AdTech Glossary and Terminology
A
A/B Testing
A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method used to compare two versions of a webpage or app to discern the one that performs optimally. By presenting variants A and B to different audience segments, marketers can analyze the results, paving the way for data-driven decisions, content refinement, and the optimization of digital assets.
Active Users
An active user in mobile marketing is a person who regularly uses an app for a given period. Each user is counted separately throughout this period to establish an app's total number of unique users.
Ad blocker
Ad blockers are browser extensions or plugins that block advertisements on a website. When a web page is loading, an ad blocker, if used, finds scripts that were written to block certain ads and blocks them.
Ad Creatives
Ad creatives refer to the visual and textual elements used in advertising campaigns to attract and engage the target audience. These elements can include images, graphics, videos, and copywriting, all designed to communicate a message and promote a product, service, or brand.
Ad Exchanges
An ad exchange serves as a middleman between the supply and demand sides of the ad selling process, giving publishers a venue to make their ad inventory available to potential advertisers.
Ad Fraud
Ad fraud is also called advertising fraud or digital ad fraud. It is the practice of boosting clicks, impressions, and other metrics through malicious activities like invalid traffic, which wastes the advertiser’s ad spend.
Ad impressions
An Ad impression is counted when a user sees an advertisement on an app or website. Impressions are measured in terms of CPM and eCPM, expanded as Cost Per Mille and Effective Cost Per Mille, where Mille represents a thousand impressions.
Ad inventory
Ad inventory, ad slot, or ad space is the total amount of space available on an app or website where advertisers can display their ads.
Ad mediation
Ad mediation is the process of making your ad inventory or ad space available to multiple advertisers and ad networks through a single Software Development Kit (SDK). Ad mediation platforms or SDKs that support ad mediation automate and streamline the process of finding the best ad network to sell ad space.
Ad networks
An ad network is a platform or service that connects advertisers with publishers. It facilitates the buying and selling of advertising space on games, apps, or other digital properties.
Ad operations
Ad operations or advertising operations is the process of managing and delivering online advertisements. Ad operations involves numerous tasks such as managing ads, managing the app or website, ad revenue optimization, performance reporting, etc., in order to ensure better ad delivery and achieve higher revenue.
Ad optimization
Ad optimization is the process of developing relevant ads for the users who see them, then fine-tuning them to increase ad revenue.
Ad Placements
Ad placement refers to an ad unit or many ad units within a publisher's digital domain (app or website) where advertisers can place their ads. Where an ad is placed determines the ad's viewability, receptivity, and in turn, the ad revenue. Advertisers will overlook ads that are intrusive and have low viewability.
Ad refresh
In simple terms, ad refresh is the process of refreshing ads on an inventory to display new ads when a user is on the page. Doing this helps publishers improve the number of ad impressions in a single session. Also, auto-refreshing ads helps them maximize the ad revenue per session, and it is up to the publisher to choose the factors that trigger auto-refreshing for a web page.
Ad revenue
Advertising revenue is the earnings that digital domains like apps or websites make from in-app advertising or showing paid adverts to their audience.
Ad tags
Ad tags are snippets of code embedded in web pages to facilitate the display of advertisements. Think of them as the orchestrators behind the scenes, directing the content, format, and targeting of ads. Without ad tags, the symphony of online advertising would be a chaotic cacophony.
Ad trafficking
Ad trafficking is the process of creating and managing ad campaigns. The person responsible for ad trafficking is called an ad trafficker, who typically uses ad servers to aid the process. Ad traffickers completely take ownership of identifying the right campaign methods and creating and running ad campaigns successfully.
Ad Viewer Rate
The ad-viewer rate, also referred to as the engagement rate represents the number of users who engage with an ad on a daily basis. This metric can be specific to an ad unit or aggregately measure all ad units.
Ads Personalization
Ads Personalization involves tailoring advertising content to individual users based on their preferences, behavior, and demographics. This process seeks to determine the types of ads that users respond to, ultimately increasing engagement and conversion rates.
