An ad agency is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of marketing and promotion for its clients. In the digital age, they often leverage technology and data to target specific audiences, manage campaigns across various platforms (including programmatic), analyze performance, and optimize ad spending to achieve marketing objectives. They serve as intermediaries between brands and media owners.
Ad attribution is the process of identifying which marketing touchpoints influenced a customer’s conversion or desired action. It involves analyzing user interactions with ads or other marketing channels along their path to conversion. Different attribution models (like first-click, last-click, linear, or data-driven) assign credit to different touchpoints to help marketers understand the effectiveness of each channel and optimize their media spend accordingly.
An ad blocker is a software, typically a browser extension or application, that prevents advertisements from being displayed on websites or within applications. It works by filtering or blocking content identified as advertising, often based on predefined lists or patterns. While popular with users for improving browsing experience and reducing data usage, ad blockers pose a challenge to publishers and advertisers who rely on ad revenue to fund content and services.
An Ad Bundle is a combined booking of various standard ad formats, strategically placed across different positions on a webpage or within an application. Typically, it includes formats like the Super Banner (leaderboard), Skyscraper (wide vertical banner), and Medium Rectangle (square or rectangular ad). The key characteristic of an ad bundle is mutual ad material exclusion. This means these different ad formats display without overlapping, ensuring distinct visibility for each creative within the same overall campaign. This allows advertisers to maximize their presence and impact by utilizing diverse ad real estate simultaneously.
An ad campaign is a series of coordinated advertising messages and activities designed to promote a product, service, or brand over a specific period. It involves defining clear goals, identifying the target audience, developing creative messaging, selecting appropriate advertising channels (like social media, search, display, TV, etc.), setting a budget, and executing the plan. You typically measure the success of an ad campaign against its initial objectives.
Ad creative refers to the content and design elements that make up an advertisement. It includes text, images, videos, audio, interactive elements, and the overall layout used to convey a marketing message. Creatives are developed to attract the target audience’s attention and encourage engagement or action. Online marketers use different formats across various channels, such as banner ads, video spots, social media posts, and search ads, each requiring specific creative specifications.
Ad density is the proportion of advertising content relative to the main editorial content on a screen. It is typically measured as a percentage of visible screen real estate, number of ads per scroll, or ad-to-content ratio. This metric is crucial for balancing publisher revenue with user experience, as excessive ads can lead to a cluttered environment, increased bounce rates, slower page load times, and negative impacts on SEO and Core Web Vitals.
Ad engagement refers to how users interact with an advertisement beyond simply viewing it. It measures the level of user involvement or interest in the ad content. Standard engagement metrics include clicks on display or search ads, video views or watch time, likes, shares, comments on social media ads, or interactions with interactive ad formats. High engagement indicates that the creative and targeting effectively resonate with the audience.
An ad exchange is a digital marketplace in the ad tech ecosystem where advertisers and publishers buy and sell digital ad inventory through real-time auctions. Publishers make their available ad space (impressions) accessible, typically via a Supply-Side Platform (SSP), and advertisers bid on this inventory through a Demand-Side Platform (DSP). The exchange facilitates this programmatic buying and selling process, connecting buyers and sellers efficiently based on factors like audience data and bidding price.
Ad format refers to an advertisement’s specific type, size, and style as it is presented to the user. This includes various forms such as banner ads, video ads (in-stream, out-stream), native ads, interstitial ads, audio ads, and text ads. The format dictates the visual and interactive elements of the ad and is chosen based on the channel, device, and advertising objectives to convey the message effectively.
Ad fraud is a deceptive activity in online advertising designed to defraud advertisers by generating fake impressions, clicks, or conversions. This is often carried out by automated bots, malware, or other fraudulent methods rather than genuine human users. Ad fraud costs advertisers significant amounts of money and undermines the effectiveness and trustworthiness of digital advertising by distorting performance metrics and wasting ad spend.
Ad frequency is a metric that measures the average number of times a unique user is exposed to a specific advertisement or an entire ad campaign within a defined timeframe. It is crucial in media planning, as managing frequency helps optimize campaign performance. A too-low frequency may result in missed opportunities, while an excessively high frequency can lead to ad fatigue, negatively impacting the user experience and potentially wasting the ad budget.
An ad impression is a single instance where an advertisement appears on a user’s screen. It is the basic unit of measurement for digital ad delivery, counted each time an ad loads and is made viewable. Impressions indicate the potential exposure of an ad to an audience and are a fundamental metric for tracking reach and calculating performance indicators like CPM (Cost Per Mille/Thousand Impressions).
Ad inventory refers to the total amount of an available publisher’s advertising space or opportunities to sell on their digital property, such as a website, mobile app, or video content. It represents the potential number of ad impressions a publisher can serve to users. The value of ad inventory depends on factors like audience size, demographics, content relevance, and viewability. Publishers manage their inventory to maximize revenue through direct sales, ad networks, or programmatic channels.
An ad landing page is a specific webpage where online marketers direct users immediately after clicking on an advertisement. Unlike a general homepage, a landing page is typically designed with a single focus or goal directly related to the ad’s message and call to action. Its primary purpose is to guide the user toward a specific conversion, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or downloading content.
Ad load time measures the duration for an advertisement to fully render and become visible in a user’s browser or application after the ad request is initiated. This metric is critical for user experience, as slow-loading ads can frustrate users and increase bounce rates. Optimizing ad load time is essential for ensuring ad viewability, improving engagement, and maximizing the potential revenue for publishers and performance for advertisers in the fast-paced digital environment.
