Glossary of Terms for Cookies and Adtech

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Categorisation

Types

Description

1

Cookie duration

Session cookies

Session cookies are stored in a browser’s memory until the browser is closed.

These are typically used for essential site functions such as quickly loading a page.

Persistent cookies

Persistent cookies are set with a specific expiration date, meaning that they will survive in a browser’s memory beyond

a single session.

2

Cookie owner

First-party cookies

A first party cookie is set and collected by the website you’re browsing and only used by that site when a user is visiting it. These are usually critical to providing key functionality such as allowing you to add items to a shopping basket.

Third-party cookies

These cookies are set and collected by third parties (other than the website itself) including advertisers, analytics providers or social media providers.

3

Broad Cookie Categories

Essential cookies

There are two scenarios where consent is not required:

• Cookies enabling the transmission of the communication.
• Cookies which are defined as ‘strictly necessary’ to provide the service requested by the user. For instance, remembering goods in a basket or load balancing to ensure a page loads efficiently.

Non-essential cookies

All other cookies are non-essential cookies and require consent. This includes analytics which may be helpful or convenient, but are not essential.

3

Cookie purpose

/ function

(These are the four categories of cookies originally published by the International Chamber of

Commerce when the cookies law first came into effect in 2012)

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary the use of the cookie must be related to a service provided

on the website that has been explicitly requested by the user. For example, without these, a service like shopping baskets cannot be provided.

Performance (Analytics)

Performance cookies collect info about how visitors use a website (e.g. which pages visitors go to most often or if they get error messages from web pages). The information collected is aggregated and is used to improve how a website works.

Functional

Functional these cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (like username, language, region) and provide more enhanced personal features.

Targeting or advertising

Targeting or advertising these cookies are used to target ads based on your profile and your interests. They are also used to limit the number of times you see an ad and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

Unambiguous

Clearly explain what people are consenting to in a way they can be easily understood.

Freely given

The individual must have a genuine choice over whether or not to consent to marketing.

Explicit

Consent must be explicit - Implied consent is no longer valid under GDPR.

Informed

Consent needs to be specific and informed. Informing the data subject, at the time they give their consent, must cover the controller’s identity, the purposes of the processing, the processing activities, the right to withdraw consent at any time.

Positive affirmative action

Clear affirmative action means someone must take deliberate and specific action to opt in or agree to the processing.

Unsubscribe

Where an individual has given their consent, it must be as easy for them to withdraw that consent as it was to give it.

Ad blocking

Technology that allows consumers to block ads whilst browsing the internet.

Ad Choices

AdChoices is a self-regulatory program for digital advertising vendors in USA, Canada and Europe. On a case by case basis it allows you to opt out of receiving advertising based on behavioural targeting.

Ad Exchanges

An ad exchange is a digital marketplace that enables advertisers and publishers to buy and sell advertising space, often through real-time auctions. They’re used to sell display, video and mobile ad inventory.

Ad Tech company

Ad Tech companies provide the underlying technologies that help marketers and their agencies create, plan, target, buy, serve, measure and/or optimise ads.

Advertising arbitrage

When an advertising agency buys advertising inventory for one price, packages it up and sells it on to clients for another price, thus making a margin.

ASA

Advertising Standards Authority - the advertising regulator who reviews advertising against their code of practice. In short, is the ad legal, decent, honest and truthful.

Automated guaranteed

A model that enables a programmatic buyer to match an audience with a publisher through device ID or cookie. Price can be fixed

in advance, dependent on the correct match being established. Sometimes referred to as programmatic reserved or programmatic guaranteed.

Browser level preferences

Consent derived from settings of the browser.

Certification

Certification is a way of demonstrating that your processing of personal data complies with the GDPR requirements, in line with the accountability principle. When they are available, the ICO will encourage the use of data protection certification mechanisms to enhance transparency and compliance with the GDPR.

CMP

Consent Management Platforms – used by any website that needs to manage the permissions gathered to use cookies for advertising or other means. It allows data subjects to manage their consent preferences in a standardised environment.

CPMs

Cost per thousand impressions – the usual pricing metric used. The more targeted an ad the higher the CPM.

Creative optimisation

Highly automated and rules-driven approach to tailored advertising creative work.

Data aggregation

Data aggregation is the compiling of information from databases with intent to prepare combined datasets for data processing.

Data governance

Data governance is a structured way for organisations to proactively manage data held and processed.

Data management platform (DMP)

The DMP is the technology which allows for the organisation

and activation of first and third party audience data into segments to enable better targeting of advertising. Examples include Oracle BlueKai, Mapp Digital, Lotame, Salesforce DMP, Adobe

Audience Manager.

Deal ID

A unique string of characters that are used as an identifier for buyers and sellers.

Demand side platforms

Software used by advertisers to buy publisher inventory via a marketplace. This can be used for mobile, search and video ads. The platform facilitates management of advertising across multiple real- time bidding networks.

DPA

Data Protection Authority - DPAs are independent public authorities that supervise, through investigative and corrective powers, the application of the data protection law. In UK this is ICO (Information Commissioners Office).

DPIA

Data Protection Impact Assessment - required in some circumstances under GDPR, to assess the potential risks of processing individuals’ personal data.

First party data

Information about the customer directly flowing from the customer to the company. Web browsing, purchase history, spend, product choice, etc.

Horizontal ad networks

A horizontal ad network is a platform for advertisements that don’t need a specific audience and covers a wide audience across several industries. It is suitable when wishing to appeal to a global market and can be used for targeting based on demographics.

IAB (Europe)

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is the industry body for digital advertising and has a Europe wide remit. There is also a UK branch. The Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) initiative is driven by IAB Europe.

IAB Framework

An open-source technical specification management by IAB Tech Lab. It is designed to standardise the transparent collection and transmission of user preferences relating to cookie consent.

The IAB have created an approved registry of CMPs and Vendors. Many CMP’s (Consent Management Platforms) are embedded in IAB Framework.

IAB Tech Lab

The IAB Technology Laboratory (Tech Lab) is a non-profit consortium that engages a member community globally to develop foundational technology and standards that enable growth and trust in the digital media ecosystem.

Insertion orders

The agreement between publisher and advertiser to run a campaign.

Manual RFPs

Now rare, manual RFPs or requests for proposals, involved human negotiations and manual insertion of orders.

Martech

Martech is the use of technology to achieve marketing goals and objectives. CRM, Analytics, Customer Journey Mapping, DMPs are all part of Martech stack.

Media planning

A service that is usually outsourced to agencies. It involves planning and selecting media to promote brands. The aim is to determine the best combination of media to achieve the marketing objectives.

Mobile ads

Advertising that appears on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Ads are adapted for smaller screens and are usually more concise.

Native ads

Adverts place within the publisher’s content to improve relevancy and improve results for advertisers.

Non-auction based approach

Referred to as a preferred deal which makes it possible for publishers to sell their premium media inventory at a fixed price to selected advertisers. This removes the uncertainty of an auction environment.

Open auction

An open auction allows any buyers to openly bid against other buyers for available inventory in real-time targeted against a specified audience. A publisher will allow any buyers to participate in accessing their advertising space through this mechanism.

Publishers may exert some control over what adverts they publish by setting a floor price that they know to be too high for some advertisers or by blocking them (through a blocklist) from

the auction.

PII

Personally identifiable information. Often referred to as personal data.

Pre-bid decisions

Tools that allow advertisers to evaluate the quality of individual publisher impressions and influence decisioning before bidding. Quality is evaluated largely against viewability, brand safety a nd/or fraud.

Preferred deal

A preferred deal bypasses programmatic auctions altogether. It allows publishers to sell their premium media inventory at a fixed price (or higher dependent on bids) to selected advertisers. The benefit to advertisers is access to more exclusive advertising space and less volatility in pricing.

Price floor

Minimum accepted bid price in a preferred deal, open or private auction.

