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Glossary

Essential Terms​

Administration or Admin Panel (AP)​

The interface provided by ExoCLick to clients (Publishers and Advertisers) in order to buy and sell traffic.

Ad Serving Platform​

Describes the technology and service that places advertisements on websites.

Advertisers​

ExoClick's customers who create campaigns to promote offers, which might be their own or might belong to a third party. ExoClick acts as an intermediary between Advertisers and Publishers.

Ad Format​

The specifications of the advertisement displayed in the website. For more information about our available ad fomats, please check our Ad Formats page.

Advertising Campaign​

A collection of targeting features, price settings and creatives that enable the promotion of an offer.

Ad Zone​

A script that allows publishers to display ads in a website. Usually, this script is added to the source code of the website.

Audience​

The potential amount of users your website or campaign can reach to.

Category​

Classifications that Publishers can use to categorize their inventory and therefore improve targeting. They can also be used by Advertisers to ensure that their ad campaigns are seen by the most appropriate audience.

Keywords​

Search terms or phrases targeted by the advertising campaign.

Email Marketing​

A type of advertising that focuses on reaching users via emails. Instead of the regular display advertising, which is achieved by adding image, video and HTML creatives to a site, Email Marketing consists of sending affiliate links via newsletters to a database of emails that might be interested in the promoted offer.

Offer​

The product or URL being promoted by the advertiser.

Publisher​

ExoClick's customers who earn money by sending traffic from their websites to us, using the ad zones they create in the Admin Panel.

Traffic​

The flow of data sent and received by visitors to a website. In ExoClick, traffic is divided into clicks, impressions and video views.

  • Click: a click on an advertisement, which generates a new tab with the advertiser's URL.
  • Impression: a request for an advertisement from the publisher's website. An impression is counted regardless of whether the advertisement is displayed on the website or not.
  • Video view: an advertising video view happens after 10 second of video playback.

In addition, traffic can have different sources. Most analytics tools from the industry classify traffic into different types:

  • Organic: traffic coming from search engines.l
  • Direct: traffic coming from direct URL searches.
  • Referral: traffic coming from other websites.
  • Blind: traffic with no clear source or origin.

Campaign terms​

Advertising Budget​

The amount of money that an advertiser sets aside for an advertising campaign.

Bid​

The amount that an advertiser is willing to pay, based on the price model, in order to promote their offer. More information on how to set up the appropriate bid in your campaign here.

Call to Action (CTA)​

A prompt, often a button or text link, designed to provoke an immediate response from users. You can add a CTA to your video campaigns using a dropdown menu with several options. Whether this CTA is displayed to users or not depends on the publisher.

Conversion​

A specific user interaction with the offer that is considered as the goal of the advertising campaign. A conversion can be either a simple user interaction, such as a registration (aka. lead) or an install of a free app, or a paid one such as a purchase. You can find the instructions to set up conversions in ExoClick here.

Creatives​

The assets (images, videos and other designs) chosen by advertisers to be displayed in the publishers' websites as means to promote the offer. Advertisers can manage all their uploaded creatives through their Media Library

Dynamic tokens​

Also known as macros, these tags can be added to your campaign URL so as to pass data related to the user interacting with your add. More information about Dynamic tokens here.

Frequency Capping​

Restricting (capping) the number of times (frequency) a specific visitor to a website is shown a particular ad. More information about Frequency Capping here.

Geo-Targeting​

The action of pointing an advertisement towards a specific geographical region, area or location. Geo-targeting is done based on the IP address of the visitor. Geo-Targeting is one of the many Targeting options we have in ExoClick.

Iframe​

An HTML element that shows content (images, scripts, etc.) from an external webpage into the current site, acting as a "window" to another source. Some ad formats in ExoClick enable advertisers to add iframes for advanced functionalities and tracking. Note, however, that this feature is not enabled by default and you need to contact Customer success to enable it.

Landing Page​

The specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking an advertisement. You can direct your campaigns to a single URL or rotate multiple landing page through a Landing Page group.

