Glossary · 55 terms · 30 in depth

Advertising Glossary: Ad Tech, Media Buying and Affiliate Terms

Plain definitions of the terms advertisers and publishers meet on an ad network: the formats (popunder, push, native, video), the pricing models (CPM, CPC, CPA), the metrics (CTR, eCPM, ROAS), the tracking mechanics (postbacks, macros) and the ecosystem around them. Entries with Learn more open a longer explanation with examples.

A

Ad exchange Ecosystem
A technology marketplace where publishers, networks and supply-side platforms sell impressions to many buyers through real-time auctions, typically over the OpenRTB protocol. Learn more →
Ad network Ecosystem
A company that aggregates ad inventory from many publishers and sells it to advertisers in one place, handling targeting, delivery, billing and payouts. Networks specialize by format, vertical or region. Learn more →
Ad server Ecosystem
The software that stores ad creatives, decides which ad to show on each request according to targeting and bids, delivers it, and records impressions, clicks and conversions. Learn more →
Advertiser Ecosystem
The party that pays to show ads: a brand, an app developer, an affiliate or an agency acting for them. On an ad network the advertiser deposits funds, sets targeting and bids, and supplies creatives or a landing page.
Affiliate marketing Verticals
Performance marketing in which an advertiser pays a third party, the affiliate, for conversions the affiliate's traffic produces. The affiliate buys or earns the traffic and is paid per lead, sale, install or deposit. Learn more →

B

Bid Pricing and metrics
The price an advertiser offers for an impression (CPM) or a click (CPC) in a given GEO and device. Networks set a minimum bid per GEO; the highest matching bid wins the auction.
Bot traffic Ecosystem
Visits and clicks generated by automated software rather than people: crawlers, scrapers and fraud bots. Ad networks filter it before billing; advertisers watch for it in conversion data by source.

C

Conversion rate Pricing and metrics
Conversions divided by clicks or visits, expressed as a percentage. The landing page's quality metric and, by source ID, the main signal for whitelisting traffic.
CPA (cost per action) Pricing and metrics
Cost per action (or acquisition): the price paid for a defined conversion such as a sign-up, install, lead, sale or first deposit. The payment model of affiliate offers and the goal metric of most performance campaigns. Learn more →
eCPA (effective CPA) Pricing and metrics
The cost per conversion a campaign actually achieved, computed from spend and conversions whatever the pricing model it was bought on. Compares CPM and CPC traffic by result.
CPC (cost per click) Pricing and metrics
Cost per click: the price an advertiser pays each time a visitor clicks an ad. The standard model for push, in-page push, native and search advertising, where the click is the billable event. Learn more →
CPM (cost per mille) Pricing and metrics
Cost per mille: the price an advertiser pays for one thousand ad impressions. The standard pricing model for display, pop, video and other formats where the impression, not the click, is the billable event. Learn more →
eCPM (effective CPM) Pricing and metrics
Effective cost per mille: revenue or cost expressed per thousand impressions regardless of how the ads were actually priced, so that CPC, CPA and CPM campaigns can be compared on one scale. Learn more →
Creative Creative
The ad asset shown to the visitor: an image or HTML banner, a push icon and text, a native image and headline, a video file. Popunders and redirects have none; the landing page takes its place.
CTA (call to action) Creative
The instruction in an ad or landing page that tells the visitor what to do next: Sign up, Install, Play now. In push and native ads the title often carries the CTA.
CTR (click-through rate) Pricing and metrics
Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions, expressed as a percentage. Measures how often people who saw an ad clicked it; the primary creative-quality signal for CPC formats. Learn more →

D

Direct click traffic Ad formats
Visitors sent straight to an advertiser's landing page without seeing an ad first, typically from parked or redirected domains and typed-in URLs. Sold per thousand redirects or per click. Learn more →
DSP (demand-side platform) Ecosystem
Software that lets advertisers and agencies buy impressions from many exchanges and networks through one interface, bidding in real time on each impression according to the campaign's targeting and goals.

F

Frequency capping Ecosystem
A delivery rule that limits how many times one visitor is shown the same ad, campaign or format in a period, for example one popunder per visitor per 24 hours.
FTD (first-time deposit) Pricing and metrics
First-time deposit (or first-time depositor): the moment a newly registered user funds an iGaming, betting or trading account for the first time. The conversion most iGaming CPA offers pay for. Learn more →

G

GEO targeting Ecosystem
Choosing the countries, regions or cities where a campaign runs, from the visitor's IP address. Bids, offers and landing pages are usually set per GEO.

I

iGaming Verticals
Online gambling as an industry: online casinos, sports betting, poker, bingo and lotteries played for real money over the internet. Advertised mainly on CPA per first deposit or revshare. Learn more →
Impressions Pricing and metrics
The number of times an ad was displayed. One rendering of a banner, one popunder window, one push notification delivered. The denominator of CPM and CTR.
In-page push Ad formats
A notification-styled ad unit rendered inside the publisher page rather than sent through the browser's push service. Needs no subscription, works on iOS, and is paid per click. Learn more →
Interstitial ads Ad formats
Full-screen ads shown at a natural break in a site or app, such as between pages or game levels, with a visible close control. Sold per thousand impressions. Learn more →

L

Landing page Creative
The page a visitor reaches after clicking an ad, built to produce one action. In popunder and redirect campaigns the landing page is the only creative.

