AdTech Glossary

A digital marketplace where publishers offer advertising inventory and advertisers purchase impressions, often through automated real-time auctions.

Fraudulent activity designed to generate fake impressions, clicks, conversions, or advertising revenue without genuine user engagement.

An event recorded when an advertisement is delivered or displayed on a website, application, or other digital channel.

The available advertising placements that publishers can sell across websites, mobile applications, video content, and other digital channels.

A company or platform that connects advertisers with advertising inventory from multiple publishers.

The processes involved in setting up, managing, monitoring, optimizing, and reporting digital advertising campaigns and inventory.

Technology used to store, deliver, track, and report digital advertisements across websites, applications, and other media channels.

A piece of code used to request, display, and track an advertisement on a website or application.

A company, agency, brand, or individual that purchases advertising inventory to promote products, services, or content.

The type of advertisement delivered to users, such as display, native, video, push notification, in-page push, pop-under, or HTML5 advertising.

An Application Programming Interface allows different software platforms to exchange data and communicate automatically.

The process of identifying which advertising interaction contributed to a conversion, sale, signup, deposit, or other campaign goal.

The process of delivering advertisements to users based on location, device, interests, behavior, demographics, context, or other available data.

A process where multiple advertisers compete for an available advertising impression by submitting bids.

A graphical advertisement displayed within a website, application, or other digital environment.

Advertising based on a user’s previous browsing activity, interests, interactions, or online behavior, subject to privacy and consent requirements.

The amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click, impression, view, conversion, or other advertising event.

The minimum price a publisher, ad exchange, or supply platform will accept for an advertising impression.

The monetary amount submitted by an advertiser or DSP during an advertising auction.

A message sent by a publisher, ad exchange, or supply platform containing information about an available advertising impression.

A message returned by a DSP containing the advertiser’s bid price, creative information, campaign details, and tracking data.

An auction optimization method that attempts to calculate a competitive bid without paying more than necessary.

A list of websites, applications, IP addresses, user agents, traffic sources, placements, or other entities that should be excluded from advertising campaigns.

Technology and policies used to prevent advertisements from appearing next to inappropriate, harmful, illegal, misleading, or unsuitable content.

The amount of money allocated to an advertising campaign during a specific period.

A group of advertisements, targeting settings, budgets, schedules, bids, and optimization goals created to achieve a marketing objective.

A user interaction that occurs when someone selects or opens an advertisement.

Invalid or automated clicks generated without genuine interest in the advertised product or service.

A unique identifier assigned to an advertising click and used to connect the click with a later conversion.

The percentage of advertising impressions that resulted in a click. Formula: Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100.

Internet-connected television devices and services that allow advertisers to deliver digital video advertisements to television audiences.

Advertising based on the content, keywords, topic, language, or category of the webpage or application where the advertisement appears.

A completed action defined by the advertiser, such as a purchase, registration, deposit, subscription, download, or form submission.

A tracking element placed on a website to record completed actions generated by advertising campaigns.

The percentage of users who completed a desired action after interacting with an advertisement. Formula: Conversions ÷ Clicks or Visits × 100.

A process that allows advertising platforms to match user identifiers across different systems, where permitted.

A pricing or performance measurement based on the cost required to generate a customer, conversion, or completed action.

A pricing model where the advertiser pays each time a user clicks an advertisement.

A pricing model where the advertiser pays for every 1,000 advertising impressions.

A pricing model where the advertiser pays when a video advertisement is viewed according to predefined criteria.

The visual, video, text, HTML5, native, or interactive content displayed as an advertisement.

The review process used to verify that an advertisement complies with platform policies, technical requirements, and applicable regulations.

The maximum amount an advertiser wants a campaign to spend during one day.

A platform used to collect, organize, analyze, and activate audience data for advertising and marketing purposes.

A unique identifier used to execute a private programmatic advertising agreement between buyers and sellers.

A company, agency, advertiser, DSP, or platform that purchases advertising inventory.

A technology platform that allows advertisers and agencies to purchase, manage, target, optimize, and report digital advertising inventory.

A unique identifier associated with a mobile or connected device, subject to privacy regulations and platform restrictions.

The delivery of advertisements based on device type, manufacturer, operating system, browser, model, or other technical characteristics.

Visual advertising delivered through banners, images, rich media, or HTML5 creatives across websites and applications.

Technology that automatically changes advertising elements such as images, text, pricing, products, or calls to action based on the user or context.

Effective Cost Per Mille represents the estimated revenue or cost generated per 1,000 impressions. Formula: Revenue or Spend ÷ Impressions × 1,000.

An interaction with an advertisement, such as a click, view, swipe, expansion, form completion, or video play.

The measurement of actions completed after an advertising interaction, such as registrations, purchases, deposits, downloads, or subscriptions.

The percentage of available advertising requests that successfully receive an advertisement. Formula: Filled Ad Requests ÷ Total Ad Requests × 100.

Information collected directly by a company from its customers, website visitors, application users, or internal business systems.

An advertising auction where the winning advertiser generally pays the amount of its submitted bid.

The average number of times an advertisement is shown to the same user.

A campaign setting that limits how many times the same user can see an advertisement within a specified period.

The delivery of advertisements based on the user’s country, region, city, postal area, or other available location information.

The amount remaining after traffic acquisition or media costs are subtracted from advertising revenue.

