In the world of digital advertising, there are a lot of buzzwords, acronyms and just plain jargon.   Sometimes it can seem challenging or overwhelming to keep up to date and stay on top of all of these terms.   The good news?  It doesn’t have to be complicated.  It doesn’t have to be difficult.  We’ve prepared a list of the terms we think are most important to understand.

Key Takeaways from this article:

  • Understand Digital Advertising doesn’t need to be complicated

  • Learn some new terms that can help you understand some of today’s buzzwords

  • Have an easy to access guide that you can always come back and reference if you need support

No matter what industry you’re in, there are ways to break it down for someone who isn’t in the industry.  For example, as a mechanic, they could tell you that you need a new oil filter changed out.   Or, they can tell you that changing the oil filter is important because it removes contaminants from engine oil to keep the engine running smoothly and efficiently.  The latter, keeps it clear and easy to understand the importance of changing the oil filter (even if you’re like me and don’t know anything about cars).

Digital Advertising is the same way.  And, at Vici, one of our core goals in educating people about digital, is to make things as simple as possible to understand.  If you understand digital advertising, you’ll be able to see how it can benefit your business or your client’s business.

Here are the some of the top Digital Terms that we feel are important for you to understand:

Programmatic Ad Buying

The use of automated technology for media buying.  Programmatic advertising encompasses multiple ways of buying and placing digital ads through a marketplace rather than directly from a publisher of a website or app. This is how Vici buys digital advertising.   It includes things like Real-Time Bidding (RTB) and Private Marketplaces (PMPs).

Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

Real-time bidding (RTB) is an automated process where ad buyers can place bids, in real time, for specific ad placements. RTB is a programmatic process, but not all programmatic advertising takes place through RTB technology.

PMP (Private Marketplace)

Advertisers can only access a private marketplace with an invitation. Typically, top publishers (websites and apps) do this and offer their ad inventory to highest bidders among the select advertisers with whom they’ve done deals, granting access to inventory not available on open auctions and premium access at a lower price.

Geo-Targeting VS Geo-Fencing 

Geo-Targeting is the geographic area (“Geo”) in which you want ads to be served to users.  This might be a city, state, zip codes or a large radius around a location (ex: 15 miles around a business), and you layer in targeting strategies such as Behavioral Targeting, Keyword Targeting and/or AI Targeting, etc.

Geo-Fencing is a TIGHT RADIUS around a location (like a competitor), less than a mile usually, no Targeting Strategies layered in, and as tight as 500 feet.  We use Mobile Conquesting for most of our Geo-Fencing.

Marketing Funnel 

Also called the Sales Funnel, it is the process of guiding potential customers through stages of awareness, consideration, and decision (conversions).

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

A marketing metric that is total ad spend, divided by revenue generated by that ad spend, expressed as a ratio.

For example, a company spends $2,000 on an ad campaign in a month. The campaign results in revenue of $10,000 (client would need to track this). Therefore, the ROAS is a ratio of 5 to 1 (or 500 percent) as $10,000 divided by $2,000 = 5.

For every dollar that the company spends on its advertising campaign, it generates $5 worth of revenue.

What’s a good ROAS?  3:1 ratio is considered a good ratio.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

A metric that represents the total revenue from a customer over the duration of their relationship with the business.

It is Average Transaction Size x Number of Transactions x Retention Period.

For example, if the average sale is $500, the average customer buys 4 times a year and the average customer stays for 3 years the CLTV = $6,000 (500 x 4 x 3)

Advertisers will use this number to determine what is a viable Cost per Acquisition they should spend.

CVR (Conversion Rate)

The percentage of users who complete a desired action which is called a conversion (purchase, sign-up) after clicking an ad.

The Conversion Rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors to the website, multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.

What’s a good Conversion Rate?

2-5% is the average for non e-commerce businesses.

CTR (Click-Thru Rate)

A metric that shows what percentage of people served the ad, clicked on it.

