Places & Zones

I am trying to understand the difference in Places and Zones. I have read through the documentation I was able to find on this site, but it is still vague.

The “place” seems pretty straight forward. That could be the “sidebar” or “header”. But, it is the “zone” that confuses me. Would I be correct to use the “zone” as an object that houses all of the ads that are to shown in a particular category? Or, the ads that are just displaying by keywords/tags?

Is a zone just an additional way to file the ad object itself?

Thank you for any additional direction you can share with me.

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