1. business and industrial
2. advertising and marketing
3. advertising

Internet Advertising Glossary
Internet Advertising Glossary
The Council Advertising Network bring the benefits of national web advertising to your local
community​. With more and more members joining the Network daily,​we have developed a
comprehensive list of current Internet terminology to help you get to grips with web
advertising jargon and start generating revenue from your website today.
Internet Advertising Glossary
A
Above the fold
Ad banner
The part of the page you can see without scrolling down or over.
A graphic message or other media used as an advertisement.
Ad impression
An ad which is served to a user’s browser.
Ad impression ratio
Click-throughs divided by ad impressions.
Ad server
A software engine whose purpose is serving and analysing the
delivery of CAN tags and advertisements on the Internet.
Ad Space
A space on a web page that is reserved for ads.
Alt Tags
Alternate Text
An HTML attribute that provides alternatives when non-textual
elements, typically images, cannot be displayed.
A word or phrase that is displayed when a user has an image
loading disabled in their browser or when a user abandons a page
by hitting ‘stop’ in their browser before the transfer of all the images.
B
Banned
When a web page is removed due to a breach of guidelines.
Banner
A graphic advertising image displayed on a web page.
Internet Advertising Glossary
Behavioral
Targetting (BT)
A technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase
the effectiveness of their campaigns. Behavioral targeting uses
information collected about an individual’s web browsing
behaviour, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they
have made, to select which advertisements are displayed to
that individual.
Browser
A software program that can request, download, cache and display
documents available on the Internet.
c
Cache
Memory used to temporarily store the most frequently requested
content/files/pages in order to speed its delivery to the user. Caches
can be local (i.e. on a browser) or on a network. In the case of local
cache, most computers have both memory (RAM) and disk (hard
drive) cache.
Cached Ad
Impressions
The delivery of an advertisement to a browser from local cache or a
proxy server’s cache. When a user requests a page that contains a
cached ad, the ad is obtained from the cache and displayed.
Caching
The processes of copying a web element (a page or advertisement)
for later use. This process acts to reduce redundant network
traffic resulting in increased overall efficiency of the Internet.
Campaign
A set of criteria for purchasing inventory to achieve
advertising goals.
CAN Tags
A piece or section of JavaScript which pulls advertisements from
our Ad Server.
Channel
A band of similar content. A type of sales outlet (also known as
channel of distribution).
Internet Advertising Glossary
Click rate
Click Through
Clicks
Conversion Rate
Cookie
Ratio of ad clicks to ad impressions.
The action of following a link within an advertisement or editorial
content to another website or another page or frame within the
website.
Metric that measures the reaction of a user to an Internet ad.
The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
A small piece of information (i.e. program code) that is stored on a
browser for the purpose of identifying that browser during audience
activity and between visits or sessions.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
Cost of advertising based on the number of clicks received.
CPM
(cost per thousand/
cost per mili)
Media term describing the cost of 1,000 ad impressions.
CTR (Click Through
Rate)
A ratio showing how often people seeing an advert end up
clicking it.
D
Demographic
Display Advertising
Common characteristics used for population or audience
segmentation, such as age, gender, household income, etc.
A form of online advertising where an advertiser’s message is
shown on a destination web page, generally set off in a box at the
top or bottom or to one side of the content of the page.
Internet Advertising Glossary
DMP (Data
Management
Platform)
A data management platform is a data warehouse. It’s a piece of
software that sucks up, sorts and houses information, and then
presents it in a way that is useful for marketers, publishers and
other businesses
Domain Name
DSP (Demand Side
Platform)
The unique name that identifies an Internet site.
A demand-side platform is a piece of software used to purchase
advertising in an automated fashion. DSP’s are most often used by
advertisers and agencies to help them buy display, video, mobile
and search ads.
DTM (Digital
Trading Manager)
The role of the DTM is to optimise the web inventory and therefore
the number of impressions to ensure the highest possible yield is
obtained. They are also responsible for increasing and
maintaining inventory outside of the immediate environment with the
view of maximizing potential revenue.
E
E-mail Advertising
Banner ads, links or advertiser sponsorships that appear in e-mail
newsletters, e-mail marketing campaigns and other commercial
e-mail communications.
Expandable Banner
A banner ad that can expand to as large as 468 x 240 pixels after
a user clicks on it or after a user moves the cursor over
the banner.
F
Flash
Adobe’s vector-based rich media file format, which is used to
display interactive animations on a web page.
Internet Advertising Glossary
Fold
Frequency
The line below which a user has to scroll to see content not
immediately visible when a web page loads in a browser.
The number of times an ad is delivered to the same browser in a
single session or time period.
G
Geo Targeting
Displaying (or preventing the display of) content based on
automated or assumed knowledge of an end-user’s position in the
real world. Relevant to both PC and mobile data devices.
GIF (Graphic
Interchange Format)
A standard web graphic format that uses compression to store and
display images.
Gross Exposures
The total number of times an ad is served, including duplicate
downloads to the same person.
H
Harmful Code
Any software virus, worms, Trojan Horses, malware or other harmful
computer code.
Home Page
The page designated as the main point of entry of a web site (or
main page) or the starting point when a browser first connects to the
Internet. Typically, it welcomes visitors and introduces the purpose
of the site, or the organisation sponsoring it and then provides links
to other pages within the site.
Internet Advertising Glossary
Host
House Ads
Any computer on a network that offers services or connectivity to
other computers on the network. A host has an IP address
associated with it.
Advertisements for products or services within the council.
HTML (Hypertext
Markup Language)
A set of codes called markup tags in a plain text file that determine
what information is retrieved and how it is rendered by a browser.
