Dictionary of Terms
At ClickMagick, we work with a lot of people who are new to online marketing and new to the whole idea of tracking. We’ve found that these new marketers often get thrown by the terminology that their online mentor is using, or that we use ourselves when we’re not thinking about it.
We’ve compiled a list of terms that you’re likely to run across when learning about online marketing. This list doesn’t include all the terms you’ll need to understand as an online marketer, but it’s a good start.
This list of definitions is also pretty loose in that the definitions give a quick overview of how people actually use the terms in the context of click-tracking and funnel management. For example, the entry for “CNAME record” could go on for pages, but in terms of ClickMagick, the only use is for creating a custom marketing domain (see the CNAME entry) so that’s all that’s covered here.
A Record
An “A Record” is a DNS record that lets you set the hostname of a domain to a specific IP address using the actual IP address. Compare this with a CNAME Record which lets you set the hostname of a domain to a specific IP address by using the textual name of the target domain, e.g., `www.clkmg.com`. The DNS mechnism will automatically convert the textual domain to the actual IP address when necessary. These two DNS entries for `rotate.yourdomain.com` would do exactly the same thing:
`A rotate 50.97.212.251
CNAME rotate www.clkmr.com`
These behave identically because the IP address of `www.clkmr.com` is `50.97.212.251`. The one exception to this is when you don’t want a hostname at all, such as just `yourdomain.com`. In this case, you would set the hostname in the A Record to the `@` character:
`A @ 50.97.212.251`
Setting a CNAME record to the `@` character causes subtle problems so you should never do that.
Actions
Action Tracking Pixel
Affiliate Network
Attribution
When a pixel fires, a postback is generated, or a FunnelMagick goal is met, the corresponding Action, Engagement, or Sales conversion is “attributed” to the tracking or funnel stats. The “conversion” is what happened; the “attribution” is where it’s recorded. For example, in the Pixel Builder, the atttribution setting tells ClickMagick which tracking link should record the conversion.
Autoresponder
The term “autoresponder” is used in a couple of different, but similar ways. In most cases, when somebody says, “autoresponder”, they mean the tool, or piece of software, that will automatically send out a series of pre-written email messages to somebody you put on an email list.
For example, if you’ve ever entered your email on a website and then got a series of email messages over the next few weeks, you were put on an autoresponder and that tool set you the pre-written emails you got.
Long ago, the word “autoresponder” meant the actual email message, not the tool. That’s because the original autoresponders were always just a single auto-reply message such as, “I’m out of the office until...”. You’ll still see this antiquated form used every now and then, but it’s pretty much dead at this point.
Bridge Page
See “Landing Page.”
CPA
Cost per Action. This is how much you’ve paid for each Action. You’ll only see something here if you are tracking actions and you’ve entered cost data. See “Action”.
CPC
Cost per Click. This is how much you’re paying for your traffic, expressed in terms of Cost Per Click. You’ll only see something here if you’ve entered cost data for your link in the Advanced Settings section of your tracking link, or in the setting for your Entry Link to a FunnelMagick funnel.
CPI
Cost per Install.
CPL
Cost per Lead.
CPM
Cost per Million. This is the cost per millions of impressions on a website. Just note that one web page might have more than one banner or ad so the number of page views can be different from the number of impressions.
CPS
Cost per Sale. This is how much you’ve paid for each sale. You’ll only see something here if you are tracking sales and you’ve entered cost data. Note the the sale is the total amount for each Unique Click or Unique Visitor. For example, if one Unique Visitor bought 3 upsells in addition to the primary offer, that would be one total sale in the stats with a total sales amount of all 4 purchases.
Checkout Page
Generally speaking, a “Checkout Page” is a page in a funnel where the visitor is asked to make some sort of payment. If the payment is processed successfully, the visitor is redirected to a “Thank You” page. See “Order Page” for a similar term.
Cloaking

|  | What is link “cloaking” and when do I need it?

|  | How do I set up a cloaked custom domain?

|  | How do I cloak or uncloak an existing custom domain?

