• by Johanne Torres , June 18, 2002

CPA—Cost per Action. This pricing structure is determined by the amount of “actions” that a website delivers to an advertiser by running their ad. “Actions” are defined as sales (online and offline), leads, form fill-outs, downloads of software programs, etc.

CPC—Cost per Click. Advertiser only pays if a website visitor clicks on the ad. This model is dependent on content, audience reach and targeted delivery and is generally paid for when all purchased clicks have been delivered.

CPL—Cost per Lead. The advertiser pays only for those clicks where users click through on an ad and generate a lead by filling out an online sales contact form or the like. The formula for determining cost per lead is: total cost of media divided by total number of leads generated.

CPM—Cost per Thousand. This pricing model is based on the purchase of a thousand banner impressions and is favored by advertisers running branding campaigns.

CPS—Cost per Sale. The average marketing or advertising expenditure needed to generate a single sale. Sales are tracked with cookies to determine completed transactions.

CTR—Click-Through Rate. Measures the response rate of an online advertisement. It is calculated by dividing the number of click-throughs the ad receives by the number of impressions and multiplying the result by 100 to obtain a percentage. — Johanne M. Torres