Glossary And Terminology

General

DSP (Demand-side Platform) 

refers to the software platform that is used by ad buyers (e.g. brand/companies, agencies   or whoever that has an advertising need to buy ads to promote their products and services. Traditionally, DSP is generally associated with the buying platform for RTB-based ad inventory. However, the definition has also been evolving to be more encompassing to include non-RTB-based ad inventory.

SSP (Supply-side Platform) 

refers to the software platform that is used by media or inventory sellers (e.g. media owners, media publishers or whoever that has media space/inventory for sale, or essentially anyone who commands eyeballs/attention) to allow them to effectively serve and manage their inventory and yield etc.

Ad Exchanges 

is analogous to a stock exchange, here via a software platform, media buyer and media seller are matched in automated programmable way via various models of transactions including RTB (real-time bidding), direct buy, private market place (PMP), private deals etc. Media seller has different ways to sell its inventory, including via auction, arranged/negotiated price, set floor/reserved price etc. 

Retargeting 

also known as "remarketing", refers to the capability to enable “ad-that-follow-you-around”.

Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) 

refers to the capability to display different creatives for different contexts, user journey, audience segments etc. In XPO, we support the various DCO mechanisms.

Cross-Device Targeting 

refers to the capability to bridge the world of Web (uses cookie to identify a person) and Mobile (primarily uses device ID to identify a person) to merge the identity of a user/audience/visitor. Example providers: DrawBridge, Tapad, CrossWise, Appier

Instead of selling the capability, they sell/provide as a Managed Service

Ad Server 

refers to the software is responsible for serving/showing the ad. In order to traffic into existing systems SSP, DSP, Ad Exchanges etc. certain levels of technical requirements are needed.

Ad serving and ad trafficking are often mixed up. Ad trafficking is the act of channeling an ad tag (which contains the logic to display an ad) via a supported system. The ad serving portion can be or not be done via the trafficked system.

Ad Tracking

refers to the capability to track all the clicks, interactions/engagements, impressions and so on on the creative level as well as on the website level. 

Advertising Channels and Formats

Although it is contentious that channel is used to represent such assortment of media, platforms, and even to the extent of format, for the lack of a better word, this seems to be the best phrase and is seemingly used the major platforms now.

1. Search concerns refers to advertising into the Search Engines (e.g. Google, Bing, Baidu, Yandex etc.). In XPO, we currently support only Google search advertising where through XPO, you can buy keywords on Google Search via Google AdWords and optimization of different aspects of websites to rank higher on the Google Search ranking.
2. Display typically refers to the archetypal of online advertising namely (static) banners or also called standard banner, dynamic ads and rich media.
   
   
3. Email herein we refer to Email Advertising as opposed to Electronic Direct Mailers (EDM). Learn about the difference.
   
   
4. Social concerns with posting into social media walled garden through use of their respective APIs. XPO currently supports Facebook (including Instagram, Messenger), Twitter and LinkedIn.
   
   
5. Mobile concerns with mobile in-app as opposed to web mobile (i.e. loading a website within a browser in the mobile phone).
   
   
6. Video/Youtube refers to pre-roll (ie. those that plays before a clip starts, e.g. see in youtube), midroll, and in-stream.
   
   
7. Native refers to ad that is embedded into a publisher's feed and rendered as part of contents. There are at least two forms of native ads where one is rendered as part of content while another is where the ad is serve similar to how a display ad is shown, albeit more blending into the surrounding content.
   
   
8. CTV (connected TV)/ OTT (over-the-top) twhere CTV refers to nowadays modern TV which can be connected into the Internet to go online while OTT device is a standalone box or a USB-stick that you can connect to your TV or otherwise operate as a standalone, that instantly turn your TV and enable it to connect to the Internet and go online.
   
   
9. Audio think Spotify where it allows programmatic buy/sell of audio airtime.
   
   
10. OOH (Out-of-Home): referring to bililboards, digital panels, bus stop panels etc.

Data & its Platform

• DMP (Data Management Platform): Use interchangeably to refer to the data platform or the company/supplier of the aggregated data that enables for data storage/uploading and sharing of audience profile and data. See below for the different types of data.
  
