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Reach The number of unique individuals who view
an advertisement.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Blog, news or other
content is published by an XML standard and
syndicated for other sites or read by users in RSS
reader software services.
RealNames A service for matching company names
and brands with web addresses.
Referrer The site that a visitor previously visited
before following a link.
Referring sites A log file may indicate which site a
user visited immediately before visiting the current
site. (See also Clickthrough, Destination site and
Exit page.)
Registration (individuals) The process whereby an
individual subscribes to a site or requests further
information by filling in contact details and his or
her needs using an electronic form.
Registration (of domain name) The process of
reserving a unique web address that can be used to
refer to the company web site.
Reintermediation The creation of new intermediaries
between customers and suppliers providing services
such as supplier search and product evaluation.
Relationship marketing Consistent application of
up-to-date knowledge of individual customers to
product and service design, which is communicated
interactively in order to develop a continuous,
mutually beneficial and long-term relationship.
Repeat visits If an organisation can encourage
customers to return to the web site then the
relationship can be maintained online.
Repurposing Developing for a new access platform,
such as the web, content which was previously used
for a different platform.
Resource analysis Review of the technological,
financial and human resources of an organisation
and how they are utilised in business processes.
Results-based payment Advertisers pay according to
the number of times the ad is clicked on.
Retail channel Retailers’ use of the Internet as both
a communication and a transactional channel
concurrently in business-to-consumer markets.
Retail format This is the general nature of the retail
mix in terms of range of products and services,
pricing policy, promotional programmes, operating
style or store design and visual merchandising;
examples include mail-order retailers (non-store-
based) and department-store retailers.
Retention See Customer retention.
Return on advertising spend (ROAS) This indicates
amount of revenue generated from each referrer.
ROAS = Total revenue generated from referrer /
Amount spent on advertising with referrer.
Return on investment (ROI) This indicates the
profitability of any investment, or in an advertising
context, for each referring site.
ROI = Profit generated from investment /
Cost of investment.
ROI = Profit generated from referrers /
Amount spent on advertising with referrer.
Return path An interaction where the customer
sends information to the iDTV provider using a
phone line or cable.
Revenue models Describe methods of generating
income for an organisation.
Reverse auctions Item purchased from lowest-
bidding supplier in bidding period.
Rich-media advertisements Advertisements that are
not static, but provide animation, sound or
interactivity. An example of this would be a banner
advertisement for a loan in which a customer can
type in the amount of loan required, and the cost of
the loan is calculated immediately.
Robot A tool, also known as a spider, that is
employed by search engines to index web pages of
registered sites on a regular basis.
Run of site A situation where a company pays for
banner advertisements to promote its services
across a web site.
Sales generation offers Offers that encourage
product trial. A coupon redeemed against a purchase
is a classic example.
Sales promotions The Internet offers tremendous
potential for sales promotions of different types
since it is more immediate than any other medium –
it is always available for communication, and
tactical variations in the details of the promotion
can be made at short notice.
Satisficing behaviour Consumers do not behave
entirely rationally in product or supplier selection.
They will compare alternatives, but then may make
their choice given imperfect information.
Saturation of the Internet Access to the Internet will
reach saturation as home PC ownership reaches a
limit, unless other access devices become popular.
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Scenario-based analysis Models of the future
environment are developed from different starting
points.
Scenario of use A particular path or flow of events
or activities performed by a visitor to a web site.
Scripts Scripts can run either on the user’s browser
(client-side scripts) (see Web browser) or on the web
server (server-side scripts).
Search engine Specialised web site that uses
automatic tools known as spiders or robots to index
web pages of registered sites. Users can search the
index by typing in keywords to specify their
interest. Pages containing these keywords will be
listed, and by clicking on a hyperlink the user will
be taken to the site.
Search engine listing The list of sites and
descriptions returned by a search engine after a user
types in keywords.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) A structured
approach used to increase the position of a
company or its products in search engine natural or
organic results listings for selected keywords
or phrases.
Search engine ranking The position of a site on a
particular search engine, e.g. 3rd.
Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) A standard for
public-key encryption intended to enable secure
e-commerce transactions lead-developed by
Mastercard and Visa.
Secure HTTP Encrypted HTTP.
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) A commonly used
encryption technique for scrambling data such as
credit card numbers as they are passed across the
Internet from a web browser to a web server.
