Glossary of Digital Advertising Terms
Since the first banner debuted some 26 years ago, the digital advertising world has evolved rapidly driven by technology, creating a cornucopia of new terminology and acronyms whether describing attribution, data, technology, movement and segmentation. No wonder thanks to geo-spatial ad tech the digital advertising industry is thriving. Now you can reacquaint or educate yourself in this comprehensive advertising glossary.
404 Error: Is a A “file not found” error for a web page that displays when a user attempts to access a URL that has been moved, renamed, or no longer exists.
AAS: Average-Active-Sessions are the average number of streams of one minute or more that are active within a time period.
Abandonment: when a user leaves a shopping cart with something in it prior to completing the transaction.
A/B Testing: is a method used to compare different versions of digital ads or website landing pages in order to determine which one performs better. A typical A/B test for ads involves running the two ads simultaneously and then measuring which version gets a better response from the audience. When running an A/B test, only one element of the ads should be changed at a time. This is because the goal of these tests is to determine which variables generate the best responses from the audience. Once a winner is selected, it is then used as the next control and compared with another version to isolate and identify, the ad element that causes the audience to respond favorably to the ad.
ABM: Account-based Marketing is one tactic in an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy. It’s the practice of serving display advertising only to specified titles at the target accounts you designate. For example, if you’re marketing a new type of food packaging to General Mills, you might target multiple levels of responsibility, such as Senior Product Manager, Senior Product Marketer, VP of Product Marketing. Only people who work at General Mills and have these titles would be shown your ads.
Ad Audience: The number of unique users exposed to an ad within a specified time period.
Ad Banner: is the most common form of digital advertising. These ad units, which include static graphics, videos, and/or interactive rich media, are displayed on a web page or in an application.
Ad Blocker: Software on a user’s browser which prevents advertisements from being displayed.
Ad Click: The user activity of pressing a navigation button or hitting the enter key on the keyboard or mouse on an advertisement on a webs site (see CTR).
Ad Exchange: is a technology-facilitated marketplace that allows Internet publishers and advertisers to buy and sell advertising inventory in real-time auctions. Ad exchanges are a departure from the historical method of buying ad inventory, where advertisers and publishers would enter price negotiations in order to show ads on a particular website. With an ad exchange, an auction is conducted in real-time, providing instantaneous bidding for ad space that’s available across the Internet.
Ad Family: A collection of one or more ad creatives, also known as an ad campaign.
Ad Hoc Reporting: Ad-hoc is a type of reporting queries that a done on the fly.
Ad Impressions: are the number of times an ad has been served, regardless of whether the user has actually seen or interacted with the ad in any way. (Also see: Ad Serving)
Ad Insertion: When an ad is inserted in a document and recorded by the ad server.
Ad Inventory: the aggregate number of opportunities near publisher content to display advertisements to visitors.
Ad Lob: An ad lob is an agency terms used to describe an ad-like object.
Ad Networks: are companies that resell traffic from publishers to advertisers providing an outsourced sales capacity for publishers.
Ad Ops: is a term describing the team and or function that is responsible for trafficking and optimizing digital ad campaigns.
Ad Request: The request for an advertisement as a direct result of a user’s action as recorded by the ad server. Ad requests can come directly from the user’s browser or from a content server.
Ad Rotation: An ad server is a web server dedicated to the delivery of advertisements. This specialization enables the tracking and management of advertising related metrics.
Ad Server: Is a server that hosts ad creatives in various formats such as native, mobile and video.
Ad Serving: is the delivery of an ad from a web server to the end user’s device, where the ads are displayed on a browser or an application.
Ad Space: The location on a page of a site in which an advertisement can be placed. Each space on a site is uniquely identified. Multiple ad spaces can exist on a single page.
Ad Tag: is a small piece of code that defines the ad space where ads display on a website. It includes parameters that describe the inventory advertising campaigns can target, which may in turn display ads in the ad space.
Ad Targeting: Delivering an ad to the appropriate audience. This may be done through behavioral targeting, contextual targeting or geographic targeting.
Ad Tracking: Are methods used to monitor and record when ads are being viewed by visitors to your site.
Ad Units: Is an ad or set of digital ads.
Ad View: a single ad that appears on a web page when the page arrives on the viewer’s display. Ad views are what most websites sell or prefer to sell. A web page may offer space for a new of different ad views. A more common term is impression.
Advertiser: the company paying for the advertisement.
Ad Verification Providers: are platforms that ensure the quality of traffic and targeting. These third party vendors also check whether the ads are placed appropriately on the publisher’s website.
Adware: Computer software provided to the user free of charge or at a discounted price that downloads and displays advertising to support its continued development and maintenance. This software often tracks what Internet sites the user visits.
Affiliate Marketing: an agreement between two sites in which one site (the affiliate) agrees to feature content or an ad designed to drive traffic to another site. In return, the affiliate receives a percentage of sales or some other form of compensation generated by that traffic.
Agency: an organization that, on behalf of clients, brands, plans social media marketing and advertising campaigns, drafts and produces advertisements, places advertisements in the media, performs SEO/SEM and web designs. In interactive advertising, agencies often use third party technology (ad servers) and may place advertisements with publishers, ad networks and other industry participants.
Alternate Text: a word or phrase that is displayed when a user has image loading disabled in their browser or when a user abandons a page by hitting stop in their browser prior to the transfer of all images. Alternate text also appears as a balloon text when a user lets their mouse pause temporarily over an image.
Analytics: is data and statistics about the users of a website and how they interact with the website. Analytics can be used to uncover information about how many people browse a website, how much time they spend on the website, and the specific actions they take on the website. This information is then used to target audiences, understand consumer behavior, improve user experience, and optimize advertising campaigns.
Animated Gif: an animation created by combining multiple gif images in one file. The result is multiple images, displayed sequentially, giving the appearance of movement.
Animation: a programmatically generated display of sequential images, creating the illusion that objects in the image are animated and moving.
Anonymizer: an intermediary which prevents webs sites from seeing a user’s internet protocol (IP) address.
API: Application Programming Interface is the language that programmers or developers use to communicate with a specific piece of software or hardware.
ATF: Above-The-Fold is a term derived from newspaper print advertising, this means that an ad is placed on a website above the scroll line as the page is viewed before any scrolling occurs.
Attribution: An audience is the group of people who visit a specific web site or who are reached by a specific ad network. The goal of attribution is to identify which touch, of the many possible, is most (or partially) responsible for a conversion, so ROI can be calculated. First touch, last touch, and multi-touch are common attribution models. For example, a sale might begin with an ad, lead to an email campaign, and end with a phone call from a salesperson. With first-touch attribution, the ad would get the entire credit for the sale. With last-touch, the phone call gets all the credit. With multi-touch, the ad, the email, and the phone call each get partial credit.
Audience: an audience is the group of people who visit a specific web site or who are reached by a specific ad network.
Average Active Sessions: the average number of streams of one minute or more that are active within a time period.
Average View Time: Refers to the average amount of time the video ad was played by users.
B2B: Business-To-Business is the exchange of products or services from one business to another business.
B2C: Business-To-Consumer is the exchange of products or services from a business directly to a consumer.
Banner Ad: is a graphic advertising image displayed on a web page also know as display ads, banner advertisements are a form of graphical ads embedded into a webpage, typically including a combination of static or animated images, text and or video designed to convey a marketing message and/or cause the user to take an action. Banner dimensions are typically defined by width and height, represented in pixels.
Behavioral Targeting: A type of advertising that allows advertisers to display relevant ads to suers based on their interests and web-browsing behavior.
Between The Pages: Also known as interstitial ads, between-the-page ad units display as a user navigates from one webpage to the next. The ad appears after the user leaves the initial page, but before the target page displays on the user’s screen. The ad is self-contained within within its own browser window and may not appear as an overlay on the target page content.
Bid: In a real time programmatic ad ecosystem the advertisers decide the amount they wish to pay for a specific ad impression. Factors such as the value of the audience, geo, time of day, context and other parameters influence that value.
Bounce Rate: calculated as a percentage, this compares the number of visitors to a website who arrive and immediately leave versus those who satay and spend time on the website. It is often used to measure the effectiveness of a website, a search campaign or an ad campaign.
Brand Awareness: an advertising campaign used to associate ad effectiveness to measure the impact of online advertising on key branding metrics.
Brand Brief: a document typically provided to agencies to distill important information inclusive of target audience, communication objectives, key points to communicate brand personality, and other considerations.
Brand Guidelines: a set of rules that explain the various rules surrounding the brand such as an overview of the brand messaging, vision, personality and key values.
Browser: is a software program with a graphical interface that people use to navigate all the information available on the World Wide Web. Examples include Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer.
BTF: Below The Fold is a term derived from newspaper print advertising, this means that an ad is placed on a website below the scroll line as the page is viewed before any scrolling occurs, out of view before scrolling.
Buyer Persona: Is a research-based representation of the ideal buyer for a company. You can transfer these personas to audiences for targeted campaigns.
Campaign: A series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme and advertising period in which an ad strategy is executed.
Campaign Brief: A document that states what the advertiser would like the promotional campaign to achieve. It is effectively the promotional campaign instructions for the team writing the promotional campaign.
CDN: Content Distribution Network is a system of geographically dispersed servers used to provide web content to a browser or other client. Files are strategically pulled from a server on the network based on the location of the user, the requesting server, and the delivery server of the CDN to provide the best delivery performance.
Channel Mix: combination of different media channels employed in meeting the promotional objectives of a marketing plan or campaign. Generally, a channel mix can include radio, tv, print and online advertising.
Click: an interaction between a website visitor and the browser in which the website visitor uses a device, such as a mouse, to move the cursor to an active area of the screen and then deliberately interacts with the area by click a button, triggering an event.
Click Fraud: is a type of Internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser click on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link.
Click Rate: is the ratio of clicks to ad impressions, the click rate is the percentage of ad views that resulted in click throughs, which indicates the ad’s effectiveness and results in the view getting to the website where other messages can be provided. A successful click rate depends on campaign objectives, how enticing or explicit the message is (a message that is complete within the banner may be less apt to be clicked), audience/message matching, how new the banner is, and how often it is displayed to the same user. In general, click rates for high-repeat, branding banners vary from 0.15% to 1%. Ads with provocative, mysterious, or other compelling content can induce click rates ranging from 1 to 5%. The click rate for a given ad tends to diminish with repeated exposure.
