Display Advertising Definitions
42 terms covering display marketing, brand safety, and ad fraud. Listed alphabetically.
Ad Exchange
A digital marketplace that enables advertisers and publishers to buy and sell advertising space, often through real-time bidding (RTB).
Ad Fraud
The practice of fraudulently representing online advertisement impressions, clicks, conversion or data events in order to generate revenue. It can also relate to click fraud, which is done in many different ways and oftentimes includes invalid bot traffic.
Ad Impression Laundering
Obscuring the true origin or nature of ad impressions, typically through a series of transactions, to make them appear legitimate when they are not.
Ad Impressions
A measure of how many times an ad has been displayed, regardless of whether it was clicked or not.
Ad Injection
Unauthorised ads are inserted into web pages or apps, often without the knowledge of the site owner, thereby diverting revenue from the legitimate ad space owners.
Ad Network
A company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. The key function of an ad network is aggregation of ad space supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser demand.
Ad Placement
The strategic positioning of an online advertisement on a web page or within a specific digital environment to maximize visibility and effectiveness.
Ad Server
A web server that stores advertising content used in online marketing and delivers that content onto various digital platforms such as websites, social media outlets, and mobile apps.
Ad Stacking
Placing multiple ads on top of each other in a single ad slot, where only the top ad is visible, but impressions are counted for all the stacked ads.
Ad Targeting
The process of segmenting audiences based on various criteria such as demographics, behavior, psychographics, etc., to serve the most relevant ads to the right audience.
Blacklist or Blocklist
A list of placements (websites, apps, channels or otherwise) an advertiser wants to specifically exclude in his marketing campaigns. Just like whitelists and allowlists, black or blocklists can be used in GDN, programmatic or video campaigns in order to ensure brand safety, brand suitability or to exclude low-performing environments.
Bot Traffic
Utilizing automated software programs, or bots, to generate fake traffic, impressions, clicks, and other false engagement metrics on ads.
Brand-Safety
A practice in digital marketing aimed at ensuring that a brand's advertisements do not appear in a context that could harm the brand's reputation, such as on websites with inappropriate content.
Brand-Suitability
Closely related to brand-safety, this involves ensuring that advertising content is not just safe but also suitable and contextually appropriate for the brand's image and values.
Click Fraud
Generating artificial clicks on pay-per-click ads to increase costs for advertisers. This can be done manually or through automated software (bots).
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
A metric that measures how many people clicked on an ad divided by how many times the ad was shown (impressions), expressed as a percentage.
Content Marketing
A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
Contextual Advertising
A form of targeted advertising where the content of an ad is in direct correlation to the content of the webpage the ad is being displayed on.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of users who take a desired action related to online advertising, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or clicking on an ad.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
A pricing model used in online advertising where the advertiser pays a fee each time their ad is clicked.
Cost Per Mille (CPM)
Also known as cost per thousand, it refers to the price of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one webpage.
Display Ad Creative
Refers to the design and aesthetic aspect of a display ad, including elements such as images, text, brand logo, and overall visual layout that make the ad attractive and effective in conveying the message.
Display Marketing
A form of online advertising where marketers use banner ads and other visual advertisements to promote products or services on websites, apps, or social media.
Domain Spoofing
Falsely representing a low-quality site as a high-quality site to sell ad space at premium prices.
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)
A technology that creates personalized ads based on data about the viewer at the moment of ad serving. It allows advertisers to optimize creative elements in real time.
Frequency Capping
A restriction on the number of times a specific visitor is shown a particular advertisement. This is used to avoid ad fatigue and overexposure.
Geotargeting
The practice of delivering content or advertisements to a user based on their geographic location.
Ghost Sites
Creating fake websites with stolen or scraped content that generate ad impressions using bot traffic but have no real audience.
Interstitial Ads
Full-page ads that appear before a user reaches their intended webpage. These are typically displayed at natural transition points in the flow of an app, such as between activities or during the pause between levels in a game.
Location Fraud
Misrepresenting the geographic location of ad impressions, making them appear more valuable by suggesting they come from a high-value market.
Lookalike Audience
A way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they're similar to your best existing customers.
Native Advertising
A type of online advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears, often blending in with the platform's content.
Pixel Stuffing
This involves cramming multiple ads into a tiny, 1x1 pixel frame that is invisible to the human eye, yet each ad still registers as having been 'seen.'
Platforms
In the context of digital marketing, platforms refer to the various digital mediums or channels where advertising can be displayed, such as social media sites, search engines, content networks, and more.
Programmatic Advertising
The use of automated technology for buying and selling of ad inventory in real-time, through an automated bidding system.
Retargeting
A form of online advertising that involves serving ads to users who have previously visited a specific website or shown interest in a certain product or service.
Rich Media Ads
Interactive digital advertising media that exhibit dynamic motion, using enhanced features like video, audio, or other elements that encourage viewers to interact and engage with the content.
View-Through Rate (VTR)
A measurement of the number of post-view conversions a display ad generates. It is used to assess the impact of an ad that was viewed but not clicked.
Viewability
A metric in digital advertising that tracks how many ads were actually seen by users. An ad is considered viewable if a certain percentage of it is visible for a certain amount of time.
Whitelist or Allowlist
A list of placements (websites, apps, channels or otherwise) an advertiser wants to specifically target with his advertisements. Whitelists or allowlists can be used in networks like GDN, programmatic advertising or video campaigns. Advertisers that use these lists can adjust their bids for certain placements.