Glossary

The words Adspotfinder is written in — every door, rate, spot and seller type, each linked to where it lives on the site.

How you buy The supply chain What it costs What you buy Who sells

How you buy

Self-service

You buy it yourself in the seller's console or on its page — open an account, set a budget or pick the days, pay by card. Nobody needs to call you back.

Sellers you can buy from yourself

Self-serve DSP account

An account on the seller's own demand-side platform that you traffic yourself — Amazon DSP self-service, with its own minimum. Not the console, not a managed buy.

Amazon Ads — the example

Through your DSP (open auction)

You bid for the inventory from a demand-side platform you already hold an account on, through the open exchange. The platform decides where you land.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Private deal / deal ID (PMP)

A private marketplace: the seller gives you a deal ID for agreed inventory and you activate it in your DSP. Needs the seller to hold its own account.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Private auction

A deal ID where you still bid, but only invited buyers compete and a floor is set. The auction half of a private deal.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Programmatic guaranteed (PG)

A deal ID at a fixed rate for reserved impressions — you commit up front, like a direct buy, but it runs through your DSP. The guaranteed half of a private deal.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Through a reseller

The seller holds no account of its own; a reseller or sales house carries the inventory and you buy it through them.

How to buy, on every seller page

Through a marketplace

A third-party marketplace — newsletter, podcast or billboard — lists the placement, and you buy it there rather than from the seller.

How to buy, on every seller page

Managed service

The seller's own account team runs the buy: a sales rep, an account executive, a reserved insertion order. Usually the highest minimum.

Sellers sold by their own team

Through an agency

A media agency you hire buys on your behalf, often on its own accounts. Some sellers sell only to agencies.

Media agencies

Request a quote (RFP)

You email the seller or fill in its form, and it comes back with a rate. A request for proposal is the formal version of the same door.

Sellers that quote on request

Insertion order (IO)

The signed order that closes a managed or agency buy: placements, dates, rates and terms on one document.

Sellers sold by their own team

Media kit

The seller's own document of audience numbers, placements, specs and rates — the thing a sales team sends first.

Sellers sold by their own team

Ad spot

What a seller actually sells: one price for one or more placements. Silver, Gold and Platinum are ad spots; a podcast sponsorship is an ad spot granting one placement.

Ad spots

Placement

One slot where an ad runs — a leaderboard, a newsletter position, a pre-roll. The unit inside an ad spot; the price belongs to the ad spot, not the slot.

Ad spots

Spot choices

Whether you choose the site and slot, it is agreed in a deal, or the platform decides where you land. A fact about the ad spot.

How to buy, on every seller page

The supply chain

Demand-side platform (DSP)

Where a buyer holds an account and bids: one login that reaches many exchanges. The only side of programmatic a buyer logs into.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Supply-side platform (SSP)

The publisher's side: it puts the inventory up for auction and takes the bids from DSPs. A buyer never logs into one — you switch it on inside your DSP.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Ad exchange

The marketplace between SSP and DSP where impressions are auctioned in real time. Most SSPs run their own, so the words are used interchangeably.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Ad network

A broker that resells a group of publishers' inventory as its own. A site running an ad network is a supplier to it — you buy from the network, not the site.

Ad networks in the directory

Sales house (intermediary)

The company that runs a publisher's programmatic selling under its own accounts — Freestar, Mediavine, Playwire. Who you agree a deal with.

Exchanges card, on every publisher page

ads.txt

A file every publisher posts listing which exchanges and accounts may sell its inventory. The site's own declaration, read here for every listing.

Exchanges card, on every publisher page

sellers.json

The exchange's answer to ads.txt: which name is behind each account id, and whether it is the publisher or an intermediary.

Exchanges card, on every publisher page

DIRECT vs RESELLER

Each ads.txt line is one or the other: the publisher's own account with the exchange, or a third party allowed to sell the same inventory on.

Exchanges card, on every publisher page

Supply-path optimisation (SPO)

Choosing the shortest path to an impression — the publisher's direct account over a resold one — to pay fewer intermediaries.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Header bidding

The publisher offers each impression to several SSPs at once before its ad server picks a winner. Why one site is on many exchanges.

Exchanges card, on every publisher page

OpenRTB

The IAB standard that SSPs and DSPs speak to each other in — the bid request and the bid response.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Curated deal

A package of supply assembled by a third party and sold as one deal ID, bought from your DSP like the open auction.

