In today’s mobile application world, the terminology and technology can move faster than the creative thinkers and businesses, and we at Social Times thought we could help by putting together the Mobile Marketing Dictionary. The dictionary has all the terms that you’re going to encounter as you try to buy advertising on mobile applications, publish advertising on your own mobile application or get installations for your mobile app. Read the dictionary below and please let us know if there’s a term you’re curious about or one we missed.

Ad Optimization

Automated and semi-automated means of optimizing bid prices, placement, targeting, or other characteristics that are usually carried out in 3 manners: behavioral targeting, contextual targeting, and creative optimization using experimental techniques.

Analytics

System for tracking user behavior on the app/game both from a user experience and advertisement perspective. Analytics help developers understand trends within their app/game and optimize the user flow for maximum engagement and user retention.

Android OS

Google’s official mobile operating system.

Badges

Badges are tangential achievements that are separate from levels that players achieve by earning experience points. Players can earn various badges for completing various tasks.

Banner Ads

Basic ad units that are usually embedded within a site, application or game and come usually in a high-aspect ratio shape such as narrow and tall or short and wide. These ad sizes tend to be sized according to IAB standards.

Carrier / Mobile Network Operator

Also known as MNO, a mobile network operator is a telecommunications company that provides various services to subscribers of mobile phone plans. MNOs have to obtain a radio spectrum license prior to offering mobile services. They also have their own technology types, such as GSM, GPRS and/or Edge.

Check-ins

A check-in is executed via a GPS enabled mobile device that allows a user to declare they are at a specific location. This check-in can be shared with others and is a prominent feature in the very popular social app Foursquare. Facebook has also begun offering check-ins using its Facebook Places API.

Conversions

A descriptor encompassing an end user converting to a paying user or a user that performs an action of some sort.

CPA

Cost per Acquisition. Refers to the overall costs associated with acquiring one user. This can be calculated by dividing total marketing costs by total number of new users.

CPA Offers

Offers users can fill out to earn virtual currency within a game. The developer of a game gets paid as an affiliate for whichever offer is filled out. These offers are largely aggregated by offer companies so developers don’t have to manually include them in their game.

CPM

Cost Per Thousand impressions. This is the revenue paid to the publisher by the advertiser for every thousand times the ad is shown.

Cross-platform

Software that can inter-operate on multiple computer architectures or operating systems. i.e. A player playing Farmville on Facebook and then continuing to play on an iPhone.

CTR

Click Thru Rate. This refers to the % of users that see an ad with some sort of call to action and click on the add to follow through. A higher click thru rate signals an enticing offering.

Direct Billing API

Direct Payment API that can be used to customize a purchase process that does not require the user to leave where they are. For example, a developer can offer an in-game purchase option to users using a service like Paypal where users can purchase virtual currency within the game without going to an external site.

Downloadable Content

Content that’s offered to users to extend the experience of a game and includes new levels, new items, and/or new challenges. DLC is a good way to increase user retention as players may grow tired of the older content.

eCPM

Effective Cost Per Thousand Impressions. This can be calculated by total earnings / impressions x 1000. This metric is associated with entities such as offer i-frames and help developers realize how much they are earning for every thousand users that visit their i-frame. Social game developers have seen eCPMs anywhere from $15 to $1000+.

Flash Lite

Adobe’s lightweight version of Flash for mobile devices. Flash lite is a client side technology used for developing applications and is compatible with most operating systems. Flash lite is also available for Android mobile devices as part of Google’s Android firmware update in version 2.2., although its future for iOS for remains nebulous.

Freemium Model

A type of business model that works by selling basic services, or a basic downloadable digital product, for free, while charging a premium price for advanced or special features.

GPS

Abbreviation for a ‘Global Positioning System’. Space-based global navigation satellite system that can provide accurate information about a linked devices’ location. Many mobile devices have GPS enabled, allowing them to know their location, find directions to a specific location, and see what else is around them.

HTML5

A new standard for displaying content on the web through browsers. HTML5 is the new rendition in work of HTML (hyper text markup language) that will be competing directly with Flash and includes features like video playback and drag-and-drop functionality.

Impressions

Everytime an ad is seen is one impression. Advertisers usually have a certain payout for every 1000 impressions their ad earns.

In-app store

The storefront within a game that showcases virtual goods for sale. Developers can manage the in-app store as they would any other store and use retail marketing techniques to drive virtual goods sales. This is strongest when coupled with in-app payments.

In-game Promotions

Offers that take place within a game, analogous to a direct payment system, that are usually shown to the users in the context of the game being played. Limited edition and time-sensitive offers have highest conversions.

Incentivized Invites

Invites users send out because of the promised gain of virtual currency for doing so.

Interactive Video Ads

Ad units that offer interaction to users such as some kind of a game (advergame) or a quiz, poll, task etc.

