Ad exchange
An ad exchange is a marketplace where ad impressions are bought and sold in real-time auctions. Sellers (usually through an SSP) send impressions to the exchange, buyers (usually through a DSP) bid on them, and the highest bid wins. Today the line between exchanges and SSPs is blurred: most SSPs run their own exchange. See programmatic advertising explained.
Ad network
An ad network is a company that collects ad space from many publishers and resells it to advertisers, usually as packages by format, topic or country. Classic networks set prices and decide which ad goes where; modern platforms combine network features with programmatic buying and selling.
Ad server
An ad server is the system that stores ads, decides which one to show for each request and counts impressions and clicks. Publishers use ad servers to manage their own ad space; advertisers use them to deliver creatives and keep independent statistics.
ads.txt
ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) is a public text file at the root of a website, for example example.com/ads.txt, that lists every company authorized to sell the site's ad space. Buyers check it to avoid spoofed inventory. Each line names the ad system, the publisher's account ID and the relationship: DIRECT or RESELLER. See the ads.txt guide.
Advertiser
An advertiser is a company or person who pays to show ads in order to sell, promote a brand or get actions such as installs and sign-ups. In programmatic advertising, advertisers usually buy impressions through a DSP, either themselves or through an agency or a personal manager.
Bid request
A bid request is the message a seller sends to buyers when an impression is available. It describes the ad slot (size, format, position), the site or app, the device, the country and other anonymous signals, so that each buyer can decide whether and how much to bid. Bid requests are usually sent in the OpenRTB format.
Brand safety
Brand safety means keeping ads away from content that can harm an advertiser's reputation, such as violence, hate speech, adult or illegal content. It is achieved with publisher moderation, category blocking, whitelists and blacklists and verification tools.
Conversion
A conversion is the action an advertiser wants a user to take after seeing or clicking an ad: a sign-up, a purchase, an app install, a deposit or a form submission. Conversions are usually reported back to the ad platform with a postback or a tracking pixel.
CPA (cost per action)
CPA is a pricing model or metric in which the advertiser pays, or calculates spend, per completed action, such as a sign-up or a purchase. Formula: CPA = spend ÷ number of actions. Many advertisers buy on CPM but optimize campaigns towards a target CPA.
CPC (cost per click)
CPC is a pricing model or metric in which the advertiser pays per click on an ad. Formula: CPC = spend ÷ clicks. It suits campaigns that need visits to a page, but says nothing about what happens after the click, so it is best combined with conversion tracking.
CPM (cost per mille)
CPM is the price of one thousand ad impressions ("mille" is Latin for thousand). Formula: CPM = spend ÷ impressions × 1,000. It is the main pricing model in programmatic advertising: advertisers bid a CPM, and publishers are paid for the impressions they deliver. Wizads works on the CPM model for both advertisers and publishers.
Creative
A creative is the ad itself: a banner image, a video file, an HTML5 ad or, for popunder campaigns, the landing page that opens. Creatives must match the format and size of the ad slot and the ad policies of the platform.
CTR (click-through rate)
CTR is the share of impressions that lead to a click. Formula: CTR = clicks ÷ impressions × 100%. A normal CTR depends heavily on the format; an unusually high CTR with no conversions is a common sign of invalid traffic.
DSP (demand-side platform)
A DSP is software that advertisers and agencies use to buy ad impressions automatically across many websites and apps. It receives bid requests, checks them against campaign targeting and budgets, and bids in real time. See what is a DSP and DSP vs SSP.
eCPM (effective CPM)
eCPM is the revenue or cost per one thousand impressions, calculated after the fact, whatever the pricing model was. Formula: eCPM = revenue ÷ impressions × 1,000. Publishers use it to compare ad partners and formats on the same scale.
Fill rate
Fill rate is the share of ad requests that were filled with a paid ad. Formula: fill rate = filled impressions ÷ ad requests × 100%. A low fill rate usually means a lack of demand for the format, country or floor price.
First-price auction
In a first-price auction the winner pays exactly the price they bid. It became the standard in programmatic advertising in the late 2010s, replacing the second-price auction, because it is simpler and more transparent, especially with header bidding.
Floor price
A floor price, or reserve price, is the minimum price a seller accepts for an impression, usually expressed as a CPM. Bids below the floor are rejected. Floors that are too high lower the fill rate; floors that are too low leave money on the table.
Frequency cap
A frequency cap limits how many times the same user sees an ad or a format within a period, for example once per session or three times per day. Advertisers use it to avoid wasting budget on repeated impressions; publishers use it to protect the user experience, which matters most for formats such as popunder.
GDPR consent
GDPR consent is the permission that users in the European Union give, usually through a cookie banner, before their personal data, such as cookies and identifiers, is used for personalized advertising. Consent management platforms (CMPs) collect it; under the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework the result can be passed to ad partners as a consent string in the bid request.
GEO
GEO is ad industry shorthand for the country or region where an ad is shown. Prices, demand, languages and legal rules differ by GEO, so campaigns and reports are usually split by country. See ad targeting options.
Impression
An impression is one display of an ad to a user. It is the basic unit of programmatic advertising: impressions are what buyers bid on, what CPM prices refer to and what publishers are paid for.
