This article explains the key terms used on the platform. It is vital for anyone who wants to manage the platform and understand the reports and analyses offered.
When we talk about the platform we mean the software you use to manage your online marketing as a whole. It is called a platform because it has multiple functions and can contain a lot of different elements. When it comes to those elements, we make one important differentiation:
An advertiser is a commercial player which products or services are promoted via the platform.
A partner is a commercial player who is promoting the product or services of one or more advertisers via the platform. A partner can be a retargeting company, an agency managing an advertiser’s CRM, an RTB company, Google Ad Words, an affiliate network or an affiliate partner directly implemented on the platform. Please note that on the platform, channels with the media type earned and owned, such as direct type-in and organic search, are also registered as partners.
Both advertisers and partners registered on the platform are allocated to an entity, which represents the legal body responsible for all the financial processes on the platform. For more information about the entity, please read this article.
For every partner on the platform at least one ad space is registered on the platform. The ad space is the medium where the promotion takes place. It can be a website, a mobile app or a newsletter. In case the partner is an affiliate network, the ad space usually represents a section of their partners, such as partners active in a specific country. In case the partner represents an organic marketing channel, it is possible that the partner and the ad space are identical.
To make sure you can receive differentiated reports and analyzes and to allow you to manage your attribution, every ad space is allocated an ad space category, which in its turn is allocated to a tracking channel. You can create your own categories, the tracking channels are fixed. Please read this article for more information about categories and this article on attribution.
In order to manage the partner’s promotional activities for the advertiser, such as the access to ad media or the attribution of costs or commissions, a relationship is established between the advertiser and the ad space. Please note that, because a partner can have multiple ad spaces and every ad space has its own relationship with an advertiser, you can apply different conditions for different ad spaces, although they belong to the same partner.
Now, let’s put the whole thing in a nice graphical overview:
Events: ad impressions, clicks and conversions
When everything goes well, partners start promoting the products or services of an advertiser on their ad spaces using ad media (banners, links and HTML-media items) advertisers provide. Via the ad media, so called events will occur. An event is an action taken from the side of the customer in relation to an ad media: it can be an ad impression, a click on an ad media item, a subscription to a newsletter, an order on the advertiser’s website.
Events are divided into ad impressions, clicks and conversions:
Whenever an ad media item is displayed on an ad space, i.e. shown to a potential customer, this counts as an ad impression. A often used synonym is ‘view’. Technically, an ad impression or view happens whenever the ad impression URL of an ad media item is loaded. Please read this article for more information on the ad impression URL.
A click is … a click on an ad media item, by a potential customer. To give you a more technical definition: a click is counted whenever the click URL of an ad media item is loaded. Please read this article for more information about the click URL.
Please note that you can apply filters to your clicks and define under what conditions a click is considered authentic. This helps you to prevent click fraud. In reports you will find numbers of ‘clicks’ and numbers of ‘raw clicks’ are mentioned. Under ‘clicks’ you will find the number of clicks that matches your filter criteria. Under ‘raw clicks’ you will find the total number of clicks that was tracked.
A conversion is an action processed by a customer on the advertiser’s website or mobile application. The most obvious example of a conversion is an order on the advertiser’s website, but it can also be the moment a customer adds an item to the shopping cart, creates an account or starts the check-out process. Technically, a conversion is an event which involves the loading of a conversion tag. Please read this article for more information on conversion tags. All conversions possible on your advertiser’s website or mobile application. These conversions should be registered on the platform as conversion targets.
To maintain overview, we differentiate between analytical and commercial conversions. Analytical conversions are conversions without direct commercial value: e.g. a customer placing a product in a shopping cart, starting the check-out process or submitting payment details. Commercial conversions are conversions with direct commercial value: e.g. a customer ordering a product or subscribing to a service which mostly involves revenue.
Again, that was a a lot of information. Now let’s try to put it all in a graph:
