Advertising effectiveness monitoring indicators are crucial for advertisers to determine the effectiveness of advertisements and how to optimize them. The commonly used advertising monitoring indicators by Chinese advertisers mainly include four major categories: traffic indicators, interaction indicators, conversion indicators, and cost indicators.
Traffic Indicators
Ad Impressions
The total number of times an advertisement is displayed on a specific website within a designated time period. High exposure means the advertisement has a wide reach, but it is also important to avoid ineffective exposures. This indicator cannot measure whether users have actually seen the advertisement, as it can be affected by factors such as page scroll speed, which affects the visibility of the advertisement.
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Unique Impressions
Unique impressions refer to the number of exposures after excluding multiple exposures by the same user, which is mainly achieved by excluding duplicate cookies.
Calculating the ratio of ad impressions to unique impressions (Impression/Unique Impression) is one of the simple ways to identify ad fraud. A high ratio indicates that some users are repeatedly visiting in large numbers, suggesting that the website may have abnormal traffic and is suspected of having machine-generated traffic.
Viewable Impressions
Viewable impressions are based on the visibility of the advertisement. The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) stipulates: For PC-side image advertisements, 50% of the pixels are displayed for more than 1 second, and for PC-side video advertisements, 50% of the pixels are displayed for more than 2 seconds, which can be considered viewable impressions. Additionally, for larger ad formats, 30% of the pixels displayed for more than 1 second can be considered 1 viewable impression.
The internet advertising pricing model related to this indicator is CPMv (cost per mille viewable impression), which is the cost for a thousand viewable impressions. The new CPM selling method used by Tencent mentioned earlier is CPMv. This selling method excludes data for advertisements that have not been actually watched, which can ensure the fairness, authenticity, and effectiveness of advertising transactions to a certain extent, help advertisers improve advertising effectiveness, save advertising budgets wasted on poor media resources or content, and improve ROI, thus being welcomed by advertisers.
Clicks
Clicks are the metrics used to measure user behavior after ad exposure. Clicks are the key actions that link front-end advertisements with back-end landing pages, reflecting the audience’s interest in the advertisement. Factors affecting clicks include two aspects: first, the accuracy of ad placement, and second, the quality of ad creativity.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The ratio of clicks to impressions (Click/Impression), the click-through rate allows for a horizontal comparison of the effectiveness of different advertisements and is the most direct and persuasive quantitative indicator reflecting the effectiveness of online advertising. Factors affecting the click-through rate include: the number of impressions, which only becomes relatively stable after reaching a certain quantity, objectively reflecting the effectiveness of the advertisement; the accuracy of ad placement, the higher the proportion of the target consumer group reached, the higher the click-through rate; the attractiveness of ad creativity, the stronger the visual impact and the more attractive the content, the higher the click-through rate.
Page Views (PV)
Page views are a commonly used indicator for website traffic statistics. A request from the user’s end to open a page is considered one page view. Page views are one of the commonly used traffic indicators for monitoring ad landing pages. To a certain extent, they can reflect the degree to which the interests and desires of the ad audience are stimulated and can reflect a certain advertising effect.
Visits
Visits are commonly used in website traffic analysis to describe a series of user behaviors within a certain period of time or in the process of achieving a certain goal. The mainstream view is that visits refer to the number of times users visit a website.
Visits can be used for the calculation of CPV (Cost Per Visit), which is the cost per visit. In practical applications, it is rarely used as a billing method in settlements between media and advertisers, but rather as an indicator for advertisers to measure the ROI of marketing activities.
Unique Visitors (UV)
Unique visitors are used to measure the number of website visitors. According to the “China Mobile Internet Advertising Standards,” a device visiting a website within a specified time period is counted as one visitor, and the same device will only be counted once within the specified time period.
Compared with other traffic indicators, unique visitors are centered on a user as a measure, which can help advertisers more accurately identify the audience affected by advertising activities, and can also be used to identify simple traffic fraud. Unique visitors can be used for CPUV (Cost Per Unique Visitor), which is the cost per unique visitor. However, like CPV, it is often not used as a billing method in advertising transactions between advertisers and media, but rather as an ROI indicator set by advertisers according to the goals of the advertising campaign.
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Interaction Indicators
Traffic indicators describe the arrival of users for advertisements and landing pages, while interaction indicators describe the depth of user participation. Compared with traffic indicators, the standardization of interaction indicators is relatively low.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate refers to the ratio of users who, after clicking on an advertisement and entering the advertiser’s promoted page, do not generate further clicks and choose to leave directly. In internet marketing, the bounce rate can be used to measure the quality of external traffic and the attractiveness of website content to the audience. The higher the quality of external traffic and the more accurate the front-end advertising, the more target users can be attracted, and the lower the bounce rate of users after entering the website.
2nd-Click Rate
When a first-level website page is clicked and opened, any additional clicks generated by the user on the page are called “2nd-clicks,” and the number of 2nd-clicks is referred to as “2nd-click volume.” The ratio of “2nd-click volume” to page views is called the page’s “2nd-click rate.”
