Internet jargon can sometimes be very confusing, even for most experienced marketing professional. One such example is difference between, what are called Ad impressions and click- throughs.

An Ad impression is simply number of times your Ad, be it banner, button, or text link, has been or will be exposed to a potential viewer. Simply put it is number of times that image appeared on any computer screen anywhere in world. As an advertiser this is least advantageous way to purchase advertising. Yes, it may be least expensive, but when we look at facts, is it really?

A click-through is actual number of times someone has taken their curser and placed it on your advertising image and used their mouse to click on that image and be taken to your site. This is most advantageous way to purchase advertising for advertiser, because it really takes all guess work out of equation. You'll know exactly how many visitors will visit your site relative to ad purchase and then it's your job to make sale, or increase your CR ( more about CR as we get further into article.)

CPM, "Cost per thousand" is one of yardsticks used by sellers of advertising space to price ad sales for impressions. Those that are selling advertising will sell advertiser a specific number of impressions (number of times that image appears on any computer screen anywhere in world and presumably is seen by your visitors.) A CPM rate of $25 is probably about average for larger agencies, while a CPM of $10 or below, is normal for smaller entrepreneurial operations.

With a CPM of $25' a purchase of 100,000 impressions will cost $2,500 ( $25 x 100 ), while with a CPM OF $10 those same impressions will cost $1,000 ( $10 x 100 ) The first thing you think here, is that a CPM of $10 is best deal. That's not even close to being true. In actuality CPM of $25 could produce hundreds of more sales than CPM of $10 thereby bringing in thousands of dollars more in revenue.

"How can that be you ask?" Well there are a number of other factors that must be computed before you can see whole Impressions Vs. Click-Throughs picture. One of those is CTR ( click-through rate ). The CTR is actual percentage of online visitors who clicked on ad to arrive at destination site via one of those "IMPRESSIONS", be it banner, button, or text link. Click-throughs are much more reliable and give a more accurate idea of performance of an Ad. For a click-through to register, a user must click on Ad.

For example, if you divide 2,900 clicks by 100,000 impressions, you get a click-through rate of 0.029, or 2.9%. This means that almost 3 banners were clicked for every 100 impressions. It also means that to get 10,000 visitors to your site using this method you'll need to purchase around 500,000 impressions.

See problem is locating productive methods of advertising.

THE EARLY EVOLUTION OF A NEW ONLINE BUSINESS

Most people are of mind that website itself is only form of advertising one actually needs. But when they realize that getting listed in search engines in a way that will actually drive traffic to their website is much harder than it seems, then people are driven to find a better way to advertise. Herein lies problem.

If you were to build your website and wait for people to come, only page views that you would see on your page counter are those that you have made to site yourself to be sure that it was truly working as designed. Are you going to be buying your own products? Certainly not. You need paying customers to come visit your website so that you can begin to see some sales.

Then you submit your site to search engines. If you were to wait for a time to see who comes from search engines, you might notice in your server logs that search engine spiders came to visit shortly after submitting your site to them. Although you have submitted your site and noticed spider came to your domain, you may not see your link in spider's parent search engine for several more days, weeks or months.

The long and short of it is that although you are working in real-time environment of web, your new site may not receive traffic by its own merits until a good six months after you first build it. That is not exactly what you had in mind, is it?

The next thing you might notice is that when your link begins appearing in search engine results, your search keywords will not present your website in top 200 results. Bear in mind that appearing in top 200 results means nothing in real world. Few people will click through to see results deeper than first 20 results.

SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM THE MASSES

Most people will not begin to generate an income from their online endeavors until they have spent some time beating their heads against brick wall. However, when you know what to do, you can begin to turn a slow profit until you learn enough to begin to earn an actual living online.

The trick is in learning what to do to generate sales and turn a profit.

This is step in process that you should begin to depart from ways of masses. Most turn to free advertising or non-productive paid advertising.

Advertising should not be free. Oh sure, there is free advertising available, but good advertising is not free!