Jargon Buster

In the past, software was frequently stored on a physical medium and uploaded directly to specific machines. Instead, computer services and software can be hosted by a given vendor, or ASP, and accessed by clients via the internet. 

Software solutions that allow PCs, smartphones and tablets to perform useful functions beyond the running of the computing device itself. 

AI in digital advertising is the use of learning algorithms that adapt user feedback into improving the overall ad experience without the need for further human involvement beyond setting the restrictions of the original algorithm.

The Advertising Standards Authority is the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media. It applies the Advertising Codes, which are written by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) for non-broadcast media including online, and the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) for broadcast media. The ASA's remit includes acting on complaints and proactively checking the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.

Attribution is the technique used to measure the monetary impact a piece of communication has on real business goals. For example: sales (volume and total), profit, revenue and retention. The application of attribution modelling in digital advertising allows marketers to understand what events (e.g. display ad exposure, active search, search ad exposure, price comparison site) truly influence individuals to convert and thus allocate credit to different formats and tatics within the customer path to purchase. Early attribution models include first-touch and last-touch attribution. Models broadly recognised as more accurate include, but not-only, multi-touch linear, multi-touch time decay and multi-touch algorithm-based.

Also known as “churn rate,” this can be used to reflect the percentage of consumers who abandon each stage of the purchase process, from exposure to an ad to the point of conversion or, for subscriber-based business models, the percentage of customers who stop using the product or service. This percentage is an important part of evaluating the return on marketing investment and/or customer lifetime value modelling.    

The audible file that may accompany ads. Advertising audio should never play without user-initiation.

Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

Authentication is the process of attempting to verify the digital identity of the sender of a communication such as a request to log in. Authentication may also confirm the origin and integrity of data in an electronic form, such as the issuance of a digital certificate to attest to the authenticity of a website. The overall purpose of authentication is to reduce the potential for fraud.