A
Ad Exchange – A digital marketplace where publishers offer ad inventory and buyers bid on that inventory programmatically in real time.
Ad Fraud – Any deliberate activity that prevents ads from being shown to real humans in valid, viewable environments, such as bots, fake impressions, or spoofed domains.
Ad Impression – A single instance of an ad being served and rendered, or attempting to render, on a user’s device.
Ad Inventory – The total supply of available ad placements (impressions) a publisher or platform can sell across its properties and channels.
Ad Server – A platform that stores, selects, delivers, and tracks ads across sites, apps, and devices.
Ad Verification – Technology that checks whether ads ran as intended, in suitable environments, to real humans and with acceptable viewability.
Advertiser – The brand, business, or organization paying to deliver ads to an audience.
Agency Trading Desk – A centralized programmatic buying unit within a media agency that runs campaigns across multiple platforms for multiple clients.
Audience Extension – Reaching similar or related users beyond a publisher’s owned properties by using audience data to buy media on third‑party inventory.
Audience Targeting – Selecting which users should see an ad based on data signals such as demographics, interests, behaviors, or location.
Automated Guaranteed – A direct, guaranteed media deal executed through programmatic pipes where price, volume, and dates are fixed but trafficking and delivery are automated.
B
Behavioral Targeting – Targeting users based on their past online behavior such as browsing history, app usage, or purchase activity.
Bid Request – A signal from the sell side describing an available impression and asking potential buyers to submit bids.
Bid Response – The buyer’s answer to a bid request, including bid price and creative details.
Bid Shading – An algorithmic approach in first‑price auctions that reduces a buyer’s bid to the minimum level likely to win while controlling costs.
Blacklist (Blocklist) – A list of domains, apps, placements, or categories where an advertiser does not want its ads to appear.
Brand Lift – The measured change in brand metrics such as awareness, favorability, or intent after exposure to an ad campaign.
Brand Safety – Policies, tools, and controls that prevent ads from appearing next to content that is unsafe or unsuitable for a brand.
C
Call to Action (CTA) – The explicit instruction in an ad that tells the user what to do next, such as “Shop now” or “Sign up.”
Click‑Through Rate (CTR) – The percentage of impressions that result in a click, calculated as clicks divided by impressions.
Connected TV (CTV) – Television content streamed over the internet on devices such as smart TVs, streaming sticks, and game consoles, with ad inventory sold programmatically.
Conversion – A desired action taken by a user after ad exposure, such as a purchase, form fill, or app install.
Conversion Rate (CVR) – The percentage of clicks or sessions that result in a conversion.
Cost per Acquisition (CPA) – The average cost to generate a conversion, calculated as total spend divided by number of conversions.
Cost per Click (CPC) – The average cost for each click on an ad, calculated as spend divided by clicks.
Cost per Mille (CPM) – The cost to serve one thousand ad impressions.
Cross‑Device Targeting – Reaching and recognizing the same user across multiple devices such as mobile, desktop, and CTV.
Customer Data Platform (CDP) – A system that unifies first‑party customer data into addressable profiles for targeting and measurement across channels.
D
Data Clean Room – A privacy‑safe environment where multiple parties can match and analyze data sets without exposing raw user‑level data to each other.
Data Management Platform (DMP) – A platform used to collect, organize, segment, and activate audience data from multiple sources for targeting and analytics.
Deal ID – A unique identifier associated with a specific programmatic deal defining terms like inventory, price, and priority.
Demand‑Side Platform (DSP) – Software that allows advertisers and agencies to buy digital ad inventory programmatically from multiple exchanges and publishers.
Direct Response (DR) – Campaigns designed and optimized to generate immediate, measurable actions such as leads, sales, or sign‑ups.
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) – Technology that automatically assembles and serves personalized creative variants in real time based on data signals.
Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) – The real‑time insertion of targeted ads into streaming video or audio content.
E
Effective Cost per Mille (eCPM) – A normalized cost per thousand impressions that translates different pricing models into a comparable CPM.
Event Tracking – Logging specific user interactions such as clicks, scrolls, or video completions to support reporting and optimization.
Exclusive Inventory – Ad inventory made available only to selected buyers, usually via private marketplace or direct programmatic deals.
