Jargon Buster

B Corp

Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. ‘Born Online’, the IAB’s research into Direct to Consumer brands’, found that being B Corp certified and taking an ethical approach to marketing was a priority among many digital-first brands.

Bandwidth

The transmission rate of a communication line - usually measured in Kilobytes per second (Kbps). This relates to the amount of data that can be carried per second by an internet connection. See also Broadband.

Banner ad

Also known as display ads, banner advertisements are a form of graphical ads embedded into a webpage, typically including a combination of static / animated images, text and / or video designed to convey a marketing message. The aim is to encourage the user to follow a call-to-action. Banner dimensions are typically defined by width and height, represented in pixels.

Behavioural targeting

A form of online marketing that uses advertising technology to target web users based on their previous behaviour. Advertising creative and content can be tailored to be of more relevance to a particular user by capturing their previous decision making behaviour, for example, filling out preferences or visiting certain areas of a site frequently.

Between-the-page

Also known as “interstitial” ads, between-the-page ad units display as a user navigates from one webpage to the next webpage. The ad appears after the user leaves the initial page, but before the target page displays on the user’s screen. Typically, the ad is self-contained within its own browser window or app environment, but may also appear briefly as an overlay on the target page rather than in its own browser window. (see also: Prestitial)

Blacklist

A blacklist is a basic access control mechanism that allows through all elements (email addresses, users, passwords, URLs, IP addresses, domain names etc) except those explicitly mentioned. Those items on the list are denied access. 

Blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed ledger used to record transactions between parties whereby the information contained in each small recorded block are linked together in a historical chain that is saved in multiple locations (public or private) making it almost impossible to tamper with. Records saved within the chain are therefore permanent as long as the storage and processing resources dedicated to seeing the chain continue to exist and information can be encrypted so only certain parties can write or access it. Although a relatively new technology, blockchain has the potential to allow a high degree of transparency in any sequence of transactions such as currency exchanges, contracts, records of ownership or given consent.

Recently the IAB Tech Lab established a new working group with the goal of exploring ways to utilise blockchain. You can find out more information here.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a wireless technology for exchanging data over short distances via computers, smartphones and digital cameras, using radio waves. 

Buffering

When a streaming media player saves portions of file until there is enough information for the file to begin playing.

Are we missing something?

If there is a term that you think is missing from our directory, we would love to hear from you. Submit a term and a definition and we will review it.