Title: Online Advertising Cards — LearnCoachAssist

Q: What is online advertising?
A: Paid distribution of messages across digital channels to drive measurable outcomes (e.g., awareness, leads, sales).

Q: Define an impression.
A: One ad view opportunity served (or counted as served) to a user/device.

Q: Define a click.
A: A user interaction that sends them to a destination (site/app/store) from an ad.

Q: What is CTR?
A: Click-through rate = clicks / impressions.

Q: What is CVR (conversion rate) in ads?
A: Conversions / clicks (sometimes conversions / sessions; define consistently).

Q: What is CPC?
A: Cost per click = spend / clicks.

Q: What is CPM?
A: Cost per 1,000 impressions = (spend / impressions) * 1000.

Q: What is CPA?
A: Cost per acquisition/action = spend / conversions.

Q: What is ROAS?
A: Return on ad spend = revenue attributed to ads / ad spend.

Q: ROAS vs ROI (in ads): what's the difference?
A: ROAS uses revenue and excludes non-ad costs; ROI includes profit or net return after all costs.

Q: What is LTV?
A: Lifetime value: expected gross margin (or revenue) from a customer over their relationship.

Q: What is CAC?
A: Customer acquisition cost: total acquisition spend / new customers acquired (define scope/time window).

Q: Break-even ROAS (concept).
A: ROAS needed to cover cost of goods + variable costs; often = 1 / contribution margin (if revenue-based).

Q: What is frequency in advertising?
A: Average number of times a person/device sees an ad over a period.

Q: Why use frequency caps?
A: To reduce waste, manage fatigue, and improve reach efficiency.

Q: What is reach?
A: Number of unique people/devices exposed to an ad.

Q: What is a conversion?
A: A tracked action aligned to business goals (purchase, lead, signup, install, etc.).

Q: What is a conversion window?
A: The period after an ad interaction during which a conversion can be attributed (e.g., 7-day click, 1-day view).

Q: Click-through attribution vs view-through attribution.
A: Click-through credits conversions after a click; view-through credits conversions after an impression without a click.

Q: Last-click attribution (definition).
A: Credits 100% of conversion to the most recent eligible click before conversion.

Q: Why can last-click be misleading?
A: It over-credits bottom-funnel touchpoints and under-credits channels that create demand earlier.

Q: What is incrementality?
A: The causal lift in outcomes caused by ads vs what would have happened anyway.

Q: How do you measure incrementality?
A: Holdout/geo tests, split tests, lift studies, or randomized experiments with a control group.

Q: What are UTMs used for?
A: Appending parameters to URLs to pass campaign/source/medium data into analytics.

Q: What is a tracking pixel?
A: A tag (often JS) that records events (pageviews, conversions) and ties them to ad interactions.

Q: What is server-side conversion tracking?
A: Sending conversion events from your server to ad platforms to reduce loss from browsers/ad blockers.

Q: What is retargeting/remarketing?
A: Showing ads to people who previously engaged with your site/app/content.

Q: When does retargeting usually work best?
A: High-intent audiences with recent engagement; strong offer; adequate frequency control.

Q: What is prospecting (in paid media)?
A: Targeting new audiences who have not yet engaged with your brand.

Q: What is a funnel (TOFU/MOFU/BOFU)?
A: A model of customer journey: top (awareness), middle (consideration), bottom (conversion).

Q: What is a landing page?
A: The page a user arrives on after clicking an ad; optimized for message match and conversion.

Q: What is message match?
A: Consistency between ad promise/creative and landing page content to reduce bounce and improve CVR.

Q: Primary drivers of CPA (high level).
A: CPA ≈ CPC / CVR (or CPM / (CTR*CVR)); reduce CPC/CPM or increase CTR/CVR.

Q: What is Quality Score (search ads)?
A: A platform estimate of ad/keyword relevance and expected performance affecting rank and CPC.

Q: What is Ad Rank (search ads)?
A: Auction score used to order ads; typically based on bid, quality, and expected impact of extensions.

Q: What is impression share (search)?
A: Impressions received / impressions you were eligible to receive.