Click Stream: a click stream is a recorded path of the pages a user requested in going through one or more websites. Click stream information can help website owners understand how visitors are using their site and which pages are getting the most use. It can help advertisers understand how users get to the client’s pages, what pages they look at, and how they go about ordering a product.
Click-Through URL: Is a destination website address that a viewer goes to when they click on an ad.
Contextual Targeting: A type of advertising that displays relevant ads based on the website’s content.
Co-op Advertising: the creation of advertisements by one party (usually retailers) that include the specific mention of a second party (usually manufacturers) where the second party will pay some or all of the advertising cost.
Connected TV: a television set that is connected to the internet and is able to access web-based content, also referred to as advanced tv. TVs can be connected through an add-on device like PlayStation, Roku, or an amazon fire tv stick. The tv can also have connectivity capabilities built in. The content viewed is all video on-demand, and streams similarly to how you would stream video content on your computer, smartphone, or tablet. Ott (over the top) is a term used to describe any of the devices used to connect a tv to the internet.
Content: site content is the textual, visual or aural content is encountered as part of the user experience on a website. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, animations and videos. Web content is dominated by the page concept, with multiple pages of related content typically forming a site.
Content Marketing: content marketing any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers.
Content Recommendations: are content pieces that are suggested or recommended to web users on the web page they are visiting. They are designed to enhance the experience of the reader by suggesting articles that may interest them, based on their past online activity. Content recommendation space is purchased by advertisers, who create and provide relevant content that is automatically served to users on publisher sites via content recommendation widgets. Content recommendations are similar to native ads. They provide interesting and useful information to targeted users while they browse the internet. Content recommendations are often denoted by a title such as “You May Like This” or “Recommended Posts”.
Contextual Ads: existing contextual ad engines deliver text and image ads to non-search content pages. Ads are matched to keywords extracted from content. Advertisers can leverage existing keyboard-based paid search campaigns and gain access to a larger audience.
Contextual Targeting: targeting content that deals with specific topics, as determined by a contextual scanning technology.
Control Group: a term used in ad effectiveness measurement; the collection of consumers who were not exposed to an ad (their actions are then compared to the exposed group – the group that did see the ad – and the difference between the two groups should show the effectiveness of the ad campaign).
Conversion: a conversion occurs when the user performs the specific action that the advertiser has defined as the campaign goal. Conversions are often tracked by a web beacon, called a conversion pixel.
Conversion Pixel: is a 1×1 image pixel placed on a web page (such as a thank-you page) which is triggered whenever a conversion occurs. Usually transparent. The first is by taking the number of users who completed the conversion and dividing it by the total number of impressions served. The second, more common way, is by taking the number of users who completed the conversion and dividing it by the total number of users who clicked on the ad.
Conversion Rate: the percentage of users who complete a desired action (e.g., purchase or registration) compared to all users who were exposed to an online ad.
Conversion Tracking: Is the Monitoring how many conversions have occurred during any specific time period, and analyzing which ads led to the conversions.
Cookie: is a string of text sent from a web server to a user’s browser that the browser is expected to send back to the web server in subsequent interactions. A cookie has a few core attributes: the cookie value, the domain and path within which it is valid, and the cookie expiry. There are other attributes as well that limit the cookie to https-only transactions, or hide it from JavaScript.
Cookie Targeting: Is targeting tactics (such as contextual keyword targeting) that do not require cookie-based data to employ.
Copy: is text in an ad, or text written to be delivered audibly.
Cost Per Lead: is a more specific form of cost per action in which a visitor provides enough information at the advertiser’s site (or in an interaction with a rich media ad) to be used as a sales lead. You can estimate cost per lead regardless of how you pay for the ad (in other words, buying on a pay per lead basis is not required to calculate the cost per lead).
CPA: Cost-Per-Action is the cost of advertising based on a visitor taking some specifically defined action in response to an ad. Examples of “Actions” include completing a sales transaction or filling out a form online.
CPA: Cost Per Acquisition is the cost of acquiring one customer. Typically calculated by dividing the total amount spent on an advertising campaign by the number of customers acquired through that campaign.
CPC: Cost-Per-Click is the cost of advertising based on the number of clicks an ad unit generates.
CPI: Cost-Per-Impression refers to the cost of internet marketing or email advertising campaigns where advertisers pay each time an ad is displayed. Specifically, it is the cost or expense incurred for marketing potential customers who view the advertisement(s).
CPCV: Cost-Per-Completed-View: the price an advertiser pays every time a video ad runs through to completion. Rather than paying for all impressions, some of which may have been stopped before completion, an advertiser only pays for ads that finished (CPCV= cost ÷ completed views).
CPD: Cost-Per-Download is the price an advertiser pays every time a desired download (such as a coupon download) occurs via an ad unit; rather than paying for all impressions, and advertiser only pays when the desired outcome occurs [CPD= cost ÷ download].
CPE: Cost-Per-Engagement is the price an advertiser pays every time a consumer interacts with a rich media ad unit; rather than paying for all impressions, and advertiser only pays when the desired interaction occurs [CPE= cost ÷ engagement].
CPM: Cost-Per-Thousand impressions. A website that charges $1,500 for 100,000 impressions has a CPM of $15 ($1,500 divided by 100,000 multiplied by 1,000).
CCP: Cost-Per-Point is a pricing model based on the cost of a campaign divided by each full percentage rating point of a targeted demographic that the campaign successfully reaches.
CPS: Cost-Per-Sale: is the advertiser’s cost to generate one sales transaction. Sites that sell products directly from their website or can otherwise determine sales generated as the result of an advertising sales lead can calculate the cost per sale of web advertising. If this is being used in conjunction with a media buy, a cookie can be offered on the content site and read on the advertiser’s site after the successful completion of an online sale.
CPV: Cost-Per-View is pricing model where the advertiser only pays for a video start. Typically sold at 1,000 impressions.
Crawler: Sometimes known as a “spider” or “bot,” a crawler is a program that systematically browses the World Wide Web in order to create an index of data. Commonly referred to in digital marketing as the search engine variety, which crawls search results and provides data to search engines to index those pages.
CRM: Customer Relationship Management is software that uses data analysis about customers’ history with a company to improve business relationships with customers.
CRM Onboarding: An automated feature that allows clients to upload a CRM list to the platform to provide Audience Insights and targetable consumer profiles on both desktop and mobile devices from your CRM data.
Cross Device Targeting: the ability to serve the same buyer targeted ads across multiple devices. Cross-device targeting allows advertisers to reach their audiences in a sequential, repetitive manner regardless of the device they’re on, whether it’s a tablet, desktop, or smartphone. This has a similar effect to the old-school tactics of gaining reach and frequency through using a range of channels such as radio + newspaper + billboards + direct mail.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets is a standard language used to create an email or web page. (Also see: HTML and Javascript).
CTA: Call To Action is a phrase included within an ad, or a graphic element such as a button, which invites the audience to take a certain action. Examples include phrases such as Click to Read More, Download Your Free eBook Now, or Click Here.
CTR: Click Through Rate is the percentage of ad impressions that were clicked on as compared to the entire number of clicks [CTR% = (clicks ÷ imps) x 100], ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. CTR is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns. The higher the CTR on an ad, the better it’s performing.
Demographic Targeting: Allows advertisers to display ads to users based on demographic information like their age and gender.
Deal ID: is a number that is assigned to a programmatic ad transaction used by both the buyer and seller to transact on prearranged parameters; in invitation-only auctions (aka private marketplaces).
Demographic: The segmentation of an audience into more specific groups using parameters such as gender, age, ethnicity, annual income, parental status, etc.
Demographic Targeting: is a method that enables advertisers to show an ad specifically to visitors based on demographic information such as age, gender and income which may come from, site registration data or an inference-based mechanism.
Direct Response: is a campaign or ad specifically created to encourage audiences to take immediate action.
Display Advertising: A form of online advertising where an advertiser’s message is displayed on a web page, generally in the form of a banner ad set off in a box at the top or bottom or to the one side of the content of the web page. The uses, placement and dimensions of the creative is according to the publisher of the page.
Display Ad Networks: are platforms that provide a network of websites in which to promote paid advertisements. Examples of display ad networks include Google Display Network, Yahoo Display Ads, Facebook Ads, Linkedin Ads, ONE by AOL, native ad platforms, such as Outbrain, and many more.
DMA: Designated Market Area as defined by Nielsen on Nielsen.com, DMA (designated market area) regions are the geographic areas in the united states in which local television viewing is measured by the Nielsen Company. The DMA data are essential for any marketer, researcher, or organization seeking to utilize standardized geographic areas within their business. (note: these regions can be applied to digital marketing as well as traditional tv).
DMP: A Data-Management-Platform is a system that allows the collection of audience intelligence by advertisers and ad agencies, thereby allowing better ad targeting in subsequent campaigns on a combination of in-depth first- and third-party audience data. They help to accurately target campaigns to these audiences across third party ad networks and exchanges, and measure with accuracy how campaigns perform. In addition to be being a DSP WUNDERWORX is also DMP.
Domain Name: is unique name that identifies an internet site. Every domain name consists of one top or high-level and one or more lower-level designators. Top-level domains (TLDs) are either generic or geographic. Generic top-level domains include .com (commercial), .net (network), .edu (educational), .org (organizational, public or non-commercial), .gov (governmental), .mil (military); .biz (business), .info (informational),.name (personal), .pro (professional), .aero (air transport and civil aviation), .coop (business cooperatives such as credit unions) and .museum. Geographic domains designate countries of origin, such as .us (United States), .fr (France), .uk (United Kingdom), etc.
DOOH: Digital-Out-Of-Home also referred to as digital outdoor, this type of ad platform allows the opportunity for the screen to rotate through different advertisers, or to rotate through a single brand’s creative, and in some cases even allows passersby to interact either through touching or motion. DOOH can be used for advertising wrapped around buildings in times square, on large billboards along the highway, and in kiosks in airports and malls.
DR: Direct Response is an ad that is designed to have the viewer take immediate action; for example, in digital advertising, this often means a click, sign up, download, or purchase.
DSP: A Demand-Side-Platform or buy side platform is a technology platform that helps an advertiser to buy media from multiple sources including ad exchanges, ad networks and sell side platforms. This is often accomplished via real time bidding for the impressions. DSPs help advertisers to set up their campaigns including the budget, bid, target audience and creative. WUNDERWORX is a DSP.
