Online Ad Operations ( Ad Ops Terminology A to Z )

What is Online Ad Operations?

Ad Operations (aka "online ad operations", "online advertising operations", "online ad ops", "ad ops", and "ops" in the trade) refers to processes and systems that support the sale and delivery of online advertising.

Digital advertising or Online advertising, also called Internet advertising ("Internet marketing") is when businesses leverage Internet technologies to deliver promotional advertisements to consumers. Digital advertising includes promotional advertisements and messages delivered through email, social media websites, online advertising on search engines, banner ads on mobile or Web sites and affiliates programs.

Ad operations is typically a department within a digital content publisher, ad network, ad technology provider (such as a rich media vendor or an ad server) or ad agency. They may fall under sales organization, information technology, or may be a separate entity.

The primary function of ad operations is to fulfilling the order of sale (also called an “ad campaign” or “media ad buy”) purchased directly by or on behalf of an advertiser (also called a “direct marketer” or a “client”). Therefore ad operations is a group that directly responsible for revenue generation.

Ad operations groups may be responsible for other functions such as pricing, ad product creation, research and vendor management depending on how the company is structured.  The ad buy is the amount of advertising the client wants to run for a given period of time on a specific placement. This is dictated by an insertion order or “IO.” The ad buy is purchased via the sales force and is then implemented by ad operations.

An ad operations team can be made up of many different roles such as ad schedulers (also called “ad ops coordinators”, “ad campaign managers” or “ad traffickers”), billing personnel, inventory management, yield management, vendor management and technical operations.

In addition there are other roles not directly related to the fulfilment of ad campaigns such as ad product and project managers, account managers, sales planners and sales engineers. These roles may fall also under ad ops or sales (depending on how the company is organized).

What is an Ad Server?
An Ad Server is a web based tool used by publishers, networks and advertiser to help with ad management, campaign management and ad trafficking. An ad server also provides reporting on which ads served on the website. Finally an ad server serves the creative: this means that the ad server or ad serving company also delivers the advertising image or picture to each user's browser.
What are the other names for an ad server?
Ad Servers are also called Ad Management Platforms, Campaign Management platforms, Ad Serving Systems, Ad Platforms, Ad Tracking Systems, Advertiser management systems, Mobile Ad Servers, Video Ad servers, Click Tracking Systems, Ad Network Optimization Systems, Yield Management Platforms, Affiliate Tracking Systems and Click Trackers.
Ad Network
An Ad Network is a company that works with a group of Web sites and sells advertising for them. An ad network may sell ads for a certain type of sites like travel sites or it may sell ads for many different types of websites. An ad network sells advertising to advertisers while an ad sever is a technology that publishers and advertisers use. Ad networks also use an ad server. Sometimes a company that runs an ad network may also sell ad serving solutions to publishers.
What are the various types of Ad Servers available?
There are Ad Servers that are designed for :

• Ad Servers for Publishers - These ad servers are designed to maximize ad revenue for the publisher. They do this first serving the highest paying ads then the next highest paying ads that are available for each web visitor. Ad Severs make it easy for the publisher sales team or the trafficking team to start a new advertiser serving on its site and to monitor how well that advertiser is doing.
• Ad Servers for Advertisers, Marketers or Agencies - These ad servers help advertisers in campaign management. Rather than send copies of each piece of creative (i.e. each ad) to each publisher on a media buy, agencies can send a line of html code to each publisher. That line of html code calls up an ad directly from the ad server each time an ad neeeds to be shown on the website. The agency loads the creative to the server once and can modify rotations or add new units on the fly without needing to re-contact the websites it is buying impressions from.
• Ad Server for Ad Networks - These are very similar to ad servers for publishers but provide additional features that show the ad network on which publisher they are making money and on which publishers they are not. They also provide features for each publisher that is part of the ad network to login to see how much they have earned each day.

Ad Ops Terminology A to Z:

Above the Fold

    Any area of a web page that is viewable without the viewer having to use the vertical scroll bar; typically the first 1000 pixels from the top of a web page.