M

Media buying Ecosystem
The practice of purchasing advertising placements or traffic, choosing where, when and at what price ads run, and optimizing the buy against a goal such as cost per acquisition. Done directly, through networks or programmatically. Learn more →

N

Native advertising Ad formats
Paid placements designed to match the look and position of the editorial content around them, such as recommended-article widgets and in-feed cards. Labelled as sponsored and usually paid per click. Learn more →

P

Pop traffic Ad formats
The family of full-page ad formats that open a new browser window or tab on a visitor click: popunders, popups and tab-unders. Sold per thousand impressions, mostly through specialist pop ad networks. Learn more →
Pop-up Ad formats
An ad that opens in a new window in front of the current page. Blocked by default in modern browsers, which is why the pop traffic sold today is popunder.
Popunder ads Ad formats
A full-page ad that opens in a new browser tab or window behind the page the visitor is viewing, so it is seen when the visitor closes or minimizes the current page. Sold per thousand impressions. Learn more →
Postback URL Tracking
A URL that one server calls to tell another that a conversion happened, carrying the click ID and optionally the payout. The server-to-server (S2S) method of attributing conversions to clicks without browser cookies. Learn more →
Programmatic advertising Ecosystem
Buying and selling ad inventory through software rather than manual orders: open-auction real-time bidding, private marketplaces, preferred deals and programmatic guaranteed.
Publisher Ecosystem
The owner of a website, app or subscriber list that shows ads and is paid for the impressions, clicks or conversions they produce. On an ad network, publishers add ad zones and receive payouts on a schedule.
Push notification ads Ad formats
Ads delivered as browser or device notifications to users who opted in on a publisher site. Each notification has an icon, a title and a short text and is paid per click. Learn more →

R

Real-time bidding (RTB) Ecosystem
The per-impression auction in which a supply platform sends a bid request to demand platforms and the highest bid wins, all within a few hundred milliseconds while the page loads. Runs on the OpenRTB protocol. Learn more →
Revshare (revenue share) Pricing and metrics
A payment model in which the affiliate receives a percentage of the revenue a referred customer generates over time, rather than a fixed amount per conversion. Common in iGaming, dating and subscriptions.
ROAS (return on ad spend) Pricing and metrics
Return on ad spend: revenue attributed to a campaign divided by what the campaign cost, expressed as a ratio or percentage. A ROAS of 3 means three units of revenue for every unit spent on media. Learn more →
ROI (return on investment) Pricing and metrics
Profit divided by total cost: (revenue − all costs) ÷ all costs. Judges whether a business line pays; ROAS, which counts media cost only, compares campaigns.
RPM (revenue per mille) Pricing and metrics
Revenue per thousand page views, all ad slots on the page combined. A publisher's yield metric; unlike eCPM it counts unfilled slots and page views rather than ad impressions.

S

Self-serve advertising Ecosystem
An advertising platform model where the advertiser opens an account, deposits funds and creates, targets and optimizes campaigns through the interface without a sales team or minimum contract. Learn more →
SmartCPA Pricing and metrics
A bidding mode in which the advertiser sets a target cost per conversion and the platform adjusts CPM or CPC bids per source toward it, using conversions reported by postback.
SmartCPM Pricing and metrics
A CPM bidding mode in which the platform charges just above the next-highest competing bid instead of the full bid, so the advertiser wins the same impressions for less when competition is thin.
SmartLink Ecosystem
A single link that routes each visitor to the best-matching offer from a pool according to GEO, device and performance, so one campaign can run many offers without manual splitting.
SSP (supply-side platform) Ecosystem
Software publishers use to offer their inventory to many exchanges, networks and DSPs at once, setting floor prices and letting the highest bid win each impression.
Sweepstakes advertising Verticals
Promotions that offer a chance to win a prize in exchange for an entry, usually an email or phone number, monetized as leads. One of the largest CPL verticals in affiliate marketing. Learn more →

T

Telegram Mini App ads Ad formats
Banner or native placements shown inside Telegram Mini Apps, the web apps that run within the Telegram messenger. Targeted by GEO, language and app category and sold per thousand impressions or per click. Learn more →
Tracking macros Tracking
Placeholders in curly braces, such as {tracking} or {subid}, that an ad server replaces with the real value at click time so the advertiser's tracker receives the click ID, source, GEO and other details.
Tracking pixel Tracking
A small image or script on a page that fires a request to a server when the page loads, used to count conversions or build retargeting audiences from the visitor's browser. Postbacks replace it when the browser cannot be relied on.
Traffic source Ecosystem
Any channel or placement that sends visitors to a page: an ad network, a search engine, a social platform, or, inside a network, a single publisher placement identified by its source ID. Learn more →

U

Unique click Pricing and metrics
A click counted once per visitor in a period, with repeat clicks from the same person excluded. Networks bill CPC campaigns on unique clicks to protect advertisers from double counting.

V

mVAS (mobile value-added services) Verticals
Mobile value-added services: subscription content and services billed to the user's phone bill through the mobile carrier, such as games, video, horoscopes and antivirus. Sold as CPA offers paid per subscription. Learn more →
Video ads Ad formats
Video commercials played inside a video player before, during or after the content (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll). Delivered through VAST tags and sold per thousand impressions or per completed view. Learn more →

W

Web traffic Ecosystem
The visitors a website receives, counted as sessions, users or page views and classified by where they came from: organic search, paid ads, referrals, social, email or direct. Learn more →

How the glossary is maintained

Each entry is written by a Reacheffect team member who works with the term daily and reviewed by Vladislav Makarevich, Head of DSP. Figures on the term pages come from the platform's own data and carry the date they were read. Terms are added when advertisers or publishers ask about them; terms we would not be the right source for are left to others.