  
• First-party data refers to the data owned (stored in CRM, or other storage system) by the advertisers (assuming it is the company or brand owner), or publishers, namely CRM data, subscribers/users data, survey data etc. personal data. (learn more)
  
  
• Second-party data refers to the first party data of another party that you either have a deal or arrangement with directly to procure and use their data. (learn more)
  
  
• Third-party data refers to the first party data that are being aggregated and anonymized by commercial data providers and then re-packaged to be resold as typically as user segments, etc. e.g. Oracle Data Cloud, Factual, Lotame, Eyeota etc.  (learn more)
  
  Then there are other specialized data providers
• Contextual data e.g. Oracle Grapeshot, Knorex Lumina,  provides specialized audience segments for use in campaign.
  
  
• Location data e.g. Factual, Quadrant, Cuebiq, Near, LotaData, that provides location or geo data.

Costing / Pricing Model / KPI

• CPM (Cost per mille): measures the cost per 1,000 of impressions of an ad that is being shown. Compare this to PAGEVIEWS.
  
• CPC (Cost per click): typically used in platforms that goes on price-per-click (PPC) model such as Google AdWords, OutBrain/Taboola, Criteo etc. where an advertiser purchase directly based on the price quoted in CPC instead of CPM and is considered a form of pay-for-performance model where you only pay when a visitor clicks on an ad.
  
• CPL (Cost per landing): measures the number of the visitors who landed on the website. NOTE: this is not unique landing. Hence, a user might land on a page multiple times. Compare this to CLICK-THROUGH where CPL considers only the traffic that does not drop off upon clicking-through).
  
• CPA (Cost per action): measures a range of actions, e.g. conversion, leads, where this is concerns typically with the act of a visitor performing a certain action.

Measurement Metrics

• (Web) Pageviews: measures the number of times a webpage is loaded. Compare this to IMPRESSIONS. NOTE: during a pageview/pageload, there could be multiple ads within a page, including potentially same ad from same advertiser appearing at the same time in the same page. Hence, during a pageload, there could be multiple ad impressions registered.
  
  
• (Ad) Impressions: measures the number of times an ad is being shown. As the way/methodology to measure impressions is difficult to standardize, e.g. between a standard banner vs a rich media/dynamic ads (which can load progressively or much more complex to load), thus giving rise to DISCREPANCY (standard impression vs delayed impression etc.). Multiple factors can contribute to the discrepancy in impressions measurement.
  
  
• Ad Unit a pre-defined space on a page where ads will appear. An ad unit might have 1 more ads to be shown

• Click-through: measures the number of clicks via the shown ads.
  
  
• ROAS (return-on-ad-spend): measures the returns for a specific ad campaign. It is calculated as ( revenue from ad campaign / cost of ad campaign ).
  
  
• ROI (return-on-investment): The definitions of ROI vary between the different sources that you encounter. Here in XPO, ROI is calculated as ( revenue from advertising - cost of advertising) / cost of advertising ).

 

Media Buying

• SOV (Share-of-Voice): refers to the % of time/duration that one ad occupies compare to the total e.g. 25% SOV means appearing 1 in 4 of the time.
  
  
• Duration buy: media booking/buy based on certain duration (e.g. buy for 1 week or 1 month) for the ads to appear
  
  
• Direct buy: directly do media booking with the publisher/media own instead of going through intermediary (e.g. Ad Networks, Ad Exchanges, Ad agency etc. any such agent between the advertiser and the pubilsher/media owner)
  
  
• RTB (real-time bidding): advertisements are bought and sold via programmatic auction. Typically the bidding is done based on impression. Once a bid is won, the ads can be displayed almost immediately on the bided publishers' site/app etc.
  
  
• PMP (deals): Publisher and Advertiser/Agency pre-agree on the buying of a media inventory at certain section, with the number Ad Exchanges.
  
  
• IO (Insertion Order), Order Form (Order Form), MBF (Media booking form) etc.: Essentially similar types of documents that is either issued by the advertiser to the publisher, or vice versa, which serves as an purchase order form to engage a product, service or media.