It seems like there is a new term that gets created every day in our industry (ad operations), That is why our ad operation experts have created an “Ad Ops 101″ Check List, filled with every industry term that we can think of. This can be used as a cheat sheet for your next conference call or just a simple confirmation on the terms you are already familiar with. Check out our list below!

Ad Trafficking:  Ad Trafficking is the process of setting up ads in the ad server, so that when an ad request is made to the ad server, the correct ad will be returned and played based on the ad policies and ad targeting information in the ad tag. Ad Server – The technology and service that places advertisements on websites. Ad serving technology companies provide software to websites and advertisers to serve ads, count them, choose the ads that will make the website or advertiser most money, and monitor progress of different advertising campaigns. Ad servers are divided into two types: Publisher ad servers and advertiser (or third party) ad servers. Some popular ad servers include:
DoubleClick DFP Premium – DoubleClick’s DFP Small Business – OpenX – Ad Tech – Atlas – BlueStreak – Smart AdServer – AdZerk – AdJuggler – Epom.

Impression: Sometimes called a view or an ad view, is a term that refers to the point in which an ad is viewed once by a visitor, or displayed once on a web page. The number of impressions of a particular advertisement is determined by the number of times the particular page is located and loaded.

Ad Tag: A snippet of HTML or JavaScript code that is either inserted into your ad server, or hard coded into your source code. The ad tag serves and tracks a 3rd party creative

Inventory: The number of available impressions that a website receives; The types of advertisements (web banners) that can be displayed.

Media Planning: The process of combining media to achieve the marketing campaign objectives and finding the right “media mix” for a client’s brand.

Rich Media: A term for advertising creative using advanced technology such as streaming video, downloaded applet’s (programs) that interact instantly with the user, and ads that change when the user’s mouse passes over it.

Inventory & Yield Management: The tracking and management of ad inventory, often from ad networks and ad exchanges.

CPM (Cost per Mille): Cost per 1,000 impressions. For example, a $1 CPM means $1 for 1000 ad views. For the purpose of ad serving, it is the cost to serve 1,000 ad impressions.

RPM (Revenue per Mille): Revenue per 1000 impressions (RPM) represents the estimated earnings you’d accrue for every 1000 impressions you receive. RPM doesn’t represent how much you have actually earned; rather, it’s calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views, impressions, or queries you received, then multiplying by 1000.

CPC (Cost per Click): CPC represents cost per click. This revenue model is used to price many of the pay per click advertising models (PPC) such as Google’s AdWords. As the name implies, advertisers place ads however only pay when a user clicks on the ad.

3rd Party Ad Server: Generally utilized to host rich media or executions that are being hosted/tracked outside of the publisher’s ad server.

Ad Networks: A company that connects advertisers to web sites 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 Exchange: Ad exchanges are technology platforms that facilitate the bidded buying and selling of online media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks. The approach is technology-driven as opposed to the historical approach of negotiating price on media inventory.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB): Refers to the means by which ad inventory is bought and sold on a per-impression basis, via programmatic instantaneous auction, similar to financial markets.

Supply Side Platform (SSP): Is a technology platform with the single mission of enabling publishers to manage their advertising impression inventory and maximize revenue from digital media.

Header Bidding: Is an advanced programmatic technique wherein publishers offer inventory to multiple ad exchanges simultaneously before making calls to their ad servers (mostly DoubleClick for Publishers)

Demand Side Platform (DSP): A demand-side platform (DSP) is a system that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through one interface. Real-time bidding for displaying online ads takes place within the ad exchanges, and by utilizing a DSP, marketers can manage their bids for the banners and the pricing for the data that they are layering on to target their audiences.

Private Marketplace (PMP) / Private Exchange: Private ad exchanges are a way for publishers to participate in the real-time, auction-based online ad market without doing business with third party ad networks. This is a more direct, yet programmatic approach to selling inventory.

 

Ad Operations Industry Acronyms:

We know Ad Operations is famous for their three letter acronyms. Just when you think all the possible combinations of acronyms have been exhausted, a new one seems to pop up out of seemingly nowhere! Next time that you hear a colleague spew out a fancy new acronym that you are not familiar with, reference our list below. Maybe you can even surprise them with something new!

  • RTB – Real-Time Bidding
  • DFP – Dart for Publishers
  • XFP – Dart for Publishers Premium
  • GPT – Google Publisher Tags
  • DFA – Dart for Advertisers
  • SSP – Supply Side Platform
  • DSP – Demand Side Platform
  • DMP – Data Management Platform
  • PMP – Private Marketplace
  • ATF – Above the Fold
  • BTF – Below the Fold
  • ROI – Return on Investment
  • CTR – Click Through Rate
  • CPM – Cost per thousand
  • eCPM – Effective CPM
  • rCPM – Real CPM
  • tCPM – True CPM
  • RPM – Revenue per Thousand
  • CPA – Cost per Acquisition
  • CPD – Cost per Day
  • CPC – Cost per Click
  • EPC- Average Earnings per 100 Clicks
  • RFP – Request for Proposal
  • AdX – Google’s Ad Exchange
  • IO – Insertion Order