Dwell Rate: the percentage of users exposed to a given piece of rich media content or advertising who interact with that content moving their cursors over it (but not clicking).
Dwell Time: the amount of time that a user keeps his or her cursor stationary over a given icon, graphic, ad unit, or another piece of web content. Often used in the context of expandable ads, where the ad increases in size only when users roll over it with their mice. Usually calculated and reported as an average across all viewers of a piece of content.
Dynamic Ad Insertion: is the process by which an ad is inserted into a page in response to a user’s request. Dynamic ad placement allows alteration of specific ads placed on a page based on any data available to the placement program. At its simplest, dynamic ad placement allows for multiple ads to be rotated through one or more spaces. In more sophisticated examples, the ad placement could be affected by demographic data or usage history for the current user.
Dynamic Rotation: is the delivery of ads on a rotating, random basis so that users are exposed to different ads and ads are served in different pages of the site.
E-Commerce: is the process of selling products or services via the web.
Email Advertising: banner ads, links or advertiser sponsorships that appear in email newsletters, email marketing campaigns and other commercial email communications. Includes all types of electronic mail (e.g., basic text or HTML-enabled).
Email Campaign: an advertising campaign distributed via e-mail.
Email Preview Pane: is a small window within a mailbox provider that allows the user to view some e-mail content without opening the e-mail.
Earned Media: when people speak about and share your brand and your product, either in response to content you’ve shared or via voluntary mentions. Its free publicity generated by fans.
Effective CPM: the average CPM of a campaign [ECPM= total cost ÷ total imps x 1000];
Expandable Ads: rich media ads that can be enlarged to dimensions beyond the initial dimensions of the placement they fill on the webpage. The user initiates expanding events, sometimes after the ad initially expands briefly on its own to catch the user’s attention.
Expandable Banners: expandable banners are rich media ads that expand in size when a user rolls over or clicks on them. They reveal more advertising information and are designed to grab the attention of the user. The IAB provides guidelines for expandable banners in the rich media ads section of the display advertising creative format guidelines quick reference guide.
Expanded Dimensions: the secondary dimensions of an expanding ad unit (after the ad is expanded). Initial dimensions are fit to the dimensions of the placement. Then, either by auto-play or by user interaction, the ad unit expands to its secondary dimension.
FEP: Full Episode Player: is a placement on a web page that has the ability to play videos that are tv-length (typically 30-60 minutes, sometimes more), and often includes multiple ad breaks throughout the streaming video content
First Party Data: is the information you collect directly from your audience or customers. It includes data from behaviors, actions or interests demonstrated across your website(s) or app(s)
Floating Ads: an ad or ads that appear within the main browser window on top of the web page’s normal content, thereby appearing to float over the top of the page.
FPS: acronym for frames per second, the metric used to indicate the frame rate of animated or video creative content.
Fold: the line below which a user has to scroll to see content not immediately visible when a web page loads in a browser. Ads or content displayed above the fold are visible without any end-user interaction. Monitor size and resolution determine where on a web page the fold lies.
Frame Rate: the rate at which video frames or animated images display as the video or animated file executes, measured as the number of frames per second (fps) during a given time. The higher the frame rate, the more high-quality the image will be.
Frames: multiple, independent sections used to create a single web page. Each frame is built as a separate HTML file but with one master file to control the placement of each section. When a user requests a page with frames, several files will be displayed as panes. Sites using frames report one-page request with several panes as multiple page requests. IAB ad campaign measurement guidelines call for the counting of one file per frame set as a page impression.
Frequency: the number of times an ad is delivered to the same browser in a single session or time period. A site can use cookies in order to manage ad frequency.
Frequency Capping: the limit of how many times a given ad will be shown to a unique cookie during a session or within a specified time period.
Keyword: A keyword is a single word or combination of words that you add to your Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands campaigns. Keywords are matched to shopping queries that customers use to look for products on Amazon and determine when your ads may appear. Note that keywords are only used for Sponsored Products or Sponsored Brands. Sponsored Display ads reach products, product categories, or customers’ interests.
GDPR: Commonly referred to by its acronym, GDPR is the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. It became effective on May 25, 2018. We’ve produced quite a bit of information about the regulation, including podcasts, blog posts, eBooks, and webinars on our GDPR resource hub.
Geo-fencing: Is a location-based service in which an app or other software uses GPS, RFID, Wi-Fi or mobile cellular data to trigger a pre-programmed action when a mobile device or RFID tag enters or exists a virtual boundary sent up around a geo-graphic location known as a geofence.
Geo-framing: used latitude-longitude data, by drawing a polygon around an area and selecting a date range that can go back up to 365 days. Geoframing then pulls data from mobile devices that were recorded being at the location.
Geographic Targeting: Selecting an audience for a campaign based on zip codes, designated marketing area (DMA), cities, states, and countries.
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format is a standard web graphic format which uses compression to store and display images.
Gross Exposures: the total number of times an ad is served, including duplicate downloads to the same person.
Home Page: the page designated as the main point of entry of a web site (or main page) or the starting point when a browser first connects to the internet. Typically, it welcomes visitors and introduces the purpose of the site, or the organization sponsoring it, and then provides links to other pages within the site.
Hot Spot: a hot spot is an area of an ad unit, which when rolled-over/rolled-on by the user’s cursor, such rollover triggers an event (i.e. Expand ad). The hotspot should never be larger than 1/4th the size of the original (collapsed) ad unit. The trigger event should not occur unless the user’s cursor rests in the hotspot zone for at least 1-second. Hotspots should never initiate audio (audio should only be initiated by a click). When hotspots are used, the trigger event should stop immediately upon the user’s cursor leaving the hotspot zone (i.e. Ad collapses), and the ad unit should return to its original state.
House Ads: ads for a product or service from the same company. revenues from house ads should not be included in reported revenues.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language: set of codes called markup tags in a plain text file that determine what information is retrieved and how a browser renders it. There are two kinds of markup tags: anchor and format. Anchor tags determine what is retrieved, and format tags determine how it is rendered. Browsers receive HTML pages from the internet and use the information to display text, graphics, links and other elements as they were intended by a website’s creator.
HTML5: is an acronym for hypertext markup language, version 5. HTML5 extends earlier versions to include tags for processing video, audio, canvas, another embedded audio and video items without requiring proprietary plug-ins and APIs. HTML5 has been used as an alternative to developing and executing interactions similar to those using Adobe flash but with very different technology.
Hyperlink: a clickable link, e.g., on a web page or within an e-mail, that sends the user to a new URL when activated.
Hypertext: any text that contains links connecting it with other text or files on the internet.
IAB: Interactive Advertising Bureau is a non-profit trade association devoted exclusively to maximizing the use and effectiveness of interactive advertising and marketing. The IAB issues compliance seals that verify that companies are compliant with IAB standards and guidelines.
IAB Terms and Conditions: recognized set of industry quality assurance standards established by the IAB that provides a high level of confidence to marketers to invest more in digital advertising. The sections in the terms and conditions address: x section xii: non-disclosure, data usage and ownership, privacy and laws x section ii: ad placement and positioning x section iii: payment and payment liability x section v: cancellation and termination x section ix: ad materials x section x: indemnification x section xiii: third party ad serving and tracking.
iFrame: short for inline frame, this is the area on a website designated for an ad to appear.
Impression: Is the measurement of responses from a web server to a page request from the user browser, which is filtered from robotic activity and error codes and is recorded at a point as close as possible to opportunity to see the page by the user, also called a view. A single display of online content to a user’s web-enabled device. Many websites sell advertising space by the number of impressions displayed to users. An online advertisement impression is a single appearance of an advertisement on a web page. Each time an advertisement loads onto a user’s screen, the ad server may count that loading as one impression. However, the ad server may be programmed to exclude from the count certain non-qualifying activity such as a reload, internal user actions, and other events that the advertiser and ad serving company agreed to not count.
IO: Insertion Order is a formal, printed order to run an ad campaign between a seller of interactive advertising and a buyer (usually an advertiser or its agency). Typically, the insertion order identifies the campaign name, website receiving the order, planner or buyer giving the order, individual ads to be run (or who will provide them), ad sizes, campaign beginning and end dates, CPM, total cost, discounts to be applied, reporting requirements, and possible penalties or stipulations relative to failure to deliver the impressions.
Interstitial: between-the-page ad units displayed as a user navigates from one web page to the next web page. The ad appears after the user leaves the initial page, but before the target page displays on the user’s screen. Typically, the ad is self-contained within its own browser window, but may also appear briefly as an overlay on the target page rather than in its own browser window. Also known as transition ads, intermercial ads and splash pages, also known as ‘between-the-page’
Instream: when a video ad streams (plays) alongside (before/mid/after) video content.
Interactive Advertising: are all forms of online, wireless and interactive television advertising, including banners, sponsorships, e-mail, keyword searches, referrals, slotting fees, classified ads and interactive television commercials.
Inventory: The total number of ad views or impressions that a website has to sell over a given period of time (usually, inventory is figured by the month).
IP Address: an IP address is the numerical address assigned to each computer on the internet so that its location and activities can be distinguished from those of other computers.
IP-based Geo-Targeting: IP-based geo-targeted advertising is delivered to a user’s geographic location as determined by his or her internet protocol (IP) address.
Javascript: Is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. (Also see: CSS and HTML)
JPEG: is a standard web graphic file format that uses a compression technique to reduce graphic file sizes.
Keyword: a specific word or phrase chosen by advertisers to trigger and include their ad within search engine results. The advertiser doing contextual advertising also chooses keywords, so that their ad will show up within pages that are returned for that keyword. In search advertising, the position of the ad within the results is determined by bidding. The highest bidder on a keyword usually gets the top position.
Keyword Targeting: targeting content that contains specific keywords.
Kick-off Campaign: is targeting content that contains specific keywords.
KPIs: Key Performance Indicators are a business metric used to evaluate factors that are crucial to the success of an organization. KPIs differ based on the business and marketing focus. For example, KPIs could be net revenue or a customer loyalty metric. Also known as key success indicators (KSI).
Labeling Requirements: is the minimal requirements for distinguishing an online advertisement from regular webpage content.
Lag: the delay between making an online request or command and receiving a response. See latency.
Lag Time: usually at the back end, and represents the gap between the actual initiation of a process, such as a media placement (agency sends an IO), and the time that placement is ready to be displayed. For example, how long does it take the channel tech staff to process the ad and do QA tests to ensure that the ad displays properly? lag time needs to be built into the timeline as well.
