There\’s a look that I\’ve seen way too many times. It doesn\’t happen often, but even once is enough.
I\’ll be standing in front of an audience at a conference or teaching a class, and I\’ll see my audience\’s eyes glaze over. Instead of looking at me, they start looking at the conference program or at their watch or at anything but me.
It\’s a look that says I\’ve lost them.
Whenever that happens, I know it\’s because I messed up. I\’ve said that something that\’s left those audience members behind.
Nine times out of ten, it\’s a piece of Internet marketing jargon that they\’re just not familiar with.
For those of us who have been on the Web for a while, it\’s just too easy to forget that there are new people coming in all the time. And those people have yet to learn all the terms and expressions used on the Web.
I\’ll try to remember not to use jargon in my posts in future, and for those of you who are just getting started in online marketing, here\’s a quick glossary of the most common terms you\’ll come across:
CTR or Click Through Rate refers to the percentage of users on your site who click an ad link.
CPC or Cost Per Click refers to the amount a publisher receives or an advertiser pays for each click.
CPM or Cost Per Mil refers to the amount paid for showing an ad 1,000 times.
eCPM or Effective Cost Per Mil refers to the amount earned for every thousand impressions. Some ads pay per click; others pay per thousand impressions. If you\’re earning per click you can calculate how much you\’re earning per thousand impressions by dividing your total earnings by the number of impressions you\’ve received and multiplying by a thousand. It can be a useful statistic.
My apologies to people who knew all that, but here\’s the point for you. Don\’t make the mistake of believing that all your readers know as much — or almost as much — as you. Make your content as inclusive as possible, from beginners to advanced users, and you\’ll increase your readership, and your revenue base.