.

 

 

Data mining - the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information that can be used to increase revenue, cuts costs, or both. Technically, data mining is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases.

 

Day part  - a broadcast term for specific segments of the broadcasting day; for example, day time, early fringe, prime time, late fringe, and late night.

 

Dealer imprint - Inserting a local dealer’s identification into a national ad.

 

 

Dealer tie-in - A manufacturer’s announcement that lists its local dealers.

 

 

Demographics – population or audience characteristics; typically broken down by age, gender, ethnic group, income, education, marital status, homeowners or renters, and so forth.

 

 

Dial-up – The slowest form of Internet connection, it is the use of the standard telephone carrier line to access the Internet. 

 

 

 

 

Digital - Relates to a device that can read, write, or store information and represents it in numerical form.

 

 

Dingbat – also referred to as an attention getter, this is a one-column width piece of graphic / clip art that a publisher provides to classified line advertisers to embellish their advertisements.  

 

 

 

 

Direct advertising -Advertising that is under complete control of  the advertiser, rather than through some established medium. A newspaper ad is not direct, while a snail or e-mail sent from the merchant is.

 

 

Direct-mail advertising – Advertising without the use of media; direct business to consumer such as snail mail.

 

Display ad – a print or Web advertisement that contains graphics and a border; in print it may extend beyond the width of one advertising column.

 

 

Distribution – In contrast to paid circulation; refers to the number of print publications delivered or made available free of charge.

 

 

DMA – designated market area; for print publications it is the geographic boundaries of a publication’s audience. For broadcast it is those counties in which stations of the originating market account for a greater share of the viewing households than those from any other area.

 

 

Do Not Call list – A program of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the national do-not-call registry allows consumers to list their landline and mobile phone numbers as those that must not be contacted for solicitation. Once numbers are registered firms other than political or charitable organizations are prohibited from calling to solicit. Surveys are not included in the prohibition.

 

 

Double truck – A print advertisement that takes up two facing pages but also has copy and/or art in the gutter between the pages.

 

 

Downsell – The poor sales practice of convincing an advertiser to buy -  or assuming that an advertiser would buy -  less than all that is available or less than her or his stated intention. “You don’t want to run this ad the entire week, do you?” would be a downsell.

 

 

Drill down – An online term that indicates the use of a mouse to open a sequence of hyperlinks that ultimately produce the entire depth of information available. In practice clicking on an online ad to look at the photo of the item for sale and then clicking again to see a particular graphic or message embedded in the photo would be the practice of drilling down.

 

Drive time - Radio broadcast time during morning and evening commuter rush hours.

 

 

DSL – Digital Subscriber Line, provided by a phone carrier as a dedicated line to accommodate simultaneous phone and Internet use. Faster considerably than dial up, it is still slower than broadband.

 

 

 E

E-commerce – The ability to complete a purchase on the Internet from beginning to end, including the electronic payment.

 

 

Effective frequency  - A level or range of broadcast audience exposure that provides what the advertiser considers to be its minimal effective level.

 

 

Em –  a text space the size of a lower case “m.”

 

 

E-mail blaster – A software application that sends out bulk e-mails, generally to targeted lists.

Embedded – In contrast to a pop-up, this is a feature of an online ad or other display that allows the user to drill down to its additional information without requiring an additional browser.

 

 

End user – Another name for consumer, it simply means the person who is using the online product, information or services.

 

 

E-newsletter – An online or electronically-delivered newsletter, generally with a niche focus.

 

 

Engagement /engaging – The practice of allowing a consumer to take an active role in the online activity on a site rather than just being the audience. Live chat,  reviews, comments, “contact the seller” options and user-generated photo and video uploads are all engaging.

 

 

Enterprise – Refers to a business model in which the buyer purchases a license for a Web product, thereby becoming owner, with no support or follow-through from the seller.

 

 

EPC - Earnings per click, a method of advertising payment calculated by dividing the total earnings from all click throughs by the number of clicks.

 

 

EPV – Earnings per visitor, a method of advertising payment calculated by dividing the total revenue from online visits by the number of visitors.

 

 

Evergreen - In journalism, evergreen articles are items that can be published at any time, either because they do not refer directly to the day’s or week’s news, or because they are about something that recurs regularly.

 

 

Expanded video –  An online video whose size can be enlarged to 468 x 200 pixels when the consumer clicks on it or rolls over it.

 

 

E-zine – an online or electronically-delivered magazine,  generally with a niche focus.

F

Feedback (form) – A message that acknowledges or responds to an initial message. A feedback form is an online set of fields that allow a consumer to request or provide a response without the site owner’s contact being divulged to the consumer.

 

Feeds – Direct electronic bulk delivery of content or advertising.

Fixed rate – The rate for advertising time that cannot be taken away or “preempted” by another broadcast advertiser; usually the highest advertising rate.  