Pixel Tag​

An invisible image of 1x1px used in pixel tracking. The pixel tag generates a cookie that help us identify the user as long as the cookie remains in session.

Postback URL​

A URL that notifies our server whenever there is a conversion on a campaign, so that conversion details can be reflected both on the tracking solution and ExoClick Admin Panel. Postback URLs are essential for Server-to-Server(S2S) tracking.

Pricing models​

The way in which advertisers wish pay for the traffic they get in their campaigns. The most common pricing models are the following:

  • Cost per Click (CPC): Advertiser pays for each click on the advertisement.

  • Cost per Mille (CPM): Advertiser pays for one thousand advertisement impressions regardless of the consumer’s subsequent actions.

  • Cost per View (CPV): Advertiser pays for each view of a video ad.

  • Cost per Action (CPA): Advertiser pays for each specific action (usually a conversion) made by the user after being redirected by the ad. CPA can also be separated into different subcategories:

    • Cost per Sale (CPS): Advertiser pays only when a user makes a purchase on the advertiser website or adds his credit card number to sign up for a paid subscription.
    • Cost per Lead (CPL): Advertiser pays for every email address or user sign up on the website.
    • Cost per Install (CPI): Advertiser pays for every app download or extension install.

Note that CPA is not available as a pricing model in ExoClick. You can find out more about our available Pricing Models here

Remarketing/Retargeting​

A feature that allows advertisers to target or exclude users that have been identified through pixel tracking. Retargeting is a useful feature to keep your brand visible by helping prospective customers finish their sales. It can also help you distribute your budget by removing finshed sales from your targeted traffic.

We have a dedicated section that will help you design a successful retargeting strategy.

Run of Network (RON)​

All the ad zones in ExoClick that aren't in a highlighted list, such as Premium. For more information, please check our Zone targeting section.

Variation​

The combination of a creative and a landing page/advertiser URL in a specific campaign. You can determine the traffic distribution across the variations in your campaign.

Zone Type/Ad Placement​

The specific position within the website where the ad zone is located. Some common zone types are:

  • Header: Ad zone is placed at the very top of the website, before the site's contents.
  • Homepage cube: Ad zone is placed within the site's contents, but in a highlighted place above-the-fold (i.e: user does not need to scroll in order to see the advertisement).
  • Middle: Ad zone is placed within the contents (scrolling might or might not be needed in order to see the ad).
  • Footer: Ad zone is placed after at the very bottom of the website, after the site's contents. It's the most common type of below-the-fold ad placements.
  • Sidebar: Ad zone is placed on a menu next to the site's contents, which might stay on screen while scrolling or not.
  • Next-To-Video (NTV): Ad zone is placed on one of the sides from the main video player from the website.
  • In-Video: Ad zone is placed inside the video player. Can appear before the main video starts, during video playback or only when the video is paused.
  • Underplayer: Ad zone is placed right below the video player.

Ad placements are useful to filter the zones from our Marketplace

Metrics Terms​

These are the metrics that can appear in the advertiser and publisher statistics.

Click Through Rate (CTR)​

The percentage of clicks based on the amount of impressions sent by an advertisement.

Conversion Rate (CR)​

The relationship between the clicks received by an advertisement and the conversions it generated. When the ad format does not register clicks (e.g: popunder), this metric will use impressions instead.

Effective Cost per Action (eCPA)​

A metric used to calculate how much advertiser paid to reach a certain conversion (sale, lead or install). A campaign is considered profitable when the eCPA is lower than the payout of the conversion.

Effective Cost Per Mille (eCPM)​

This term has slightly different meaning for advertising and publishing.

In publishing, this is considered as the value of a publisher’s traffic. The eCPM does not only depend on the amount of clicks and impressions, but also on the bids that advertisers set up in their campaigns to target the publisher’s traffic. The more interested advertisers are in an ad zone’s traffic, the higher the bids will be and the higher the eCPM publisher will get.

In advertising, this is used to calculate the effectiveness of an advertising campaign regardless of the actual pricing model.

Return on Investment (ROI)​

The net benefit obtained by a campaign (or a set of campaigns) after calculating all the costs it entailed.