Landing Page: The web page users are directed to after they click on a display or paid search ad.
Lat-Long: is short for latitude and longitude, this generally refers to coordinates used to pinpoint an exact location on the globe; used in advertising for targeting consumers on mobile devices according to their detectable latitude and longitude, as opposed to a DMA, zip code or other means that are more commonly used in geo-targeting in digital advertising.
Latency: can be see as the time time it takes for a data packet to move across a network connection or the visible delay between request and display of content and ad. Latency sometimes leads to the user leaving the site prior to the opportunity to see. In streaming media, latency can create stream degradation if it causes the packets, which must be received and played in order, to arrive out of order.
Lead: a potential customer. In digital advertising, a lead is someone who has given you their contact information, often by signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form to download an eBook or other gated content.
Lead Generation: fees advertisers pay to internet advertising companies that refer qualified purchase inquiries (e.g., auto dealers which pay a fee in exchange for receiving a qualified purchase inquiry online) or provide consumer information (demographic, contact, and behavioral) where the consumer opts into being contacted by a marketer (email, postal, telephone, fax). These processes are priced on a performance basis (e.g., cost-per-action, -lead or -inquiry), and can include user applications (e.g., for a credit card), surveys, contests (e.g., sweepstakes) or registrations.
Lead Time: is the gap between the initiation and the actual execution of a given process. For example, the lead-time between the placement of an insertion order and the actual placement of the ad itself includes the time it takes the creative team to prepare the ad. lead time needs to be built into the timeline.
Lifestyle: Market segmentation of website traffic or CRM data that provides analytics on trends in online and offline interests, hobbies, affiliations, personalities, and values.
Link: a clickable connection between two web sites. Formally referred to as a hyperlink.
List Server: a program that automatically sends e-mail to a list of subscribers.
Location Based Targeting: refers to a way to target advertisements on mobile devices such as smartphones or feature phones, GPS receivers, tablets (such as iPad) and soon on many mobile laptops. On phones and tablets, such advertisements can appear in a mobile web browser or within an app. Geographic targeting information can come in the form of either a confirmed location or a derived location.
Location Based Service: a location-based service (LBS) is mobile data service related to an end user’s immediate location. Examples include store or service locators and friend finders.
Log File: a file that records transactions that have occurred on the web server. Some of the types of data which are collected are: date/time stamp, URL served, IP address of requestor, status code of request, user agent string, previous URL of requestor, etc. Use of the extended log file format is preferable.
Long-Form Video: video content that has a content arc with a beginning, middle, and end and that, in its entirety, lasts longer than 10 minutes (i.e., movies and original series.) If the content is ad supported, it typically contains breaks (mid-roll.) This is different than commercial videos, which typically put the product upfront and run under one minute.
Lookalike Audience: Customers are from a demographic and even psychographic point of view. A Lookalike Audience targets people who are similar to your existing customers which helps improve your conversion rates. You can use Lookalike Audiences when you’re running online display, Facebook, mobile display, or just about any other kind of digital marketing campaign.
M-Commerce: mobile commerce, the ability to conduct monetary transactions via a mobile device, such as a WAP-enabled cell phone.
Mailing List: an automatically distributed e-mail message on a particular topic going to certain individuals.
Makegoods: additional ad impressions which are negotiated in order to make up for the shortfall of ads delivered versus the commitments outlined in the approved insertion order.
Media Company: is a company that derives revenue from publishing content via one or more means of distribution, e.g., print publishing, television, radio, the internet.
Media Kit: contains promotional material and associated information about a firm, product, conference seminar, program, etc. Package containing rate card, circulation data, audience statistics, rates, ad sizes and formats, targeting options, audience profiles, case studies, and contact information.
Mediation: Is a form of technology that sends ad requests to multiple SSP partners to ensure publishers find the best available bid and fill their ad slots.
Media Landscape: refers to consumer media consumption across print, radio (national, regional, local,) television (national and regional,) digital (websites, news, portal) and social.
Media Mix: combination of advertising media channels employed in meeting the promotional objectives of a marketing plan or campaign. This can include radio, tv, print, and online advertising.
Metadata: is data that provides information about other data. This includes descriptions of the characteristics of information, such as quality, origin, context, content and structure.
Microsites: multi-page ads accessed via click-through from initial ad. The user stays on the publisher’s web site, but has access to more information from the advertiser than a display ad allows.
Mobile Advertising: is paid advertising that occurs on mobile phones or devices that have a wireless internet connection. Mobile ads can be display ads published on mobile websites by mobile ad networks, or can be promoted in mobile applications as in-app ads.
Mobile Ad Sizes: Due to the smaller screen sizes of mobile devices, mobile ads are optimized for small formats, and come in a range of sizes. The most popular mobile ad size is 300 x 250, which is a medium sized rectangle, also used widely for mobile video ads. Other common mobile ads size are the mobile banner, which is 350 x 50 and appears as a horizontal strip ad, and the large rectangle, which is 336 x 280.
Mobile Search: an Internet search conducted via a mobile device.
Mouse-Over: the act of a user moving the cursor and resting it on the hot spot of an ad for at least one second. Mouse-over may trigger an event such as expanding the ad or initiating an animated sequence within the ad. This is of primary interest if the area is a hot spot, as this can initiate additional action after a specified timeout. Mouse-over may not initiate audio play. Sometimes referred to as rollover, hover.
MP3: CODEC most commonly used for digital music online. Generic term for any digital music file, regardless of CODEC used to create or play it.
MP4: a digital multimedia format used to store video and audio, but may also include features such as subtitles, chapter details, and other data related to the video or audio file. The filename extension for mpeg-4 files is .mp4.
MPEG: a set of standards for audio and video compression and transmission established by the moving picture experts’ group.
Multi-site Company: a single entity that owns and operates multiple web sites, each under a separate domain.
MSA: Master Service Agreement is a contracted document which outlines the agreed upon terms between a buyer and seller which is used as a baseline to govern future transactions
NAI: Network Advertising Initiative: a cooperative group of network advertisers which has developed a set of privacy principles in conjunction with the federal trade commission. The NAI provides consumers with explanations of internet advertising practices and how they affect both consumers and the internet. See networkadvertising.org for more information.
Native Advertising: a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and function of the user experience in which it is placed. They often have the look and feel of editorial content. These paid ads aspire to be so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong.
Native Video Ad: a promoted video within one of the six IAB native core ads (i.e., in-feed unit, paid search unit, recommendation widget, promoted listing, in-ad with native elements, or custom/can’t be contained). The video includes a headline, description, and context for the ad.
Non-Linear Video Ads: run parallel to the video content so the user still has the option of viewing the content. Common non-linear ad products include overlays which are shown directly over the content video itself, and product placements which are ads placed within the video content itself. Non-linear video ads can be delivered as text, graphical banners or buttons, or as video overlays.
Non-Working Media Costs: all of those things that may or may not be directly billable; ad server fees, hoURLy billing on creative, access fees, licensing fees, administrative fees, per placement QA fees, asset storage fees, it and traffic, digital re-mastering fees, etc. All are internal costs usually not directly presented to the client.
Non-Qualifying Page Impressions: are page impressions which should be excluded from traffic or measurement reports, such as unsuccessful transfers of requested documents, successful transfers of requested documents to a robot or spider, and/or pages in a frame set. See frames.
OBA: Online Behavioral Advertising is a method for targeting digital advertising impressions to appear to an select audience of consumers based on their prior actions, those actions occurring either online or offline; also called behavioral targeting (BT).
On-Demand: the ability to request video, audio, or information to be sent to the screen immediately by clicking something on the screen referring to that choice.
On-Demand Video: video media that is available to a user at the convenience of that user. YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix on demand are examples of services that offer on-demand video.
Online Publisher: a creator and/or aggregator of online content, which often monetizes user visits by displaying advertisements.
On-Site Measurement: when a server has an appropriate software program to measure and analyze traffic received on its own site.
Open Auction: is a programmatic marketplace where real time bidding (RTB) occurs, and any advertiser or publisher can participate (see also: private marketplace)
OPT: On-Target Percentage: a percentage of the total campaign delivery that is within the advertiser’s campaign-defined goals.
Opt-In: refers to an individual giving a company permission to use data collected from or about the individual for a particular reason, such as to market the company’s products and services. See permission marketing.
Opt-in Email: lists of internet users who have voluntarily signed up to receive commercial e-mail about topics of interest.
Opt-Out: when a company states that it plans to market its products and services to an individual unless the individual asks to be removed from the company’s mailing list.
OOH: Out of Home are advertising placements that appear in public places; for example: billboards, airports, grocery stores, taxi cabs, bus stations, etc.
OTT: Over The Top Device is a device that can connect to a tv to facilitate the delivery of internet-based video content (i.e., streaming boxes, media streaming devices, gaming consoles).
Overlay: an overlay is a media element or ad unit that ‘floats’ above other content briefly when initiated. This could be text floating over video, or an expanding banner ad expanding over page content.
Overlay Ad: a banner ad that appears in the bottom 20% of the video window. Click action initiates a linear video spot or takes the user to a website. Sold on a CPM and CPC basis.
Owned Media: any corporate content/asset that belongs to your brand that you create and have control over. Assets are not just images, artifacts, content, video, etc., but also people, resources, experience, and availability of subject matter experts.
Pace/Pacing: the rate at which a digital ad campaign uses up its pre-set number of impressions (for a fixed/reserved campaign) or budget (for an auction-based/unreserved campaign); campaigns can pace evenly or unevenly
Page: a document having a specific URL and comprised of a set of associated files. A page may contain text, images, and other online elements. It may be static or dynamically generated. It may be made up of multiple frames or screens, but should contain a designated primary object which, when loaded, is counted as the entire page.
Page Display: when a page is successfully displayed on the user’s computer screen.
Page Impression: a measurement of responses from a web server to a page request from the user’s browser, which is filtered from robotic activity and error codes, and is recorded at a point as close as possible to the opportunity to see the page by the user. See the IAB’s ad campaign measurement guidelines.
Page Request: the opportunity for an HTML document to appear on a browser window as a direct result of a user’s interaction with a web site.
Page View: when the page is actually seen by the user. Some platforms, like Facebook cache preview images for applications, which can mean that page views are not counted until a user clicks through to an application canvas page.