Ad monetization is the process by which owners of digital properties, such as websites, mobile apps, or video content, generate revenue by displaying advertisements to their users. This process involves selling their available advertising space, or inventory, to advertisers. Various strategies and technologies, including ad networks, ad exchanges, and programmatic platforms, are employed to facilitate the selling and serving of ads, with revenue often based on impressions, clicks, or conversions.
An ad network acts as an intermediary, aggregating advertising space (inventory) from numerous publishers and selling it to advertisers. These platforms simplify the ad buying process by providing advertisers access to a wide range of websites and apps through a single point of purchase. Ad networks often offer tools for targeting specific audiences and managing campaigns, helping publishers monetize their content and advertisers reach their desired users efficiently.
Ad Ops refers to the technical and logistical functions of managing and executing digital advertising campaigns. They include crucial tasks such as setting up campaigns in ad servers, trafficking creative assets, implementing tracking pixels, monitoring campaign performance, troubleshooting issues, and optimizing delivery to ensure ads reach the right audience efficiently and campaigns meet their objectives. Ad Ops professionals play a vital role in the smooth functioning of the ad tech ecosystem.
An ad overlay is a digital advertisement that appears as a semi-transparent layer on top of existing content, most commonly seen in video players. These ads, often banners or interactive graphics, are designed to be less intrusive than other formats, allowing users to continue viewing the underlying content. They typically include a call to action and can often be closed by the viewer, balancing monetization and user experience.
Ad overload describes the phenomenon where users perceive an excessive volume or intrusive nature of advertising, particularly on social media. This leads to negative reactions such as social media fatigue, perceived goal impediment, and ultimately, increased ad avoidance. Research indicates that high ad overload reduces ad effectiveness and can diminish user satisfaction, pushing individuals to ignore ads or use ad blockers.
Ad placement refers to the specific location within a digital environment where an advertisement is displayed. This could be a designated ad slot on a website, a position within a mobile app, a specific point during a video, or a location in a social media feed. Strategic ad placement is crucial for maximizing an ad’s visibility, reaching the target audience effectively, and influencing overall campaign performance and return on investment.
Ad rate refers to the price an advertiser pays to a publisher or platform for the placement and display of an advertisement. Various factors determine ad rates, including the ad format, placement location, target audience demographics, seasonality, competition, and the chosen pricing model (e.g., CPM, CPC, CPA). Effectively setting and managing ad rates is crucial for publishers to maximize revenue and for advertisers to manage their budgets and achieve campaign ROI.
Ad retention, also known as ad recall, measures the extent to which consumers remember seeing a specific advertisement or the brand being promoted after a period of time. It indicates how effectively an ad has captured attention and created a memorable impression. While related to user engagement, ad retention focuses explicitly on the lasting impact of the ad message on the viewer’s memory, serving as a key metric for assessing brand awareness and advertising effectiveness beyond immediate clicks.
Ad revenue is the income earned by publishers, platforms, or content creators by displaying advertisements on their digital properties or content. This revenue is generated when advertisers pay for the opportunity to show their ads to a relevant audience, typically based on metrics such as impressions (CPM), clicks (CPC), or completed actions (CPA). Ad revenue is a primary monetization model for many online businesses that offer free content or services.
Ad rotation is a method of displaying multiple creative versions of an advertisement in the same ad placement. Instead of showing a single ad repeatedly, one serves different ads alternately. This technique helps to prevent ad fatigue among users, gather performance data on different creatives through A/B testing, and optimize campaigns by eventually favoring the best-performing ads.
An ad server is a technology platform that stores ad creatives, makes real-time decisions about which ads to display based on targeting criteria, delivers those ads to websites or apps, and tracks performance metrics such as impressions and clicks. The process of delivering these ads is called ad serving. When a user visits a page with ad space, the ad server receives a request, selects a suitable ad from the available inventory, and returns the creative to be displayed—all within milliseconds. Ad servers are essential for publishers managing their ad inventory and advertisers running targeted campaigns.
This is a typical phrase for differences in reported ad impressions or clicks between the advertiser’s and publisher’s ad servers.
An ad slot (or ad space) is a predefined area within a website, mobile app, or other digital content where an advertisement can be displayed. Publishers create these slots with specific dimensions and technical parameters. Each slot typically includes an ad tag communicating with an ad server to request and render a suitable ad creative.
While “ad slot” often refers to the technical implementation, “ad space” emphasizes the commercial aspect—publishers offer this space to advertisers, usually for a fee. The value of an ad space depends on factors like its visibility, user engagement, and the relevance of surrounding content. Ad slots and space form the foundation of a publisher’s ad inventory and monetization strategy.
An ad tag is a snippet of code, typically HTML or JavaScript, placed within a publisher’s webpage or app. Its primary function is to communicate with an ad server or ad exchange to request and trigger the display of an advertisement in a specific ad slot. Ad tags contain information about the ad unit, size, and sometimes targeting parameters, acting as the instruction set for retrieving and rendering the ad creative for the user.
Ad Targeting displays digital advertisements to specific user segments based on collected data and defined criteria. The goal is to increase ad relevance and effectiveness by reaching users most likely interested in the product or service. Targeting criteria can include demographics, interests, online behavior, geographic location, and contextual factors of the visited content.
Ad tech, short for advertising technology, refers to the collection of software, platforms, and tools used to manage, automate, and optimize digital advertising campaigns. This technology facilitates the buying and selling ad inventory, audience targeting, ad serving, tracking, and performance analysis across various digital channels. Ad tech plays a crucial role in the efficiency and effectiveness of modern online advertising.
An ad unit is a space on a publisher’s digital property where advertisements are displayed. It is configured with specific dimensions and parameters to accommodate various ad formats. Publishers create and manage ad units as containers that communicate with ad servers via ad tags to request and render ad creatives, forming the fundamental inventory for digital advertising.