Security methods When systems for electronic
commerce are devised, or when existing solutions
are selected, the following attributes must be present:
1 Authentication – are parties to the transaction who
they claim to be? This is achieved through the
use of digital certificates.
2 Privacy and confidentiality – are transaction data
protected? The consumer may want to make an
anonymous purchase. Are all non-essential traces
of a transaction removed from the public
network and all intermediary records eliminated?
3 Integrity – checks that the message sent is
complete, i.e. that it is not corrupted.
4 Non-repudiability – ensures sender cannot deny
sending message.
5 Availability – how can threats to the continuity
and performance of the system be eliminated?
Seeding The viral campaign is started by sending an
e-mail to a targeted group that are likely to
propagate the virus.
Sense and respond communications Delivering
timely, relevant communications to customers as
part of a contact strategy based on assessment of
their position in the customer lifecycle and
monitoring specific interactions with a company’s
web site, e-mails and staff.
Segmentation Identification of different groups
within a target market in order to develop different
offerings for each group.
Sell-side e-commerce E-commerce transactions
between a supplier organisation and its customers.
Server log file See Online web metrics.
Service quality The level of service received on a
web site. Dependent on reliability, responsiveness
and availability of staff and the web site service.
Serving Used to describe the process of displaying
an advertisement on a web site (ad serving) or
delivering a web page to a user’s web browser. (See
Web server.)
Share of search The audience share of Internet
searchers achieved by a particular audience in a
particular market.
Share of voice The relative advertising spend of the
different competitive brands within the product
category. Share of voice (SOV) is calculated by
dividing a particular brand’s advertising spend by
the total category spend.
Session See Visitor session.
Session cookie A cookie used to manage a single
visitor session.
Short Message Service (SMS) The formal name for
text messaging.
Site See Web site.
Site announcements Usually used to describe the
dissemination of information about a new or revised
web site.
Site auditors Auditors accurately measure the usage
for different sites as the number of ad impressions
and clickthrough rates. Auditors include ABC (Audit
Bureau of Circulation) and BPA (Business
Publication Auditor) International.
Site availability An indication of how easy it is to
connect to a web site as a user. In theory this figure
should be 100 per cent, but for technical reasons
such as failures in the server hardware or upgrades
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to software, sometimes users cannot access the site
and the figure falls below 90 per cent.
Site design template A standard page layout format
which is applied to each page of a web site.
Site map A graphical or text depiction of the
relationship between different groups of content on
a web site.
Site measurement See Web site measurement.
Site navigation scheme Tools provided to the user to
move between different information on a web site.
Site re-launch Where a web site is replaced with a
new version with a new ‘look and feel’.
Site statistics Collected by log file analysers, these
are used to monitor the effectiveness of a web site.
Site ‘stickiness’ An indication of how long a visitor
stays on a site. Log file analysers can be used to
assess average visit times.
Site visit One site visit records one customer visiting
the site. Not equivalent to User session.
Site-visitor activity data Information on content
and services accessed by e-commerce site visitors.
Sitemapping tools These tools diagram the layout of
the web site, which is useful for site management,
and can be used to assist users.
Situation analysis Collection and review of
information about an organisation’s external
environment and internal processes and resources
in order to inform its strategies.
SMART metrics SMART metrics must be:
Specific;
Measurable;
Actionable;
Relevant;
Timely.
Smartcards Physical cards containing a memory
chip that can be inserted into a smartcard reader
before items can be purchased.
Social exclusion Part of society is excluded from the
facilities available to the remainder.
Soft lock-in Electronic linkages between supplier
and customer increase switching costs.
Software agents See Agents.
Spam Unsolicited e-mail (usually bulk mailed and
untargeted).
Spamming Bulk e-mailing of unsolicited mail.
Specific offline advertising Driving traffic to the web
site or explaining the online proposition is a
primary objective of the advert.
Spider A tool, also known as a robot, that is
employed by search engines to index web pages of
registered sites on a regular basis.
Splash page A preliminary page that precedes the
normal home page of a web site. Site users can
either wait to be redirected to the home page or can
follow a link to do this. Splash pages are not now
commonly used since they slow down the process
whereby customers find the information they need.
Sponsorship Sponsorship involves a company paying
money to advertise on a web site. The arrangement
may involve more than advertising. Sponsorship is a
similar arrangement to co-branding.