Interstitial ad
An interstitial is a full-screen ad that covers the page or app, typically when a page opens or between screens, until the user closes it or it times out. It gets maximum attention, especially on mobile, and works best with a moderate frequency cap. See fullscreen interstitial ads.
Invalid traffic (IVT)
Invalid traffic is any impression or click that does not come from a real person with genuine interest. It is divided into general invalid traffic (GIVT), such as known bots and data-center traffic, and sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT), such as bots imitating people, hidden ads and faked conversions. See ad fraud and traffic quality.
Landing page
A landing page is the page a user reaches after clicking an ad. It should load fast, match the promise of the ad and lead to one clear action. In popunder campaigns the landing page itself is the ad.
OpenRTB
OpenRTB is the open protocol from IAB Tech Lab that defines how buyers and sellers exchange bid requests and bid responses in real-time bidding. Versions 2.5 and 2.6 are the most widely used. See what is OpenRTB.
Popunder
A popunder is an ad format that opens the advertiser's page in a new browser tab or window after the user clicks on the publisher's site. It does not cover the site's content, and its impact on users depends mainly on the frequency setting. In the Wizads implementation the new tab becomes the active window. See popunder ads for publishers and popunder traffic.
Postback (S2S)
A postback is a server-to-server request that reports a conversion to the ad platform, with the click ID that ties it to the original click. It does not depend on the user's browser, so ad blockers and cookie limits do not break it. See postback (S2S) conversion tracking.
Prebid
Prebid is the most widely used open-source header bidding solution. Prebid.js runs the auction in the user's browser; Prebid Server runs it on a server, which reduces page load. Demand partners connect through adapters.
Preroll
A preroll is a video ad that plays before the main video content. Midrolls play during the content and postrolls after it. Preroll ads are usually requested with a VAST tag. See preroll ads and how to monetize a video website.
Private marketplace (PMP)
A private marketplace is an invitation-only auction in which a publisher offers selected inventory to chosen buyers, usually with a deal ID and agreed conditions such as a minimum price. It sits between the open auction and fully direct deals.
Programmatic advertising
Programmatic advertising is the automated buying and selling of ad impressions through software, most often in real-time auctions between DSPs and SSPs. It replaces manual negotiations and insertion orders with rules, data and bids. See programmatic advertising explained.
Publisher
A publisher is the owner of a website, app or other media that shows ads and earns from them. Publishers sell their ad space directly or through SSPs and ad networks. See the website monetization guide.
Real-time bidding (RTB)
Real-time bidding is the auction in which each ad impression is sold individually while the page loads, usually in less than a few hundred milliseconds. The seller sends a bid request, buyers respond with bids, and the winning ad is shown. RTB is typically based on OpenRTB.
Retargeting
Retargeting, also called remarketing, shows ads to people who already interacted with an advertiser: visited the site, started a sign-up or saw an ad. These audiences are smaller but usually convert better. See ad targeting options.
schain (SupplyChain object)
schain is a part of the OpenRTB bid request that lists every company that handled the impression on its way from the publisher to the buyer. Together with sellers.json and ads.txt, it lets buyers check that the path is legitimate. See sellers.json and schain.
Second-price auction
In a second-price auction the winner pays the second-highest bid plus a small increment, not their own bid. It was the standard model of early RTB and has largely been replaced by the first-price auction.
sellers.json
sellers.json is a public file published by an SSP, exchange or ad network that lists the sellers it works with, their seller IDs and whether each one is a publisher or an intermediary. Buyers match it with ads.txt and schain to verify who they are buying from. See sellers.json and schain.
SSP (supply-side platform)
An SSP is software that publishers use to sell their ad space automatically to many buyers at once. It sends bid requests to DSPs and exchanges, applies floor prices and quality rules, and picks the best bid. See what is an SSP.
Targeting
Targeting is the set of rules that decide which impressions a campaign buys: country (GEO), platform, operating system, browser, retargeting, placement lists, schedule and other signals from the bid request. See ad targeting options.
VAST
VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) is the IAB Tech Lab XML standard that tells a video player which ad to play, where the media files are and which tracking URLs to call. Almost every video ad, including prerolls, is served through a VAST tag. See VAST vs VPAID.
Viewability
Viewability measures whether an ad actually had a chance to be seen. Under the common industry standard, a display impression is viewable when at least 50% of its pixels are on screen for at least one continuous second; for video, at least 50% of the player for two continuous seconds.
VPAID
VPAID (Video Player-Ad Interface Definition) is an older IAB standard that let interactive video ads run code inside the player. It is deprecated: interactivity now uses SIMID and measurement uses the Open Measurement SDK, while the ad itself is delivered with VAST. See VAST vs VPAID.
Waterfall
A waterfall is a way of selling impressions in which the publisher calls demand partners one after another in a fixed priority order, usually by historical eCPM, until one fills the impression. It is simple but leaves money on the table, which is why many publishers moved to header bidding.
Whitelist and blacklist
A whitelist (allow list) limits a campaign to approved sites or placements; a blacklist (block list) excludes specific sites, placements or advertisers. Advertisers use them to optimize results and protect brand safety; publishers use them to block unwanted advertisers or categories.
