Glossary
An entirely new vocabulary has developed from the Internet in a little more than a decade. Before proceeding into the virtual world of online selling, it is important to become acquainted with these new terms.
Affiliate: A typical term for one Web site that drives traffic to another in exchange for a percent of sales from users attracted to the site. Amazon refers to its affiliates as “Associates.”
Amazon item: Product Amazon sells and fulfills, not by a third-party merchant.
Amazon Qualifying Product: Product that Amazon has sold and fulfilled or that has been fulfilled for Amazon and is allowable to have a referral fee based on the operating agreement.
Analytics/Web Analytics: A tool that measures the impact of a Web site on its users. E-commerce organizations frequently rely on analytics software in order to create reports on measures including the how many were visitors, converted to buyers, or unique to the site; how they arrived at the Web site; which keywords were entered into the site’s search engine; the length of time they stayed on a page or the entire site; the links that were clicked on; and when the visitors left the site.
Application Program (Application): Any program created to perform a specific function for the user, such as word processors, database programs, Web browsers, development tools, and drawing programs.
Associates Central: This Web site offers Amazon Associates numerous services, such as tools for creating reports and link-generation, a graphics reservoir, and ways to enhance online marketing.
Basic Display Product Link: Text descriptions of the products that link to pages with additional product information. They may be used by Amazon Associates to use as the item’s text description and to send buyers to the product’s offer listing page that consists of any new and used items available from individual sellers.
Blog: Comes from Weblog, or a journal that is available on the Web. To update a blog is “blogging,” and a person who writes a blog is a “blogger.” New blogs are normally written every day on a site created by software that is easy to use and maintain even without a great deal of technical knowhow.
Brick(s)-and-mortar: A business or a store with a physical, rather than a virtual, presence.
Browser: An application that offers users a way to search for and utilize the many different options on the Web. The term was first used with the Internet prior to the introduction of the World Wide Web as a user interface that allows visitors to navigate online and read the text files. Main browsers include Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.
B2C / Business-to-Consumer: In e-commerce, when a business is selling to individual consumers.
Button: A small, interactive graphic online that is normally used for advertising purposes. This is often a way for affiliates and sponsorships to drive traffic.
Category Targeting: Delivery of a specific message to categorized Web sites to reach users who are expected to find the products or services being offered of interest. It is a way to improve the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
Click-through Rate (CTR): The rate users click on a product advertisement. To measure CTR, the total of times that users click on an ad is divided by how many times the ad is delivered.
Conversion: The percentage of how many products are shipped divided by how many clicks on a Web site link. If a Web site gets 200 clicks and those referrals generated 18 shipped items, the conversion rate would be 18/200=0.09, or 9 percent.
Cross-Selling: Offering similar merchandise to a customer who previously bought one product in order to encourage that person to make another similar purchase.
Daily Trends Report: Amazon displays the daily click and ordered items total and conversion, which allows Associates to immediately determine how well their site is doing.
Domain Name: The unique identification of a Web site. There are always two or more parts that are separated by dots.
Domain Name System (DNS): Converts Internet domain names into Internet protocol numbers. A DNS server performs this kind of translation.
E-commerce/Electronic Commerce: A structure used for establishing a business on the Web or for the online shopping industry.
E-mail: Electronic mail, normally in text form, that a person sends to another through the computer.
E-tailer: A company that sells items on the Web, just as traditional merchants do offline.
Extensible Markup Language (XML): Provides a standard way for developers to exchange information about sets of data and their organization.
Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT): A stylesheet language for XML.
Hard Drive Space: The main storage area in a computer that can maintain large amounts of data.
Hit: A request that is received from a Web browser for another item that comes from the Web server.
Homepage: Traditionally, this is the Web page that comes up first when the browser is started. Also, the user makes it the mainly used Web page.
Hyperlinks (Links): Hypertext connections among Web pages.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML): The coding language that gives information to the Web browser on the way to display a Web page’s words and images.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP): A set of rules for the transfer of files on the Internet. It also provides a standard for Web browsers and servers to communicate.
Impressions: Number of times that the links are viewed by users.
Internet: Networks that are interconnected using protocols. The Internet connects hundreds of thousands independent networks across the globe. The World Wide Web, or Web, provides a means of accessing information over the Internet.
Internet Protocol (IP): The method, or “protocol,” utilized to transmit data among computers online. Each Internet computer, or host, has at least one uniquely identifying IP address that separates it from all other online computers.
Keyword: A word or group of words that focus a Web search and that targets marketing. Advertisers often buy keywords on search engines to promote their Web site content.
Link Type: The many ways that Amazon merchants have to link from their site to Amazon. These include:
Product Links: Connect to detail pages of individual Amazon products or by a third-party seller.