Paid Advertising: is is any type of advertising that is paid for. It stands in contrast to owned advertising (ads promoted on the advertiser’s own channels, such as its own company website, YouTube channel or social media pages), or earned advertising (writeups in magazines, blogs, websites, influencer platforms, product reviews etc, produced by a third party without being commissioned or solicited by the advertiser). Types of paid advertising include PPC (pay per click), PPI (pay per impression) and display ads, or banner ads.
Paid Search: Is the placement of ads within search engine results.
Paid Media: any media that is paid for to drive traffic to owned media properties; you pay to boost your exposure through the channel.
Pass Back: an impression offered to a media buyer with the right of first refusal, such that when this right is exercised the impression is offered to another media buyer.
Pay-Per-Impression: is an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay based on how many users were served their ads. See CPM.
Pay-Per-Lead: is an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay for each sales lead generated. For example, an advertiser might pay for every visitor that clicked on an ad or site and successfully completed a form. See CPL.
Pay-Per-Sale: is an advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies and/or media companies based on how many sales transactions were generated as a direct result of the ad. See CPS.
Peer-to-Peer: is the transmission of a file from one individual to another, typically through an intermediary. Individuals sharing files via p2p do not necessarily know one another, rather applications like bit torrent manage file transmissions from those who have part or all of the file to those who want it.
Performance Metrics: is the measurement of digital ad campaigns with action-based goals such as click-throughs, leads, downloads, sales, etc.
Performance Pricing Model: is an advertising model in which advertisers pay based on a set of agreed upon performance criteria, such as a percentage of online revenues or delivery of new sales leads. See CPA, CPC, CPL, CPO, CPS, CPT.
Permission Marketing: is a term popularized by Seth Godin, whereby marketers obtain permission before advancing to the next step in the purchasing process. For example, asking permission to send email newsletters to prospective customers. It is mostly used by online marketers, notably email and search marketers, as well as certain direct marketers who send a catalog in response to a request.
Persistent Cookie: are cookies that remain a client hard drive until they expire (as determined by the website that set them) or are deleted by the end user.
Personalization: aggregating previous online activity to match non-ad related information to users.
Piggyback Pixel: is an image tag or code that redirects a user browser to another pixel not directly placed on the publisher page.
PII: Personally Identifiable Information: is user data that can be used to contact the user, either directly or through a lookup. User data that can be used to contact the user directly includes postal address and email address. User data that can be used, through a lookup, to contact the user includes SSN and other government issued ID numbers. Some user data that does not fit either of these criteria is commonly considered PII because it has a reasonable probability of resulting in the ability to contact the user. The archetype for this is the user’s full name. The intersection of large datasets with consistent cross-session identifiers are being increasingly shown to offer the opportunity to derive user contact details.
PIN: Personal Identification Number is group of numbers which allow a unique user access to a secured web site and/or a secure area of a web site. See password.
Pixel: A JavaScript or HTML code that is embedded in an ad which calls a web server for the purpose of tracking a user that has viewed a particular ad.
Pixel: is a web beacon, also known as a web bug, 1 by 1 gif, invisible gif, and tracking pixel, is a tiny image referenced by a line of HTML or a block of JavaScript code embedded into a web site or third-party ad server to track activity. The image used is generally a single pixel that is delivered to the web browser with HTML instructions that keep it from affecting the web site layout. The web beacon will typically include user information like cookies on the http headers, and web site information on the query string. Web beacons are used to collect data for web site and ad delivery analytics, and also specific events such as a registration or conversion:
- Ad creative pixel – a web beacon embedded in an ad tag which calls a web server for the purpose of tracking that a user has viewed a particular ad.
- Conversion pixel – a web beacon that transmits to a third-party server that a user has successfully completed a process such as purchase or registration.
- Piggyback pixel – a web beacon that embeds additional web beacons not directly placed on the publisher page.
- Secure pixel – a web beacon that is delivered over https.
Plug-In: a program application that can easily be installed and used as part of a web browser. Once installed, plug-in applications are recognized by the browser and their function integrated into the main HTML file being presented.
PMP: Private Marketplace is a programmatic marketplace where real time bidding (RTB occurs, yet only select advertisers are allowed to bid on a vendor’s inventory (see also: open marketplace)
POE: is an acronym for Paid Owned and Earned media.
POP: Point of Purchase is the moment when a consumer is about to buy something; often times advertisers will place an ad or a special offer to increase the pending purchase.
Pop-Under Ad: is an ad that appears in a separate window beneath an open window. Pop-under ads are concealed until the top window is closed, moved, resized or minimized.
Pop-Up Ad: is any advertising experience where visiting a website in an initial browser window initiates a secondary browser window to deliver an ad impression directly above the initial browser window.
Pop-Up Transitional: initiates play in a separate ad window during the transition between content pages. Continues while content is simultaneously being rendered. Depending primarily on line-speed, play of a transitional ad may finish before or after content rendering is completed.
POS: Point of Sale is the allocation of media placements that enhance audience desire to purchase that product or service.
Post Roll: is a linear video spot that appears after the video content completes. See preroll and midroll.
Potential Reach: Use algorithms to optimize for greatest reach by impression and provides the number of users you could reach with your targeting selection.
PPC: Pay-Per-Click is advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies and/or media companies based on how many users clicked on an online ad or e-mail message through to their website. The amount paid per click through is arranged at the time of the insertion order and varies considerably. Higher pay per click rates recognize that there may be some no-click branding value as well as click through value provided. See CPC.
Preferred Rates: are pre-negotiated rates for media agencies typically based on annual commitment with specific publishers or networks.
Preroll: a preroll video ad is an in-stream video ads that occurs before the video content the user has requested. See also post roll and midroll.
Price Floors: the minimum bid required for an ad impression in an auction-based media market
Privacy Policy: is a statement about what information is being collected; how the information being collected is being used; how an individual can access his/her own data collected; how the individual can optout; and what security measures are being taken by the parties collecting the data.
Profiling: is the practice of tracking information about consumers’ interests by monitoring their movements online. This can be done without using any personal information, but simply by analyzing the content, URLs, and other information about a user’s browsing path/click-stream.
Programmatic: media or ad buying that uses technology to automate and optimize, in real time, the ad buying process. This ultimately serves targeted and relevant experiences to consumers across channels. On the back end, algorithms filter ad impressions derived from consumer behavioral data, which allows advertisers to define budget, goal, and attribution and optimize for reduced risk while increasing ROI. Programmatic advertising integrates two platforms:
- Supply side platform (SSP) – used by publishers
- Demand side platform (DSP) – used by advertisers
The DSP sends bids to the SSP on behalf of the advertiser for the purchase of online ad impressions. The SSP selects the most suitable bid, based on available inventory of ad space that is submitted by publishers. This complex transaction, which results in an ad impression, happens in a fraction of a second, based on the past online behavior of the person viewing the web page.
Protocol: is a uniform set of rules that enable two devices to connect and transmit data to one another. Protocols determine how data are transmitted between computing devices and over networks. They define issues such as error control and data compression methods. The protocol determines the following: type of error checking to be used, data compression method (if any), how the sending device will indicate that it has finished a message and how the receiving device will indicate that it has received the message. Internet protocols include TCP/IP (transfer control protocol/internet protocol), http (hypertext transfer protocol), ftp (file transfer protocol), and smtp (simple mail transfer protocol).
Proxy Servers: intermediaries between end users and web sites such as ISPs, commercial online services, and corporate networks. Proxy servers hold the most commonly and recently used content from the web for users in order to provide quicker access and to increase server security.
Psychographic: are values, attitudes, and lifestyles that answer questions such as what motivates your customers to buy your products and services. What are their key values? What are their hobbies and habits?
Publisher: is an individual or organization that prepares, issues, and disseminates content for public distribution or sale via one or more media.
Publisher Ad Tag: is code that is placed on a publisher’s web page that calls an ad server for the purposes of displaying an advertisement.
Publisher Pixel: is an object embedded in a web page (typically a 1×1 image pixel) that calls a web server for purposes of tracking some kind of user activity.
Purchase Behavior: Market segmentation of website traffic or CRM data that provides analytics on interest-to-buy, intent-to-buy, and past-purchase trends in online and offline purchases, why they purchase, and where.
Push Advertising: is pro-active, partial screen, dynamic advertisement which comes in various formats.
Push Down Banner: push down banners are banners that push website content down while expanding the banner to show more advertising space. They are usually triggered by either rolling over the banner, clicking the banner, or sometimes autoload once the website loads. Users then click a custom designed close button to minimize the banner.
Publisher Waterfall: Waterfalling allows publishers to pass on their inventory from one demand partner (marketplace) to the next one of maximize revenue.
Rate Card: standardized cost for media space defined by ad sizes, platform, and creative formats, excluding custom programs or the list of advertising prices and products and packages offered by a media company.
Reach: (1) unique users that visited the site over the course of the reporting period, expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category; also called unduplicated audience or (2) the total number of unique users who will be served a given ad.
Redirect: when used in reference to online advertising, one server assigning an ad-serving function to another server, often operated by a third company operating on behalf of an agency. For instance, a web publisher’s ad management server might issue a redirect to the browser or client which points to an agency ad server (AAS) hired by an advertiser to distribute its ads to a target audience across a broad list of sites. There is no limit to the number of redirects that can come into play before the delivery of an actual ad. The agency ad server in turn may redirect the browser to a rich media vendor (RMV) or digital video ad server. Redirects produce latency. This is especially true when they are client-side redirects which is the case in most online advertising today. Server-side redirects limit latency but also limit the ability to persist the user’s identity when those redirects cross domains. See ad serving and latency.
Referral Fees: are fees paid by advertisers for delivering a qualified sales lead or purchase inquiry.
Referral Link: the referring page, or referral link is a place from which the user clicked to get to the current page. In other words, since a hyperlink connects one URL to another, in clicking on a link the browser moves from the referring URL to the destination URL. Also known as source of a visit.
Referring URL: the address of the webpage that a user previously visited prior to following a link.
Registration: is the user activity of subscribing to a website or requesting additional information by filling in personally-identifying contact details.
Regulatory Guidelines: are the laws and rules defining the ways in which products can be advertised in a particular region. Can vary by industry (e.g., financial services, pharmaceutical). Rules can define a wide variety of different aspects, such as placement, SOV % for sponsorships, and privacy.
Repeat Visitor: is unique visitor who has accessed a web site more than once over a specific time period.
Replays: refers to the number of times a user requested to see the video ad again (where available).