Ads.txt
Ads.txt stands for Authorized Digital Sellers. Interactive Advertising Bureau or IAB first introduced ads.txt, a file that web publishers add to their website to list the authorized sellers of their digital inventory. Every authorized seller or reseller is assigned a unique seller ID by which they are identified.
Affiliate network
An affiliate network is a portal that connects publishers with brands and businesses that want to advertise their products and services. The portal offers publishers several affiliate programs and features that help them achieve the desired results.
AMP Ads
AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) ads or AMPHTML ads are fast-loading, engaging ads that usually include interactive elements like animations or carousels. Publishers usually prefer them over traditional HTML ads because of their ability to enhance user experience and, ultimately, increase engagement.
App-ads.txt
App-ads.txt is the mobile variant of ads.txt. Ads.txt stands for Authorized Digital Sellers. Interactive Advertising Bureau or IAB first introduced ads.txt, a file that web publishers add to their website to list the authorized sellers of their digital inventory. Ads.txt aims to prevent forged inventory from being sold to advertisers. Since the rise of mobile is increasing each day, IAB came up with the in-app version of the file – app-ads.txt, which app developers must integrate into their apps to prevent inventory fraud.
App LTV
The LTV or Lifetime Value of a user is the average revenue they generate from all the app monetization streams throughout their lifespan of using the app. In other terms, LTV is the monetary value of an app user.
App metrics
Mobile app metrics or app analytics refer to the important metrics needed to analyze an app’s performance.
App retention rate
App retention rate is the percentage of users who use an app over a specific period. It is one of the important app metrics and can be calculated for 1 month, 7 days, or even 1 day after the users install the app. Retention rate also helps app developers to track how long the users continue using the app and how many users have discontinued it.
App reviews
App reviews are user-generated assessments of mobile applications, reflecting their experiences, opinions, and satisfaction levels. These reviews are typically found on app store platforms, providing potential users insights into an app's functionality, usability, and overall appeal.
App Store Optimization
ASO or App Store Optimization is a strategy that enhances an app's visibility in an app store by using appropriate images, keywords, and relevant descriptions. This improves the app's ranking and chances of getting more downloads.
ARPU
Average Revenue Per User, or ARPU, is the average amount of revenue generated by an app’s total users within a given period. In the context of mobile marketing, ARPU is similar to lifetime value (LTV). ARPU, essentially, helps determine the value of an app's users over a set amount of time.
B
Banner Ads
Banner ads represent a pivotal aspect of online advertising, employing graphical displays on web pages to captivate and engage visitors. These rectangular ads, available in various sizes, serve as a dynamic tool to promote brands, products, or services by enticing users to click and explore the advertiser's website.
Bot Traffic
The term “Bot traffic” refers to any non-human traffic to a website or an app. Bot traffic can be beneficial or disruptive to a website or an app, depending on the bot and its purpose. In 2022, 47.5 % of internet traffic came from bots alone, where 30.2% was identified as bad bot traffic and 17.3% as good bot traffic.
C
Churn rate
Churn rate indicates the percentage of users lost during a given period. Churned users are those who stop using your app, which is indicated by uninstalls, loss of user sessions, etc.
Click Spam
Click Spam, also referred to as organic poaching or click flooding, is a type of ad fraud where individuals generate fake clicks for non-existent users. Fraudsters usually use mobile apps or websites to generate this particular ad fraud.
Click Through Rate
Click Through Rate is the ratio of the number of people who see an ad to the number of people who click on it. CTR helps in understanding how well your keywords, ads, and listings are performing and make improvements accordingly.
Contextual Advertising
Contextual advertising is a type of targeted advertising that considers keywords and website or app content to show relevant ads to the desired audience.
Conversion Tracking
Conversion Tracking measures or tracks specific completed goals or data points. A conversion is when an app or website visitor performs a desired action like purchasing, subscribing to an email list, or submitting a contact form. Conversion Tracking is when these actions are tracked to identify a behavioral pattern.
Cookie syncing
Cookie syncing is the harmonization of user data between different platforms. It involves the exchange of cookie information to create a unified user profile.