CNAME record
A CNAME Record is a DNS record that lets you set the hostname of a domain to a specific IP address using the textual name of the target domain, e.g., `www.clkmg.com`. Compare this to an “A Record” which lets you set the hostname of a domain to a specific IP address using the actual IP address. The DNS mechnism will automatically convert the textual domain to the actual IP address when necessary. These two DNS entries for `rotate.yourdomain.com` would do exactly the same thing:
`CNAME rotate www.clkmr.com
A rotate 50.97.212.251`
These behave identically because the IP address of `www.clkmr.com` is `50.97.212.251`. The one exception to this is when you don’t want a hostname at all, such as just `yourdomain.com`. In this case, you would set the hostname in the A Record to the `@` character:
`A @ 50.97.212.251`
Setting a CNAME record to the `@` character causes subtle problems so you should never do that.
Conversion
When an pixel fires, a postback is made, or a FunnelMagick goal is met, that triggers a “conversion” which simply tells ClickMagick exactly what just happened. ClickMagick then needs to take that conversion event and record it in the stats of a tracking link, rotator link, or FunnelMagick funnel. The exact place where the new stat is recorded is called an “attribution” because the conversion is attributed to it.
Cookie
The word “cookie” is just a goofy term for the way websites can have your browser store small pieces of data so the website works better as you move from page to page. For example, a cookie might contain your username or account name. A cookie might contain your current preference settings for the website.
If you’ve ever heard the idea of dropping little breadcrumbs so you can find your way back home properly, that’s kinda like what cookies are—tiny pieces of data that the website drops so it can help keep things straight as you click on different pages in the site.
CTR
Click Through Rate. The CTR is the percentage of people who click on a link, either on a web page or in an email message. For example, if you send an email with a link to your offer and nobody clicks on that link, your CTR for that link would be 0%, which is really bad! If you have a low CTR for a link, that’s an opportunity to improve something to increase that rate. This is where split-testing can help you out by allowing you to test a modified version of your web page or email against your current one to see which version produces a higher CTR.
Custom Domain
In ClickMagick, a “custom domain” is a personalized domain that you would buy from a domain registrar and then configure to work with ClickMagick. For instance, if you marketed skateboards for kids, you could register a domain like `kidzskateboards.com` and use that instead of our generic `clkmg.com`, `clkmr.com` and `clkfm.com` domains in your tracking links. For online marketers, it’s considered a Best Practice to always use custom domains with the online services that you use. That includes your tracking service, your autoresponder, your Page Builder, and so on. If you use the generic domains for these services, those domains are shared with thousands of other marketers and any number of them can get the generic domain blacklisted for a short time while things get sorted out. You avoid that possibility by using your own custom domains.
Deprecated
In computer software, the word “deprecated” means that a feature is no longer officially supported and is likely to be removed in the future. In other words, if you discover that you’re using a deprecated feature, you should stop using it as soon as possible and use the suggested replacement instead.
Basically, marking something as “deprecated” is rather like marking it as “obsolete”, “discontinued”, or “unsupported”.
Direct Linking
Downsell
Engagements
Engagement Tracking Pixel
Funnel
Filtered Click
This an old name for what we are now calling a “flagged” click. We changed the name because the word “filtered” implied that clicks were being filtered from delivery when, in fact, only their counts were being filtered from the UC stat and added to the FC stat instead.
Flagged Click
HTML
Impression Tag
The term “impression tag” is another way of saying “tracking pixel.” In ClickMagick, we always refer to impression tags as tracking pixels, regardless of whether the pixels are implemented using HTML image tags or JavaScript code.
JavaScript
Landing Page
“Landing Page” is a somewhat generic term that means the first page of your funnel. A landing page could be an email opt-in page, it could be a video sales page, or any other type of page. The key point is that it’s the first page your visitor sees after they click on your traffic link.
Life Time Value (LTV)
Masking
Offer
Offer Page
Opt-in Page
Order Page
An “Order Page” is a page where a user is asked to make some type of exchange, usually by entering some sort of payment information, but it doesn’t have to be. A “Checkout Page” pretty much always means a payment page, whereas an Order Page includes non-monetary exchanges as well. For example, maybe you have a page that converts video files from one format to another. The page where the person uploads their video could be considered an “order” page, and the converted video would be returned on the Thank You page that’s displayed next.
OTO
“OTO” is an acronym for “one-time-offer.” A one-time-offer is a sales approach that uses fear-of-loss to get you to buy something by suggesting that you will only be given a discounted offer a single time.
Page Builder
A Page Builder is a tool that helps people build their websites much more quickly than writing everything directly in HTML. Page Builders provide pre-built web pages that you then modify to suit your needs. Page Builders can be a desktop or mobile applications, but more often than not, they are online web development tools. If you’ve ever seen an advertisement promoting that you can build a website “in minutes,” that’s a Page Builder.
Pixel
A “pixel” is a single dot on your video screen. The word “pixel” is short for the term “picture element.” A “tracking pixel” is a piece of HTML code or JavaScript code that uses a display pixel to determine whether a web page has been visited or not. When you hear the terms “pixel” and “tracking pixel” just understand that they are two very different things, just as a “letter opener” and a “letter” are two very different things. See Tracking Pixel. That said, when you hear the word “pixel” in the context of tracking, people are, in fact, talking about tracking pixels.
Postback URL
A Postback URL is a special URL used in server-to-server communications. With an affiliate network, a
PPV
Proxy
Query String
Reference Field
Retargeting
Rotator
Sales Tracking Pixel
Sandwich Page
See “Landing Page.”
“Spend” as in “monthly spend”
Split Test
Squeeze Page
A “squeeze page” is a generic term for any type of page where you’re collecting information from your visitors. An email opt-in page is the most common type of squeeze page. You can remember this by thinking of “squeezing information out of them.”
Thank You Page
A “Thank You” page is a page in a funnel that the visitor is sent to after completing a task, typically one in which they were asked for some type of information, such as entering their email address, or making a payment. The Thank You page doesn’t have to say, “Thank You”. The page could be an upsell page, an eBook download page, or any other page that immediately follows an information request page.
Token
Tracking Code
Tracking Pixel
Upsell
URL