Resolution: is the quality of an image or video file often determined by the number of pixels displayed on the screen and usually noted as a pixel width and height dimension. However, resolution can be measured in a number of ways and considers pixel aspect ratio, pixel density, and other factors that determine the viewing quality of the file.
Responsive Design: is the use of a pixel tag or other code to enable a third-party to recognize particular users outside of the domain from which the activity was collected. See creative retargeting, site retargeting.
Retargeting: Refers to online display ads targeting visitors who have previously interacted with the brand or advertiser in the past.
Retraction: is an event programmed into an expandable ad the causes the ad to be reduced to its original dimensions (i.e. The expanded portion of the ad retracts).
Return Visits: is the average number of times a user returns to a site over a specific time period.
Revenue Management: is the yield and revenue management are the process of understanding, anticipating and influencing advertiser and consumer behavior in order to maximize profits through better selling, pricing, packaging and inventory management, while delivering value to advertisers and site users.
Rich Media: advertisements with which users can interact (as opposed to solely animation) in a web page format that are more elaborate than the usual banner ad. These advertisements can be used either singularly or in combination with various technologies, including but not limited to sound, video, or flash, and with programming languages such as java, JavaScript, and DHTML. Rich media guidelines cover standard web applications including e-mail, static (e.g. HTML) and dynamic (e.g. Asp) web pages, and may appear in ad formats such as banners and buttons as well as transitionals and various over-the-page units such as floating ads, page take-overs, and tear-backs. Today, the term is often used for banner ads with popup menus that let the visitor select a particular page to link to on the advertiser’s site. Rich media ads are generally more challenging to create and to serve. Some early studies have shown that rich media ads tend to be more effective than ordinary animated banner ads.
Rich Media: Interactive media such as quizzes, games, and ads with video and special effects. This category is growing quickly. Check out the IABs Rising Stars examples of new types of ad units such as the Pushdown and the Sidekick.
Roadblock: is a roadblock ad in digital marketing is a full screen ad that is displayed before any page content. This ad type is similar to a pre-roll in digital video advertising.
RODI: Return on Digital Investment is the bottom line on how successful a digital ad or campaign was in terms of what the returns (generally sales revenue) were for the money expended (invested).
ROI: Return on Investment – Net profit divided by ad investment
ROAS: Return on Ad Spend is a metric used by advertisers to measure how much revenue they earned that can be attributed to the expense of an ad campaign
Rollover: is the willful pause of the user’s cursor on the target portion of the creative (the hot spot), such pause lasting at least one second in duration, before an action may be initiated by the ad (i.e. Trigger an expand event, etc.). This one-second pause/delay requirement prevents unwanted, user-initiated actions and false reporting of user engagement. Rollover may not initiate audio.
RSS: Really Simple Syndication is RSS or really simple syndication is a process for publishing content on the internet that facilitates moving that content into other environments. For example, top news stories on a newspaper website can be published as an RSS feed and pulled into and delivered via a web portal site. RSS readers are software programs or websites that enable users to subscribe to one or more RSS feeds, delivering content and information from multiple sources into a single user interface and environment.
RSS Readers: are software programs or websites that enable users to subscribe to one or more RSS feeds, delivering content and information from multiple sources into a single user interface and environment, aggregates syndicated content (e.g., news headlines, blogs, and podcasts) into a single location for easy viewing.
RTB: Real Time Bidding is a system to bid for an ad-impression in real-time. RTB is similar to a financial market. It enables advertising inventory to be brought and sold on a per-impression basis via programmatic instantaneous auction. A buyer or advertiser can be use the technology to bid higher or lower value for a specific ad impression.
RON: Run of Network is a run of network ad is one that is placed to run on all sites within a given network of sites at the ad networks own discretion, according to available inventory. Ad sales firms handle run of network insertion orders in such a way as to optimize results for the buyer consistent with higher priority ad commitments. The advertiser usually forgoes premium positioning in exchange for more advertising weight at a lower CPM.
ROS: Run os Site is an ad is one that is placed to rotate on all non-featured ad spaces across an entire site. CPM rates for run of site ads are usually less than rates for purchase of specific site sub-sections or sponsorships.
SaaS: Software-as-a-Service is a term used to describe software that you purchase on a recurring basis, rather than as a one-time fee.
Safeframe: is a managed API-enabled iframe that opens a line of communication between the publisher page content and the iframe-contained external content, such as ads, and so content served into a safeframe is afforded data collection and rich interaction, such as ad expansion, that is unavailable in a standard iframe.
Screen Scraping: is a way of collecting information from a web page, whereby a remote computer program copies information from a website that is designed to display information to a user.
Scripts: are files that initiate routines like generating web pages dynamically in response to user input.
Search: are fees advertisers pay internet companies to list and/or link their company site or domain name to a specific search word or phrase (includes paid search revenues). Search categories include:
- Paid listings: text links appear at the top or side of search results for specific keywords. The more a marketer pays, the higher the position it gets. Marketers only pay when a user clicks on the text link.
- Contextual search: text links appear in an article based on the context of the content, instead of a user-submitted keyword. Payment only occurs when the link is clicked.
- Paid inclusion: guarantees that a marketer’s URL is indexed by a search engine. The listing is determined by the engine’s search algorithms.
Search Advertising: is the promotion of ads on search engine listings or on the sidebar of search engine results pages (also known as SERPs). Search advertising is a very popular channel, largely due to the sheer volume of traffic seen by SERPs. When a person uses a search engine, they are actively looking for something – whether it be a product to buy, a service, or information. Search ads are regarded as extremely effective as they reach users when they are actively engaged with a search query, which means they are more likely to click and convert. Search ads are available on all search engines, such as Google. Bing, Yahoo and others.
Search Click: is a click originating from a list of links returned by a query to a search engine.
Search Engine: is a website that provides a searchable index of online content, whereby users enter keywords describing what they are seeking and the website returns links related to this search query.
Search Retargeting: is a method that enables advertisers to show an ad specifically to visitors based one or more searches or search click events.
Segment: also called data segment or audience, a set of users who share one or more similar attributes.
Self-Serve Media: is a form of advertising that is often associated with text advertising, paid search campaigns, as well as Facebook and twitter. These terms are not synonymous, but they do share a common goal of efficiency: x by eliminating the expense of an advertising salesperson, the self-serve model allows publishers to offer smaller minimum ad buys than would otherwise not be practical or profitable. X by using text ads instead of banner ads, self-serve programs make advertising easier for the many small businesses that do not have compelling graphical ads, preventing delays in the do-it-yourself campaign signup.
Sell-Through Rate: is the percentage of ad inventory sold as opposed to traded or bartered.
SEM: Search Engine Market is a form of paid internet media that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the search engine result pages.
Semantic Targeting: is a type of contextual targeting that also incorporates semantic techniques to understand page meaning and/or sentiment.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines via natural (organic or algorithmic) search results to attract people to visit your website. Ranking high on search engine results is essential to your digital marketing strategy.
SERP: Search-Engine-Results-Page shows relevant results for a searched word, question, or phrase.
Sequence Position: is the sequence position of an event is whether it was the first, last, or nth in sequence. Determining the first event is not perfectly reliable in attribution efforts, since cookie churn and scope issues may mask the true first event.
Server Pull: is a process whereby a user’s browser maintains an automated or customized connection or profile with a web server. The browser usually sets up a unique request that is recorded and stored electronically for future reference. Examples are: requests for the automated delivery of e-mail newsletters, the request for web content based on a specific search criterion determined by the user, or setting up a personalized web page that customizes the information delivered to the user based on pre-determined self-selections.
Server Push: is a process whereby a server maintains an open connection with a browser after the initial request for a page. Through this open connection the server continues to provide updated pages and content even though the visitor has made no further direct requests for such information.
Server Side: is a server side refers to activities taking place on the server as opposed to on the client. Examples are server side counting and server-side redirects.
Server-Initiated Ad Impression: is one of the two methods used for ad counting. Ad content is delivered to the user via two methods server-initiated and client-initiated. Server-initiated ad counting uses the publisher’s web content server for making requests, formatting and re-directing content. For organizations using a server-initiated ad counting method, counting should occur subsequent to the ad response at either the publisher’s ad server or the web content server, or later in the process. See client-initiated ad impression.
Session: (1) a sequence of internet activity made by one user at one site. If a user makes no request from a site during a 30-minute period of time, the next content or ad request would then constitute the beginning of a new visit or (2) a series of transactions performed by a user that can be tracked across successive web sites. For example, in a single session, a user may start on a publisher’s web site, click on an advertisement and then go to an advertiser’s web site and make a purchase. See visit.
Session Cookies: these are temporary and are erased when the browser exits at the end of a web surfing session. See cookie.
Shopping Bot: intelligent agent which searches for the best price.
Site Index: the percentage of an overall desired audience that a website reaches; calculated by % of composition of a site divided by the % composition of the base audience, then multiplied by 100, so: (site comp ÷ audience comp) x 100 = site index; a site index of 100 is average, so for example, if a site indexes at 120, then they are 20% above the average.
Site Map: is a model of a website’s content designed to help both users and search engines navigate the site. A site map can be a hierarchical list of pages (with links) organized by topic, an organization chart, or an xml document that provides instructions to search engine crawl bots.
Site Optimization: Modifies a site to make it easier for search engines to automatically index the site and hopefully result in better placement in results.
Site / Page / Position Transparency: is the ability for the buyer of media (typically an advertisement) to understand the location and context within which the media will be displayed. Transparency can be at the level of web property (site), page content (page) or position (specific location within page). Site transparency, in the context of a network or an exchange, refers to the ability of a buyer of inventory to know the exact identity of the website domain or page on which they have shown advertisements.
Site-centric Measurement: is an audience measurement derived from a web site’s own server logs.
Site Retargeting: is a method that enables advertisers to show an ad specifically to previous site visitors when they are on third-party web sites.
Slotting Fee: is a fee charged to advertisers by media companies to get premium positioning on their site, category exclusivity or some other special treatment. It is similar to slotting allowances charged by retailers.
SME: is an acronym for Subject Matter Experts
SMS: Short Message Service is standard for sending and receiving short (160 character) text messages via mobile handsets.
SMTP: Is an acronym for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol which is the protocol used to transfer email.
