Online Advertising Terminology: Summarized

Using an online advertising platform is the perfect way to expand your business!

Whether you’re an advertiser trying to reach out to your audience with a high-performance campaign, or a publisher using ads to monetize your website traffic, we’ve got you covered.

Online advertising platforms

If you’re new to the game, the prospect of using online advertising platforms can be daunting. Moreover, with online advertising, there is a lot to get your head around.

Most importantly, it helps to start with the basics. One point of confusion for many is the terms you may encounter. Putting these terms into practice can help launch a consistently successful campaign!

Consider this article to be an ‘’Online Advertising Terms Dictionary’’!

For your convenience, this article is split into two sections: advertising terms and publishing terms.

Advertiser Terminology

Online advertising revenue model:

The way an advertiser can formulate a strategy for top online returns. 

For online advertising, it is important to know which models are the best to use to achieve maximum effectiveness.

There are four main advertising revenue models: CPM, CPA, CPC, and CPI.

Tracking: 

How users find and interact with your campaigns. Understanding your audience engagement is vital, and allows online advertisers to know what works and what doesn’t.

Some of the top campaign trackers on the market today include Red Track and Voluum.

CPM:

CPM, (Cost Per Mille or Cost Per Thousand), is when an advertiser pays the network after 1000 ad impressions.

If an ad network charges an advertiser 5 euros CPM, they’ll pay 5 euros every time an ad reaches 100 impressions.

An affordable option and allows for a steady increase in brand awareness and product exposure. 

CPA:

CPA (Cost per Action) is when an advertiser pays for every action done on an ad.

For example, The publisher is paid when the ad generates new leads for the website. 

This revenue model can help publishers and advertisers get rewarded on both sides. Publishers need to be strategic when placing the ad in a high-traffic spot. While advertisers seek to make their ads extra special for that magic action!

CPC:

With CPC (Cost Per Click), an advertiser is paid every time a user clicks on their ad. 

An advertiser can utilize this to bring in performance-based traffic and earn according to the rate of clicks!

CPI:

CPI (Cost Per Install) is when an advertiser is paid per installation of an app. 

It is a common pricing model for mobile apps, as it guarantees an income every time a user decides to install. 

For more on these ad types and how they can be added to your digital strategy, check out the full article here!

Ad Formats:

These are the different ads that can be placed on site. Each ad format has its benefit and affordability. 

Every ad format is slightly different to accommodate different ads and online advertising strategies. 

Interstitials Ads appear when a website or a specific page is loading. The ad provides exposure and keeps the user experience enacted. Appearing while a page is loading or in between browsing. 

Native Ads are a less intrusive way to advertise. They blend in seamlessly with the content.

They allow advertisers to have a clean and seamless ad on a website. At the same time, providing publishers with an effective way to improve their ad revenue. 

Pop-Under Ads: appear behind the browser window, and only show once the window has been closed. 

Pop-Under Ads can easily blend into the website’s layout and are less intrusive to the users.

For more information on how Pop-Under Ads work and their upsides, please check out the blogpost here!

In-Page Push Ads resemble push notifications. The ad pops up on the website and displays the offer in a clean and enticing way. Therefore, increasing the onsite performance for the advertiser and the earnings of the publisher. 

Banner Ads are a tried and tested format placed on a large section of a website.

Subdivided into

Skyscrapers – displayed to the side of the website.
Rectangle –  displayed horizontally across the page.
Leaderboard – displayed at the very top of the website horizontally. 

There is a lot more to the different ad formats than what meets the eye! If you want to explore them more, check out this handy post on How to Choose the Best Digital Ad Formats!.

CPA Target Bidding:

CPA Target Bidding is an online advertising strategy that optimizes a campaign’s traffic and performance to ensure that the advertiser can maximize the number of conversions possible. It is to make campaign management easier and more efficient and lower the cost of advertising. 

Online advertising: User Interest Targeting

User Interest Targeting is a targeting function that allows advertisers to target users based upon their browsing preferences throughout their web browsing. 

It uses collected data of the users’ browsing habits to figure out the best way for a campaign to reach the desired audience. 

It is a function that allows advertisers to streamline their advertising direction to specific users for a more personalized and meaningful audience.

Publishers’ Terminology

Win Rate: 

Win Rate is a metric (in a percentage) that focuses on the number of impressions that have been successful over the number of impressions bid. 

A high Win Rate can signal low bidding competition, meaning that it might be easier to ‘’win’’ audiences. If it is low, it can signal difficulty in being able to reach the target audience.  

Autotag:

Autotag is a new feature from the Adcash service, allowing publishers to monetize and optimize their websites effectively. 

The feature allows users to integrate ads onto websites with ease, efficiency, and the optimal way to ensure that the website is bound to receive the best possible results. 

For more on Autotag and its fruitful wonders for your publishing game, check out the blog post on it!

RTB:

Real-time bidding, or RTB, is a network space for ads, where ad space can be sold to the highest bidders in real-time. 

Using RTB allows advertisers and publishers to find the optimal space for their campaigns, assuming that they will be the highest bidders in the marketplace.

CTR:

CTR, otherwise known as Click Through Rate, is the metric that shows the rate of how effective certain ads and keywords are for a publisher’s website. 

The higher the rate is, the more likely your target audience is interested in clicking on your ads. 

ROI: Return on investment (ROI) 

ROI, or Return on investment, is the measured performance indicator of profitability or efficiency of an ad campaign. 

It is used to see the overall form of the campaign and how much money will be returned.

Frequency Capping:

Frequency Capping is the cap of the number of times a campaign is shown to a specific visitor.

The cap prevents an ad from going stale to visitors who are re-visiting the website frequently. So that the user experience on the website is not harmed by spam of ads. 

It can be changed and tweaked to personalize the campaign, but the default frequency cap for Adcash is once every 24 hours. This means that every 24 hours, frequency capping can only show the ad once. 

SSP:

SSP, also known as Supply-side Platform, is a platform that allows publishers to manage, optimize, and sell their digital inventory space on their websites and mobile apps. 

Publishers can allow SSP to see the demand for ad space, observe the market, adjust prices, and control how much ad space takes up their websites.

In the end, the terminology can help you out on your publishing an online advertising journey. 

Whether it is to promote or monetize as a first-timer or someone experienced, getting up to scratch with the definitions is always helpful.

Should there be any comments or questions, please feel free to write them in the comments section below! And if you haven’t already, sign up to the Adcash Advertiser or Publisher platform today. 

That’s all for now, have a wonderful day.