Interstitial Ads

A way of placing full page messages between the current and destination page within an app or game.

iOS

Apple’s official mobile operating system for the iPad, iPhone, iPod and to be announced devices, focusing on gesture based and multi-touch functionality.

Java ME

Java Platform Micro Edition. Java ME is designed to run on mobile devices and embedded systems

KPI

Key Performance Indicators. Managers overlook KPIs, often times comparing them with industry standards and competitor KPIs, to measure the health of their efforts. In games, metrics like Daily Active Users and Average Revenue Per User are often looked at to assess the success of a game

Location-Based Games

LBGs are casual games for smartphones that incorporate the location of players as part of their game dynamics. Traditional location based games usually incentivize users to ‘check-in’ to locations by physically being present there (checked via GPS) that result in free marketing for these locations. In exchange users may earn points and unlock badges.

Microtransactions

Also known as micropayments, these are small transactions that users make often to buy virtual currency and involve a small sum of money

MMS

Multimedia Messaging. Games can incorporate MMS to deliver personalized messages and notifications to players with images and sounds. Unlike SMS, MMS is not supported by every phone hence the developer is limited in the number of players it could reach.

Mobile Games

A video game played on a mobile device such as a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA or other handheld systems

Mobile Gaming Platform

A platform that enables developers to plug in features such as matchmaking, game servers, voice, achievements etc. to their games so developers don’t have to spend lots of resources developing their own. Examples include OpenFeint and Scoreloop.

Page Views

Everytime a page is visited counts as a page view. Page views help developers know where users are spending most time within their app/game and whether it is because they have trouble finding a way to other sections or simply because that specific page is really engaging.

Palm OS

Palm’s operating system for its devices

Pay By Phone

An alternative payment option that lets users pay through phones. Payment platforms lthat offer this include Boku and Zong, among others. The charge is added to the paying user’s cellphone bill. This is very helpful if the target demographics of a game lack credit cards or do not want to pay with them.

Pay Per Download / Pay Per Access

Users pay to acquire a specific piece of content or application. This is the traditional model used by App Stores such as those found in iOS or Android OS enabled devices where users can pay a fixed cost like 99 cents to download an app or game.

Pay Per Install

The price developers on app stores pay everytime users download their app/game through a platform within a app/game
Payout Rate

PDA

Personal Digital Assitant, also known as a PalmTop. These devices function like mini internet-enabled hand-held computers that are sufficiently smaller than laptops and can be used as mobile and/or media devices.

Premium SMS

Premium rate text messaging used to opt-in to special content such as ring tones.

Remote Tuning

Auto-adjustment of the price of a virtual item based on demand and the state of the virtual economy. The lowering of the price of a good could increase its demand and sale but dilute the exclusivity factor.

ROI

Return On Investment. A metric that describes how much money is gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount invested.

SDK

Software Developer Kit. Usually platforms provide developers with a set of development toolkits that enable creation of software packages, frameworks, apps etc. There is usually an SDK for each language that works on the platform that interfaces between the system to the programming language.

Smartphones

Advanced mobile devices with powerful processors, memory, and large screens (compared to basic feature phones) that usually have open operating systems installed

SMS

Text messaging service (opt-in) offered as a part of a mobile subscription plan for ALL mobile devices. SMS can be used to message other users, subscribe to something, pay for something and to receive notifications.

Sponsorships

These are payouts to developers of apps whereby a company integrates its brand within a game, either as ad units (that can be placed in different formats and ways) or branded virtual goods.

Subscriptions

The business model where users have full access to an app/game but pay a monthly or weekly fee

Symbian OS

Nokia’s mobile operating system

Targeted Advertising

A form of advertising whereby advertisements are placed so as to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, purchase history, or observed behavior. A specific ad which would be meant for a specific type of consumer is shown and usually served based on information gathered through planting of a pixel or cookie. CPA offers in games that are served by a third party system are all targeted to the user to drive maximum conversions.

Timed Access

A trial model whereby the users are charged for access to the app/game. Games like World of Warcraft

Up-Sell

To funnel a user towards some kind of a paid model. I.e. an iPhone app developer releasing a free version of a game to gain exposure to a larger audience and converting a percentage of those free users to users who pay for the priced version.

Virtual Currency

The currency within a game that can be single or come in dual states: the regular, earned currency and the premium currency that can only be bought for real money.

Virtual Economy

The overall buying and selling that is taking place within a game. Virtual economies are comprised of sinks (where virtual currency can be spent) and sources (where virtual currency can be earned).

Virtual Goods

The virtual items that are bought with virtual currency. There are essentially three types of virtual goods: decorative, functional and hedonistic (social). which confer some sort of advantage to the owner.

Wagered Tournaments

Users may wager virtual currency or real currency to enter tournaments of games of skill wherein the winner or a number of winners take all.

WAP

Abbreviation for Wireless Application Protocol. A standard for application-layer network communications in wireless environments. WAP sites can be accessed using generally any mobile phone or PDA.