basics of marketing

B2C: [b2c] B2C refers to business-to-consumer trade, retail trade. Similarly B2B refers to business-to-business, distribution channel (value chain). C2B refers to consumer-to-business, and uses a reverse pricing model (Priceline for example). C2C refers to consumer-to-consumer, an auction-style model (eBay for example).

CPM, PPC, CPC, CPA: [cpm] CPM (Cost per 1,000), PPC (Pay per Click), CPC (Cost per Click) and CPA (Cost per Action) are types business models for calculating the charge for pages (advertisements) being served. CPM is a holdover from traditional media advertising, and does not take advantage of the Hypertext nature of the medium. It charges purely on the number of times the advertisement is served. It does account for branding effects that are not accounted for in the other models. PPC and CPC refer to a cost (payment) associated with each click on the advertisement to the target page. CPA is a cost associated with each lead created from a click on the advertisement (CPL), or each sale (CPS). Both PPC / CPC and CPA are much more accountable means of developing a price for the advertisement, and either are also used for affiliate programs and text advertisements on search engines. They become a variable cost in terms of generating the number of people exposed to the target page (this number is based on the CTR from the host vehicle), the number of leads generated (CPL) or the number of sales (CPS). The downside for the vehicles is they do not control the design of the banner (poor design = low click-through etc.) and they are not rewarded for the branding effect of the banner. Click fraud is also an increasing problem.

CTR: [ctr] CTR (Click-Through Rate) is the number of times an advertisement is clicked upon over the number of times the advertisement is served. Typical click-through rates have been declining (a click through rate of 1% would be very high). While click through rates help determine the effectiveness of the online advertisement, advertisements also contain a branding impact. The click-through rate will determine the cost of an advertising campaign that was based on PPC / CPC and CPA.

Hits: [hit] Hits refer to the number of files served when users access a web page. Total hits for a page will therefore equal the number of times the page is accessed X the number of files included on a page. Thus a page that includes one graphic file will serve two files when it is accessed; the html file of the page, and the image file the page calls. This is a metric that is often misused when media quote the activity a web page receives. (To double the number of hits, simply double the number of files the page includes.) Better metrics, for web analytics, include impressions and page views.

RSS: [rss] RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a means of distributing dynamic content (content syndication), using the XML format, to subscribers of that content. In order for a user to subscribe, he / she will need to sign up for a news reader aggregator (Bloglines etc.) RSS has become a popular technology for bloggers and podcasters to distribute their content, essentially 'pushing' content out to subscribers of the content rather than relying on readers to visit the site to determine if there is new content. RSS is also useful for news organizations which publish content as a matter of their business model (and update regularly). Examples include CNN and India Times. It would be useful for companies that publish news releases of newsletters for subscribers in e-mail form. While RSS does require a reader to subscribe to a news aggregator before accessing content (this may soon be bundled with the web browser which will surely impact its rate of adoption) it avoids the problem plaguing e-mail distribution of content: SPAM.