Ad Exchange (ADX)
The marketplace in the middle. Sellers send their free ad space in, buyers bid on it, and the highest valid bid wins, all in a fraction of a second.
Programmatic ADX →
The words of programmatic advertising, explained in plain language. From ad exchange to yield, each term in one or two sentences.
The marketplace in the middle. Sellers send their free ad space in, buyers bid on it, and the highest valid bid wins, all in a fraction of a second.
Programmatic ADX →Any trick that makes advertisers pay for views, clicks or installs that no real interested person made.
Traffic Quality →All the ad space a publisher has to sell. On a website, every free ad position on every page view is one piece of inventory.
Advertising Inventory →A company that collects ad space from many publishers and sells it on to advertisers as one package.
Programmatic ADX →One specific position where an ad can appear, for example the banner above an article.
Publisher Ad Server →The call a page or app makes when it has a free ad space and needs an ad to show.
Publisher Ad Server →The system that stores the ads, decides which one to show on each request, and counts what happened after.
Publisher Ad Server →The width and height of an ad in pixels, for example 300x250 or 728x90.
Display →The space on a page or screen that is reserved for one ad.
Publisher Ad Server →A short piece of code a publisher puts on a page. When the page opens, the tag asks for an ad and shows it.
Publisher Ad Server →An ad position defined by its format and size, such as a 300x250 banner or a video slot before the content.
Advertising Formats →An independent check that an ad was shown where promised, to real people, next to safe content.
Traffic Quality →A named ad position inside an ad server or SSP. The publisher creates a zone, gets a tag for it, and puts the tag on the page.
Publisher Ad Server →A small public file on a publisher's website that lists who is allowed to sell its ad space. Buyers read it to avoid fake sellers.
Programmatic SSP →The company that pays to show its ads. Also called the buyer or the demand side.
Programmatic DSP →A company that plans and buys advertising for several advertisers, often from one shared platform with a separate account for each client.
White Label DSP →The same idea as ads.txt, for mobile and TV apps. The file sits on the app developer's website.
Programmatic SSP →Deciding which ad gets the credit for a conversion.
Tracking & Attribution →The contest between buyers for one ad view. It is run by an exchange or SSP and decided by price.
Programmatic ADX →A group of people chosen for a campaign because they share something: an interest, an action or a profile.
Programmatic DMP →A spoken or musical ad played in music streaming, podcasts and online radio.
Audio →An image or animated ad in a fixed size, placed inside a web page or an app.
Display →Choosing who sees an ad by what people did before: pages visited, products viewed, apps used.
Programmatic DMP →The price a buyer offers for one ad view or one click.
Programmatic DSP →How many bids arrive for one ad view. More bids usually mean a better price for the seller.
Programmatic ADX →The lowest price a seller will accept for one ad view. Bids below it are ignored. Also called floor price.
Programmatic SSP →The message a seller sends to buyers when an ad space is free: which page or app, which size, which country and which device.
Programmatic ADX →The buyer's answer to a bid request: the price offered and the ad to show if it wins.
Programmatic ADX →A method buyers use in first-price auctions to bid a little lower than their maximum, so they do not overpay for the win.
Programmatic DSP →The rule that decides how much to bid: one fixed price, or a price that software moves up and down towards a goal.
Programmatic DSP →A list of sites, apps or placements a campaign must never run on.
Traffic Quality →Visits made by software, not by people.
Traffic Quality →Keeping ads away from content that could harm the advertiser's name.
Traffic Quality →One advertising effort with its own goal, budget, dates, targeting and ads.
Programmatic DSP →Showing ads only to people on chosen mobile operators, or only on Wi-Fi.
Programmatic DSP →The California law that gives residents the right to know about, delete and stop the sale of their personal data.
Technology →The final price paid for an ad view after the auction closes.
Programmatic ADX →A visitor pressing an ad and being taken to the advertiser's page.
Tracking & Attribution →Fake clicks made by software or paid people to take an advertiser's money.
Click Quality Score →A unique code added to every click. When a conversion comes back with the same code, the platform knows which click caused it.