Recommended Products Links: Updated each time a Web page loads with new content that matches a chosen product category or keyword.
Search Box Links: Links in which users can enter search terms and get Amazon results.
Banner Links: Send customers directly to the Amazon homepage or product category, or feature a special marketing message.
Easy Links: Dynamically updated and homepage links.
Text Links: Any link redirecting visitors to specific Amazon pages, such as “Favorite Destinations” and “Link to Any Page.”
Web Services Links: Individual product links that make SOAP and HTTP requests; add-to-cart buttons permitting users to add merchandise to their shopping carts; and remote-shopping-cart links giving visitors the opportunity to maintain a shopping cart on a site and then, when ready to check out, transfer to Amazon.
Link-Type Reports: Show performance of various Amazon links on a Web site with clicks, purchased items, shipped merchandise, conversion, and referrals.
Merchant Account: An Internet bank account that a site requires to receive electronic payments.
Meta Tag: “Meta” means “about this subject.” This consists of information that a visitor does not see on the Web site, but rather is used to provide search engines with an easier way to categorize the contents of a page.
Navigation: This online feature allows users to move from one place to another by clicking on links in a menu bar.
1-Click (One Click): Amazon received a patent so that customers only have to enter their credit card number and address information on their first purchase. Each time they return to the Web site, they just click once to make a purchase and all their information is stored.
Online Store: A business-to-customer or business-to-business virtual e-commerce Web site that features and sells merchandise or services.
Orders Reports: Provides information on the items visitors have ordered on Amazon and the links that have been most effective. The figures are based on items ordered, but may not yet be shipped.
Password: A code provided that allows users to gain access to a private online area.
Pay-Per-Click: A means for driving traffic to a Web site using research engine advertising; it is necessary to pay only when someone visits the designated Web site.
Print-On-Demand (POD): Companies that self-published authors use to print books, DVDs, and CDs one at a time.
Product Link Clicks: This is the total amount of clicks visitors have made on product links that are on the Amazon merchant Web site.
Product Link Conversion: This shows the frequency of Amazon visitors clicking on product links and then purchasing the item highlighted. To determine the conversion rate, one divides the sum of highlighted items purchased by the sum of product link clicks. The total is expressed in percentage form. For instance, if a visitor clicks on one of the Web site product links for a computer printer and then purchases it, the conversion for the product link is 100 percent. If another visitor clicks on the computer printer link but instead purchases a camera, the conversion rate falls to 50 percent (one item purchased/two direct-link clicks).
Random Access Memory (RAM): The most common computer memory that programs use to perform essential tasks when the computer is engaged.
Relevance Ranking: The measure of how effectively the indexed page responds to the search query when there are numerous matches to that question.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS): An XML-based vocabulary for distributing Web content allowing users to have new content delivered to a computer or mobile device as soon as published.
Search Engine: A means for searching for information on the Web, including such sites as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and Ask.
Search Engine Marketing: An approach, often involving paid ads, created to enhance the visibility of a Web site when conducting a search such as on Google.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The way to design Web pages so they get as high a ranking as possible in search engine results.
Seller: Whoever fulfills the order, whether it is Amazon or a third-party merchant.
Sellers Central: This is how merchants manage their WebStore, sell on Amazon, and interface with Fulfillment by Amazon. It provides them with an efficient and easy way to access the different areas of their Web site. With this support, the sellers can add or change product data, update inventory, get orders, and create their WebStore.
Shopping Cart/Shopping Basket: Online merchants use this software to help visitors add items to their cart after making a purchase. When they are ready to check out, the software adds the total price for the order, including shipping and handling.
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP): A simple XML-based protocol to allow applications to exchange information over HTTP.
Targeting: This is the use of advertisements that are designed to appeal to users who fit a particular marketing delineation.
Tracking: Online real-time reporting to measure the impact of advertisements on users.
Transaction: The act of purchasing a product or service from an e-commerce Web site.
Web Site Traffic: The number of visitors who view a Web site.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL): A Web page address. The beginning of the address is the protocol identifier, and the end specifies the IP address and the domain name.
Unique Visitors: In Web marketing, individuals who have gone to a Web site or obtained specific content, such as advertisements or e-mail, for a specified period of time such as a day or month.
Web Crawler: An electronic “robot” that connects to interacting computer systems and also compiles an index of links to documents.
Web Page: A document created to be viewed in a Web browser.
Web Site: The entire number of Web pages and other content, such as visuals, audio, and video files, which are located at the same Internet location.
World Wide Web (or Web): A network of interlinked hypertext documents accessed through the Internet.