Ad verification is a service advertisers use to ensure their digital ads are delivered and displayed according to their specifications. This includes confirming that ads appear on brand-safe websites, are seen by real users (not bots), are viewable, and are shown in the correct geographic locations. Ad verification helps combat ad fraud and ensures the quality and effectiveness of advertising spend.
An advertiser is an entity (individual, company, or organization) that pays to promote its products, services, or brand through advertising. They are the buyers in the ad tech ecosystem, utilizing various platforms and technologies to create, target, and deliver advertising campaigns to reach their desired audience and achieve specific marketing objectives, such as increasing brand awareness or driving sales.
An advertiser dashboard is a dedicated interface provided by advertising platforms (such as DSPs or ad networks) for advertisers. It serves as a central hub to manage, monitor, and analyze their digital advertising campaigns. Within the dashboard, advertisers can typically set up campaigns, define targeting, upload creatives, track key performance metrics, access reports, and manage billing, providing comprehensive control and insights.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based digital advertising model where businesses compensate individuals or other companies (affiliates) for driving desired actions, such as sales, leads, or clicks. Affiliates promote the advertiser’s products or services through unique tracking links and earn a commission for successful conversions attributed to their promotional efforts. This model allows businesses to expand their reach by leveraging third-party networks and paying only for measurable results.
ATF, or Above The Fold, refers to a webpage or screen section visible to a user immediately upon loading, without scrolling. Ad placements in the ATF area are considered premium inventory in digital advertising. Due to their prominent position, ATF ads have a higher likelihood of being seen, potentially leading to more excellent viewability, impressions, and user engagement than ads placed below the fold.
An attribution model is a framework used in digital marketing to determine how credit for a conversion (like a sale or lead) is assigned to the various touchpoints a customer interacted with along their journey. Since users often engage with multiple ads and channels before converting, these models provide rules (e.g., first-click, last-click, linear) to quantify the influence of each touchpoint, helping marketers optimize spend and understand channel effectiveness.
Automated bidding uses machine learning within ad platforms to adjust bids in real-time auctions based on predefined campaign goals like conversions, clicks, or impressions. This technology optimizes ad spend and performance by analyzing vast data sets and reacting instantly to user behavior and market dynamics, removing the need for manual bid adjustments. Its purpose is to achieve campaign objectives more efficiently.
Average position was a metric used primarily in search engine marketing to indicate the average rank of an ad relative to other paid ads on a search results page. While historically used to gauge ad visibility, it has been deprecated in platforms like Google Ads. It has been replaced by more precise metrics such as Impression Share (Top and Absolute Top) to understand better an ad’s actual placement and prominence on the page.
A Background Ad integrates an advertisement directly into the background of a webpage, making the entire visible area of the site, outside of the main content, a clickable ad. This immersive format often uses large, visually striking images or animations that wrap around the page's content, creating a seamless and attention-grabbing experience for the user. It's a high-impact ad unit designed to dominate the user's field of vision without obstructing the core content. Because of its prominent placement, background ads are typically booked for high-visibility campaigns where brand awareness and strong visual impact are primary goals.
The Banderole Ad overlays a webpage much like a printed banner, wrapping itself across the full width of the page's content, directly within the user's immediate field of vision. This premium format moves with the user as they scroll, ensuring maximum attention. Initially displayed at a size of 770 x 250 pixels, the ad automatically reduces to a smaller Reminder Ad format of 25 x 250 pixels after 10 seconds or upon a user's click to close it. Users can then click on this smaller reminder to re-expand the ad to its full size.
Banner ads are a common form of digital advertising presented as rectangular graphic displays on websites or mobile apps. Designed to capture attention, they typically feature images, text, and a call to action to drive clicks to an advertiser’s landing page and promote a brand or product. They come in various standard sizes.
Banner blindness is the demonstrated tendency of website visitors to ignore banner-like information, consciously or unconsciously. This phenomenon occurs because users, exposed to a high volume of banner ads, learn to filter them out as visual noise to focus on desired content. It significantly impacts digital advertising effectiveness, resulting in low viewability and click-through rates for banner placements.
Behavioral targeting is a digital advertising technique that uses data about a user’s past online actions (like websites visited, searches, or content viewed) to predict future interests. Advertisers can deliver more relevant and personalized ads by segmenting users based on these behaviors. This strategy aims to increase engagement, improve conversion rates, and optimize ad spend by reaching users more likely to be interested.
A Billboard Ad delivers a powerful visual statement due to its large size and prominent landscape orientation. This format offers extensive space for compelling communication and bespoke creative executions, incorporating graphics, video, or interactive elements. With a standard size of 800 x 250 pixels, it's a go-to choice for high-impact campaigns and is often used in network and thematic channel rotations to maximize reach and brand visibility.
BTF, or Below The Fold, designates the portion of a webpage or screen that is not immediately visible when the page loads, requiring the user to scroll down. In digital advertising, BTF ads have lower initial visibility than Above The Fold (ATF) placements. While less prominent initially, they can still gain impressions and engagement if the user scrolls and the ad appears.
A brand lift study is a research method measuring a digital ad campaign’s impact on brand perception. It surveys a group exposed to ads and a control group, comparing metrics like awareness, recall, and consideration. The difference reveals the campaign’s influence beyond clicks, demonstrating its effectiveness in shaping how consumers view the brand.
Brand safety in digital advertising involves protecting a brand’s reputation by ensuring ads do not appear alongside inappropriate or harmful content. This protection includes avoiding placements near material related to hate speech, violence, illegal activities, or other sensitive topics that could damage the brand image or erode consumer trust. Ad tech platforms employ tools and guidelines to help advertisers maintain brand safety.