Cost Per Action
Cost Per Action or CPA is a pricing model in the advertising industry used in performance campaigns. It indicates the cost advertisers pay for every action users complete on a digital advert. An action could be installing, registering, clicking on a link, etc.
Cost Per Click
In the CPC or Cost Per Click model, advertisers pay publishers a certain amount for every click the ad receives. CPC is sometimes referred to as PPC or Pay Per Click.
Cost Per Download
Cost Per Download (CPD) is a revenue model in which the advertisers only pay when users download their app or a specific file. For example, if CPD is decided at $10 for a particular app and there are 100 downloads, then the advertiser is entitled to pay $1000 to the publisher.
Cost Per Engagement
Cost Per Engagement (CPE) is an advertising pricing model where advertisers pay for a specific model when users perform predefined actions within an app. This approach ventures beyond the pay-per-click model and focuses on user behavior that aligns with advertisers' goals.
Cost Per Lead
Cost Per Lead (CPL) is a revenue metric representing the cost of acquiring each lead for a business. As advertisers are the ones who pay the CPL, they always want low CPL campaigns. This metric helps businesses understand their marketing efforts' effectiveness and determine the return on investment (ROI) on the advertising spend.
Cost Per Mille
In the CPM or Cost Per Mille model, advertisers pay publishers/app developers a fixed amount for every 1000 impressions on the ad shown on the publisher’s app.
Cost Per Purchase
Cost Per Purchase (CPP), generally called cost per order, is a marketing metric that calculates the cost of acquiring a genuine user by dividing the total cost of a marketing campaign (cost of media spend, user acquisition, promotions, marketing, etc.) by the number of purchases made. With CPP, businesses can measure a marketing campaign's efficiency in terms of how much it costs to make a sale, how popular its products are, and how much users spend.
D
Daily Active Users
Daily Active Users or DAU is the number of active users on an app on any given day. The count includes users from new app downloads and existing users.
Data Management Platform
A Data Management Platform (DMP) is a single unified platform to collect, organize, and activate first, second, and third-party data about users or customers of a business from various online and offline sources.
Deep Linking
A deep link is a URL on a webpage, in an email, or in a message that directly takes a user to a specific in-app page. Deep links seek to provide users with a seamless experience while navigating the app-scape.
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Dynamic creative
Dynamic creatives or dynamic ads are ads that can be updated in real-time according to each viewer’s preferences based on parameters predefined by advertisers. Dynamic creatives take multiple creative elements such as text, images, videos, and CTA that can be swapped manually or through programmatic automation to deliver extremely relevant and personalized ads.
F
Facebook Audience Network
Facebook Audience Network is an extension of the social media giant's advertising platform. It allows advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond Facebook to reach users on third-party apps and websites. This means that businesses can tap into a vast network of users, significantly expanding their reach and engagement.
Fill rate
Fill rate is the percentage of ads served against the total number of ad requests sent from an app or a website.
First-party data
First-party data, in the context of programmatic advertising, is the information collected directly from user interactions with your brand. It includes website engagement, social media interactions, responses to emails, and feedback from direct channels.
G
Gaming ad networks
A mobile gaming ad network is a provider of ad spaces within a gaming app. By collaborating with game publishers and game developers, gaming ad networks allow them to post ad inventory on gaming apps. This links advertisers with mobile games; in doing so, these game ad networks can help them drive conversions.
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager or GAM is an ad management platform by Google. It provides granular control over the ad management process and is suitable for large publishers with considerable direct sales.
Google AdMob
Google AdMob is a programmatic tool for app publishers and developers to monetize their apps. They do this by selling their ad inventory to advertisers who are on AdMob, looking for inventory to display their ads. They get paid for every ad shown in their ad space.
Google AdSense
Google AdSense is a tool for website publishers to monetize their websites through ads. It connects advertisers who want to promote their products with publishers who have ad space available.
Google Advertising ID
Google Advertising ID (GAID), often known as Android ID, or Android Advertising ID (AAID) serves as Google's distinctive device identifier. Every smartphone and tablet is assigned a unique device ID (a string of numbers and letters) generated upon the initial device setup. Thus ID is anonymized and has no personal user information. Apps installed on the devices can access this ID with users' consent.