Ad Campaign

    A series of advertisements that is delivered on the web in a specified amount of time and paid for by an advertiser.

Ad Group (Roadblocks)

    An object which governs delivery of Ads assigned to it. An Ad Group links multiple Ads (and Creatives) to a single budget, dictates to those Ads where to serve and when by allowing users to set normal goals and targeting, and counts delivery based on user-determined qualifying events – any appearance of the Ads (as with Flex), a minimum number of Ads on a single page (as with some Reskins), or require that all Ads appear together (Roadblocks) before the system considers and counts a true display.

Ad ID

    A unique numerical value assigned to an ad product that makes it distinguishable from all other ad products

Ad Space

    The space on a web page reserved for the displaying of advertisements. Typically at the top or bottom of a page or if a small advertisement in the right or left column. The most desirable ad space is above the fold.

Ad Slot

    A space on a web page where an ad can be served.

Ad Request

    A query to an ad server that calls an ad to fill an ad slot.

Ad Unit

    A way of classifying ad types. Ad units on the Internet include banners, buttons, micro buttons, pop ups, skyscrapers, text links, interstitial, superstitials etc. Ad units are usually defined by the IAB as voluntary guidelines.

Ad Tag

    A piece of script that initiates an ad request

Advertiser

    An organization that pays money to show ads on the web.

Advertorial

    An advertisement styled to resemble the editorial format and typeface of the content in which it runs. Often generates higher response rates.

AFAP

    In ad server, a setting in which an ad will deliver "as fast as possible". This means the ad will receive all of the impressions it can get at its designated priority level.

Application Programming Interface

    A web application that is generally built with a modular architecture; for instance, the "front end" web server may access "back-end" modules to get data, to modify a record, or to perform a calculation. When a module is opened to the outside world through an API, third party developers can use it as a building block for their own applications. Businesses that open their API benefit by creating a cost-effective distribution channel for their unique content and services.

Bandwidth

    The amount of data (text, video, sound, images, animations) that can be moved through an Internet connection. The amount is typically measured in bits per second (bps). A high speed Internet connection such as a cable or DSL modem provides more bandwidth than a 56K dial up modem. Also know as "throughput".

Banner

    A graphic that appears on a web page that is usually hyperlinked to an advertisers web site. May be in a variety of formats including GIF, JPEG, Flash, HTML, Java, JavaScript & more.

Beacon URL

    An invisible tracking tag (either 1x1 pixel or a JavaScript tag) that may be imbedded on web pages for the purpose of detecting and transmitting viewer information to Ad server.

Below the Fold

    The area of a web page that is below the first 1000 pixels from the top of the page

Blank Ad

    An ad slot that fails to display ad content.

Callback

    A recorded instance of an ad creative that was denied an ad spot and sent back to the server.

Campaign

    The process of planning, creating, buying and tracking an advertising project from Request from proposal to finish.

Campaign Manager

    One whose role it is to coordinate operations, such as booking and deployment, for an advertiser and their paid ad campaign.

Click Command

    A specific kind of tag that redirects through ad server. These come from clients, or can be generated by AdOps We can also use HREF strings to accomplish the same result. 

Click Through

    The act of clicking on an ad creative.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

    The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click through. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks on an ad by the number of ad impressions served in one day.

CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions

Clicks Per Page

    Number of clicks of all ad units on a web page.

Click Tag:

A click tag is a parameter used in Flash banner ads. The parameter is a variable that defines the destination URL from the markup code. By using a click tag, the advertiser can easily see and modify the URL without a Flash developer

For Exp: 

on (release) {

            getURL (_root.clickTAG, "_blank");

}

Most of the when you upload flash in your ad server it does not click through because it does not have proper click tag.  In that case make sure ad server and Flash file does have similar format of click tag:

Ad server click tag:  Flash

clickTAG:clickTag èdoes not click through

clickTAG:clickTAG èworks or there could be many possibilities in click tag form.

Cookie

    Piece of text that is stored on a user's computer by their web browser. It is typically used for authentication, for storing site preferences, as an identifier for server-based sessions, and anything else that can be achieved by utilizing stored data text.