Visit Depth (PV/V)
Visit depth (PV/V) is an average number, referring to the number of times a specific web page is exposed to a visitor during a single visit, calculated as page views divided by visits. The higher the visit depth, the more pages a visitor browses in one visit, the more information they get, and the greater the value of these visits to advertisers.
Visit Duration
Visit duration (Time on Site) is also an average number, a measure of the length of visits, specifically the average time spent per visit, calculated as total visit time divided by visits. Theoretically, the longer the visit duration, the better the interactive effect of the advertisement.
Conversion Indicators
Conversion indicators are the most valuable category of indicators for businesses as they directly reflect the benefits that advertising activities bring to the enterprise, and thus are increasingly valued by advertisers.
Conversion rate refers to the ratio of the number of times users complete specific actions (such as purchases, registrations, etc.) to the number of clicks, and is a key indicator for evaluating the effectiveness of advertisements. Specific actions for conversion include:
Sales-related conversion indicators
Offline: The number of store visits
Online: The number of orders placed and purchases completed
App-related conversion indicators
Downloads
Active users
Registrations Users
Retention
In-app purchases
Cost Indicators
Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
Refers to the cost per thousand impressions when advertising is placed, reflecting the cost of advertising placement.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Refers to the cost per click when advertising is placed, reflecting the cost of advertising placement.
Cost Per Conversion (CPA)
Refers to the cost per conversion action when advertising is placed, reflecting the cost of advertising placement.
Advertising Monitoring Fields
The following are fields involved in the advertising monitoring process in China, covering data from multiple aspects such as users, devices, advertising activities, geographic locations, and network environments. Through the analysis of these data, advertisers can comprehensively understand the display, click-through, and conversion effects of advertisements, optimize advertising placement strategies, and improve the ROI (Return on Investment) of advertisements.
| Field Name | Data Format | Meaning | Value |
| user_id | string | Unique identifier for the user | Used to distinguish different users |
| user_id_type | string | Type of user identifier, such as device ID, email | Helps to understand the source of user_id |
| req_time | bigint | Request time, records the timestamp of the user’s ad request | Used to analyze user behavior and ad display timeliness |
| ip | string | User’s IP address | Used for geographical analysis and user identity verification |
| cookie | string | Cookie data from the user’s browser | Used to track user’s online activities and ad effectiveness |
| source | string | Traffic source | Identifies the channel or platform the ad traffic comes from |
| campaign_id | string | Unique identifier for the ad campaign | Used to distinguish and analyze different ad campaigns |
| order_id | string | Order ID | Used to track transactions and conversions related to the ad |
| url | string | Target URL of the ad display or click | Used to analyze ad effectiveness and user behavior |
| os | string | Operating system information of the user’s device | Used for device and platform compatibility analysis |
| ad_ip | string | IP address of the ad server | Used to track the source of ad requests |
| idfa | string | Advertising identifier for iOS devices | Used for mobile ad tracking |
| idfa_md5 | string | MD5 encrypted form of IDFA | Used for privacy protection and data matching |
| idfa_sha1 | string | SHA1 encrypted form of IDFA | Used for privacy protection and data matching |
| imei | string | International Mobile Equipment Identity for Android devices | Used for device identification |
| imei_md5 | string | MD5 encrypted form of IMEI | Used for privacy protection and data matching |
| imei_sha1 | string | SHA1 encrypted form of IMEI | Used for privacy protection and data matching |
| android_id | string | Unique identifier for Android devices | Used for device identification |
| android_id_md5 | string | MD5 encrypted form of Android ID | Used for privacy protection and data matching |
| android_id_sha1 | string | SHA1 encrypted form of Android ID | Used for privacy protection and data matching |
| mac_md5 | string | MD5 encrypted form of device MAC address | Used for device identification and privacy protection |
| android_advertising_id | string | Advertising identifier for Android devices | Used for ad tracking |
| ad_timestamp | bigint | Timestamp of the ad event | Used to accurately record the time of ad display and click |
| oaid | string | Open Advertising Identifier | Used to replace traditional device identifiers and enhance privacy protection |
| callback_url | string | Callback URL | Used for server-to-server notifications and data transmission after ad click |
| user_agent | string | User agent string of the user’s browser | Used to identify device and browser information |
| brand | string | Device brand information | Used for market analysis and device performance evaluation |
| network_type | string | Network type, such as WiFi, 4G | Used to analyze the network environment of the ad display |
| csite | string | Content site | Identifies the specific site or app location where the ad is displayed |
| stype | string | Ad type, such as display ad, video ad, etc. | Used for categorization and effectiveness analysis |
| extend | string | Extension field | Used for storing other custom data |
| open_udid | string | Open Unique Device Identifier | Used for device identification and ad tracking |
| plan_id | string | Ad plan ID | Used to distinguish and manage different ad plans |
| platform | string | Ad serving platform, such as mobile, PC, etc. | Used to distinguish the platform where the ad is served |
| publisher_id | string | Publisher ID | Used to distinguish different ad publishers |