I
Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA)
The identifier for advertisers, or IDFA is a unique ID assigned by Apple to a user's iOS device. This ID is used by advertisers to track data to deliver customized advertising.
Idle Games
Idle games, often referred to as incremental or clicker games, are categorized under casual games and are known for their simplicity. However, they are quite different from other popular hyper-casual games like Voodoo's 5 Hoops or Ketchapp's Origame.
In-app advertising
In-app advertising is a popular method to earn money through apps. If a mobile app or game supports in-app advertising, it means it incorporates paid ads into the app. The app publisher gets paid every time users see or engage with the ad.
In-app events
An in-app event is a great advertising and ASO tool that supports customized events within an app or game. Contrary to the name, in-app events do not require real-time events like physical events. These events can range from weekly challenges, product/feature launch events, live streaming movies, etc.
In-app header bidding
In-app bidding or the mobile version of header bidding, is a cutting-edge advertising technique that allows mobile publishers to auction their ad inventory, where advertisers bid individually to win the auction. The highest bid wins, and the winner gets to display their ad in the ad space.
In-Page Push Ads
In-page push ads are an online advertising format that appears within a website. They are served as banner ads but look and behave like native ads. They occur like in-app push notifications and do not redirect users to a new tab or window. If the user finds the offer interesting, they can click on the ad, which might lead them to a relevant website or product page.
Installs Per Mille
Installs Per Mille (IPM) is a crucial metric that measures the number of times an app has been installed per 1,000 ad impressions. IPM specifically tracks the conversion rate of ads. IPM is impacted by multiple variables like creatives, supply source, App Store Optimization (ASO), and targeting strategy.
Interactive Advertising
Interactive advertising is a dynamic form of marketing that encourages user engagement, requiring active participation rather than passive consumption. Unlike traditional ads, which convey information one way, interactive ads prompt users to interact with the content, creating a more memorable and personalized experience.
Interstitial ads
Interstitial ads are full-screen ads that appear on top of the existing app or website content, completely covering it. Users can dismiss or close these ads to return to the app or website page.
M
Managed Account (MA)
Under the Google MCM Managed Account delegation module, the child publisher grants the parent publisher edit access to all the ad inventory in their account. With that, the parent publisher only has the right to manage and monetize child publishers' ad inventory. Following are the key points about the MA delegation.
Managed Inventory (MI)
Under the Google MCM Managed Inventory delegation module, the parent publisher can access the ad request made by the child publisher. However, access and settings rights permissions remain with the child publisher. Following are the key points about MI delegation.
Match Three Games
Match three games, which are also referred to as tile-matching games are a popular mobile game genre. Here, players engage in rearranging tiles on a puzzle board to solve it. This genre revolves around a simple concept- players swap two adjacent tiles to create lines of three or more identical elements, which subsequently vanish from the board, making way for new tiles.
Meta Games
Meta games are where the strategies employed by players transcend usual gaming rules. Here, the game gathers knowledge based on other players' perspectives and can change the behavior of other players and decide their course of action.
Minimum Viable Product
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product in its early stages, representing its simplest version. It includes enough features to attract early adopters and investment. MVPs are typically developed to meet customer demand before creating a fully-featured version. They serve as a means to gather initial feedback from the users and refine the product further.
MMO Games
MMO Games or Massively Multiplayer Online Games are a genre of video games that allow a huge number of players to interact with each other and play on a shared virtual landscape. It helps connect players from across the world and engage in competitive or cooperative gameplay.
Mobile Measurement Partners
Mobile measurement partners serve as the analytical backbone of app marketing, specializing in the meticulous tracking and analysis of user interactions. MMPs provide developers with a comprehensive understanding of how users engage with their apps and respond to marketing efforts.
O
Open auction
With open auctions, also called real-time bidding, ad spaces can be bought and sold through real-time auctions. Transactions are made when an app/web page is loading, the time taken for which is approximately 200ms.
