Concepts & Glossary¶
Advertising.chat uses one outward vocabulary across the product, the API, and these docs: ad unit, campaign, and creative. If you have used a web ad server, these mean what you expect.
The enterprise Offer Manager surface predates this vocabulary and uses its own names — Moment, Offer, Rule. Those names are now an alias for the same underlying objects. This page maps the two so you are never stranded when you cross from one page to another.
The core vocabulary¶
| Term | What it is |
|---|---|
| Ad unit | A named placement — a logical point in a conversation (or a slot on a page) where an ad may appear. An Offer Manager / advertiser concept: a fetch may name one via the adUnit parameter, but in-chat publishers omit it and serve into an implicit default. |
| Creative | The actual ad a user sees: a card, a carousel, or a conversational flow. |
| Campaign | An advertiser's flight of activity — the container for the ad groups and creatives that run across the network, with objective, budget, run dates, and delivery controls. |
| Line item / targeting rule | The Offer Manager delivery unit that ties creatives to an ad unit with targeting criteria, scheduling, and pacing. |
| Fetch key | The per-application dataplane credential that identifies your app on the serving API. This is the key in-chat publishers use to fetch. |
| API key | Identifies your org to the ad network on every fetch and event. Keep it server-side (except for the public web embed, where the key is a publisher tag by design). |
| Ad event | A record in the reporting stream: a fetch, a lifecycle notification, a click, or a conversion. See the Ad Events reference. |
messageId |
The fetch id returned by every fetch. You pass it back as fetchEventId when you report events for that impression. |
Vocabulary mapping (Offer Manager alias)¶
The Offer Manager console and its docs use the enterprise names on the left. They refer to the same objects as the standard vocabulary on the right:
| Offer Manager (enterprise alias) | Standard vocabulary |
|---|---|
| Moment | Ad unit (placement) |
| Offer | Creative |
| Rule | Line item / targeting rule |
In one line: a Moment is an ad unit; an Offer is a creative; a Rule is a line item (targeting + scheduling).
The legacy moment fetch parameter is a deprecated alias for adUnit.
New integrations should send adUnit.
The irreducible publisher path¶
Everything above is optional for a publisher. The simplest path to a live, measured, revenue-earning ad names none of the ad-server vocabulary:
- Get a fetch key from the console.
POST /v1/fetch/v2with it — no ad unit needed; a new account fills a real ad with zero configuration.- Render the returned card, clearly labeled "Sponsored."
- Present the action URLs verbatim — clicks self-track on redirect.
- Report conversions when they truly happen.
Start with In-chat Ads. Forward-looking capabilities — conversational flow creatives, semantic selection, decision traces, pacing, and agent-driven management — are grouped under Advanced.