F
First‑Party Data – Data collected directly by a brand or publisher from its own customers or users, such as site activity or CRM records.
First‑Price Auction – An auction type where the winning bidder pays the exact price they bid.
Frequency – The number of times an individual user is exposed to an ad within a given period.
Frequency Capping – Limiting how many times a user can see the same ad in a defined timeframe.
Full‑Episode Player (FEP) – A long‑form video environment in which users watch full TV episodes in a digital or streaming context.
G
Guaranteed Deal (Programmatic Guaranteed) – A programmatic agreement where the buyer commits to a fixed volume of impressions at an agreed price and the publisher guarantees delivery.
Geo‑Targeting – Serving ads based on a user’s geographic location, such as country, city, or radius around a point.
Granular Reporting – Detailed reporting that breaks performance down by attributes such as placement, creative, audience, device, or time of day.
H
Header Bidding – A technique that allows multiple demand sources to bid on inventory in parallel before the primary ad server is called, increasing competition and yield.
House Ads – Ads that promote a publisher’s own content, products, or services and run in its own inventory.
Human Verification – Methods used to confirm that impressions and clicks come from real people rather than automated bots.
I
Identity Graph – A system that links multiple identifiers such as cookies, device IDs, and emails to a unified user or household profile.
Impression Cap – A limit on the total number of impressions a campaign, line item, or creative can serve.
In‑App Advertising – Serving ads within mobile, tablet, or CTV applications, often via SDK integrations and programmatic pipes.
Incrementality – The additional impact on outcomes that can be attributed to a campaign beyond what would have occurred without it.
Inventory Source – The origin of available ad impressions such as a specific site, app, video channel, or screen network.
J
JavaScript Tag – A small script placed on a site or within an app to enable ad serving, analytics, or tracking functionality.
Join Rate – The proportion of records that can be successfully matched between two data sets, such as CRM records and device identifiers.
K
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) – The main metric used to evaluate the success of a campaign or tactic, such as CPA, ROAS, or completed views.
Keyword Targeting – Selecting which ads run based on specific words or phrases in content, search queries, or user data.
L
Last‑Click Attribution – An attribution model that assigns full credit for a conversion to the last click that occurred before the conversion.
Lookalike Audience – A modeled audience of new users who behave similarly to a seed audience of existing customers or converters.
Long‑Tail Inventory – Inventory from many smaller or niche publishers that individually have limited volume but can deliver scale when aggregated.
M
Machine Learning Bidding – Automated bid strategies that use models trained on historical and real‑time data to set bids for each impression.
Meta DSP or Meta SSP – A platform that aggregates multiple buying or selling platforms into a single interface.
Multi‑Touch Attribution (MTA) – Attribution models that distribute conversion credit across several touchpoints in a user journey rather than a single event.
N
Native Advertising – Ad formats designed to match the look and feel of the surrounding content or platform layout, bought and sold programmatically or directly.
Negative Targeting – Explicitly excluding certain audiences, keywords, placements, or geos from a campaign’s targeting settings.
Non‑Guaranteed Inventory – Inventory sold via auctions or flexible deals where delivery volume is not assured.
O
Omnichannel Programmatic – Coordinated planning and buying of media across multiple channels from a unified strategy or platform.
Open Auction (Open Exchange) – A real‑time bidding environment where many buyers can bid on the same inventory with no exclusive access.
Outcome‑Based Bidding – Bidding strategies that optimize toward defined performance outcomes such as conversions or return on ad spend.
Out‑Stream Video – Video ad units that play outside of traditional video content, such as within article content or feeds.
P
Pixel (Tracking Pixel) – A small piece of code or transparent image used to track user actions and support retargeting or conversion measurement.
Placement – A specific ad location, such as a size and position on a page, within a video break, or on a particular screen.
Post‑Bid Verification – Verification activity that occurs after an impression is served to confirm quality, viewability, and safety.
Pre‑Bid Targeting – Applying quality and suitability filters before bidding on an impression, based on predicted fraud, viewability, or brand safety.
Preferred Deal – A one‑to‑one arrangement where a buyer has priority access to inventory at a fixed price but impressions are not guaranteed.
Private Marketplace (PMP) – An invite‑only auction where selected buyers bid on a publisher’s inventory under specific terms and controls.