Clicks/Impressions x 100 = CTR

2,000 clicks/250,000 impressions x 100 = .8% CTR

KPI – Key Performance Indicators 

Specific metrics and goals that help an advertiser to track and measure success.  It should measure what is most important to an advertiser.  Clicks are not a good KPI.  Conversions and Engagement are.

Addressable TV

This is a form of OTT.  It is targeted to audiences, but the targeting categories are much more limited because the data is typically coming from cable companies or satellite providers (Comcast, DIRECTV, and Dish) subscriber lists, so the targeting is limited to the subscription data those companies have access to.  Our OTT categories will be richer and our audiences are not limited to subscribers’ data.

UGC (User Generated Content)

Original, client-specific content created by customers and published on social media, websites or other channels. UGC comes in many forms, including posting images of a product customers bought, videos, reviews, a testimonial, etc.   You should be encouraging your clients to seek out UGC and use it in their advertising because consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user generated content as authentic compared to content created by brands.

Look Back Window

Each digital advertising platform has its own way of tracking & reporting conversions (including View Thrus which are a type of conversion), which you see in reports, between 7 – 30 days post click or view.  The two main ways are:

Conversions are associated with the impression.  Meaning if a conversion happened April 13th but the impression was served on March 30th, the conversion on the report would be reported as on March 30th, not when the conversion happened. (Mobile Conquesting is this way. Visit Data in Mobile Conquesting tracks visits for up to 14 days post impression)

Conversions are associated with the time they happened.  Meaning if a conversion happened April 13th, it doesn’t matter when the impression was served (as long as within the lookback window), the conversion on the report is April 13th.  Most products’ conversions are recorded this way.

FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television)

FAST is a type of FREE OTT that offers programming (live, scheduled or on-demand) with ads, as an alternative to paid monthly subscriptions. This is the type of OTT inventory Vici buys.  Examples of FAST include Pluto TV, Roku Channel, Xumo, Samsung TV Plus, Crackle and Tubi.

AVOD (Ad-supported Video on Demand)

This is a subset of FAST OTT that just refers to free programming that is on-demand – meaning available whenever the viewer wants to watch it (vs. live or scheduled programming).  For example, Pluto TV and Tubi are FAST platforms that also have AVOD options. Pluto TV has over 200 television channels playing continuously at any time. But it also has a large catalog of on-demand movies and TV shows to choose from.

SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand)

Streaming platforms whose content requires a paid monthly  subscription and doesn’t have ads. Examples include Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount.  We can not run ads on these.

Backlinks

Backlinks are when websites place a link on their website to another business’ website.  Backlinks are also called inbound links because they represent another website’s traffic coming to the business’ website.  The quality/quantity of backlinks can help a business rank higher in Google because backlinks are considered an indicator of how popular and reputable that website is.  Backlinks are a part of a SEO campaign.

Machine Learning

A type or category of artificial intelligence. It’s the science of getting computers to accomplish specific tasks by learning from large data sets without programming them to do so directly.  Our AI Targeting refers to this type of machine learning where the longer it runs the smarter it gets as it learns which users are the most likely to engage with the ad.

Zero-Click Marketing

Optimizing content so the business appears in Google’s search results and AI snippets, with information the user is looking for, without them having to click to go to the business’ website.  Almost 60% of Google searches are “Zero Click”.

Ad Fatigue

When users become less responsive to an ad due to overexposure.  Signs of this happening can be when clicks and conversions start to taper off.  Its good to refresh ad creative regularly even if it is just changing colors or backgrounds.  If you use our Social Mirror Creative AI ads, it changes up the colors and call-to-action buttons for you, according to which are engaging the most viewers.

First-Party Data Strategy

With privacy laws tightening, businesses are leveraging customer data collected from their own websites, loyalty programs, and CRM systems to fuel advertising.  We can utilize first party data to run Custom Audience Matching and Lookalike ads where we upload a business’ customer or lead list and find those people when they are browsing online and serve them an ad.