Social Media Advertising: is a marketing tactic that taps into the growth of social networks, encouraging users to adopt and pass along widgets or other content modules created by a brand, or to add a brand to the user’s social circle of friends. Any type of promotion on social networks is considered social media advertising. Platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Google +, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube, and others, have become a hugely popular advertising channel. There are two ways that you can promote your brand on social media: organic reach and paid ads. Organic reach is the number of people who may have been exposed to your social media post in their news feed. Organic reach is non-paid content distribution. The number of times a post is viewed organically will depend on how many times it has been liked and shared by others. Paid ads, on the other hand, are ads that the advertiser has paid for in order that they be distributed on the ad network of the social media platform. It is very difficult to reach large numbers of viewers with organic reach alone. Paid ads are necessary in order to drive traffic to your online assets via social media.
Social Network: is an online destination that gives users a chance to connect with one or more groups of friends, facilitating sharing of content, news, and information among them. Examples of social networks include Facebook and LinkedIn.
Space: is a location on a page of a site in which an ad can be placed. Each space on a site is uniquely identified. There can be multiple spaces on a single page.
Spam: term describing unsolicited commercial email.
Spam Filter: software built into email gateways as well as e-mail client applications designed to identify and remove unsolicited commercial messages from incoming email before the end user sees them.
Spider: is a web crawler (also known as an automatic indexer, bot, web spider, web robot) is a software program which visits web pages in a methodical, automated manner. This process is called web crawling or spidering, and the resulting data is used for various purposes, including building indexes for search engines, validating that ads are being displayed in the appropriate context, and detecting malicious code on compromised web servers. Many web crawlers will politely identify themselves via their user-agent string, which provides a reliable way of excluding a significant amount of non-human traffic from advertising metrics. The IAB (in conjunction with ABCE) maintains a list of known user-agent strings as the spiders and bots list. However, those web crawlers attempting to discover malicious code often must attempt to appear to be human traffic, which requires secondary, behavioral filtering to detect. Most web crawlers will respect a file called robots.txt, hosted in the root of a web site. This file informs the web crawler which directories should and shouldn’t be indexed, but does not enact any actual access restrictions. Technically, a web crawler is a specific type of bot, or software agent. See bot and intelligent agents.
Splash Page: is a preliminary page that precedes the user-requested page of a web site that usually promotes a particular site feature or provides advertising. A splash page is timed to move on to the requested page after a short period of time or a click. Also known as an interstitial. Splash pages are not considered qualified page impressions under current industry guidelines, but they are considered qualified ad impressions.
Sponsor: (1) a sponsor is an advertiser who has sponsored an ad and, by doing so, has also helped sponsor or sustain the web site itself or (2) an advertiser that has a special relationship with the web site and supports a specific feature of a web site, such as a writer’s column or a collection of articles on a particular subject.
Sponsored Content: is sponsored content is paid text, video, or images created to promote a brand or product that is presented alongside similar media that isn’t promotional. For example, a blog entry that discusses the benefits of a specific product that was paid for by product advertiser is sponsored content.
Sponsorship: is an an association with a website that gives an advertiser some particular visibility and advantage above that of run of site advertising. When associated with specific content, sponsorship can provide a more targeted audience than run of site ad buys. Sponsorship also implies a synergy and resonance between the website and the advertiser. Some sponsorship is available as value-added opportunities for advertisers who buy a certain minimum amount of advertising. Sponsorship represents custom content and/or experiences created for an advertiser which may or may not include ad unties (i.e., display advertising, brand logos, advertorial and pre-roll video). Sponsorships fall into several categories:
- Spotlights are custom built pages incorporating an advertiser’s brand and housing a collection of content usually around a theme;
- Advergaming can range from an advertiser buying all the ad units around a game or a sponsored by link to creating a custom branded game experience;
- Content & section sponsorship is when an advertiser exclusively sponsors a particular section of the site or email (usually existing content) reskinned with the advertiser’s branding;
- Sweepstakes & contests can range from branded sweepstakes on the site to a full-fledge branded contest with submissions and judging.
Sponsorship Graphics: are components that are displayed as very persistent graphics such as with a player surrounding skin. Sponsorship graphics are generally displayed throughout the entirety of the content play. Sometimes the sponsorship graphic remains interactive and will behave like an invitation unit allowing viewers to explore deeper ad units such as the embedded interactive.
Spyware: is computer software that is installed surreptitiously to intercept or take partial control over the user’s interaction with a computer, without the user’s informed consent. Spyware programs can collect various types of information, such as internet surfing habits, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, and redirecting web browser activity. The software usually does not contain generally accepted standards of notice describing what the purpose and/or behavior of the software is nor does is usually contain visible or functioning choice mechanisms for complete uninstall. The programs are typically characterized by behaviors that can be considered deceptive if not harmful to the user and/or his computer.
Stakeholder: is anybody who has the power to impact a project, strategy and/or campaign. They can be internal or external and they also can be at a senior or junior level and can include subject matter experts (SME.)
Standard Ad Units: a set of ad specifications for standard image or animated in-page ad units that establish a framework for advertising inventory and webpage design. The current recommended ad units are the IAB New Ad Portfolio.
Static Ad Placement / Static Rotation: (1) ads that remain on a web page for a specified period of time or (2) embedded ads.
Statistical ID: is a statistical ID is a probabilistic method of identifying a device based on a set of its attributes that have a reasonable likelihood of being unique in aggregate. For example, using a hash of the IP address, user-agent string, and screen resolution would provide a higher probability of uniquely identifying a device than using any of those attributes independently.
Stickiness: is a measure used to gauge the effectiveness of a site in retaining individual users. Stickiness is usually measured by the duration of the visit.
SS: Session Start is a metric specific to digital audio: the number of streams of one minute or more that are started within a time period.
SSP: Supply Side Platform is an inventory aggregator. It is a technology platform that provides outsourced media selling and ad network management services for publishers. A supply side platform business model resembles that of an ad network in that it aggregates ad impression inventory. However, a sell side platform serves publishers exclusively, and does not provide services for advertisers. The inventory managed by the SSP is usually purchased by aggregate buyers, either demand side platforms (DSPs) or ad networks. Sponsorships fall into several categories:
Streaming: is technology that permits continuous audio and video delivery to a device from a remote website. Also, can refer to an internet data transfer technique that allows the user to see and hear audio and video files. The host or source compresses, then streams small packets of information over the internet to the user, who can access the content as it is received.
Streaming Media Player: is in the interactive advertising context, a streaming media player is a software program that can retrieve audio and video files over a network and begin playback before the entire media file has been downloaded. Some examples are Real Player™, Windows Media and Quick Time Player.
Streaming Video: is a distribution method for serving video files such that the video is played over a persistent connection between the browser and the ad server. Versions of the file at different levels of compression (quality) can be served based on detection of the user’s internet bandwidth. HTML5 files cannot be streamed and rely on adaptive bitrate streaming technologies such as HLS and mpeg-dash.
Submission Lead Time: is the number of business days (non-weekend/non-holiday days) prior to a campaign going live in which a publisher needs to validate advertiser submitted creative(s) for a campaign.
Superstitials: is an interstitial format developed by unicast which is fully pre-cached before playing. Specs are 550 x 480 pixels (2/3 of screen), up to 100k file size and up to 20 seconds in length.
Syndicated Research Tools: are research products available to subscribers that aids the media planning process in gaining insight or business intelligence about specific markets, industries, and trends over specific time periods.
Syndicated Video: is content sourced from a professional third party, examples may include syndicated television shows, news footage from AP or Reuters, etc., and distributed through a multitude of outlets observing strict ownership rights.
T-Commerce: is electronic commerce via interactive television.
Tags: software code that an advertiser provides to a publisher or ad network that calls the advertiser’s ad server for the purposes of displaying an advertisement.
Targeted Advertisement: is an advertisement that is shown only to users exhibiting specific attributes or in a specific context or at a particular time of day.
Target Audience: is he intended audience for an ad, usually defined in terms of specific demographics (age, sex, income, etc.) Product purchase behavior, product usage or media usage.
Target Region: refers to targeting a specific geographic area or groupings on a state, DMA, or hyper-local level.
Textual Ad Impressions: is the delivery of a text-based advertisement to a browser. To compensate for slow internet connections, visitors may disable auto load images in their graphical browser. When they reach a page that contains an advertisement, they see a marker and the advertiser’s message in text format in place of the graphical ad. Additionally, if a user has a text-only browser, only textual ads are delivered and recorded as textual ad impressions.
Third-Party Ad Server: are independent outsourced companies that specialize in managing, maintaining, serving, tracking, and analyzing the results of online ad campaigns. They deliver targeted advertising that can be tailored to consumers declared or predicted characteristics or preferences.
Third Party Data: A third party is an entity that collects information from or about users from a non-affiliate’s website or service. Third parties, such as data aggregators and ad networks, often create data products that span collection from websites and stores not owned or controlled by a single entity.
Time-based Targeting: is method that enables advertisers to show an ad specifically to visitors only on certain days of the week or times of the day (also known as day parting).
Time Spent: is the amount of elapsed time from the initiation of a visit to the last audience activity associated with that visit. Time spent should represent the activity of a single cookied browser or user for a single access session to the web-site or property. Most publishers consider a session continuous if and only if not broken by more than 30 minutes of inactivity. Time spent listening (TSL) a metric specific to digital audio: the average number of hours for each session lasting more than one minute within a time period.
Tracking Assets: is a metric specific to mobile advertising, any piece of content associated with an ad or the page on which an ad appears that is designated to serve as the trigger by which the ad is counted. The content that serves as a tracking asset often may be, but is not limited to, a 1×1 pixel image, a 302-redirect, a JavaScript code, or the ad itself.
Tracking Pixel: is a 1×1 pixel-sized transparent image that provides information about an ad’s placement. In many cases, a tracking pixel is used to notify an ad tracking system that either an ad has been served (or not served, in some cases) or that a specific webpage has been accessed. Also known as: beacon, web beacon, action tag, redirect, etc.
Traffic: is the flow of data over a network, or visitors to a web site
Transitional Ad: is an ad that is displayed between web pages. In other words, the user sees an advertisement as he/she navigates between page ‘a’ and page ‘b.’ also known as an interstitial.
Transitional Pop-Up: is an ad that pops up in a separate ad window between content pages.
TRP: Target Rating Point: is a term used in traditional advertising to measure the size of an audience reached by a specific media vehicle or schedule; it is the product of the percentage of the target audience reached by an advertisement, times the frequency they see it in a given campaign (frequency × % reached). For example, a television ad that is aired 5 times reaching 50% of the target audience each time it is aired would have a TRP of 250 (5 × 50%).