The Breakout Ad utilizes innovative scroll-driven technology to react to user interactions, naturally generating attention.
For desktop, the creative begins as a standard sticky sitebar. As the user scrolls, the ad recognizes this action and triggers a small overlay animation where elements "break out" of the ad's layout and extend over the content. After four seconds, this overlay retracts back into the ad unit, encouraging users to click for a more immersive experience. Upon clicking, the sitebar expands to full screen, covering the content and offering ample space for integrating videos, text, and interactive HTML elements.
For mobile, the entire creative operates within a regular Mobile Halfpage Ad (300x600 pixels). Initially, the creative doesn't use the full slot area. Scrolling initiates a 3D parallax animation, creating the optical illusion that individual elements are "breaking out" of the motif. This is purely a visual effect, as the ad unit never actually overlays the content.
A call to action (CTA) is a prompt in marketing materials guiding the user toward a desired next step. Typically a concise, action-oriented phrase (e.g., “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” “Sign Up”), CTAs are often presented as buttons or links. Their purpose is to encourage immediate engagement and drive conversions by clearly indicating the action the user should take.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a distributed network of servers located in various geographical areas. Its primary purpose is to deliver web content, like images, videos, and ads, to users quickly and efficiently. By caching content closer to the user’s location, CDNs reduce latency and improve load times, ensuring a faster and more reliable online experience.
Click fraud is a deceptive practice in digital advertising where paid ads, typically pay-per-click (PPC) ads, are clicked by automated bots, scripts, or individuals with no genuine interest. This is done to generate fraudulent charges for the advertiser, exhaust their budget, or manipulate ad performance. It’s a significant problem that harms advertisers and the integrity of online advertising platforms.
The completion rate measures the percentage of users who have completed a predefined action or sequence of steps. In ad tech, this often tracks how many users finish watching a video ad, complete a form submission, or navigate through a specific conversion funnel. A high completion rate signifies that the content or user journey is compelling and engaging for the audience.
A contextual ad is a form of digital advertising where publishers automatically match the creatives to the surrounding content of a webpage or app. By analyzing keywords, topics, and themes, contextual advertising ensures ads are topically relevant to what the user is actively consuming. This method offers relevance without relying on user browser history or personal data.
The conversion rate is a key performance indicator (KPI) in digital marketing and ad tech. It represents the percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as a purchase, sign-up, or download, out of the total number of users exposed to an advertisement or visiting a webpage. Calculated as (Conversions / Total Interactions) * 100, a higher CVR signifies more effective ad campaigns or website performance.
Conversion tracking measures user actions (“conversions”) after they interact with an ad. It uses tracking codes or pixels on a website or app to record events like purchases, sign-ups, or downloads. This data helps advertisers understand ad performance, calculate ROI, and optimize campaigns to drive more valuable actions.
A cookie is a small piece of data stored as a text file on a user’s computer by their web browser. Websites use cookies to remember information about the user, like login details, site preferences, and Browse activity. In ad tech, cookies track user behavior across different sites to enable targeted advertising, manage ad frequency, and measure campaign effectiveness.
CPA is a performance marketing metric that measures the average cost to acquire one customer or a completed desired action (e.g., a sale, sign-up, or download). You calculate it by dividing the total campaign cost by the number of conversions. CPA helps advertisers assess the profitability of their campaigns and optimize spending for efficient customer acquisition.
CPC is an online advertising metric and pricing model where an advertiser pays a set amount each time someone clicks their ad. You calculate it by dividing the total cost of clicks by the number of clicks received. CPC is commonly used in search engine marketing and display advertising to measure the cost-effectiveness of driving traffic to a website.
CPM, or cost per thousand impressions, is an advertising pricing model where advertisers pay for every one thousand times their ad is displayed (an impression), regardless of whether it is clicked. It is calculated by dividing the total campaign cost by the number of impressions and multiplying by 1,000. CPM is often used for brand awareness campaigns.
CPV is a video advertising metric and bidding strategy where advertisers pay a set amount each time their video ad is viewed. A “view” is typically defined as watching a particular duration of the video (e.g., 30 seconds) or the entire ad for shorter videos. CPV measures the cost-effectiveness of video ad campaigns focused on viewership and engagement.
Creative optimization is testing and refining an advertisement’s elements, such as headlines, images, calls to action, and ad copy, to improve its performance. Advertisers can make data-driven decisions to enhance engagement, click-through rates, and conversions by analyzing data on how different creative variations resonate with the target audience.
CTR is a key metric that measures the percentage of users who click on an advertisement after seeing it. You calculate it by dividing the number of clicks an ad receives by the number of times it is shown (impressions), multiplied by 100. A higher CTR generally indicates an ad is compelling and relevant to the audience.
A data aggregator or data broker is a company that collects, processes, and organizes data from a wide range of sources—such as websites, mobile apps, public records, and commercial databases—to create detailed user or household profiles. While data aggregators often focus on structuring and combining large volumes of raw data for analysis and segmentation, data brokers typically go a step further by packaging and selling or licensing this information to third parties.
In ad tech, both play a key role in enabling targeted advertising, audience segmentation, personalization, and performance measurement. This data helps advertisers and publishers gain insights into consumer behavior and make informed decisions based on demographic, behavioral, or interest-based attributes.
A DMP is a centralized technology platform in ad tech that collects, organizes, and analyzes audience data from various sources (online, offline, mobile). It helps create detailed, anonymous audience segments based on demographics, behaviors, and interests. This information is then used to inform targeting and personalization strategies across different digital advertising channels, enabling more efficient media buying and campaign optimization.