Stage models Models for the development of
different levels of Internet marketing literature.
Stages in web site development The standard stages
of creation of a web site are initiation, feasibility,
analysis, design, development (content creation),
testing and maintenance.
Static (fixed) web page A page on the web server
that is invariant.
STEP A framework for assessing the
macroenvironment, standing for Social, Technological,
Economic and Political (including legal).
Storyboarding Using static drawings or screenshots
of the different parts of a web site to review the
design concept with customers or clients.
Strategic analysis Collection and review of
information about an organisation’s internal
processes and resources and external marketplace
factors in order to inform strategy definition.
Strategic positioning Performing different activities
from rivals or performing similar activities in
different ways.
Strategy formulation Generation, review and
selection of strategies to achieve strategic objectives.
Strategy process model A framework for
approaching strategy development.
Streaming media Sound and video that can be
experienced within a web browser before the whole
clip is downloaded.
Style guide A definition of site structure, page
design, typography and copy defined within a
company. (See Graphic design.)
Subject access request A request by a data subject to
view personal data from an organisation.
Superstitials Pop-up adverts that require interaction
to remove them.
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Surfer An undirected information seeker who is
often looking for an experience rather than
information.
Symmetric encryption Both parties to a transaction
use the same key to encode and decode messages.
Tagging Tracking of the origin of customers and
their spending patterns.
Target marketing strategy Evaluation and selection
of appropriate segments and the development of
appropriate offers.
Targeting (through banner advertisers) Advertising
networks such as DoubleClick offer advertisers the
ability to target advertisements dynamically on the
World Wide Web through their ‘DART’ targeting
technology. This gives advertisers a means of
reaching specific audiences.
Technology convergence A trend in which different
hardware devices such as TVs, computers and phone
merge and have similar functions.
Telemarketing using the Internet Mainly used for
inbound telemarketing, including sales lines,
carelines for goods and services and response
handling for direct response campaigns.
Telnet A program that allows remote access to data
and text-based programs on other computer systems
at different locations. For example, a retailer could
check to see whether an item was in stock in a
warehouse using a telnet application.
Template See Site design template.
Test web site A parallel version of the site to use
before the site is made available to customers as a
live web site.
Testing content Testing should be conducted for
plug-ins; for interactive facilities and integration
with company databases; for spelling and grammar;
for adherence to corporate image standards; for
implementation of HTML in different web
browsers; and to ensure that links to external sites
are valid.
Testing phase Testing involves different aspects of
the content such as spelling, validity of links,
formatting on different web browsers and dynamic
features such as form filling or database queries.
Third-party cookies Served by another site to the
one being viewed – typical for portals where an ad
network will track remotely or where the web
analytics software places a cookie.
Tipping point Using the science of social epidemics
explains principles that underpin the rapid spread of
ideas, products and behaviours through a population.
Trademark A trademark is a unique word or phrase
that distinguishes your company. The mark can be
registered as plain or designed text, artwork or a
combination. In theory, colours, smells and sounds
can also be trademarks.
Traffic-building campaign The use of online and
offline promotion techniques such as banner
advertising, search engine promotion and
reciprocal linking to increase the audience of a site
(both new and existing customers).
Transaction log file A web server file that records all
page requests.
Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
The passing of data packets around the Internet
occurs via TCP/IP. For a PC to be able to receive web
pages or for a server to host web pages it must be
configured to support this protocol.
Trusted third parties (TTPs) Companies with which
an agreement has been reached to share information.
Undirected information seeker A person who does
not know what information they are looking for –
a surfer.
Uniform (universal) resource locator (URL) Text that
indicates the web address of a site. A specific
domain name is typed into a web browser window
and the browser will then locate and load the web
site. It is in the form of:
http://www
.domain-name.extension/filename.html
.
Unique visitors Individual visitors to a site
measured through cookies or IP addresses on an
individual computer.
Unsubscribe An option to opt out from an e-mail
newsletter or discussion group.
Upload The transfer of files from a local computer to
a server. Usually achieved using FTP. E-mail or web
site pages can be uploaded to update a remote server.
Up-selling Persuading existing customers to
purchase more expensive products (typically related
to existing purchase categories).
URL strategy A defined approach to how content is
labelled through placing it in different directories or
folders with distinct web addresses.
Usability An approach to web site design intended
to enable the completion of user tasks.
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