DSPs & ad exchanges

First-price auction

The winner pays what it bid. Nearly every exchange runs this now; second-price, where the winner paid the runner-up's bid, is history.

DSPs & ad exchanges

Walled garden

A platform that sells its own inventory only through its own console — Google, Meta, Amazon. Self-service, but nothing reaches it from outside.

Ad platforms in the directory

What it costs

CPM

Cost per thousand impressions — the rate most display, video and audio is priced on.

Ad spots

CPC

Cost per click. You pay only when someone clicks; search and much self-serve display are priced this way.

Ad spots

CPA

Cost per action or acquisition — a sale, a sign-up. You pay for the result, not the exposure.

Ad spots

CPV

Cost per view — a completed or counted video view, the video equivalent of CPC.

Ad spots

CPI

Cost per install. The app-marketing rate: you pay for each installation your ad drives.

Ad spots

CPL

Cost per lead — a form filled, an enquiry made. The B2B rate.

Ad spots

CPE

Cost per engagement — an interaction the seller defines: a swipe, an expand, a share.

Ad spots

Flat rate

One fixed price for the placement, whatever it delivers. A newsletter slot, a sponsored post.

Ad spots

Per day / week / month

Tenancy pricing: you rent the placement for a period. The ad spot says which.

Ad spots

Per send

The newsletter rate: one price per issue your ad goes out in.

Ad spots

Per subscriber

A newsletter or community rate set against the size of the list it reaches.

Ad spots

Per listen

The podcast and audio rate, usually quoted as CPM against downloads or listens.

Ad spots

Revenue share

The seller takes a percentage of what the placement earns you — affiliate and marketplace listings.

Ad spots

Sponsorship

A named association with a show, newsletter, event or section, priced as one package rather than per impression.

Ad spots

Negotiated

The seller publishes no number; the rate is agreed with its team. The ad spot says so rather than inventing one.

Ad spots

Bid floor

The lowest bid the seller accepts, per impression or click — Reddit's $3.50 CPM. A minimum on the programmatic doors.

How to buy, on every seller page

Minimum spend

The least a seller will take for a campaign or an account. Recorded per door — a free console can sit beside a $50,000 managed tier.

Budget filter

Daily budget minimum

The least you must set per day to run — Quora's $5. A self-serve threshold.

How to buy, on every seller page

Deposit

Money you must load before anything runs — a prepaid balance, not a spend commitment.

How to buy, on every seller page

Minimum booking

The shortest period a placement can be bought for — 30 days, a quarter.

How to buy, on every seller page

Order quantity minimum

The fewest units a seller will sell — 10,000 impressions, ten words of a classified.

How to buy, on every seller page

Lead time

The days between agreeing a buy and it going live. Printed on the booked doors' last step.

How to buy, on every seller page

Advertiser approval

Whether the seller vets you before anything runs — an extra step, and extra lead time.

How to buy, on every seller page

Creative specs

The sizes, lengths and formats the seller accepts. On video, CTV and OOH the asset is the long pole.

How to buy, on every seller page

What you buy

Takeover / roadblock

Every ad position on a page, a section or the whole site for a period, bought as one package.

Spot type

Site skin / wallpaper

A creative behind the page content that takes over its borders. Usually part of a takeover.

Spot type

Host-read

A podcast or radio ad read by the host in their own words, rather than a produced spot inserted into the feed.

Spot type

Dedicated send

A newsletter issue that is entirely your ad, sent to the whole list — the most expensive newsletter placement.

Spot type

Who sells

Publisher

A site, app, show or title that sells its own audience — most of the directory.

Publishers in the directory

Ad platform

A company whose product is the ad system itself — Google Ads, Meta, Amazon Ads — sold through its own console.

Ad platforms in the directory

Network

A seller that packages other publishers' inventory as its own. What it sells is not its own audience.

Ad networks in the directory

Tranco rank

An independent ranking of the most-visited domains. The number listings are ordered by here — never by what anyone paid.

Sellers directory

Domain authority (DA)

A 0–100 estimate of a site's search strength from its backlinks. A proxy for reputation, used as a floor in the filter.

Domain-authority filter

Regional edition

A localised site of one brand — BBC Mundo under BBC. Folded under the global home, and browsable by country.

Countries

DMA

Designated Market Area — the US television-market unit geographic targeting is sold by. Not the Direct Marketing Association.

Countries