A device ID (like IDFA for iOS or GAID for Android) is a unique, resettable identifier assigned to a mobile device or connected TV. Unlike browser cookies, it operates at the device level, enabling tracking of user behavior within and across mobile applications and CTV environments. Device IDs are crucial in ad tech for targeted advertising, frequency capping, attribution, and analytics in the mobile and CTV ecosystems.
This unique identifier in programmatic advertising represents a private, pre-negotiated agreement between a specific buyer (advertiser) and the seller (publisher). It allows buyers to access guaranteed or preferred inventory at agreed-upon terms, bypassing the open auction marketplace. Deal IDs ensure transparency and control over inventory quality and pricing for both parties involved in the programmatic transaction.
The Direction Ad is a large and highly attention-grabbing format that combines a Billboard Ad with a Double Sitebar.
Within the Billboard, two arrows are integrated on the left and right. Clicking these arrows slides the main content of the browser window to 80% of its width, moving it aside. This action can trigger one of two variants: Variant 1 allows the existing Sitebar to expand into the newly created space. Variant 2 loads an entirely new ad unit into the Sitebar, which can be a new static creative or a video. A close button allows the expanded section to retract, returning the content to its original position. If the user scrolls down the page and the Billboard is no longer in view, the arrow buttons will reappear above the Double Sitebar on both the right and left sides.
Display ads are online advertisements that utilize visual elements such as text, images, animation, or video, typically appearing in designated ad slots on websites, apps, or social media platforms. Display ads are designed to capture user attention and drive traffic or build brand awareness. They come in various formats and sizes. Publishers can target them to specific audiences.
The Double Sitebar Ad is a large, attention-grabbing ad format that dynamically adjusts to screen size. It's positioned on both the right and left sides of the main content, ensuring it remains fixed within the user's visible area of the page. Thanks to its "sticky effect," this ad format stays anchored in the user's view as they scroll up or down, providing optimal visibility for your product.
DSP is a software platform advertisers use to programmatically buy digital advertising inventory from multiple sources across the internet. DSPs allow advertisers to manage their ad campaigns, target specific audience segments, set budgets, and optimize bids in real-time auctions to purchase ad impressions efficiently and at scale.
Dynamic creative refers to ad units where elements like headlines, images, calls to action, or product information are automatically customized and changed in real-time based on user data, context, or other relevant factors. This personalization aims to make ads more relevant and engaging to individual viewers, improving performance compared to static creative.
In ad tech, dynamic pPricing refers to the automated adjustment of the price of ad inventory in real-time based on various factors such as demand, audience segment, time of day, and historical performance. This strategy allows publishers to maximize their revenue by selling impressions at the highest possible market value and enables buyers to bid based on the perceived value of each impression.
An advertisement included within an email communication, which is typically sent to users who have opted to receive marketing messages from a brand or advertiser. Email ads can take various forms, such as banner images, text links, or product showcases, and are used for direct marketing, promotions, and building customer relationships within the email channel.
Engagement rate is a metric that measures the level of interaction users have with a piece of advertising content or a marketing campaign. You typically calculate it as the percentage of users who took a specific action (like clicks, likes, shares, comments, or views) out of the total number of users who saw the content. A higher engagement rate indicates that the creative or campaign resonates well with the audience.
Expandable ads are rich media ad units that initially appear as standard-sized banners but can expand to a larger size when a user hovers over or clicks on them. This format provides a larger canvas for advertisers to deliver more engaging content, such as videos, games, or detailed information, offering a more interactive experience without permanently occupying large ad space.
The Fireplace Ad is a highly prominent ad format designed to guarantee maximum attention for your brand and message. It combines three ad units: a Skyscraper on the left, a Superbanner across the top, and another Skyscraper on the right.
For optimal visibility, the Skyscrapers are designed to dock seamlessly to the sides of the Leaderboard and are delivered with a "sticky" effect, meaning they remain in view as the user scrolls.
First-party data is information that a company collects directly from its audiences and customers through its owned channels, such as websites, apps, CRM systems, and direct interactions. This data is proprietary and typically includes Browse behavior, purchase history, demographics provided by the user, and customer feedback. It is considered highly valuable due to its accuracy and relevance.
A floating ad, also known as an overlay ad, is a rich media advertisement that appears superimposed over a webpage’s content. It typically remains fixed on the screen even when the user scrolls. Designed to capture attention due to its prominent placement, floating ads often include interactive elements and a close button.
Frequency capping is an ad-serving setting that limits the number of times a specific advertisement appears to a unique user within a defined period (e.g., per hour, day, or week). Its purpose is to prevent ad fatigue, reduce wasted impressions, and ensure a better user experience by controlling the repetition of ad exposure.
GDPR is a comprehensive data privacy law in the European Union that regulates the collection, processing, and use of EU residents’ personal data. It significantly impacts ad tech by requiring explicit consent for data collection and processing for advertising purposes, granting users enhanced rights over their data, and imposing strict rules on data transfers.
Geo-targeting is a digital advertising strategy that delivers advertisements to users based on their geographic location. IP address, device GPS data, or other location-aware technologies can determine this. Geo-targeting allows advertisers to show relevant messages to audiences in specific countries, regions, cities, or even smaller areas.
The Halfpage Ad is an attention-grabbing format measuring a substantial 300 x 600 pixels. This ad unit is either placed prominently to the right of the main content or seamlessly integrated into the page's structure. Its generous dimensions offer significant creative freedom for communication, including the use of video. This special format is ideal for achieving lasting branding effects on high-reach placements.