Private auction

A private, or closed auction allows publishers and buyers to bid in real-time, as in an open auction, but advertisers can only bid if

they are invited to by the publisher. The highest bidder will win the advertising space.

Private marketplace (PMP)

Advertisers are selectively invited to participate in a closed marketplace using a “Deal ID” to transact. PMPs give publishers greater control, provide better transparency, can include exclusive inventory and access to publisher first party data and can achieve higher CPMs.

Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is the method by which digital advertising is delivered to an audience. It is an automated method of media buying where data is leveraged, often in real time, to make decisions on a per impression basis about the target audience,

the environment, the price and selection of creative/offer.

Programmatic Buying

The process of executing media buys in an automated fashion through digital platforms such as exchanges, trading desks and demand side platforms (DSPs).

Programmatic direct

An automated process where an advertiser buys advertising space directly from a publisher matched against the advertiser’s own segmentation of data sets.

Programmatic eco-system

Programmatic advertising leverages a technology eco-system to automatically buy and sell targeted online advertising in real-time. The eco-system includes Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), Supply- Side Platforms (SSPs), Ad Exchanges, Ad Servers and Data Providers.

Programmatic guaranteed

Enables a programmatic buyer to match an audience with a publisher through device ID or cookie. Price can be fixed in advance, dependent on the correct match being established. Sometimes referred to as programmatic reserved or automated guaranteed.

Programmatic premium

Where advertising is sold directly to the publisher. The advertiser chooses in advance premium publisher websites where its adverts will be placed.

Publisher ad serving

Software to manage advertiser creative tags and delivery priority amongst many advertisers.

Retargeting

Allows you to target previous visitors to your site with display ads as they browse the web.

RTB

Real Time Bidding - The use of digital advertising technology

to enable agencies and publishers to buy and sell on an impression by impression basis. This will typically involve an auction

pricing mechanism.

Second party data

Data owned by one organisation that is sold directly to another, for that organisaations’ exclusive use.

Sell side platform (SSP)

A platform for publishers to sell digital advertising to multiple buyers in one environment. It enables Real Time Bidding and other programmatic methods. Examples include OpenX, Rubicon Project, PubMatic, BrightRoll.

Tag management

A tag is a short snippet of javascript (code). In the context of marketing/advertising tags and pixels collect information about the visitor to a website and their behaviour. Tag management is the

ability to manage tags (also known as pixels, categories, taxonomies or folksonomies) within collaborative software.

Third party data

Data that has been collected by a third party about your customer and allows you to enhance/grow targeting segments. In context of GDPR, compliantly sourcing this data has become problematic.

Trading desks

Trading Desk is an agency team that executes online media buying. They use either proprietary technology or a demand side platform (DSP) to buy and optimise media campaigns on ad exchanges, ad networks, and other available sources of ad inventory.

Unreserved Fixed Rate

This type of transaction is similar to Automated Guaranteed except that there is not a guarantee that inventory is available to match the criteria specified. It’s not an auction either in that the price is agreed in advance.

Vendors

Suppliers of solutions/systems/platforms within the advertising ecosystem.

Verification

3rd party technology intended to measure on target delivery, viewability, brand safety, or fraud. Often, but not necessarily, the same provider of pre-bid and post-bid tools.

Vertical ad networks

A vertical ad network is a platform for delivering to a specialised audience. Examples include food and travel.

Conversion rate

The proportion of website visitors that complete a desired goal (a conversion). A high conversion rate is indicative of successful marketing and web design

CTR

Click-through rate (CTR) is the measurement of individuals who click through on a single advertisement. The higher the click-through rate, the more successful the ad has been in generating interest.

Personalisation

Marketing personalisation is tailoring the marketing of products or services based on their preferences and previous browsing habits.

ROI

Return on investment. Often used to measure the financial return on a campaign

Value exchange

A ‘value exchange’ between consumer and brand is defined as a balanced exchange of data for better experiences. Deployed well, it facilitates commercial transactions and improved engagement