Cost Per Action

    One of the online payment models by which advertisers pays for ever action (sale or registration) completed as a result of a visitor clicking on their advertisement. Prices typically range from $1 to $25 or if a percentage of a sale 5% to 25%. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who want to guarantee only the number of customers generated as a result of a advertisement.

Cost Per Click

    One of the online payment models by which advertisers pays for each click through made on their advertisement. Prices typically range from 1¢ to over 50¢ per click through. This is an ideal method of payment for advertisers who need to guarantee they only pay for those viewers of the banner that click on it and visit a page on their site.

CPM

    Cost per thousand; payment model by which advertisers pay for every 1000 ad impressions delivered. 

Formula: CPM =  (Total cost * 1000 )/total impression

If you want to calculate CPM then you would need to know what is budget and total number of impressions.  For example if you are spending 100000 rs as budget and you need 5000000

CPM: (100000*1000)/5000000 = 20 rs

Creative

    A unit of media that is served to an ad slot. It can be a graphic, animation, or sound clip. Common creative types include GIF, JPEG, Java, HTML, Flash, or streaming audio/video.

CTR Optimization

    The method of increasing the probability of a click through by targeting an ad campaign to specific audiences based on suspected interest.

Conversion Pixel: 

Conversion pixels track user activity AFTER the viewing of an ad. Conversion pixels can be present and activated after just the viewing of the ad creative (view-through) or also clicking the ad (click through).
The conversion pixels track these actions and begin to record activity when a user arrives at the page in which the conversion pixels are implemented on the site.
There are two kinds of conversion pixels:

            View-Through Conversion: The user saw our ad on the ad Network prior to arriving on the client’s page. This does not imply whether the user ever clicked the ad before arriving on the advertiser's site. You can consider this to be indirect driving to the client’s page, much like seeing an advertisement in a magazine, which gives you the idea, but is not a direct drive to a sale.

              Click-Through Conversion: The user saw our ad on the ad Network, and clicked it before arriving on the client’s page. You can consider this to be a direct driver to the client’s page.

Default Ad

    An ad setup to serve in case a premium ad is unable to fill an ad slot

Exclusive Ad

    Ads which are at the top of the priority spectrum. Instead of pacing evenly, they receive 100% of the ad calls at a certain priority level. Exclusive ads can also receive a weight.

Flat Fee

    The rate paid to publishers regardless of CPM changes during the month.

Flight

    The duration of time for which an advertising campaign is live.

Frequency Capping

    The act of deploying stop measures to ensure that a viewer does not see a specific ad too often or to control the delivery of ad.

Geo-targeting

    The method of delivering ads to users based on their specific geographic location. Ads can be targeted by city, state, region, ZIP code, IP address, etc.

House Ad

    A type of banner advertisement that a web site publisher runs in an ad space when no paying advertisement is available to fill the space. Typically filled with an advertisement promoting one of the web sites services, products or features.

IAB

    Interactive Advertising Bureau; an advertising business organization that develops industry standards, conducts research, and provides legal support for the online advertising industry.

IASH

    Internet Advertising Sales House; IASH was set up in 2005, by owners of ad networks that were concerned about ad misplacement on the internet, and to protect their businesses. A Code of Conduct was also established, and in order to comply with the Code a Sales House would need to hire a person to vet individual websites on their network. The Code forbids IASH members to sell inventory related to hate, indecency, bombs, guns, spyware and so on. It also sets out to provide transparency for the buyer. If buyers choose other types of inventory, such as sites that provide downloads, this must be ticked off on the insertion order. The other key process is how the inventory that the buyer signs-off is delivered. The insertion order details have to be consistent with the campaign delivery reports, and all third party publishers must sign up to IASH T’s and C’s. Member Sales Houses are audited by ABCe twice yearly – in effect they select a set of insertion orders from a random month – to ensure transparency and stringency.

Impression

    A delivered basic advertising unit from an ad distribution point

Insertion Order (IO)

    A purchase order; a document detailing the specifics of an advertising campaign including flight dates, ad products to-be-run, number of impressions to serve, etc.

