Clear, technically grounded definitions for the concepts behind ad exchanges, RTB, publisher monetization, media buying, measurement and supply-chain transparency.
An ad exchange is a technology marketplace where digital advertising inventory can be bought and sold programmatically. It connects demand sources such as DSPs with supply sources such as SSPs and publishers, often using real-time auctions.
Read definition →An ad server is technology that selects, serves and measures digital advertisements according to campaign, placement, pacing, targeting and delivery rules.
Read definition →ads.txt is an IAB Tech Lab transparency standard that lets publishers publicly declare which advertising systems are authorized to sell or resell their digital inventory.
Read definition →CPM is a pricing metric representing the cost for one thousand ad impressions. The word mille means one thousand.
Read definition →A demand-side platform is software used by advertisers, agencies or buying teams to evaluate, bid on, purchase and optimize digital advertising inventory across programmatic supply sources.
Read definition →eCPM is a normalized revenue or cost metric that expresses actual earnings or spend per one thousand impressions, even when the underlying commercial model uses another pricing method.
Read definition →Fill rate is the share of eligible ad opportunities that result in an ad being served or otherwise counted as filled under the platform's measurement rules.
Read definition →Header bidding is a publisher monetization technique that lets multiple demand partners compete for an impression before or alongside the publisher's primary ad-server decision.
Read definition →OpenRTB is an IAB Tech Lab protocol that standardizes how programmatic buyers and sellers exchange bid-request and bid-response information for real-time advertising transactions.
Read definition →Programmatic advertising is the automated buying, selling and optimization of digital advertising using software, data and machine-readable transaction rules instead of relying only on manual media negotiations.
Read definition →Real-time bidding is an auction process in which eligible buyers compete for an individual ad opportunity within a very short response window, typically while a page, app or video experience is loading.
Read definition →sellers.json is an IAB Tech Lab transparency mechanism through which an advertising system publishes information about the entities that sell inventory through that system.
Read definition →Supply path optimization is the practice of evaluating and selecting programmatic buying paths to reduce unnecessary intermediaries, duplication, cost, opacity or quality risk.
Read definition →A supply-side platform is software that helps publishers make advertising inventory available to programmatic demand, apply monetization rules and manage auction or deal access.
Read definition →Viewability measures whether an ad had the opportunity to be seen according to an accepted measurement standard rather than merely being served somewhere on a page or screen.
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