HTTP (Hyper-Text
Transfer Protocol)
The format most commonly used to transfer documents on the
Internet.
Hyperlink
A clickable link, perhaps on a web page or within an e-mail, that
sends the user to a new URL when activated.
I
iBar
Impression
Inventory
IP Address
One of two CAN advertising units. Anchored to the bottom of the
screen, the iBar offers advertisers an opportunity engage with an
audience using multiple messages and collate user interactions.
Synonymous with page views, every time a web page is viewed a
page impression is counted. More specifically, it is a measurement
of responses from a web server to a page request from the user
browser. It is filtered from robotic activity and error codes and is recorded at a point as close as possible to see the page by the user.
The number of ads available for sale on a web site.
Internet protocol numerical address assigned to each computer on
the Internet so that its location and activities can be distinguished
from those of other computers.
Internet Advertising Glossary
J
JPEG (Joint
Photographic
Experts Group)
Standard web graphic file format that uses a compression
technique to reduce graphic file sizes.
K
Keyword
Specific word(s) entered into a search engine by the user that
result(s) in a list of websites related to the keyword.
L
Landing Page
A specific web page on a website that a user is taken to when
clicking on a search engine result or an advert.
Leaderboard
This is second of CAN’s advertising unit and is sometimes referred
to as a banner ad. It uses set dimensions across the entire CAN
network of Council partners, measuring 728 pixels x 90 pixels.
These are industry standard dimensions and ensures that
any existing advertising creatives conform to the
networks requirements.
M
Microsites
Multi-page ads accessed via click-through from an initial ad. The
user stays on the publisher’s web site, but has access to more
information from the advertiser than a display ad allows.
Internet Advertising Glossary
Mobile Marketing
(MI)
Process of sending out advertisements via mobile devices.
O
Opt-In
Opt-Out
Organic Traffic
Refers to an individual giving a company/council permission to use
data collected from or about the individual for a particular reason,
such as presenting information relevant to the users visit.
When a company/council states that it plans to use information
stored on an individual visitor to improve their user
journey/experience unless being advised not to.
Traffic that is generated by search engine, it is also known as
free traffic.
P
Page Impression /
View
Pay-Per-Click
Pixel
Prohibited Code
When the page is actually seen by the user.
An advertising pricing model in which advertisers pay agencies and/
or media companies based on how many users clicked on an online
ad or e-mail message.
Picture element (single illuminated dot) on a computer monitor.
Any indecent, obscure, adult or pornographic material, material that
promotes or allows download of Harmful Code, or any material that
is itself illegal or which improperly references illegal activities.
Internet Advertising Glossary
R
RTB (Real Time
Buying)
The process by which ad inventory is bought and sold on a per
impression basis, via programmatic instantaneous auction.
S
Sell-Through Rate
Server
The percentage of ad inventory sold. A computer that distributes
files shared across a LAN, WAN or the Internet. Also known
as a “host.”
SSP (Supply Side
Platform)
A supply-side platform is a piece of software used to sell
advertising in an automated fashion. SSPs are most often used by
online publishers to help them sell display, video and mobile ads.
T
Target Audience
The intended audience for an ad, usually defined in terms of
specific demographics (age, sex, income, etc.), product purchase
behaviou r, product usage or messages, using the Short Message
Service, from mobile phones.
Textual Ad
Impressions
The delivery of a text-based advertisement to a browser. To
compensate for slow Internet connections, visitors may disable
“auto load images” in their graphical browser. When they reach a
page that contains an advertisement, they see a marker and the
advertiser’s message in text format in place of the graphical ad.
Additionally, if a user has a text-only browser, only textual ads are
delivered and recorded as textual ad impressions.
Traffic
The flow of data over a network or visitors to a website.
Internet Advertising Glossary
U
Unique User
Unique Visitor
URL (Uniform
Resource Locator)
Usability
User
User Centric
Measurements
A unique individual or browser which has either accessed a site
(see unique visitor) or has been served unique content and/or
advertisements. Unique users can be identified by user
registration or cookies.
A unique user who accesses the website within a specific
time period.
The unique identifying address of any particular page on the web. It
contains all the information required to locate a resource, including
its protocol (usually HTTP), server domain name (or IP address),
file path (directory and name) and format (usually HTML or CGI).
How easy it is for a user to navigate a website and find the
information he or she is seeking.
An individual with access to the Internet.
A measurement of a web audience which is based on the behaviour
of a sample of web users.
V
View
Often used as a synonym for “impression.” View refers to when a
web page is visited by a user.
Visit
A single continuous set of activities attributable to a cookied
browser or user (if registration-based or a panel participant)
resulting in one or more pulled text and/or graphics download
from a site.
Internet Advertising Glossary
Visitor
Individual or browser that accesses a website within a specific time
period.
W
WCAG Compliance
White List
Refers to equal opportunities in the web based environment. The
WCAG guidelines are designed to increase accessibility to all
members of the public, with this in mind WCAG compliance refers
to ensuring the maximum amount of accessibility to advertisements
published on councils’ websites by ensuring advertisers adhere to
guidelines, allowing users to pause advertisements, providing Alt
tags for advertisements and acting to increase accessibility
where reasonable.
A selection of advertising campaigns and/or advertisements
approved by the client.
Y
Yield
The revenue vs. impressions on an ad within a specific campaign.
Yield Management
Yield and revenue management is the process of understanding,
anticipating and influencing advertiser and consumer behavior in
order to maximize profits through better selling, pricing, packaging
and inventory management, while delivering value to advertisers
and site users.
Want to learn more?
For more information about the Council Advertising Network, please visit our website
www.capacitygrid.com or contact us directly on 020 7378 3799 or [email protected]