Q: What can reduce impression share?
A: Budget limits, low bids, low quality, targeting constraints, or low ad rank.

Q: Keyword match types (broad/phrase/exact) at a glance.
A: Broad: widest queries; Phrase: includes meaning/phrase; Exact: tightest matching; behavior varies by platform updates.

Q: What is a negative keyword?
A: A keyword that prevents ads from showing on irrelevant queries to improve efficiency.

Q: Search term report: why is it useful?
A: Find new converting queries to add; identify irrelevant queries to negate.

Q: What is an ad extension (asset)?
A: Additional ad info (sitelinks, callouts, structured snippets, etc.) that can improve CTR and utility.

Q: What is a learning phase (social ads)?
A: Period where the system explores to stabilize delivery; frequent changes can reset performance.

Q: What causes creative fatigue?
A: Audience sees the same creative too often, reducing CTR/CVR over time.

Q: How do you combat creative fatigue?
A: Rotate new creatives, refresh hooks/offers, expand audiences, adjust frequency caps.

Q: What is A/B testing in ads?
A: Controlled comparison of one variable (creative, landing page, bid strategy) with consistent measurement.

Q: Why should you avoid testing multiple variables at once?
A: It confounds results; you cannot attribute lift to a single change.

Q: What is a bid strategy?
A: Automated or manual rules determining how much to bid per auction to hit an objective (tCPA, tROAS, max clicks).

Q: tCPA vs tROAS: when to use each?
A: tCPA when value per conversion is uniform; tROAS when conversion values vary and value matters.

Q: What is conversion value optimization?
A: Bidding toward higher-value outcomes using reported conversion values.

Q: What is an ad auction?
A: Real-time selection process deciding which ad shows and at what price based on bids and quality/utility.

Q: First-price vs second-price auction (concept).
A: First-price: winner pays their bid; Second-price: winner pays just above next highest bid; many markets use hybrids.

Q: What is programmatic advertising?
A: Automated buying/selling of ad inventory via software and auctions (often RTB).

Q: DSP vs SSP vs Ad Exchange.
A: DSP buys for advertisers; SSP sells for publishers; exchange matches bids and inventory.

Q: What is RTB?
A: Real-time bidding: per-impression auction where buyers bid on a bid request in milliseconds.

Q: What is a bid request?
A: A package of info about an impression opportunity (context, device, user signals) sent to bidders.

Q: What is viewability?
A: Whether an ad had the opportunity to be seen (e.g., % of pixels in view for a duration, per standard).

Q: Why does viewability matter?
A: Non-viewable impressions waste spend and can inflate reach/frequency and mislead CTR/CVR.

Q: What is invalid traffic (IVT) / ad fraud?
A: Non-human or deceptive activity generating fake impressions/clicks/conversions.

Q: Common anti-fraud controls.
A: Pre-bid filters, allowlists/blocklists, verification vendors, anomaly monitoring, post-bid clawbacks.

Q: What is brand safety?
A: Ensuring ads do not appear next to content that could harm brand reputation.

Q: What is an allowlist?
A: Approved list of domains/apps/placements you permit for serving ads.

Q: What is a blocklist?
A: Disapproved list of domains/apps/placements you exclude.

Q: What is contextual targeting?
A: Targeting ads based on page/app content rather than user identity.

Q: What is lookalike/similar audience targeting?
A: Model-built audience resembling a seed list (customers/visitors) based on platform signals.

Q: Why can lookalikes degrade?
A: Small/biased seed, tracking loss, market saturation, or model changes; refresh seed and test tiers.

Q: What is cookie deprecation (impact on ads)?
A: Reduced ability to track and target across sites, affecting attribution, retargeting, and measurement.

Q: What is iOS ATT?
A: Apple policy requiring permission to track across apps/sites; reduces available device identifiers for ads.

Q: What is SKAdNetwork (high level)?
A: iOS privacy-preserving install attribution framework providing delayed, aggregated conversion data.

Q: What is a consent management platform (CMP)?
A: Tool to collect/store user consent choices and signal them to vendors for privacy compliance.