UAP: Universal Ad Package is a set of four ad units (728×90, 300×250, 160×600 and 180×150 pixels) offered by UAP-compliant publishers as a ‘package’ where ads in these four formats are used collectively across the publisher’s site, enabling advertisers to reach more of the publisher’s audience. Those UAP ad units are no longer recommended nor supported by IAB. They are now replaced by the IAB New Ad Portfolio.
UGC: User Generated Content: is web content (either written or recorded as a photo, audio or video) by people who are not professional content creators; so, for example: reader comments; amateur/home videos/audio/photos
UI: User Interface is the visual part of a web page, application, or operating system through which a user interacts with software. Behind the scenes, a UI specialist will design the visual looks, and the front-end developer or engineer will be responsible for the interface running and operating.
Unduplicated Audience: is the number of unique individuals exposed to a specified domain, page or ad in a specified time period.
Unique Cookie: is count of unique identifiers…that represents unduplicated instances of internet activity (generally visits) to internet content or advertising during a measurement period.
Unique Device: is an unduplicated computing device that is used to access internet content or advertising during a measurement period. A count of unduplicated devices necessarily accounts for multiple browser usage on an individual computer or other computing device.
Unique Listeners / Streamers: are a metric specific to digital audio, the size of the audience for a given audio program, piece of content, or advertising message. Typically ‘listeners’ and ‘streamers’ are interchangeable.
Unique User: See Unique Visitors
Unique Visitors: is an unique individual or browser which has accessed a site or application and has been served unique content and/or ads such as e-mail, newsletters, interstitials or pop-under ads. Unique visitors can be identified by user registration, cookies, or third-party measurement like Comscore or Nielsen. Reported unique visitors should filter out bots. See iab.net for the audience reach measurement guidelines.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator is the unique identifying address of any particular page on the web. It contains all the information required to locate a resource, including its protocol (usually http), server domain name (or IP address), file path (directory and name) and format (usually HTML or CGI).
URL Tagging: is the process of embedding unique identifiers into URLs contained in HTML content. These identifiers are recognized by web servers on subsequent browser requests. Identifying visitors through information in the URLs should also allow for an acceptable calculation of visits, if caching is avoided.
User Ad Requests: is a metric specific to mobile advertising, is the result of an active or passive act on the part of the user of a mobile marketing channel. The user may explicitly call for the ad to be delivered, or a request to the ad delivery system is triggered based on other user’s actions.
User Centric Measurement: web audience measurement based on the behavior of a sample of web users.
User Initiated: is the willful act of a user to engage with an ad. Users may interact by clicking on the ad and/or rolling over an ad (or a portion of an ad). When a user engages the ad using a rollover action, the user’s cursor must rest on the hotspot for at least one second before any action may be initiated in the ad.
User initiation: is the willful act of a user to engage with an ad. Detailed guidance is provided in the IAB New Ad Portfolio document. Users may interact by a discrete device action like clicking on the ad, and/or tapping over an ad (or a portion of an ad). Rollover is not a valid user initiation action.
User Registration: is information contributed by an individual which usually includes characteristics such as the person’s age, gender, zip code and often much more. A site’s registration system is usually based on an id code or password to allow the site to determine the number of unique visitors and to track a visitor’s behavior within that site.
VCR: Video Ad Completion Rate is a framework for serving ads to a video player. The specification also describes expected player behavior for executing ads that are supplied using vast. The interaction between the ad and the player is unidirectional, meaning that once the player receives the vast tag no other interactions are possible except for the activation of select tracking beacons at appropriate times during ad playback. Provides a standardized method for communicating the status of a video ad back to the ad servers in the case where the ad is served from a dynamically selected ad server. It is specifically designed for on-demand video player where the ad response is parsed prior to play. Vast is applicable to linear video ads (such as pre-rolls), non-linear video ads (such as overlays) and companion ads as defined in the IAB digital video ad format guidelines.
Video: is in online advertising, the digital recording of a physical event or animated files that have been transcribed into a digital video format.
Video Ad: is a video ad is an advertisement that contains video. There are several different types of video ads: in-banner video ads, in-page video ads, in-stream video ads and non-linear video ads.
Video Completion: is when a video ad runs all the way through to the end.
Video Player: is a video player is a computer program that translates data into video for viewing.
View-Through: is when a consumer sees a brand’s ad, does not click on it, and then later visits that brand’s website.
Viewability: is a term used to describe whether or not a digital media ever appeared in the space within a webpage that was in view to the viewer – for example, when a viewer opens his browser and goes to a website, most often the webpage is longer than the browser window, so the viewer must scroll to continue reading down the page; if an ad never scrolls into that viewable space it is not considered viewable. IAB and MRC standards for measuring and buying digital impressions that must meet the following minimum criteria: • pixel requirement: greater than or equal to 50% of the pixels in the advertisement were on an in-focus browser tab on the viewable space of the browser page, and • time requirement: the time the pixel requirement is met was greater than or equal to one continuous second, post ad render. • video time requirement: to qualify for counting as a viewable video ad impression, it is required that 2 continuous seconds of the video advertisement is played, meeting the same pixel requirement of 50%.
Visit: is an individual or browser which accesses a web site within a specific time period.
VMAP: Video Multiple Ad Playlist is a protocol used for ad servers, ad units, and publishers to communicate with each other in order to serve multiple video ad breaks within streaming video on desktop
VPAID: Video Player Ad Interface is the protocol between the ad and the video player required that enables ad interactivity and other advanced video advertising functionality. VPAID offers bilateral (two-way) communication between the ad and the video player, and meets the needs of emerging in-stream formats such as nonlinear video ads and interactive linear video ads.
Verification Services: is independent companies that offer advertisers the ability to ensure that their ads are appearing in the correct environment; commonly used to protect advertisers from their ads appearing in content environments that are undesirable for brands (so, avoiding salacious/adult content)
WAP: Wireless Application Provider: is a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardize the way that wireless devices, such as cellular mobile telephones, PDAs and others access and browse internet-based content.
WASP: Wireless Applications Service Provider is an organization that provides content and applications for wireless devices.
Waterfall: is the order of priority in which advertisers have the opportunity to buy inventory. Demand sources could include direct sales, networks, or exchanges.
Wearable: are devices, such as the apple watch or Fitbit, that are physically worn on a consumer and can connect to the internet or communicate with a computer or smartphone. Additionally, wearables are a subset of a category known as the internet of things or IOT.
Web Beacon: a web beacon, also known as a web bug, 1 by 1 gif, invisible gif, and tracking pixel, is a tiny image referenced by a line of HTML or a block of JavaScript code embedded into a web site or third-party ad server to track activity. The image used is generally a single pixel that is delivered to the web browser with HTML instructions that keep it from affecting the web site layout. The web beacon will typically include user information like cookies on the http headers, and web site information on the query string. Web beacons are used to collect data for web site and ad delivery analytics, and also specific events such as a registration or conversion:
- Ad creative pixel: a web beacon embedded in an ad tag which calls a web server for the purpose of tracking that a user has viewed a particular ad.
- Conversion pixel: a web beacon that transmits to a third-party server that a user has successfully completed a process such as purchase or registration.
- Piggyback pixel: a web beacon that embeds additional web beacons not directly placed on the publisher page.
- Secure pixel: a web beacon that is delivered over https.
Web Crawler: is a web crawler (also known as an automatic indexer, bot, web spider, web robot) is a software program which visits web pages in a methodical, automated manner. This process is called web crawling or spidering, and the resulting data is used for various purposes, including building indexes for search engines, validating that ads are being displayed in the appropriate context, and detecting malicious code on compromised web servers. Many web crawlers will politely identify themselves via their user-agent string, which provides a reliable way of excluding a significant amount of non-human traffic from advertising metrics. The IAB (in conjunction with ABCE) maintains a list of known user-agent strings as the spiders and bots list. However, those web crawlers attempting to discover malicious code often must attempt to appear to be human traffic, which requires secondary, behavioral filtering to detect. Most web crawlers will respect a file called robots.txt, hosted in the root of a web site. This file informs the web crawler which directories should and shouldn’t be indexed, but does not enact any actual access restrictions. Technically, a web crawler is a specific type of bot, or software agent.See bot and intelligent agents.
Webcasting: real-time or pre-recorded delivery of a live event’s audio, video, or animation over the internet.
WEBM: is is a video file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video tag. The development of the format is sponsored by Google, and the corresponding software is distributed under a BSD license.
Widget: a small application designed to reside on a pc desktop (mac OS x or windows vista) or within a web-based portal or social network site (e.g., myspace or Facebook) offering useful or entertaining functionality to the end user.
Widget and Social Media Applications Metrics: the following metrics apply specifically to widgets and social media applications. These supplementary metrics offer advertisers a greater insight into ROI for all widget and social media application campaigns:
- Installs (applications): total installations of application
- Active users: total users interacting with application over a specific time frame, usually day/week/month, many applications have rapid growth but lose activity over time
- Audience profile: user demographics from self-reported profile information
- Unique user reach: percentage of users who have installed application among the total social media audience (or calculated as active application users per audience)
- Growth: average number of users within a specific time frame
- Influence: average number of friends among users who have installed application
- Application/widget installs (user): number of application or widgets installed by a user onto their profile page or other area. Also called embed, grab or post.
- Active users/widgets in the wild: number of people regularly using an application at a given point in time, number of widgets on a user page at a given point in time
- Longevity/lifecycle: Average period of time for which an application or widget remains installed by a user
Win Rate: Measures the number of impressions won out of those bid on.
XML: Extensible Markup Language is a richer more dynamic successor to HTML utilizing SGML or HTML type tags to structure information. XML is used for transferring data and creating applications on the web. See SGML and HTML.
Yield: the percentage of clicks vs. impressions on an ad within a specific page. Also called ad click rate.
Yield Management: yield and revenue management are the process of understanding, anticipating and influencing advertiser and consumer behavior in order to maximize profits through better selling, pricing, packaging and inventory management, while delivering value to advertisers and site users.
Z-Index: enumerated layers of elements and content on a publisher’s webpage. Consideration of the z-element in page content design such as navigation, imagery, and ads are important for providing a seamless experience when page content overlaps (i.e. An expanding ad with a z-index that is lower [on the z-index scale] than navigational elements may give the appearance that page navigational elements are showing through the expanded portions of the ad).
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