Header bidding, or pre-bidding, is a programmatic technique where publishers offer their ad inventory to multiple ad exchanges and demand partners simultaneously before the ad server is called. This creates a unified auction that increases competition for the inventory, helping publishers maximize their revenue and giving buyers better access to impressions.
In programmatic advertising, header tags refer to JavaScript snippets placed in a website’s <head> section that enable header bidding. This technique allows multiple demand partners (such as ad exchanges or SSPs) to bid on ad inventory before the ad server decides. By loading these scripts early—often before the rest of the page content—publishers can increase competition among bidders, improve yield, and gain greater control over how ads are sold.
Unlike HTML heading tags (H1, H2, etc.), header tags in this context have nothing to do with content structure. They are a technical implementation that supports real-time auctions and maximizes ad revenue.
Incrementality in ad tech measures the true causal impact of advertising on a desired outcome, such as conversions or sales, beyond what would have occurred naturally without the ad exposure. It quantifies the additional value generated by a specific marketing activity or channel. Measuring incrementality helps advertisers optimize budgets by identifying which efforts drive truly new actions versus those that would have happened anyway.
In-app advertising refers to the display of advertisements within mobile applications. These ads can appear in various formats, including banners, interstitials (full-screen ads), rewarded videos (users watch to earn in-app rewards), and native ads that blend with the app’s content. It’s a primary monetization strategy for app developers and a way for advertisers to reach mobile users.
In-stream ads are video advertisements that play before (pre-roll), during (mid-roll), or after (post-roll) online video content that a user is watching. These ads are integrated directly into the video player, making them highly visible. They are commonly found on video-sharing platforms and publisher websites with video content.
Interest-based advertising (IBA), or online behavioral advertising, delivers ads to users based on their past online activities and inferred interests. By tracking Browse history, app usage, and other digital behaviors, advertisers can group users into interest segments and show them more relevant advertisements than purely contextual targeting.
An interstitial ad is a full-screen advertisement that appears at natural transition points within a website or mobile application, such as between pages or during pauses in content like game levels. They are designed to be high-impact and command the user’s full attention before allowing them to continue, typically offering an option to close the ad.
IVT, or invalid traffic, refers to online ad impressions or clicks that do not come from genuine human users with real intent. This includes traffic generated by bots, crawlers, fraudulent software, or accidental clicks. Detecting and filtering IVT is crucial in ad tech to ensure advertisers pay for legitimate human engagement and maintain data accuracy.
A key performance indicator (KPI) in ad tech is a measurable value used to track and evaluate the success of advertising campaigns or marketing efforts against specific objectives. KPIs help advertisers understand performance, optimize strategies, and measure the return on investment. Examples include click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS).
Keyword targeting is a method in digital advertising where ads are displayed to users based on specific words or phrases they enter into search engines or appear on websites they are viewing. This strategy aims to reach users with relevant ads based on their active interests or the content they are consuming at that moment.
Lazy loading is a web development technique where non-critical resources, such as images or advertisements, are deferred from loading until they are needed or are about to be visible to the user as they scroll down a webpage. This improves initial page load speed and enhances user experience while also optimizing ad viewability by only loading ads when they are likely to be seen.
A linear ad temporarily replaces or pauses the main video. It plays before, during, or after the content (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll) and takes over the entire video player—similar to a traditional TV commercial. Non-linear ads run in parallel to the video; linear ads run in place of the video.
A lookalike audience is a targeting method that allows advertisers to reach new potential customers who share similar characteristics, behaviors, and demographics with their existing customers or a high-value audience segment. Advertising platforms use data from the source audience to find a broader group of users with comparable profiles, expanding reach with relevant users.
Media buying is purchasing advertising space and time across various media channels, both digital (websites, apps, social media) and traditional (TV, radio, print). The goal is to reach a target audience effectively and efficiently within a set budget by negotiating placements, times, and costs.
A mobile ad SDK (software development kit) is a set of tools and libraries that advertising platforms provide to mobile app developers. Integrating an ad SDK allows developers to display ads within their apps quickly, manage different ad formats, track ad performance, and connect to ad networks for monetization.
A native ad is a form of paid advertising designed to match the look, feel, and function of the surrounding content within a publisher’s platform (website, app, or social media feed). Unlike traditional banner ads, native ads are less disruptive and aim to blend seamlessly with the organic user experience to increase engagement.
Native advertising guidelines are standards and regulations established by industry bodies (like the FTC in the US) to ensure transparency in native advertising. These guidelines require that native ads are clearly labeled as paid content, preventing them from misleading users into believing they are editorial or organic material, thus maintaining trust and preventing deceptive practices.
A non-linear ad runs alongside or over the main video content without interrupting playback. It typically appears as an overlay or banner—often at the bottom of the screen—while the video continues to play in the background.
Opt-in and Opt-out refer to user consent mechanisms in digital marketing and data privacy. Opt-in requires users to actively give explicit permission for their data to be collected or for them to receive marketing communications. Opt-out assumes consent by default but allows users to actively choose not to have their data collected or to stop receiving communications. Privacy regulations like GDPR govern these mechanisms.
Out-stream video ads are video advertisements that appear outside of traditional video players and are commonly embedded within editorial content like articles or news feeds. They typically autoplay without sound when a user scrolls them into view and pauses when scrolled out. This format allows publishers without native video content to offer video inventory and expands advertisers’ reach.
An overlay ad is a digital advertisement that appears superimposed over content, commonly on videos or websites. These ads typically occupy a portion of the screen, such as a banner at the bottom of a video player, allowing users to continue viewing the main content while the ad is displayed. They often include a close button.
