Key Concepts

Ads.txt or Authorized Digital Seller is a text file hosted on your root domain to ensure that your digital ad inventory is only sold through sellers (such as AdSense) who you've identified as authorized, in other words, prevent ad fraud and in particular, two main types:

• Unauthorized Arbitration: involves buying your inventory cheap and selling it for more money, making their profit on the difference.

=> ads.txt file will let buyers know the authorized seats that a website listed on the header bidding allows its impressions to be purchased.

• Counterfeit Ad Impressions: involves people pretending to be you and selling their ad inventory as if it were yours.

=> ads.txt gives you, as the publisher, as the authorized seller of the inventory, the chance to say where it’s legitimate to buy.

The total number of ad placements or ad spaces available for advertisers to purchase and display their ads.

An ad tag is a piece of code (HTML or JavaScript) provided by an ad network, ad exchange, or advertising platform that is placed within a webpage's source code to display an advertisement.

Ad placement means the group of ad units that specify the areas on the website where advertisers can place their ads.

Ad params lets you change numerical values inside of an ad text without having to create a new ad. Furthermore, the values of the parameters are tied to keywords, so different keywords can trigger different versions of an ad.

Bidder advertising technology is a real-time bidding process that enables ad buyers to bid on ad impressions in an automated auction. Publishers offer ad inventory to the auction, and ad buyers compete to have their ads displayed.

Cost Per Click is a common metric used in online advertising to measure the cost an advertiser pays for each click on their advertisement. In the CPC model, advertisers pay a fee for each click their ad receives, regardless of whether the click leads to a conversion or not.

The formula for calculating CPC is:

CPC = Number of Clicks / Cost of Advertising

Cost Per Mille (CPM) is a metric used in online advertising to measure the cost of 1,000 impressions of an advertisement. An impression is counted each time an ad is viewed by a user, regardless of whether the user interacts with the ad or not. CPM is a common pricing model for display ads, where advertisers pay a set rate for every 1,000 impressions their ad receives.

The formula for calculating CPM is:

CPM = Cost of Advertising / (Number of Impressions × 1000)

eCPM is a metric used in online advertising to represent the estimated earnings from a thousand impressions. eCPM helps advertisers and publishers compare the relative efficiency and revenue potential of various advertising campaigns or ad placements.

The formula for calculating eCPM is:

eCPM= Number of Impressions / Total Earnings × 1000

Conversion Rate refers to the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. The formula for conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the number of visitors, multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.

Conversion Rate = (Number of Conversions / Number of Visitors) × 100%

Demand typically refers to the advertiser side of the advertising ecosystem. Advertisers create the demand for ad space by seeking opportunities to display their advertisements to a target audience. Advertisers are the entities that want to promote a product, service, or message and are willing to pay for the opportunity to do so.

A Demand-Side Platform (DSP) is a technology platform used in the digital advertising ecosystem. It allows advertisers and agencies to buy digital ad inventory in an automated and real-time manner. DSPs enable advertisers to reach their target audience across various online channels and publishers, often through real-time bidding (RTB) auctions.

Here's how a DSP typically functions:

• Targeting: Advertisers use DSPs to define their target audience based on various parameters such as demographics, location, browsing behavior, and more.
• Auction Participation: DSPs participate in real-time auctions, where ad impressions are bought and sold in milliseconds. This happens in ad exchanges or supply-side platforms (SSPs).
• Bid Optimization: The DSP evaluates available ad impressions based on the targeting criteria and bids on the impressions that match the advertiser's requirements. The highest bidder wins the auction and gets their ad displayed.
• Ad Delivery: Once an auction is won, the DSP delivers the ad to the user's device in real-time.
• DSPs provide advertisers with greater control and efficiency in their digital advertising campaigns. They automate the buying process, allowing advertisers to adjust bids and target specific audiences in real-time. This makes digital advertising more precise and cost-effective.

SSP stands for Supply-Side Platform. It is a technology platform used in the digital advertising ecosystem, specifically on the supply side. Publishers and website owners use SSPs to manage and optimize the sale of their advertising inventory.

Here's how an SSP typically functions:

• Ad Inventory Management: SSPs help publishers manage their available ad space or inventory. This includes display ads, video ads, mobile ads, and other types of digital advertisements.
• Real-Time Bidding (RTB): SSPs often integrate with ad exchanges and other platforms to enable real-time bidding (RTB) auctions. In these auctions, advertisers bid in real-time for the opportunity to display their ads on a publisher's website.
• Monetization: SSPs assist publishers in maximizing the revenue generated from their ad inventory. They do this by optimizing the sale of ad impressions, ensuring that the inventory is sold at the best possible prices through auction mechanisms.
• Ad Quality Control: SSPs help maintain the quality of ads displayed on a publisher's site. They may include features to review and approve ads to ensure they comply with the publisher's standards and industry regulations.
• Reporting and Analytics: SSPs provide publishers with insights into the performance of their ad inventory. This includes data on impressions, clicks, and revenue, allowing publishers to make informed decisions about their advertising strategy.

In the programmatic advertising ecosystem, SSPs and Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) work together. While DSPs are used by advertisers to buy ad inventory, SSPs are used by publishers to sell ad inventory. The interaction between DSPs and SSPs happens in real-time auctions, creating an efficient and automated marketplace for digital advertising.

Header bidding is a programmatic advertising technique that allows publishers to accept bids from multiple ad networks and exchanges at the same time. 

This helps publishers maximize the ad revenue by ensuring that they receive the highest bid price for their ad inventory.

Prebid.js is an open-source library that enables publishers to integrate header bidding into their websites

GAM or Google Ad Manager is an ad management platform for large publishers who have significant direct sales. Ad Manager provides granular controls and supports multiple ad exchanges and networks, including AdSense, Ad Exchange, third-party networks, and third-party exchanges.

Multiple Customer Management (MCM), Ad Manager publishers can earn revenue with the help of third-party providers such as PubPower who can consult, represent, and manage networks or inventory on their behalf. Publishers can delegate management of their Ad Manager network to a third-party publisher upon request.

You can learn more about MCM here!

MCM Manage Account delegation type, parent publishers are granted edit access to manage inventory directly in the child publisher account. The child publisher retains permissions and access to all settings.

While a parent publisher can use Manage Account for one or more child publishers, a child publisher can only have one parent publisher use Manage Account.

You can learn more about MA here!

MCM Manage Inventory delegation type gives parent publishers access to ad requests that the child publisher has delegated to the parent account.

With MCM Manage Inventory, parent publishers can manage third-party child inventory directly within their own account by using the Ad units, orders, and line items. This feature helps manage multiple child publishers in one place, as parent publishers can apply Ad units, line items, and programmatic setup to multiple children.

You can learn more about MI here!

A placement ID is a unique identifier, automatically attributed to each ad placement you create using monetization solutions.

A publisher is an individual or company who owns a digital content property with an audience, including apps or websites.