The Commerce Content Dictionary

Advertiser

A company that advertises a product, a service, or an event. Advertisers in the area of Commerce Content value the informative aspect of the advertising format as well as the often utilized Affiliate Marketing concepts to pay for the advertising service.

Affiliate Network

An Affiliate network acts as an intermediary between advertisers and publishers. Affiliate networks focus on the provision of tracking technology and act as a tracking partner, as well as the connection of many advertisers to many publishers. They encourage advertisers to provide marketing campaigns and publishers to generate relevant, converting traffic for advertisers. While most advertisers involved in Affiliate Marketing use Affiliate Networks to provide offers and tracking, some advertisers deploy their own tracking technology as well as selected Publishers to collaborate directly. 

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is an advertising model in which a company (advertiser) compensates a publisher (Affiliate) to generate traffic, leads or purchases for its products and services. The advertiser pays a commission per successful transaction (also CPA “Cost-per-Action” or CPO “Cost-per-Order”). Affiliate Marketing is one of the most prominent forms of collaboration between advertisers and publishers within Commerce Content, as it encourages quality and performance for the traffic the publisher is generating and a cost-effective payment model for advertisers. 

Audiences & Users

An audience in general stands for the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, or meeting. In marketing and publishing, the audience is the assembled set of users of a publication. A user hereby is every individual, visiting a publication for gathering information.

Commerce Content

Commerce Content stands for shopping-related digital content aiming to help users with their purchase decisions, while simultaneously also helping advertisers to sell products and services. It forms an active part of a consumer path to purchase. Commerce Content can come in different formats (texts, tables, tools), types of media (print, digital) or depths (from a single price point to an extensive product review).

Commerce Content partnership 

Any form of partnership between a Publisher and a company providing Commerce Content services and technology. This can be among other areas around Content production, consultancy, tracking services or the provision of technology. 

Commerce Content publisher

Every publisher providing Commerce Content to its audiences

Commerce Content solution provider

A company providing solutions around Commerce Content to partners, mainly to publishers. The solutions are frequently a combination of services and technology. The solution provider acts as the export around a specific type of content with a team trained to scout and provide this content in a value adding way for consumers. The company often acts as a consultant/advisor to publishers in addition, how to introduce the solution in a way to create the highest value for the publisher and its audiences. 

Commerce Content types (digital)

Commerce Content comes in different types to the end consumer, often depending on the use cases they are tied to. While different types might cater to different user needs better or worse, the creators and publishers of Commerce Content choose the right types for their information and messages to consumers and for their advertisers. Typical types of Commerce Content art

  • Inspirational Articles
  • Comparison Tables
  • Videos
  • Shopping Guides
  • Tools & Calculators
  • Listacles
  • Price Comparisons
  • Cashback
  • Vouchers

Commerce Content verticals

Commerce Content can be categorized into verticals depending on which types of offers and services the content is about. Verticals often follow an e-commerce logic, ranging from Consumer goods like Fashion, Electronics or Home & Garden to Finance, Real Estate, Travel and Flight services, to Software or Services just to name a few.

Consumer and Shopper

Consumers and shoppers are individuals in a state-of-mind around shopping and consumption. While users of a service or website might only visit a place for seeking information, the state of mind of shopping makes them a (prospect) shopper or consumer. 

Consumer decision journey

The Consumer Decision Journey stands for a marketing framework describing the journey of a consumer or buyer before and after deciding on an individual purchase. The framework gets used by marketers to understand a potential buyers journey and correlated (information) needs to cater to them. Especially for Commerce Content publishers this (and other similar frameworks) are very helpful to understand which content can address a consumer (or user) at a given point in time and state of mind best. 

Similar frameworks in use: The Buyer’s journey, AIDA framework

Micro-moments

According to Think with Google, “Micro–moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped”. The goal of Commerce Content is to generate and initiate those micro-moments between individual shoppers and advertisers to facilitate transactions.

Publisher

In the context of the Commerce Content Collective, a publisher is an individual or corporation responsible for the provision of a digital publication. As we focus on the digital forms of Commerce Content, we mainly refer to companies with digital publications. Often, publishers we refer to are newspaper, magazine or other (mass) media publishers, but of course also other types of publishers would apply.  

Specialized Commerce Content publisher

A publisher specialized in the digital provision of Commerce Content. The company operates one or multiple websites that are dedicated to a specific type of Commerce Content with the main purpose to attract and inform audiences through this content. 

Shopper

See Consumer

User need/ user interest

It represents the motivator behind each piece of content that the user consumes online. The main motivators, user needs, or user interests behind online consumption are typically one of four types: communication, information, entertainment, or shopping.

Signals such as the time spent on-page, the clicks and engagement supplied to each content type, and purchases done inform Publishers and Commerce Content companies, which work constantly to respond by firstly, deliver more of what the user wants to read and consume, and secondly, anticipate upcoming needs. 

Different forms of content were developed in response to emerging user needs and continue to emerge as a result of user signals.