Parallax ads, also known as poster ads, are display ads that appear fixed in the background while the surrounding content scrolls past with a gap, gradually revealing the entire ad. Unlike traditional parallax scrolling, which relies on background and foreground layers moving at different speeds, this format creates a visual effect where the ad becomes fully visible within the viewport, even if it is taller than the visible screen area. The effect draws attention using motion and timing, particularly on long, scrollable pages.
Pay-per-call advertising is a performance-based model where advertisers pay for qualified phone calls generated by their marketing efforts. Instead of paying for clicks or impressions, advertisers pay when a user calls a dedicated tracking number after seeing an ad. This model is popular for businesses where phone calls are a key conversion event.
Pixel tracking uses a small, often invisible 1x1 image pixel or snippet of code embedded in websites, emails, or ads. When a user loads the content, the pixel fires, sending data to a server. This monitoring allows advertisers to track user behavior, measure conversions, build audience segments for retargeting, and gain insights into campaign performance.
A pop-up ad is a form of online advertisement that suddenly appears in a new browser window, often on top of the content the user is viewing. While historically popular for capturing attention, they can be intrusive and negatively impact user experience, leading to the widespread use of pop-up blockers.
PPC, or pay-per-click, is an online advertising model where advertisers pay a publisher (like a search engine or website owner) a fee each time someone clicks on the ad. It’s a performance-based model focused on driving traffic, where advertisers bid on keywords or audience segments, aiming for the cost per click to be less than the resulting action’s value.
These terms refer to the placement of linear video ads within video content. Pre-roll ads play before the main video starts, mid-roll ads appear during the video (often at natural breaks), and post-roll ads run after the video has finished. These are standard in-stream ad formats used to monetize video content.
The privacy sandbox is an initiative by Google to develop new technologies that protect user privacy online while still allowing for effective digital advertising. It aims to phase out third-party cookies and other cross-site tracking methods in favor of privacy-preserving APIs that enable functionalities like interest-based advertising and conversion measurement without individually identifying users.
A private marketplace (PMP) is an invitation-only programmatic advertising environment where selected publishers directly offer their premium ad inventory to a limited group of advertisers. PMPs provide more control and transparency than open exchanges, allowing publishers to curate buyers and set specific terms. At the same time, advertisers gain access to high-quality, brand-safe inventory often unavailable otherwise.
Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling digital advertising space using technology and algorithms. This process eliminates manual negotiations, allowing for real-time bidding on ad impressions and enabling advertisers to reach specific audiences more efficiently based on data, ultimately streamlining campaign execution and optimization.
Programmatic direct is a method of buying and selling digital ad inventory programmatically based on direct deals negotiated between a publisher and an advertiser. Unlike open auctions, these deals have fixed prices and guaranteed inventory, combining programmatic automation with the predictability and control of traditional direct sales.
In digital advertising, a publisher is an individual or organization that owns and operates websites, apps, or other digital platforms where advertising space is available. Publishers create content and attract an audience, monetizing their digital properties by selling ad inventory to advertisers looking to reach that audience.
Reach is a key advertising metric that measures the number of unique individuals exposed to an advertisement or campaign at least once over a specific period. It quantifies the size of the audience that saw the ad, distinct from impressions, which count the total number of times the ad was displayed.
Real-time bidding (RTB) is a programmatic advertising method that facilitates the buying and selling individual ad impressions through instantaneous auctions. This process occurs in the milliseconds it takes a webpage to load, allowing advertisers to bid dynamically on inventory and reach specific users based on data, optimizing ad spend and targeting efficiency.
A reporting API provides programmatic access to advertising campaign performance data. It allows platforms and users to automatically extract metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, and spending, enabling integration with other systems, custom analysis, and creating tailored dashboards for monitoring and optimizing ad campaigns efficiently without manual data retrieval.
Responsive ads automatically adjust their size, appearance, and format to fit available ad spaces across various devices and screen sizes. By providing multiple assets (like headlines, descriptions, and images), the ad system creates combinations optimized for different placements, improving efficiency and reach compared to creating separate ads for each format.
Retargeting is a digital advertising strategy that shows targeted ads to users who have previously visited a website or engaged with a brand’s online content but did not convert. AdOps typically achieve this by utilizing pixels to tag visitors, allowing advertisers to re-engage interested users on other websites or platforms and encourage them to return and complete a desired action.
RPM, or revenue per mille (thousand), is a key performance indicator publishers use to measure the estimated revenue generated for every 1,000 ad impressions delivered on their website or app. It provides insight into their inventory’s earning potential and helps evaluate their monetization strategies’ effectiveness.
Rich media ads are digital advertisements that include advanced features like video, audio, animation, or other interactive elements. Unlike static image or text ads, rich media encourages user engagement and interaction, offering a more dynamic and immersive brand experience. Examples include expandable ads, interstitials, and ads with interactive components.
Roadblocking is an advertising strategy where a single advertiser buys 100% of the available ad inventory on a specific webpage or across a network of sites for a set period. This ensures that users see only that advertiser’s message across all ad placements, providing maximum visibility and voice sharing during the campaign.
ROAS, or return on ad spend, is a key metric in digital advertising that measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on a specific advertising campaign. Calculated by dividing the total revenue attributed to an ad campaign by its cost, it helps advertisers evaluate the effectiveness and profitability of their ad spend.
A skyscraper ad is a tall, vertical banner ad format typically placed on the sidebars of websites. Standard IAB dimensions are 120x600 and Wide Skyscraper at 160x600 pixels. Their prominent vertical orientation makes them highly visible as users scroll down a page, providing a persistent branding opportunity.