A programmatic method that allows multiple demand sources to compete for publisher inventory before the publisher’s primary ad server makes a final decision.

An interactive advertisement created using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, animation, or other web technologies.

An event recorded when an advertisement is served or displayed to a user.

Advertisements displayed inside mobile applications, games, connected applications, or other software environments.

A push-style advertisement displayed directly within a website instead of being delivered as a browser notification.

A formal advertising agreement describing campaign details such as budget, dates, pricing, targeting, inventory, and delivery requirements.

Advertising activity generated by bots, automated systems, accidental interactions, fraudulent users, or other non-genuine sources.

The publisher, application, website, SSP, ad exchange, or supply partner that provides advertising opportunities.

A measurable campaign result used to evaluate performance, such as conversions, cost per acquisition, return on ad spend, click-through rate, or viewability.

The webpage users reach after clicking an advertisement.

The amount of time required for an advertising request, bid, creative, tracking event, or other system process to be completed.

An audience created by identifying users who share characteristics or behaviors with an advertiser’s existing customers or conversion audience.

The process of purchasing advertising inventory across websites, applications, video platforms, ad exchanges, and other media channels.

A device-level advertising identifier used for measurement and targeting when permitted by the device, application, user settings, and privacy regulations.

The maximum amount allocated to an advertising campaign during one month.

An advertising format designed to match the appearance and structure of the website, application, or content environment where it appears.

An advertisement that usually combines an image, headline, description, brand name, and call to action within a publisher’s content layout.

An open technical standard developed to support communication between programmatic advertising platforms during real-time bidding.

The process of improving campaign performance by adjusting bids, targeting, creatives, placements, budgets, schedules, or traffic sources.

The delivery of advertisements based on operating systems such as Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, or Linux.

The process of controlling how an advertising campaign spends its budget and delivers impressions throughout its scheduled period.

A small tracking element used to measure impressions, visits, conversions, or other advertising events.

A specific advertising location within a website, application, publisher, or media property.

An advertisement that opens behind the active browser window and becomes visible when the user closes or minimizes the current window.

A server-to-server tracking method used to report conversions or campaign events without relying entirely on browser-based tracking.

Traffic analysis performed after an advertisement has been purchased or delivered to identify invalid traffic, fraud, unsafe content, or quality issues.

Traffic analysis performed before an advertiser purchases an impression to identify potential fraud, unsafe content, or low-quality inventory.

An invitation-only programmatic marketplace where selected advertisers can purchase publisher inventory under agreed conditions.

The automated buying, selling, delivery, measurement, and optimization of digital advertising inventory using software and data.

A website owner, application developer, media company, or content provider that offers advertising inventory.

An advertising format designed to resemble a notification and delivered through browser notifications or in-page placements.

A platform-defined measurement used to evaluate the quality, relevance, reliability, or performance of advertising traffic, campaigns, creatives, or placements.

The number of requests or transactions an advertising platform processes each second.

The estimated number of unique users exposed to an advertising campaign.

An automated auction process where advertising impressions are evaluated and purchased within milliseconds.

A process that automatically sends a user from one URL or page to another destination.

A campaign strategy that displays advertisements to users who previously visited a website, used an application, or interacted with a brand.

A measurement of the revenue generated in relation to advertising spend. Formula: Revenue ÷ Advertising Spend.

A commercial model where advertising revenue is divided between two or more partners according to an agreed percentage.

A tracking method where advertising and conversion data is exchanged directly between servers.

A unique identifier assigned to a website, application, publisher, placement, or traffic source.

A publisher, SSP, ad exchange, ad network, or other company that provides advertising inventory.

The process of identifying and purchasing advertising inventory through the most efficient, transparent, and cost-effective supply routes.

A platform that helps publishers and media owners manage, sell, and optimize their advertising inventory.

The process of selecting which users, devices, locations, websites, applications, categories, or traffic sources should receive an advertisement.

Audience or behavioral information collected by an external data provider rather than directly by the advertiser.

A small invisible image or code element used to record impressions, visits, conversions, or user activity.

A measurement of how genuine, relevant, safe, and valuable advertising traffic is for an advertiser.

The website, application, publisher, placement, ad exchange, or supply partner responsible for delivering advertising traffic.

The number of available advertising impressions, clicks, views, or requests within a selected market, channel, or period.

An individual user or device counted once within a defined measurement period.

A text string sent by a browser or application that can provide information about the browser, operating system, device, or software environment.

A value added to a URL to help analytics platforms identify the campaign, source, medium, creative, or other details associated with website traffic.

The Video Ad Serving Template is an industry standard used for delivering video advertisements and tracking video events.

The percentage of video advertisement starts that were watched until completion. Formula: Completed Video Views ÷ Video Starts × 100.

A measurement of whether an advertisement had the opportunity to be seen based on its position, visibility, and time on screen.

A conversion completed after a user viewed an advertisement but did not immediately click it.

The percentage of video impressions or starts that reached a predefined viewing milestone.

A customizable demand-side platform that allows a company to launch its own branded advertising platform using its logo, domain, colors, pricing, integrations, advertising formats, and business settings.

A list of approved websites, applications, placements, IP addresses, traffic sources, or other entities that a campaign is allowed to use.

The percentage of programmatic auctions won compared with the total number of auctions where bids were submitted. Formula: Auctions Won ÷ Bids Submitted × 100.