Marketing & Advertising Glossary

Ad fatigue occurs when audiences become desensitised to repeated ad creative, leading to declining engagement, click-through rates, and campaign effectiveness o

Technology platform that stores, manages and delivers digital advertisements to websites and apps in real-time, tracking performance across campaigns.

An audience segment of users who demonstrate interest in specific topics, brands or categories based on their online behaviour, without necessarily having purch

A conversion where a touchpoint influenced the customer journey but wasn't the final interaction. Tracks the full path to purchase across multiple channels.

The tendency for users to ignore or overlook banner advertisements on web pages, treating them as visual clutter rather than content worth engaging with.

Targeting ads to users based on their online behaviour, interests, and browsing history rather than demographic data alone.

The real-time exchange of ad purchase requests and pricing offers between ad exchanges and buyers, forming the core mechanism of programmatic advertising.

A bidding strategy where advertisers reduce their maximum bid below their true value to improve profit margins on programmatic ad purchases.

CPM is the cost you pay for every 1,000 ad impressions displayed to users, commonly used to price display and video advertising.

CTR measures the percentage of people who click on your ad after seeing it, calculated as clicks divided by impressions.

Displaying ads based on page content, keywords and context rather than user behaviour. Reaches audiences without relying on personal data tracking.

Contextual targeting reaches audiences based on page content, whilst behavioural targeting uses browsing history and user actions. Each approach offers distinct

The cost incurred for each customer action completed, such as a purchase or sign-up. CPA is a performance-based metric that ties spending directly to measurable

CPA is an advertising pricing model where you pay only when a user completes a specific action, such as a purchase, sign-up, or download.

Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount you pay each time a user clicks on your paid advertisement, commonly used in search and display campaigns.

CPC is the amount you pay each time someone clicks on your online ad. It's a key metric for measuring the cost-efficiency of your advertising campaigns.

Cost Per Lead (CPL) is the average amount spent on advertising to acquire one qualified lead. It's a key performance metric for demand generation campaigns.

A targeted audience segment created from your own customer data, enabling precise ad delivery to people who've already engaged with your brand.

A unique identifier assigned to a media buying agreement between an advertiser and publisher, streamlining trafficking and performance tracking.

A software platform that enables advertisers to programmatically purchase digital ad inventory across multiple exchanges and publishers in real-time.

Automated technology that personalises ad creative in real-time based on user data, showing different versions to different audiences without manual interventio

The percentage of available ad inventory that was successfully sold and displayed. A key metric indicating how effectively publisher inventory is monetised.

Two auction models determining ad prices: first-price means winning bidders pay their full bid, while second-price means they pay the next highest bid.

A technique that limits how many times an ad is shown to the same user within a set timeframe, preventing ad fatigue and wasted spend.

A programmatic advertising technique where publishers offer ad inventory to multiple demand sources simultaneously before making server-side decisions, increasi

The percentage of available ad impressions your ads received compared to the total impressions available in your target audience.

Consumers actively researching or comparing products in a specific category, ready to make a purchase decision in the near term.

An audience segment created by ad platforms to target people similar to your existing customers, based on shared characteristics and behaviours.

MRAID is a standardised framework enabling rich, interactive ad experiences within mobile apps. It allows ads to expand, play video, and access device features

A private marketplace deal where publishers offer premium inventory to selected buyers at negotiated rates before opening to broader auction.