Adsense Glossary
Brandie
5:06 PM
- A/B Testing - A/B testing is when you test two (or more) different situations: situation A vs. situation B. A/B testing with AdSense is important for finding what ad designs will earn you the most revenue.
- Above the Fold - "Above the fold", or the top fold of the page, refer to the portion of the page a user can see without scrolling down.
- Active View CPM - With Active View cost-per-thousand impressions (Active View CPM) bidding, advertisers bid on 1000 viewable impressions and only pay for impressions that are measured as viewable, that is, when at least 50% of the ad is displayed on-screen for at least one second.
- Ad Auction - The ad auction is used to select the ads that will appear on your pages and determine how much you’ll earn from those ads. In a traditional auction, interested bidders state the maximum price they're willing to pay to buy a specific item. Similarly, our ad auction allows advertisers to state the price they're willing to pay for clicks on ads or for impressions served on AdSense pages.
- Ad Impression - An ad impression is reported whenever an individual ad is displayed on your website. Different ad formats will display varying numbers of ads.
- Ad Request - An ad request is counted whenever your site requests ads to be displayed. It is the number of ad units that requested ads (for content ads) or search queries (for search ads). We report an ad request each time a request was sent, even if no ads were returned and backup ads were displayed instead.
- Ad Review Center - The Ad review center is a tool that lets you review individual ads and choose whether to let them show on your pages. If you want more transparency and control over the ads appearing on your sites, it might be a good fit for you.
- Ad Size - The height and width of an ad expressed in number of pixels, generally Length x Width.
- Ad Targeting - The manner in which an advertiser targeted ads at your website. AdSense offers the following targeting types: 1) Contextual targeting, based on keywords; 2) Placement targeting, based on your site URL; 3)Interest-based advertising, targeting specific users on your site based on their cookie ID.
- Ad Type - Google offers several different options for the varieties of ad that may appear on your pages and in your reports. Here's what you may see: Text, Image, Rich Media, Flash, Video, Animated Image, Audio, Link Units
- Ad Unit - A set of ads displayed as a result of one piece of the AdSense ad code.
- AdWords - The Google AdWords program enables you to create advertisements which will appear on relevant Google search results pages and our network of partner sites.
- Below the Fold - "Below the fold" refers to the portion of the page that is viewable only after a user scrolls down.
- Click - For standard content ads, we count a click when a user clicks on an ad. For link units, we count a click when a user clicks on an ad on the page of ads, after selecting a link in the link unit.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR) - The clickthrough rate (CTR) is the number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions, page views, or queries you received.
- Contextual Targeting - Our technology uses such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, in order to determine what a webpage is about and precisely match Google ads to each page.
- Cost-per-1000-impressions (CPM) - CPM stands for "cost per 1000 impressions." Advertisers running CPM ads set their desired price per 1000 ads served and pay each time their ad appears.
- Cost-per-click (CPC) - The cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. The CPC for any ad is determined by the advertiser.
- Cost-per-engagement (CPE) - With engagement ads, the advertiser pays only when a user interacts with the ad in a particular way - beyond just clicking on it. These ads are largely video and rich media ads.
- Coverage (Number of Ads) - You can put up to three standard AdSense for content ad units (this includes a maximum of one 300x600 ad unit), three link units and two AdSense for search boxes on each page of your site.
- Coverage (Performance Reports) - Coverage is the percentage of ad requests that returned at least one ad. Generally, coverage can help you identify sites where AdSense isn't able to provide targeted ads.
- Crawler - A crawler, also known as a spider or a bot, is the software Google uses to process and index the content of webpages. The AdSense crawler visits your site to determine its content in order to provide relevant ads.
- Creative Size Report - The Creative sizes report shows you the sizes of the display ads (image, Flash, etc.) that have served on your site. All standard display ad sizes, e.g., 728x90, 336x280, etc., are shown in the report, while text ads and ads that don’t have a standard size are shown with the label “Dynamic”. Note that the ad size that was served on your site might not be the same as the ad size that was originally requested by your ad unit.
- Custom Ad Size - With custom-sized ad units you specify the width and height of the ad that you want to appear on your page. Custom-sized ad units behave just like their standard size counterparts, showing a text or display ad depending on which will have the best performance for the impression. Note that custom-sized ad units are fixed sized ad units, i.e., they don’t dynamically change their size or respond to changes in screen orientation.
- Custom Channels - Custom channels are like folders that let you group individual ad units as you'd like and get performance statistics for the group as a whole. For example, custom channels will allow you to track how the ads across just your homepage are doing, or see how well your top-right 300x250 on your Sports section performs. Custom channels can provide you with the data you'll need to understand which layouts work the best on your site and which can be improved.
- Display Ads - Includes all types of image-based ads, such as banners, rich media, and video ads. In order for display ads to appear on your pages, you must be opted in to show display ads on your ad space.
- Experiments - Running an experiment allows you to compare the performance of different ad type and/or text ad style settings of your ad units. Experiments help you make informed decisions about how to configure your ad units and can help you to increase your earnings.
- Google Display Network - The Google Display Network will comprise all of the sites where advertisers can buy ads through Google, including the over one million AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange partners as well as YouTube and Google properties such as Google Finance, Gmail, Google Maps, and Blogger. As an AdSense publisher you’re already part of the Google Display Network.
- Google Publisher Toolbar - The Google Publisher Toolbar is a Chrome extension that lets you view up-to-date information about your account while browsing your site in Chrome. The Toolbar uses the Google Account you are signed in to to provide an overview of your earnings and performance, as well as ad overlays that offer in-page reporting and blocking controls.
- IFRAME - An IFRAME is an HTML tag used in web design that allows a webpage to be displayed in a frame within another webpage.
- Interest-based targeting - Interest-based advertising enables advertisers to reach users based on their interests and demographics (e.g. 'sports enthusiasts'), and allows them to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser websites. To complement interest-based advertising, Ads Settings lets users view and edit their interest categories.
- Link units - Link units display a horizontal or vertical list of topics relevant to the content of your site. When users click on one of these topics, they're brought to a page of Google ads related to that topic.
- Page speed - Page speed is the amount of time it takes for a page to fully load.
- Page View - A page view is what Google counts in your reports every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will count one page view regardless of the number of ads displayed on that page.
- Placement targeting - With placement targeting, advertisers choose specific ad placements, or subsections of publisher websites, on which to run their ads. Ads that are placement-targeted may not be precisely related to the content of a page, but are hand-picked by advertisers who've determined a match between what your users are interested in and what they have to offer.
- Revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) - Revenue per 1000 impressions (RPM) represents the estimated earnings you'd accrue for every 1000 impressions you receive. RPM doesn't represent how much you have actually earned; rather, it's calculated by dividing your estimated earnings by the number of page views, impressions, or queries you received, then multiplying by 1000.
- Supply Side Platform - A supply-side platform is a technology platform with the single mission of enabling publishers to manage their advertising impression inventory and maximize revenue from digital media. (from Wikipedia)
- Targetable ad placements - An ad placement is a specific group of ad units on which an advertiser can choose to place their ads using placement targeting.
- Text ads - A text ad typically includes a title that's also a clickable link to a webpage, one or two lines of text, and a website address shown in green.