OTT
OTT, or "over-the-top" refers to any online content streamed by a service provider over a laptop, mobile phone, or tablet. This content usually suits the interests and requirements of an individual consumer. Essentially, OTT services are video-on-demand platforms. But they also include audio streaming or internet-based voice calling solutions. OTT services generate revenue through paid subscriptions.
P
Performance marketing
Performance marketing is a form of digital marketing where advertisers (marketers) conduct ad campaigns with specific business objectives, such as getting clicks, generating leads, or making sales. Advertisers connect with agencies or publishers or use other channels like social media to run their ads. They pay the service provider (publisher or affiliate) by measuring the campaign performance in terms of the objective achieved.
Playable Ads
Playable Ads are a type of interactive ad unit that allows users to experience a demo version of the app before committing to downloading it. They offer an in-ad gameplay experience that helps in effectively engaging and acquiring new users.
Policy violations
A policy violation occurs when an ad violates Google’s terms and conditions related to ad serving.
Postbacks
Postbacks, also called callbacks, are exchange of informations between servers that happens when an in-app event or app install occurs. It notifies the developer in real-time about installs and user activity. Doing so ensures that developers know strategies that work or do not work and optimize their ads accordingly.
Preloaded Apps
Preloaded apps are mobile apps that are pre-installed on devices before they are sold to users. Companies like Apple and Samsung commonly employ this practice to include a set of essential apps to enhance user experience.
Puzzle Games
Puzzle Games are usually mobile games that are designed to help develop the players' problem-solving and logical thinking skills. These games are usually in the form of workplace building, pattern recognition, logical reasoning, or match-three objects. Puzzles can be incorporated in every game genre either as a filler or a main part of the game.
R
Real-time bidding
With Real-Time Bidding (RTB), also called open auction, ad spaces can be bought and sold through real-time auctions. Transactions are made when an app/web page is loading, the time taken for which is approximately 200ms.
Remnant Inventory
Remnant inventory or unsold inventory is the advertising slot publishers cannot sell through programmatic deals. It refers to the remaining unsold ad impressions that exist even after fulfilling commitments made to advertisers for a specific period.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is a crucial Key Performance Indicator (KPI) used in app marketing. ROAS measures the revenue earned for every dollar spent on an ad campaign. Tracking this metric yields insights into the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. It also helps measure an entire marketing strategy, targeting, or ad level.
S
Second Price Auction
The second price auction is when the highest bid (the winner) has to pay only one cent more than the second-highest bid. The winning bid need not pay the total price that they bid on.
Sellers.json
Sellers.json is a file used by a supply-side platform's (SSP) website that provides information about all the authorized sellers. Sellers.json was created by IAB to increase transparency in the programmatic advertising landscape, to help identify unauthorized sellers, and to prevent fraudulent activities.
Soft Launch
A soft launch, in terms of launching an app, is when an app is introduced to a limited audience with minimal marketing efforts before it is scheduled for an official launch. A soft launch is a controlled release that allows developers to simulate real-world interactions and gather valuable insights.
U
User Acquisition Cost
The User Acquisition Cost is a metric used in app business to estimate the cost incurred to acquire a user or customer. User Acquisition Cost is the cost spent on sales and marketing to gain a user over a specific period of time. This estimate will help app businesses budget their costs while attracting new customers.
User acquisition
Advertisers use the process of user acquisition to create and deploy advertising campaigns that generate app installs.
V
VAST Tags
Video Ad Serving Template or VAST Tags are third-party-generated ad tags that connect ad servers with video players. VAST Tags aim to enable ad servers to deliver ads seamlessly.
Video header bidding
Video header bidding is the process publishers employ to sell their video ad inventories to multiple demand partners and ad networks. With video header bidding, selling video ad inventories can be simultaneous. Video header bidding was brought in to counter the disadvantages of the traditional waterfall method.
Viewable CPM (vCPM)
vCPM (Viewable Cost Per Mille) is a digital advertising metric that measures the cost of displaying an ad to 1,000 viewable impressions. This means that advertisers will pay for the ads that were viewed and not for the ads served on the website.
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