One-Click Tracking →The share of ad views that ended in a click. 1,000 views and 5 clicks is a CTR of 0.5%.
Tracking & Attribution →A banner shown next to a video or audio ad from the same advertiser, so the message stays on screen after the ad ends.
Video →A television connected to the internet, directly or through a box or stick. Ads run inside streaming apps.
TV →The tool behind the cookie banner. It asks visitors for permission, stores the answer and passes it on to ad partners.
Technology →A code that records what a visitor agreed to in the cookie banner. It travels with the bid request so every company can respect it.
Technology →Choosing where ads appear by the topic of the page, not by who the visitor is. It needs no personal data.
Programmatic DSP →The result the advertiser wants after the click: a sale, a sign-up, an install, a call.
Tracking & Attribution →A small piece of code on the "thank you" page that tells the platform a conversion happened.
Tracking & Attribution →The share of clicks that ended in a conversion. 200 clicks and 4 sales is 2%.
Tracking & Attribution →Two platforms matching their own IDs for the same browser, so both can recognise the same visitor.
Programmatic DMP →Advertising that works without third-party cookies, using context, first-party data or other signals.
Programmatic DMP →The cost of one wanted result, such as a sale or a sign-up. Spend divided by the number of results.
Tracking & Attribution →The advertiser pays only when somebody clicks the ad.
Programmatic DSP →The cost of one app install that came from an ad.
In-App →The price for one thousand ad views. A $2 CPM means $2 for every 1,000 times the ad is shown.
Programmatic DSP →The price for one view of a video ad or one visit to a page, depending on the format.
Video →The ad itself: the image, video, text or code that the visitor sees.
Creative Services →The check every ad passes before it may run: content, landing page and technical quality.
Programmatic DSP →Packaging hand-picked, quality-checked ad space into deals that buyers can take in one step.
Curated Marketplace →The most a campaign may spend in one day. When it is reached, the campaign stops until the next day.
Programmatic DSP →Visits that come from servers in data centres, not from homes or phones. Almost always software, not people.
Traffic Quality →Running ads only on chosen days and hours, for example weekdays from 9 to 18.
Programmatic DSP →The code that marks a private deal. The buyer puts it in the campaign, and the seller recognises the bid as part of that deal.
Curated Marketplace →A company that brings buyers to an exchange or a publisher, usually a DSP or an ad network.
Programmatic ADX →Showing ads only on chosen devices, systems or browsers, for example Android phones only.
Programmatic DSP →A sale agreed between one publisher and one buyer, with a fixed price or priority, outside the open auction.
Publisher Ad Server →The difference between two systems counting the same thing, for example the buyer's impressions and the seller's.
Supply Intelligence →The system that collects audience data, sorts people into groups and makes those groups usable for targeting.
Programmatic DMP →Ad space on a poor site offered under the name of a well-known site, to get a higher price.
Traffic Quality →Ads on digital screens in public places: streets, malls, stations and airports.
DOOH →The buyer's tool. Advertisers use it to set up campaigns, choose who should see the ads, and bid on ad space from many sellers on one screen.
Programmatic DSP →An ad assembled at the moment it is shown, with the image, text or offer chosen to fit the viewer.
Creative Services →What 1,000 ad views really earned or cost, whatever the pricing model. It lets you compare CPC, CPA and CPM side by side.
Programmatic SSP →A banner that grows to a larger size when the visitor points at it or taps it.
HTML5 →The share of ad requests that end with an ad shown. 1,000 requests and 800 ads shown is a fill rate of 80%.
Programmatic SSP →Recognising a device from its technical details, such as screen, fonts and browser version, with no cookie.
Traffic Quality →Data a company collected itself from its own visitors and customers.
Programmatic DMP →An auction where the winner pays exactly what it bid. This is the usual way today.
Programmatic ADX →A limit on how many times the same person sees the same ad in a set time, for example 3 times a day.
Programmatic DSP →The European Union law on personal data. It sets when and how data about people in the EU may be collected and used.
Technology →Showing ads only in chosen places: countries, regions or cities.