Interstitial

    An advertisement that loads in between web pages without having been requested by the visitor.

In-Banner Video Ad

    In-Banner Video Ads are Rich Media ads that may or may not be bundled with editorial content. Users either select to play the commercial from a banner space on the page or the commercial auto-plays on page load.

In-Stream Video Ad

    In-Stream Video ads are initiated inside of a video player streaming editorial videos. For instance a commercial that plays before you watch Charlie Sheen interview footage on TMZ is an in-stream ad.

Inventory

    The total amount of individual ad slots. The number of page views/ad slots that a website receives in a month. If so particular site/channel/vertical receives huge page views means inventory (traffic) is more and if less means less inventory.

Javascript

    A dynamic object-oriented scripting and programming language. Within the realm of Adserver, JS code is embedded within an ad slot when an ad fills the space and is served to a publisher.

Key Value

    A unique identifier which is used to match criteria for an ad requests to the parameters assigned to ads. It is the criteria that determines what type of ad can be served to an ad slot. A match between the key value criteria in the ad request and the key value criteria in the ad targeting scheme makes an ad eligible for a particular ad request.

Leaderboard

    The IAB standard term for the ad unit of size 728x90 pixels.

Main Channel

    The next level of categorization for grouped websites under primary channel.

Make-goods

    Adjustments made by a publisher to an advertiser to make up for a shortfall in contracted ad impressions or errors.

Order Management System (OMS) – Salesforce.

    The system functions by monitoring proposals, created by orders-to-be-filled, and their subsequent line items containing information about associated ad products. Various tables are constructed from the data for historical and meta-analytical purposes.

Overdeliver

    To serve more impressions than was intended in an ad campaign

Pace

    The rate at which ads are served. Also, the method of controlling the rate at which ads serve. Pacing ensures that the number of delivered impressions will fulfill predetermined campaign goals.

Page View

    Occurs when a users browser requests a web page. A single page view may create multiple hits to the server if the page contains multiple elements such as banners. Since page views do not take into consideration users who may have their browsers set to disable images, they are of little value to advertisers.

Pixel

    Short for picture element (Pixel), a pixel is a measurement representing a single point in a graphic. Most ad units are measured in pixels such as the common 468 pixel x 60 pixel sized baner.

Pixel Tracking

    The same idea (as click tracking), but for display, not clicks. A blank pixel is displayed when code or other images are written to the page, and records the instance of display (in our ad server, or the client’s ad server, or wherever the pixel is coming from).

Premium Ad

    An ad that is feature-enabled. Features include targeting capability, impressions pacing, ad products customization, etc.

Real Time Bidding

    Auction-based purchasing system in which a buyer can choose to purchase ad impressions that are dynamically priced. Impressions prices are not fixed, but are, instead, differentially valued per opportunity. In doing so, price value is optimized to give the best ROI.

Remnant

    An ad slot that was unable to be filled because of a criteria issue(s), e.g. ad size.

RFP (Request for Proposal)

    A term that may be used by an advertiser that is requesting some type of advertising arrangement with a web site.

Rich Media

    A type of advertisement technology that often includes richer graphics, audio or video within the advertisement. Unlike static or animated GIF banner advertisements, rich media advertisements often enable users to interact with the banner without leaving the page on which it appears. Some popular types of rich media banners are created with HTML, Shockwave & Flash.

Roadblock

    Ads which appear on a single page view together, by design. May or may not be 100% SOV, and may or may not appear in rotation with other advertisers.

Run of Category

    Means a banner will appear anywhere within a category on a web site or ad network.

Run of Network

    An ad or ad campaign that runs throughout the entire ad network.

Run of Site

    Means a banner will appear anywhere on a web site as opposed to run of category (ROC) which would appear only on pages within a specific category.

Sell Through

    The number of ad slots sold to an advertiser in relation to available inventory. It is usually expressed as a percentage.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

    A contract outlining the terms of service that is to be provided by a service provider. This includes services, priorities, responsibilities, and guarantees that are due to a customer at the time when service is needed.