Ad-tech-termen, met de operator-definitie

Network-side tech that rewrites ad delivery so adblock filter lists don’t catch it. Useful for popunder, mostly cosmetic for banner — the IAB sizes are too well-fingerprinted to hide.

The filter stack that blocks bot, proxy, datacenter, and incentivised traffic before the impression bills. Every network has one. Every network’s filter catches yesterday’s bot — the bot that converts at 12% in tracking and 0% in your CRM is always new.

What the advertiser pays only when the conversion fires — signup, deposit, install. The price doesn’t matter as much as the postback-attribution timing; a CPA quoted on a 30-day click-window is a different product from one quoted on a 24-hour window, even at the same number.

Smart bidding mode where the network’s optimiser adjusts CPM bids to hit a target cost-per-acquisition you specify. Works once you have enough postback volume to feed it — under roughly 30 conversions per day per campaign, the optimiser is guessing.

What the advertiser pays per click. The model that makes sense when click-to-conversion is predictable and the network can’t (or won’t) bill on CPA. Dominant for in-page push utility installs; rare for popunder.

What the advertiser pays per 1,000 impressions. The CPM you see in the panel is not the CPM you get on conversion. The gap is the part nobody publishes — it’s where rate-card padding lives.

Clicks divided by impressions. A diagnostic, not a KPI — high CTR with low CR usually means the creative misrepresents the landing page. I’d rather see 0.8% CTR with 6% click-to-conversion than 4% CTR with 0.4%.

Demand-Side Platform — the buyer-side software advertisers use to bid into RTB auctions. Most popunder networks in this catalogue run their own in-house DSP rather than integrating external ones, which is why the auction is opaque from outside the panel.

Effective CPM — revenue per 1,000 impressions normalised across pricing models. The metric publishers actually optimise for. Popunder eCPM on tier-1 iGaming routinely beats banner eCPM by 3–5×, which is why popunder publishers keep adding the format.

Percentage of ad requests that get an ad served back. Popunder fill rates above 95% are normal on tier-1; below 70% on tier-3 is also normal. The signal you actually care about is whether fill drops after a creative refresh — if it does, the auction priced you out.

Geographic targeting parameter — country by default, city or region available on most networks. The GEO determines the CPM, not the vertical. Italian iGaming popunder costs roughly 3× Indonesian iGaming popunder for traffic that converts at similar rates on the right offer.

Push-style notification rendered as a DOM element inside the publisher’s page. No subscription, no service worker, no iOS-Safari permission problem. The format that replaced classic web push for most iGaming books in 2022.

Full-screen ad shown between content transitions. The second-largest format in my PropellerAds book after popunder in 2021–2022 — it picked up iGaming deposit volume when popunder fill softened on tier-2 LATAM.

Ads styled to match the host publisher’s typography and grid. Higher CTRs than IAB display because the creative escapes banner-blindness, not because the format is intrinsically better. The right answer when popunder is wrong — usually for offers that need a paragraph above the click.

Payout cycle: the publisher gets paid 14 days after the close of the earnings period. Standard for mid-tier networks. Slower than Net-7 (HilltopAds, adsy.tech, PropellerAds), faster than Net-30 (Adcash, TwinRed).

Payout cycle: the publisher gets paid 7 days after the close of the earnings period. The aggressive end of payout terms in this category — adsy.tech, HilltopAds, PropellerAds, Monetag run Net-7 because faster payout buys publisher loyalty when the rate cards are otherwise similar.

A full-page ad that opens in a new tab behind the user’s active window. The highest eCPM display unit in the category, the format I sold for five years at PropellerAds, and the format industry write-ups call “intrusive” without having run a campaign on it.

Return on Ad Spend — revenue divided by ad spend. The metric advertisers actually optimise for once they’re past the testing phase. iGaming deposit-bonus offers target 1.5–2.5× ROAS in week one; anything above 3× usually means the tracking is double-counting deposits.

Real-Time Bidding — the millisecond-scale auction where advertisers bid per impression. Most popunder networks run in-house RTB rather than the OpenRTB protocol used by display, which means the clearing price is whatever the network says it is.

Server-to-server conversion tracking. The tracker fires a URL when a conversion happens and the network maps it back to the original click via the click_id. The only reliable way to attribute popunder conversions — pixel tracking gets stripped by privacy mode, S2S doesn’t.

Automated bid adjustment that lowers your CPM when the auction is uncontested and raises it when competition spikes. PropellerAds’ implementation is the benchmark in this category — most “smart CPM” features at smaller networks are simpler bid-pacers wearing the brand.

A single URL that routes the user to the best-matching offer based on GEO, device, browser, and the network’s optimiser. Beginner-friendly because you don’t pick the advertiser; frustrating for direct-offer buyers because you can’t. Mobidea’s product is built around it.

Supply-Side Platform — the seller-side software publishers use to expose inventory to multiple DSPs at once. In popunder ad tech the SSP and DSP are usually the same company, which is why “clearing-CPM transparency” is rare outside networks like adsy.tech that publish it.

High-spend English-speaking markets — US, UK, Canada, Australia — plus the wealthy EU bloc (Germany, France, Italy, Spain) on most networks’ definitions. Highest CPMs, deepest auction competition, the hardest GEOs to scale popunder cheaply.

The mid-tier markets — most of the EU bloc that isn’t tier-1, plus Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, parts of Southeast Asia. Where Adsterra beats PropellerAds by roughly 30% on popunder CPM. The sweet spot for iGaming testing in 2024–2026.

Emerging markets — Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, parts of Africa. Lowest CPMs and the highest impression volume. Popunder iGaming converts thin here; utility installs (VPN, antivirus) and SOI dating are the verticals that actually scale.

Video Ad Serving Template — the IAB spec that lets a video player request an ad, display it, and report on quartile completion back to the network. The interoperability layer that makes video ad buying portable across publishers.

The offer category — iGaming, dating, sweepstakes, utility, VPN, finance, crypto. Vertical determines which networks fit. iGaming wants PropellerAds and adsy.tech; adult wants Clickadu and ExoClick; mobile-CPI wants Mobidea.