Programmatic DSP →A publisher asks several buyers for a price at the same moment, before its own ad server decides which ad to show.
Programmatic SSP →An ad built as a small web page, with animation and interaction, in place of a single image.
HTML5 →A map that connects the different IDs of one person or household: browsers, phones and TV.
Programmatic DMP →One showing of one ad to one visitor.
Tracking & Attribution →Ads shown inside mobile apps, not in a web browser.
In-App →An ad that looks like a notification but is shown inside the web page, so it needs no subscription.
Push →A signed order between a buyer and a seller that fixes what will run, where, when and for how much.
Managed Campaigns →A video ad that plays inside other video content: before it, in the middle of it, or after it.
Video →A full-screen ad shown between two screens or pages, with a button to close it.
In-App →Views and clicks that should not be counted or paid for, from bots and data centres to accidental clicks.
Traffic Quality →Including or excluding visitors by their internet address or a range of addresses.
Programmatic DSP →Showing ads on pages or searches that contain chosen words.
Programmatic DSP →The page a visitor arrives on after clicking an ad.
Programmatic DSP →Showing ads only to people whose browser or device is set to chosen languages.
Programmatic DSP →The delay between a request and its answer. High latency means lost auctions and slower pages.
Technology →One part of a campaign with its own targeting, price and budget. A campaign can hold many line items.
Publisher Ad Server →A new audience built by software to resemble an existing one, for example people similar to your buyers.
Programmatic DMP →A placeholder in a link or tag, such as {click_id}, that the platform replaces with a real value when the ad is served.
Tracking & Attribution →Ads used to spread harmful software or to send people to scam pages.
Malvertising Scanner →The opposite of self-serve: a team sets up, watches and improves the campaigns for the advertiser.
Managed Campaigns →What a platform keeps between the price the advertiser pays and the price the publisher receives.
Profit View →Buying ad space to reach an audience. Programmatic media buying does it through software and auctions, not phone calls and contracts.
Programmatic DSP →What was paid for the ad space itself, before any platform fees or service fees.
Profit View →A resettable ID that a phone gives to apps for advertising: GAID on Android, IDFA on Apple devices.
In-App →An ad built from a headline, an image and a short text that takes the look of the page around it.
Native →Gross is the amount before fees and commissions are taken off. Net is what is left after.
Profit View →A buyer's answer that it does not want this ad view. Most bid requests end this way.
Programmatic ADX →An auction any approved buyer may join, with no invitation and no private deal.
Programmatic ADX →The common technical standard for real-time bidding, published by the IAB Tech Lab. It lets platforms from different companies talk to each other.
Technology →An "if this, then that" rule that changes a campaign by itself, for example: pause any placement that spent $10 without a sale.
Automations Engine →A video ad that plays on its own inside an article or a feed, with no other video around it.
Video →How the budget is spread over time. Even pacing spends steadily through the day; fast pacing spends as soon as it can.
Programmatic DSP →A backup ad or tag that runs when nobody buys the ad space, so the position does not stay empty.
Publisher Ad Server →The money a platform pays to a publisher for the ads shown on its site or app.
Programmatic SSP →A full page that opens in a new browser window or tab behind the page the visitor is reading.
Pop-Under →A conversion reported from one server to another, with no code in the browser. More reliable than a pixel.
Tracking & Attribution →Checking an ad space before bidding on it and refusing the bad ones, so the money is never spent.
Traffic Quality →The most used open-source software for header bidding. It runs on the page or on a server and collects the bids.
Programmatic SSP →Advertisers add funds to their account first and campaigns spend from that balance.
Programmatic DSP →An auction by invitation: only chosen buyers may bid on a publisher's ad space, often at an agreed minimum price.
Curated Marketplace →A direct deal run through programmatic pipes: a fixed price and a promised number of ad views, with no auction.
Publisher Ad Server →Visits that hide their real location behind another server. Often used to fake the country of the visitor.
Traffic Quality →The owner of a website, app or screen that shows ads and earns from them. Also called the seller or the supply side.
Programmatic SSP →An ad delivered as a notification to people who agreed to receive notifications from a site or an app.