Second-party data is another company’s first-party data shared directly with another organization, usually through a data partnership agreement. It provides access to valuable customer insights collected directly from a trusted source, offering more transparency and often higher quality than third-party data without the direct relationship of first-party data.
Digital advertising segmenting divides a larger target audience into smaller, distinct groups based on shared characteristics such as demographics, interests, behaviors, or geography. This tactic allows advertisers to deliver more personalized and relevant ad messages to specific segments, increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaigns.
Semantic targeting is placing digital ads based on the meaning and sentiment of the content on a webpage rather than just keywords. Using natural language processing and machine learning, it analyzes content’s overall context and themes to ensure ads are placed in a relevant and brand-suitable environment, improving ad effectiveness and user experience.
In web analytics and digital advertising, a session refers to a group of user interactions with a website or app within a specific timeframe. Typically, a session begins when a user arrives on a site and ends after a period of inactivity (e.g., 30 minutes) or when they leave the site.
Social advertising is a form of digital marketing that involves displaying paid advertisements on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn. It leverages user data and platform targeting capabilities to deliver ads to specific demographics, interests, and behaviors to build brand awareness, drive traffic, or generate leads.
An SSP, or supply-side platform, is a technology publishers use to automate their digital ad inventory selling. It connects publishers to multiple ad exchanges and demand-side platforms (DSPs) simultaneously, allowing them to offer their ad space to a wide range of potential buyers and maximize their advertising revenue through auctions.
A sticky ad is a digital ad format that remains fixed in a user’s browser window or mobile screen as they scroll down the page. Typically placed at the top, bottom, or side of the screen, these ads ensure continuous visibility throughout the user’s session, potentially increasing viewability and engagement compared to advertisements that scroll out of view.
Advertisers and DSPs predominantly use supply path optimization (SPO) to streamline the programmatic buying process. It involves analyzing and selecting the most efficient, cost-effective, and transparent paths to access a publisher’s ad inventory, aiming to reduce intermediaries, minimize fees, increase win rates, and improve the overall return on ad spend.
Third-party data is aggregated data collected by entities that do not have a direct relationship with the user. This data is gathered from various sources across the internet and is typically sold by data brokers. Advertisers use third-party data to gain broader insights into consumer behavior, expand audience reach, and enhance targeting capabilities beyond their customer base.
The Top Scroller is a responsive ad format positioned at the top of the screen, occupying a defined portion of the immediately visible area. This share varies between 50% and 80% of the height, always at 100% width. No fixed pixel size is set; instead, the format scales dynamically based on browser dimensions. To ensure optimal display across different publisher websites, it's advisable to avoid placing important content (text, logos, calls to action, etc.) at the very bottom of the ad, as publisher elements might overlay it.
Various images, videos, and interactive elements can be integrated into a Top Scroller. The ad unit scrolls upwards and disappears from the viewport either by interacting with an arrow icon or through normal user scrolling.
A trading desk is a specialized team or platform, often part of an advertising agency or operating independently, that manages programmatic advertising campaigns for advertisers. Trading desks utilize demand-side platforms (DSPs), and other ad tech tools to buy, manage, and optimize digital media buys programmatically, aiming to achieve campaign goals efficiently.
User acquisition (UA) in digital marketing is the strategic process of attracting and gaining new users for a product or service, most commonly mobile apps. It involves various marketing and advertising efforts, both paid and organic, aimed at driving installs, sign-ups, or other desired initial actions from potential users.
A video ad is a digital advertisement that uses video content to convey a marketing message. These ads can appear in various formats, such as in-stream (before, during, or after other video content), out-stream (within editorial content), or on social media feeds, leveraging the engaging nature of video to capture audience attention.
Viewability is a metric that measures whether a digital ad had the opportunity to be seen by a user. Industry standards, like those from the MRC, typically define a viewable impression for display ads as at least 50% of the ad being in view for at least one second, and for video ads, 50% in view for at least two continuous seconds.
View-through rate (VTR) is a video advertising metric calculated by dividing the number of completed video ad views by the number of initial video ad impressions. It indicates the percentage of users who watched a skippable video ad all the way through after it began playing, demonstrating the ad’s ability to retain viewer attention.
A viewable impression is an ad impression that meets specific viewability criteria, signifying it had a genuine opportunity to be seen by a user. Based on MRC standards, this means at least 50% of a display ad’s pixels were in view for one second, or 50% of a video ad’s pixels were in view for two continuous seconds.
Virtual reality (VR) ads are immersive advertisements experienced within virtual reality environments. These ads can range from simple in-world placements like virtual billboards to fully interactive and experiential brand activations, offering a high level of user engagement and a unique way for brands to connect with audiences in a simulated digital space.
The Wallpaper is a large, highly prominent ad format designed to guarantee maximum attention for your brand and message. It combines an (often oversized) Superbanner with a Skyscraper, creating an expansive and immersive advertising presence that effectively wraps around the content.
A Walled Garden in digital advertising refers to a closed ecosystem controlled by a single technology provider, such as Google, Meta, or Amazon. Within this platform, the provider controls access to user data, ad inventory, and measurement, limiting the ability of advertisers to track and attribute performance outside of that specific environment.
Waterfalling, also known as a daisy chain, is a traditional method publishers use to offer their ad inventory to demand sources sequentially. The publisher’s ad server calls partners (like ad networks or SSPs) one by one based on a predetermined order, typically prioritizing those with historically higher yields until the ad slot is filled or the list is exhausted.
Yield optimization is the strategic process publishers employ to maximize the revenue generated from their digital ad inventory. This tactic involves analyzing data, implementing techniques like dynamic pricing and header bidding, optimizing ad placements and formats, and managing demand sources to ensure the highest possible earnings from every available ad impression.