 

 

 

Flagship – primary; in a newspaper group, for example, the flagship paper could be the first and largest, or the one for which the group is best known. It is often the home of the corporate offices as well.

 

 

Flash – A software plugin that enables browsers to play multimedia animations and rich media ads.

 

Flat rate – also referred to as the open rate, it means the advertising rate paid with no discount for repeat runs or long term commitments. In a relationship with a vendor, it indicates that the same rate is paid on a continual monthly or quarterly basis for the vendor’s services.

 

 

Flight –Broadcast advertising concentrated in a short time period, often several weeks. What typically follows flight is a hiatus (period of advertising inactivity) after which the merchant may resume a second flight.  Also called flight saturation.

 

 

Focus group –  a gathering of select people to study the feasibility of an intended or possible new project or product.

 

 

Forced buy – The packaging of one or more ad media or ad products for one price, without an a la carte option for any part of the package.

 

Forum –  a niche or topic-specific online discussion group.

 

Fringe / fringe time– Broadcast time periods that precede or follow prime time.  TV time between day time hours and prime time is referred to as early fringe, while night time that immediately follows prime time is called late fringe. 

 

 

 

 

Full showing - The number of outdoor posters that are needed to reach all of the market’s mobile population  at least once in 30 days. Also called a 100 showing. 

 

 

G

 

Gif - The graphical interchange format is the file extension used for most banner ads.  A sequence of standard GIF images combine to create an animated banner. 

 

 

 

Gross audience–  The total number of households or people that an advertising schedule reaches,  without regard for any duplication.  Also called total audience.

 

GRP – Gross rating points;  the total number of broadcast rating points delivered by an advertiser’s TV schedule, usually in a one-week period. In outdoor advertising, a standard audience level upon which some markets’ advertising rates are based.

 

H

Hard copy –  an article or other news item printed out on paper.

Hit – A request made to a web server for a page, graphic, audio or sound file. Because the delivery of one single Web page can provide several hits, depending on how robust the page, the term has little advertising or marketing value and has fallen out of favor as a measurement tool. 

 

 

 

Host – Any computer on a network that provides  services or connectivity to other computers on the same network. 

 

 

 

House ad – a filler ad that promotes all or part of what the site owner , i.e., the publication or media group, offers. It is an unsold are that has been filled with something self-promotional.

 

 

HTML – Hypertext markup language; a set of codes called markup tags in a plain text file that determine what information is retrieved and how it is rendered by a browser.  HTML determines how a Web page looks when a user retrieves it on the Internet.

 

Hyper link –HTML code that when clicked on redirects the user’s browser to another web page. Most banners are hyperlinked to the advertiser’s web page. Also referred to as link.

 

 

Hyper local – specific to one small geographic area such as a neighborhood.

I

IAB – Interactive Advertising Bureau, a non-profit trade association devoted to maximizing the use and effectiveness of interactive advertising and marketing.

 

Image advertising – Type of advertising intended to create a particular perception of the company or personality for the brand.

 

Inbound – Phone calls that are made to a call center.

Incentivized traffic – A type of click-through in which the person clicking on the advertisement does so in order to receive some reward. This often results in low visitor quality.

 

Incremental revenue - Money derived from new sources, or spent by current advertisers in addition to their usual ad spend.

 

 

Independent – Refers to a newspaper or group of newspapers, or a broadcast station or group that is not owned by a corporation. Often family-owned.

 

 

Insert – An advertisement that is enclosed with bills or letters; a one-page or multi-page print advertisement that is distributed with or within the publication.

 

Insertion order – An online or printed document that specifies the details of an advertising campaign, such as advertising name and contact, run dates, ad size and type, placement, keyword or subject, rate, and assigned ad sales rep.

 

 

Institutional advertising – An ad whose purpose is to sell an idea or the merits of the organization or service rather than the sales features of a particular product.

 

Interactive – A site or feature of a site that allows end users to converse or in some other way be a part of shaping activity and content on a site.

iPod – a portable media player designed by Apple.

Island ad – A advertisement that is completely surrounded by editorial material with no adjoining advertisements to compete for audience attention.

 

 

J

Job board – a term somewhat out of favor, it means a Web site that posts job listings. Most job boards have added other services such as resumes and career articles.

 

 

Jpeg – Joint Photographic Experts Group, a graphics format which displays photographs and images with millions of colors. While Jpeg is preferred for photos, it takes second place to gif for quality Web images.

 

K

Kerning – the white space between each character of text on a line.

 

 

Keyword - A word or phrase entered into a search engine for the purpose of finding relevant Web sites. 

 

 

 

 

Keyword density – The measurement of how frequently any given keyword appears within a Web page. Too high a density can result in a web page being classified as spam while too low a density will cause a page to be returned too far down in the results for the given keyword.

 

Keyword targeting – the use of specific keywords in advertising or news content to bring traffic to a site, most especially specific niche traffic.