Programmatic Advertising – The automated buying and selling of digital ad inventory using software, data, and auctions instead of purely manual negotiations.
Programmatic Audio – Automated buying and selling of audio ad inventory such as streaming music, radio streams, and podcasts via programmatic platforms.
Programmatic Direct – Programmatic transactions where inventory is sold at fixed prices and often with guaranteed volumes through a platform rather than traditional IOs.
Programmatic Digital Out‑of‑Home (Programmatic DOOH) – Automated buying and selling of digital out‑of‑home screen inventory such as billboards or in‑store displays.
Q
Quality Score (Media) – An assessment of the overall quality or value of an impression based on factors such as suitability, viewability, and fraud risk.
Query String Parameters – Values appended to URLs or ad calls that carry campaign, creative, or audience metadata for tracking and reporting.
R
Real‑Time Bidding (RTB) – An auction process where each impression is evaluated and sold in milliseconds as a page loads or a stream plays.
Reach – The number of unique users or households exposed to an ad or campaign in a given period.
Retargeting (Remarketing) – Serving ads to users who have previously visited a site, used an app, or engaged with a brand.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – Revenue generated divided by advertising spend, usually expressed as a ratio.
Roadblock – A tactic in which a brand buys all or most of the ad positions in a specific environment at one time to dominate the experience.
S
Second‑Price Auction – An auction where the highest bidder wins but pays slightly more than the second‑highest bid rather than their full bid.
Second‑Party Data – Another company’s first‑party data shared or purchased directly, typically under a contractual relationship.
Sell‑Side Platform (SSP) – A platform used by publishers to manage, package, and sell their ad inventory programmatically.
Sequential Messaging – Serving a planned sequence of creatives or messages to the same user over time.
Supply Path Optimization (SPO) – Efforts by buyers to prioritize the most efficient and transparent paths to inventory, often reducing intermediaries.
Syndicated Inventory – Inventory distributed across a network of sites, apps, or devices via partnerships or content syndication arrangements.
T
Tag Management System (TMS) – A tool that helps deploy and manage multiple tags and scripts on a site or app from a central interface.
Third‑Party Data – Data collected and sold by external providers that is not directly gathered by the advertiser or publisher using it.
Third‑Party Cookie – A cookie set by a domain different from the one the user is visiting, traditionally used for cross‑site tracking and targeting.
Time‑of‑Day Targeting (Dayparting) – Adjusting bidding or delivery to specific times of day or days of the week.
Trading Desk – A team or platform, often within an agency or holding company, that plans, executes, and optimizes programmatic campaigns for multiple clients.
U
Unique User – An individual user as counted once within a reporting period, often estimated via identifiers or probabilistic methods.
Universal ID – A shared, standardized user identifier used across multiple platforms to replace or supplement third‑party cookies.
Uplift – The measured improvement in a key metric, such as conversions or revenue, attributable to a campaign or tactic.
V
Viewability – A measurement indicating whether an ad had the opportunity to be seen, based on specific criteria for time in view and portion of pixels in view.
Video Completion Rate (VCR) – The percentage of video ad impressions that are watched to completion.
View‑Through Conversion (VTC) – A conversion that occurs after a user sees but does not click on an ad, within a defined attribution window.
Virtual Private Marketplace – A configuration where multiple publishers’ inventory is aggregated into a themed or curated private marketplace.
W
Walled Garden – A closed advertising ecosystem where the platform controls data, targeting, and measurement and typically does not share user‑level data externally.
Win Rate – The percentage of bid requests that result in won impressions for a buyer.
X
XML Feed – A structured data feed, often in XML format, used to share inventory or product information between systems in programmatic and dynamic creative setups.
Y
Yield Management – The process by which publishers optimize the revenue they earn from their inventory across direct, programmatic, and other sales channels.
Yield Optimization – Tools and strategies used by publishers to improve effective CPM and total revenue while maintaining quality and user experience.
Z
Zero‑Party Data – Data that users intentionally and proactively share with a brand, such as preferences and interests provided in surveys or profile forms.
Zonal Targeting – Serving ads based on defined geographic or screen zones within a larger network, often used in out‑of‑home and retail media.