3rd Party Cookies Phase Out

Google has reversed course and won’t phase out third-party cookies tracking people in Chrome as previously planned, saying that they are developing a new approach that gives users more control.

Google Analytics Events

An event in Google Analytics 4 allows you to measure a specific interaction or occurrence on your website. You can use an event to measure when someone loads a page, clicks a link, scrolls to the bottom of a page, clicks a form, completes a purchase, clicks a button, plays a video, searches for something on your website and more.

Customer Journey Mapping

Analyzing the steps users take before making a purchase. This can be done by tracking specific conversions on a website and by using Google Analytics “events”.

Dark Posts

Also known as Dark Ads, refers to a type of social media advertising where the content is not published on the advertiser’s main timeline or feed. Instead, these posts are targeted to only show to specific segments of users based on their demographics, interests, behavior, or other targeting criteria.

Rich Media Ads

Ads with interactive elements like video, animation, or sound. Common formats are mp4, html5, and .gif. These types of ads typically get more user interaction.

Contextual Ads

Contextual advertising refers to placing ads on web pages based on the content of those pages. As a result, advertisers can create targeted, relevant ads for users based on the content they are viewing. We refer to this as Keyword Targeting.

Optimize A Digital Ad Campaign

  • Check on pacing weekly – how many impressions have been served to date vs. how many impressions we should have served to date
  • If under-pacing/over-pacing, make necessary changes to get us back to even pacing
  • Remove any underperforming websites/apps
  • Adding more relevant categories (if running behavioral targeting)or keywords (if running keyword targeting) to expand our inventory
  • Trying to increase conversions on a campaign if running conversion strategies
  • Excluding underperforming devices (Desktops, Tablets, Mobile)

Tracking Pixel

A small piece of code placed on a website that allows the website owner (or us!) to gather information about visitors on a website—how they browse, what type of ads they click on (to determine behaviors), device, browser, IP Address, or to track conversions or serve Retargeting ads.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is another name for a Container Tag which is a tool that enables us to install, store, and manage multiple tracking pixels (also called “tags”) without modifying website code on a business’ website. It “contains” all the tracking pixels we use for Retargeting, Conversions and Live Chat.

DSP (Demand Side Platform)

A technology platform that allows buyers to manage, purchase and optimize programmatic inventory from multiple ad exchanges and Supply Side Platforms (SSP) through one interface. Inventory is purchased through real-time bidding.  Vici uses many different DSPs according to what type of ad product we are buying.

SSP (Supply Side Platform)

A technology platform that allows publishers (websites and apps) to manage and  sell programmatic inventory for advertisers to bid on. SSPs connect to multiple ad exchanges and DSPs at once to maximize the opportunity to sell inventory.

MAID (Mobile Advertising Device ID)

A unique, anonymized string of numbers and letters that identifies every individual smartphone or tablet in the world.
It reveals specific user behaviors which helps with targeted advertising and conversions. If a client has MAIDS for us to run, you can use them for Mobile Conquesting campaigns.

Linear TV

Traditional broadcast television viewing. In order to watch a show, the viewer must tune in (or DVR) a specific channel on a television at an appointed time. Viewers access linear TV via cable or satellite or through over-the-air broadcasts.

As you can see there are a lot of Digital terms and acronyms out there.  And, the list above doesn’t include all of them.  Just some of the most common ones that any business owner/marketing professional should be aware of.  When it comes to Digital, we want to be the true educators out there.  We want you to understand something that maybe, up to this point, you haven’t understood so far.  An educated marketing professional and an educated business owner are the ones that can go much further, and that’s our goal!

Easy Access Glossary Guide

You have two options when it comes to accessing the above info:

  • You can bookmark this page and reference whenever you need to, or have a question about what something means when it comes to digital advertising

  • You can download this glossary as a pdf by clicking here