Full-Service Advertising Agencies Key Terms

Know the language used in the advertising agency world

Is your business looking to hire an advertising agency? You'll find yourself in a better position to get the results you want if you know the terminology used. Key advertising terminology includes words like copy, flight, advertorial, impressions, and others. Each of the terms explained in this guide link to pages that contain other advertising terms as well. So look at this guide as a general introduction to advertising terminology and use the links to expand your knowledge.

 

Inventory

Advertising inventory refers to the amount of space dedicated to advertising. Advertising inventory may refer to a website, newspaper, programming hour on radio or television, or any other venue that has advertising space for sale.
Try: Mobile Insight and Search discusses advertising inventory and its many forms. It goes into explanations about the different ways the phrase gets used.

Impressions

Impressions means the number of times your ad will be seen. When suggesting different types of advertising an advertising agency may compare the number of impressions they expect each type of ad to receive.
Try: TechTarget has an advertising glossary that explains impressions. Scroll down the list of terms to find the term. The glossary also details how impressions relate to other types of advertising key terms.

Copy or copywriting

Copy is the written portion of any advertisement, and copywriting is the process of creating that text. Advertising agencies usually employ one or more copywriters who do nothing but write text for web, print and broadcast advertising.
Try: The entire Copyblogger website discusses the finer points of copywriting and copy, and it also talks about what copy should accomplish on the "What is copywriting?" section of its website.

Flight or flighting

An advertising flight refers to a predetermined amount of time that a portion of a campaign will run. For example, your business may purchase six weeks of radio advertising, then take a month off and then advertise for another three weeks. In the advertising world you would have bought a six-week flight and then a three-week flight.
Try: Advertising Media Planning fully explains flighting and advertising flights.

Advertising, marketing and public relations

Many people use these three terms interchangeably but advertising, marketing and public relations are three disparate categories that do three different things. Advertising refers to ads purchased while marketing includes advertising as well as other ways of getting people familiar with a business, agency, service or product. Public relations is the practice of dealing with different groups of people, including customers, investors, protesters and others.
Try: Gaebler Ventures compares advertising to public relations and explains the difference between the two. Hands-On Solutions explains the differences between advertising and marketing.

Advertorial

An advertorial, sometimes called a business feature, is a paid article about your business. It looks like a news item or feature story but should contain the phrase "paid advertisement" somewhere on the page. Advertorials extol the virtues of a product or service and don't mention any negatives.
Try: Advertorial.org provides an in-depth explanation of what an advertorial is and how it works.

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