| adzone_type | string | Type of ad placement, e.g., banner ads, interstitial ads | Used for classification and performance analysis |
| adzone_id | string | Ad placement ID to distinguish different ad display positions | Used to distinguish different ad display positions |
| province_id | string | Province ID for geographical analysis | Used for geographical analysis |
| city_id | string | City ID for geographical analysis | Used for geographical analysis |
| county_id | string | County ID for more detailed geographical analysis | Used for more detailed geographical analysis |
| traffic_type | string | Type of traffic, e.g., organic traffic, paid traffic | Used for traffic quality analysis |
| adx_id | string | Ad Exchange Platform ID | Used to distinguish and manage different ad exchange platforms. |
| app_package | string | App Package Name | Used for identifying and analyzing different mobile applications |
| main_domain | string | Main Domain | Used for analyzing the domain source of ad display |
| num | int | Number of Ad Requests | Used for statistics and analysis of ad request volume |
| log_type | string | Log Type, such as display log, click log, etc. | Used for classification and analysis |
| sub_customer_id | string | Sub-Customer ID | Used for multi-level customer management and analysis |
| session_id | string | Session ID | Used for tracking a user’s single visit behavior |
| order_type | string | Order Type, such as purchase, registration, etc. | Used for conversion analysis. |
| creative_id | string | Creative ID | Used to distinguish and manage different ad creatives |
| app_id | string | App ID | Used for identifying and analyzing different mobile applications |
| app_name | string | App Name | Used for identifying and analyzing different mobile applications |
| ref_url | string | Reference URL | Used for analyzing traffic sources |
| creative_type | string | Creative Type, such as images, videos, etc. | Used for classification and performance analysis |
| id | string | General ID | Used to identify the uniqueness of the record |
| ad_id | string | Ad ID | Used to distinguish and manage different ads |
| customer_id | string | Customer ID | Used to distinguish and manage different ad customers |
| device_name | string | Device Name | Used for device identification and analysis |
| browser_name | string | Browser Name | Used for identifying the browser used by the user |
| bizdate | string | Business Date | Used for statistics and analysis by date |
| bizhour | string | Business Hour | Used for statistics and analysis by hour |
| data_source | string | Data Source | Used to distinguish and analyze different data collection channels |
In the area of advertising monitoring, some fields may be more commonly seen in the Chinese internet environment, mainly due to China’s unique advertising technology standards, device identifiers, and certain characteristics of some application markets:
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oaid: Open Advertising Identifier, a device identifier introduced by Chinese device manufacturers to replace traditional identifiers and enhance privacy protection.
android_id: In China, many devices and advertising networks rely on this identifier.
open_udid: Open Unique Device Identifier, which is quite common on some Chinese advertising platforms and applications.
mac_md5: Although used globally, in the Chinese market, this field is often used for device identification.
imei, imei_md5, imei_sha1: IMEI is globally universal, but in China, especially in early advertising monitoring, it is common to see the use of IMEI and its encrypted forms.
idfa, idfa_md5, idfa_sha1: Although IDFA is a global standard for Apple devices, it is also frequently used in iOS advertising tracking in China.
ad_timestamp: The timestamp of the advertising event, universally used globally, but the format and specific implementation may vary by region.
app_package: The application package name, used to identify applications in China’s unique app markets.
app_name: The application name, which often appears in Chinese advertising monitoring to identify specific applications.
province_id, city_id, county_id: These geographical location identifiers are especially common in Chinese advertising monitoring, used for fine-grained regional analysis.
bizdate, bizhour: Fields used for statistics by date and hour, frequently used in Chinese advertising reports and analysis.
adzone_id, adzone_type: The type and ID of the advertising space, these fields are very common on Chinese advertising platforms for ad space management and analysis.
How to Read Advertising Monitoring Reports
Compare Data
Compare data from different time periods, platforms, and ad formats to identify areas of excellent performance and areas that need improvement.
Pay Attention to Trends
Observe the trends in data changes to predict future development trends, providing a basis for adjusting advertising strategies.
Deep Dive
For data that performs poorly, delve deeper into the underlying reasons, such as whether the advertising content, target audience, and placement platform are appropriate.
How to Use Advertising Monitoring Data to Optimize Advertising Strategies
Adjust Advertising Content
Based on user feedback and data analysis, optimize advertising copy, images, videos, and other elements to improve the attractiveness and conversion rate of advertisements.
Precisely Target the Audience
Understand the interests, needs, and behavioral habits of the target audience through data analysis to formulate more precise advertising placement strategies.
Optimize Placement Platforms and Timing
Choose more suitable advertisingplatforms and time slots based on data performance to increase the exposure and click-through rate of advertisements.
Control Advertising Budget
Allocate the advertising budget reasonably according to ROI and advertising effects to ensure the maximization of the input-output ratio.
Advertising monitoring reports are not only a set of data reports but also a valuable marketing guide. By deeply analyzing advertising monitoring data, we can better understand the performance of advertising activities, identify optimization space, and enhance advertising effectiveness.