Views Ratio​

The ratio of impressions of a video advertisement to viewings of that video

As a side note, here are some metrics that, although not offered by ExoClick, might also be relevant for your business model:

Abandon Rate​

The percentage of users who do not complete every step of your funnel.

Bounce Rate​

The percentage of sessions leaving a website without any interaction.

Sales Terms​

Affiliate / Media Buyer​

An affiliate is an advertiser that promotes 3rd party offers. Affiliates usually make money on commission, that is, by generating conversions. Affiliates get the offer links from affiliate platforms or directly from the product owner.

Since affiliates are not the owners of the offers, they cannot make any edits on the landing page and are limited to buy only the traffic allowed by the affiliate platform.

Media buyers are more or less the same, but they tend to have more flexibility in deciding which audiences to target and which ad formats to use.

Feed​

A feed is usually an XML file that delivers structured data of the products advertiser is willing to promote. Feeds are a common element in programmatic media buying and they usually respond only when the impression or click matches the advertiser's interests. See Real-Time Bidding for reference.

Funnel​

The funnel represents journey users take from discovering the product you promote (i.e: seeing your creative) to finally making a purchase. Funnels can be expanded by sending the user to a pre-lander with multiple steps or they can be shortened by sending the user directly to the purchase page.

Flat deal​

A campaign that receives traffic on a flat basis instead of having to compete with other advertisers. Flat deals are arranged between the advertiser and the account manager or Customer Success agent so as to receive a certain volume of the ad zone's traffic at a fixed CPM rate for an extended period of time.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)​

The indicators that define success in your campaign. Some examples of KPIs are: hitting a certain daily budget consistently, achieving a stable eCPA, etc. Ultimately it's the Advertiser who defines what KPIs they want to set on their campaigns.

Insertion Order (IO)​

A written authorization to display advertisement on Website(s). IOs specify the duration and location where the ad will be displayed. IOs are not provided unless the advertiser agrees to set up a Flat deal.

Incentive programs where members earn real money or in-web currency (credits) for reading or clicking on advertisements. This type of traffic is not accepted in ExoClick.

Pre-lander​

A website that advertisers create in order to gather information about visitors before redirecting them to the actual offer. Pre-landers can be useful to gather information about the target audience but they can affect the performance of the campaign because it takes more time to reach the actual conversion.

Product Owner​

The individual or company who owns the offer promoted in the advertising campaigns. Since they own the website, they can place tracking pixels and carry out retargeting campaigns.

Single & double opt-in (SOI & DOI)​

A type of offer where a user has to register with his email. A Single opt-in offer means that the client only needs to add the email, whereas the double opt-in client has to confirm the email address by clicking on a confirmation link sent to his email. Double opt-ins are usually more valuable than singles.

Tube sites​

Sites that feature many videos, like YouTube.

Tracking URL​

A URL that tracks all the information (device, country, etc.) of the user that comes from an advertisement. Tracking URLs are always empty (they display no content) and simply redirect the user to the offer or to a pre-lander.

Other relevant terms​

Application Programming Interface (API)​

A set of routines, frameworks and sentences that allows the user to request data from and post to external servers using their own software.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)​

The General Data Protection Regulation is the EU's strict data privacy law governing how personal data of individuals in the EU/EEA is collected, used, and protected. To make sure our ads are compliant with EU laws, ExoClick has implemented the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF), which allows users to determine their consent in regards to how data is processed and stored through ExoClick's ad zones. More information here.

Real Time Bidding (RTB)​

A system where impressions and clicks are sold via programmatic auction. Traffic is sold per impression/click and delivery is instant. RTB allows the connection between multiple Supply and Demand Service Platforms (SSP and DSP, respectively).

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate​

A digital key that allows a secure connection to a website. SSL is a requirement for campaigns running on HTML/iframes. It also plays a small role in SEO.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)​

The study and development of strategies required to improve the ranking of a page or a website in search engine results (like Google or Bing).

Video Ad Serving Template (VAST)​

An advertising structure for video players. VAST is used by many HTML5 video players to serve video advertisements.