Glossary
The terms you’ll meet when you buy ads with us
Plain definitions of the placements, prices and numbers on our publisher pages and quotes, and what each one means when you’re planning a campaign.
Pricing
How the prices on a quote are worked out, and how to compare two of them.
- Flat rate
A fixed price for one placement in one send, whatever the number of opens or clicks.
On BuySellAds: most newsletters we book quote a flat rate per slot, with the top slot costing more. To compare two flat quotes, work out the cost per thousand opens.
- How much does it cost to sponsor a developer newsletter?Journal guide, 5 min read
- CPMcost per milleOwn page
The price for 1,000 impressions of an ad. “Mille” is Latin for thousand.
On BuySellAds: newsletters mostly don’t sell on CPM; ad networks that place one ad across many small newsletters do. Carbon is priced on CPM, quoted per campaign.
Newsletter CPM, explained- Cost per thousand opens
A check you run yourself to compare flat newsletter quotes on the same footing.
price ÷ (subscribers × open rate) × 1,000
Example: a $2,000 slot in a 100,000-subscriber newsletter with a 40% open rate is about 40,000 opens, or $50 per thousand. A cheaper quote can still cost more per open.
- CPCcost per click
A price paid for each click on the ad, not for showing it.
On BuySellAds: you’ll see per-click pricing mainly on ad networks. The newsletters we book price per placement.
- Contact for pricingOn Discover
What most placements on Discover show instead of a rate.
Why: a newsletter’s price depends on your dates, the slot and how many other sponsors share the issue, so we get the actual quote when we plan the campaign.
- Media brief
The short document that tells a media team what a campaign is for: goal, audience, budget, dates and what success looks like.
Newsletter placements
The slots you can buy in a newsletter, as they’re named on publisher pages.
Paying for an ad inside a newsletter’s regular issue, usually written to match the newsletter’s voice.
- How to sponsor developer newslettersJournal guide, 7 min read
- Newsletters you can advertise in
- Primary placementalso: primary ad, top slotOn DiscoverOwn page
The main sponsor slot in an issue, usually near the top. It costs more than other slots in the same send.
Newsletter ad placements, compared- Secondary placementOn Discover
A slot further down the issue, usually smaller and cheaper than the primary.
- Dedicated sendalso: dedicated emailOn DiscoverOwn page
An email sent to the whole list about one sponsor only, instead of a slot in the regular issue.
Dedicated email, explained- Is a dedicated send worth the extra cost?A question in How much does it cost to sponsor a developer newsletter?
- Sendalso: issue, edition
One edition of a newsletter delivered to its subscribers. Newsletters sell placements per send.
Audience numbers
The stats on each publisher page, and how much weight to give them.
- SubscribersOn Discover
The people on a newsletter’s list.
Read it with: the open rate. Opens tell you how many people will see your ad; subscribers alone don’t.
- Open rateOn DiscoverOwn page
The share of subscribers who open a send, as the newsletter reports it.
Worth knowing: some email apps open messages automatically, which can raise reported open rates. Compare newsletters on the same basis, and ask how a number is measured.
What’s a good open rate? See the data- CTRclick-through rateOn DiscoverOwn page
Clicks divided by the number of people who saw the ad.
Ask: divided by what? Opens, delivered emails and impressions give very different numbers for the same campaign.
Newsletter CTR, with Discover data- Downloads per monthOn Discover
How many times a podcast’s episodes are downloaded in a month, the usual way podcasts report audience size.
- Impression
One time an ad is shown to someone. Websites and ad networks count impressions; newsletters usually count opens instead.
Other channels
Beyond newsletters: the other ways publishers on Discover carry ads.
- Sponsored contentalso: sponsored article
An article the publisher runs with or about a brand, labelled as sponsored.
- How to Reach Developers with Sponsored ContentJournal guide, 8 min read
- Native ad
An ad designed to fit the look of the site it runs on, rather than a standard banner.
On BuySellAds: Carbon runs native ads on developer sites.
- Display adalso: banner
An image ad in a fixed slot on a website, such as a sidebar or the top of the page.
- Podcast ad
An ad in a podcast episode, often read by the host.
- Mid-roll
An ad placed partway through a podcast episode or video, rather than at the start (pre-roll) or end (post-roll).
- Content discovery
Recommendation units, usually below an article, that suggest other stories, some of them sponsored.
- How Content Discovery Should Fit Into Your Marketing StrategyJournal guide, 9 min read
Measuring results
How to tell what a campaign did.
- UTM parameters
Tags added to a link so your analytics can tell where a visit came from.
Tip: give each newsletter its own tagged link, so you can compare them after the run.
- View-through attribution
Giving an ad credit for a conversion when someone saw it but didn’t click, within a set window of time.
- How to Find the Right View-Through Conversion WindowJournal guide, 4 min read
- Conversion
The action a campaign is meant to produce, such as a sign-up, a demo request or a purchase. Agree what counts before the campaign starts.
For publishers
Terms you’ll meet if you sell ads on your newsletter or site.
- Ad inventory
The placements a publisher has available to sell.
- ads.txt
A public file on a website that lists the companies allowed to sell its ad space, so buyers can check a seller is authorized.
- Website ad formats
The units our ad script can place on a site: Flex Bar, Responsive Banner, Hover Card, Sticky Box, and Fancy Bar.
Planning a campaign?
Tell us your audience and budget, and we’ll come back with publishers and real quotes.