Push →How many bid requests a system sends or receives every second. The basic measure of traffic volume in programmatic.
Pricing →The number of different people who saw an ad at least once.
Programmatic DMP →Selling each ad view one by one in a live auction that takes less than a tenth of a second, while the page is still loading.
Programmatic ADX →A company that sells a publisher's ad space without owning it. Resellers are named as such in ads.txt and sellers.json.
White Label Reseller →Showing ads to people who already visited your site or app, to bring them back.
Programmatic DMP →The money a publisher or a platform has earned from advertising in a given period.
Programmatic SSP →A deal where income is split by a fixed percentage, for example 70% to the publisher and 30% to the platform.
Programmatic SSP →A video ad an app user chooses to watch in exchange for something, such as an extra life in a game.
In-App →Ads that do more than a still image: they expand, play video, or react to the visitor.
HTML5 →Sales earned for every dollar of advertising. $500 in sales from $100 of ads is a ROAS of 5.
Tracking & Attribution →What a publisher earns for every 1,000 page views, counting all the ads on the page together.
Programmatic SSP →An auction where the winner pays just above the second highest bid, not its own bid.
Programmatic ADX →One group inside an audience, defined by a rule, for example people who added a product to the cart and did not buy.
Programmatic DMP →A platform where advertisers register, add funds and run their campaigns on their own, with no manager in between.
Programmatic DSP →A public file from an exchange or SSP that names every seller it works with, so buyers can see who is really paid.
Programmatic ADX →Header bidding where the auction runs on a server, not in the visitor's browser. The page stays faster.
Programmatic SSP →A video ad the viewer may skip after a few seconds.
Video →The money an advertiser has paid for advertising in a given period.
Programmatic DSP →The seller's tool. Publishers use it to offer their ad space to many buyers at once and to get the best price for it.
Programmatic SSP →A banner that stays fixed at the edge of the screen while the visitor scrolls the page.
Display →A list inside the bid request of every company that handled the ad space on its way from the publisher to the buyer.
Programmatic ADX →A company that brings ad space to an exchange or a DSP, usually an SSP, an ad network or a publisher.
Programmatic ADX →Buyers choosing the shortest and cheapest route to the same ad space, and cutting out middlemen that add cost but no value.
Supply Intelligence →The share of ad spend that a platform or middleman keeps for itself.
Profit View →A small file set in the browser by a company other than the site being visited, used to recognise the same visitor on other sites.
Programmatic DMP →Data bought from a company that had no direct contact with the people it describes.
Programmatic DMP →The time a buyer has to answer a bid request, usually around a tenth of a second. Answers that come later are thrown away.
Technology →The most a campaign may spend over its whole life. When it is used up, the campaign ends.
Programmatic DSP →The team inside an agency, or a specialist company, that buys programmatic advertising day to day.
White Label DSP →One number that sums up how trustworthy a traffic source is, built from many separate checks.
Traffic Quality →Different people counted once each, however many times they came back.
Programmatic DMP →The standard file that tells a video player which ad to play and which events to report. Published by the IAB Tech Lab.
Video →An ad that plays as video, before, during or after other video, or inside a page.
Video →A conversion by somebody who saw the ad, did not click it, and came to the site later another way.
Tracking & Attribution →Whether an ad could really be seen. The common measure for a banner: at least half of it on screen for one second.
Traffic Quality →An older standard for video ads that can run code inside the player. It is being replaced by newer standards.
Video →The older way of selling ad space: buyers are asked one after another in a fixed order until one of them takes it.
Publisher Ad Server →A ready DSP that a company runs under its own name, logo and web address, with its own prices and its own clients.
White Label DSP →A list of sites, apps or placements a campaign is allowed to run on. Everything else is left out.
Whitelists →The message that tells the winning buyer that its ad was chosen and what it has to pay.
Programmatic ADX →The share of bids that win the auction. 100 bids and 12 wins is a win rate of 12%.
Programmatic DSP →How much a publisher earns from its ad space. Yield optimisation means earning more from the same number of visitors.
Programmatic SSP →No term matches that search. Try a shorter word.