Advertising Glossary & Definitions

Confused and struggling with all the advertising terms, programmatic definitions and all programmatic acronyms that are used every day? To make it easy for you we’ve compiled a comprehensive Programmatic Glossary of the most popular used terms and subtle nuances below to help you navigate the programmatic industry. So if you don’t know the difference between a DMP or a DSP then make sure you bookmark our Programmatic Glossary.

Use our Advertising Glossary as your secret go to resource!

  • 1st Party Data
    1st Party Data is the term defines data that is collected directly from users such as website visitors, and stored for advertising and marketing purposes.
  • 2nd Party Data
    2nd Party Data is the type of data collected and stored about customers, and it’s commonly used for marketing and advertising purposes.
  • 3rd Party Data
    3rd Party Data is data collected for advertising purposes. 3rd Party Data is collected from multiple sources and based on demographics and behaviors.
  • Ad Exchange
    Ad exchange is a term that defines platforms which enable the buying and selling of ad inventory (typically from advertising networks).
  • Ad Inventory
    Ad Inventory or Advertising Inventory is a term that describes the advertising space that each publisher has, and which advertisers can buy to host their ads.
  • Ad Network
    Ad Network or advertising network is a term describing companies which are middle men between advertisers and publishers.
  • Ad Server
    An ad server is a form of advertising technology used by advertisers and publishers to serve ads to potential customers.
  • ads.txt
    Ads.txt stands for “Authorized Digital Sellers” and is intended of preventing internet ad fraud and increasing transparency in the online advertising sector.
  • Agency Holding Companies
    Agency Holding Companies is an industry term used to describe the parent Advertising Agency companies that own smaller ad agencies. Think Dentsu, Havas Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe & WPP
  • Agency Trading Desk
    An Agency Trading Desk (sometimes referred to as an ATD) is a programmatic media planning and buying unit within a traditional advertising agency or Agency Holding Company. Think Amnet, Xaxis, Affiperf, Vivaki and Cadreon
  • Audience Extension
    Audience Extension is a type of advertising that allows advertisers to reach more people than the ones they could reach on the publisher’s site.
  • Behavioral Targeting
    Behavioral targeting is an advertising method that uses knowledge about users’ behavior across the web to improve the success of their campaigns.
  • Blacklists
    Blacklists are simply listings of website domain names that under no circumstances does the advertiser allow their ads to serve on that site. Many advertisers will use some sort of Blacklist as part of their overall buying.
  • Brand Lift
    Brand Lift uses various methodology to gather feedback directly from consumers in real-world settings as a response to an advertising campaign.
  • Click Through Rate
    CTR or Click-Through Rate is a performance metric that shows how many times users clicked on an ad or a link with display, and email marketing campaigns.
  • Completion Rate
    Completion Rate is a video advertising metric represented as a percentage. It indicates the number of times that a video plays to the end.
  • Contextual Advertising
    Contextual advertising is targeted advertising that places ads on directly relevant websites or web pages determined by contextual relevance.
  • Cost Per Acquisition
    Cost Per Acquisition is an e-commerce advertising term that stands for Cost per Acquisition. Cost Per Acquisition is measuring the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer.
  • Cost Per Action
    Cost Per Action or CPA is an advertising term used to define how advertisers pay for served ads.
  • Cost Per Click
    CPC or Cost Per Click is a payment model where advertisers pay every time a user clicks on an ad, regardless of the number of impressions.
  • Cost Per Completed View
    Cost Per Completed View is a payment model in video advertising. Cost Per Completed View is where advertisers only pay when a video ad plays to completion
  • Cost Per Engagement
    Cost Per Engagement model means that an ad is paid only when it’s engaged with, as opposed to other payment models such as CPC and CPM.
  • Cost Per Install
    Cost Per Install (sometimes referred to as CPI) campaigns are specific to mobile apps and the advertiser only pays once the app has been installed (instead of been simply viewed like in other advertising metrics such as CPM).
  • Cost Per Mille
    Cost Per Mille is an advertising term that is short for CPM (thousand impressions). Cost Per Mille is best used for brand awareness campaigns.
  • Cost Per Thousand
    Cost Per Thousand is an advertising term referred based on CPM or Cost Per Mille impressions.
  • Cost Per View
    Cost Per View (CPV) is programmatic bidding method to buy video impressions, meaning the advertiser will only pay for video impressions (VAST or VPAID) when the impression is actually viewed.
  • CPA
    CPA is an e-commerce advertising term that stands for Cost per Acquisition. It has different significance depending on the actions that are meant to be tracked.
  • CPC
    CPC or Cost Per Click is a payment model where advertisers pay every time a user clicks on an ad, regardless of the number of impressions.
  • CPCV
    CPCV or Cost Per Completed View is a payment model in video advertising. CPCV is where advertisers only pay when a video ad plays through to completion
  • CPE
    CPE model means that an ad is paid only when it’s engaged with, as opposed to other payment models such as CPC and CPM.
  • CPI
    CPI (Cost Per Install) campaigns are specific to mobile apps and the advertiser only pays once the app has been installed on the mobile device.
  • CPM
    CPM is an advertising term that stands for Cost Per Mille (thousand impressions). CPM is best used for brand awareness campaigns.
  • CPV
    CPV is programmatic bidding method to buy video impressions, advertiser will only pay for video impressions when actually viewed.
  • CTR
    CTR or Click-Through Rate is a performance metric that shows how many times users clicked on an ad or a link with display, and email marketing campaigns.
  • Data Management Platform
    A Data Management Platform is a cloud-based software that collects, stores, sorts and categorizes user data. They are a central data hub for a marketer, storing a company’s customer, audience, and marketing data.
  • Daypart
    Daypart Targeting or Dayparting is an ad serving campaign tactic used by advertisers to limit the delivery of a campaign to specific times of the day or specific days of the week to more effectively target an audience.
  • Demand Side Platform
    A Demand Side Platform (or DSP) cover everything from automatically buying ad inventory to managing it and tracking results.
  • Designated Market Area
    A Designated Market Area is an advertising term that stands for different regions in the United States divided into separate marketing areas.
  • Device ID
    Device ID is a code that clearly mark each individual device in the world. Commonly, these devices are smartphones and tablets.
  • DMA
    DMA or Designated Market Area is an advertising term that stands for different regions in the United States divided into separate marketing areas.
  • DMP
    A DMP is a cloud-based software technology that collects, stores, sorts and categorizes user data. They should be considered as the central data hub for a marketer, storing a company’s customer, audience, and marketing data.
  • DOOH
    DOOH stands for “Digital Out Of Home” and refers specifically to digital media that appears in public places such as digital billboards and outdoor signage.
  • DSP
    A DSP or Demand Side Platform is an advertising management system that allows buyers to buy in ad exchanges (display, video, search, and mobile ads).
  • Dynamic Ad Insertion
    Dynamic Ad Insertion or DAI is video advertising technology that allows advertisers to integrate video ads into live programming and VoD content.
  • eCPM
    eCPM is an advertising term that stands for Effective Cost per Mille (thousand impressions).
  • Endemic Advertising
    Endemic advertising is an advertising and marketing term that refers to ad placement that’s natural to a market, sometimes referred to Vertical Advertising.
  • Fill Rate
    Fill Rate is Sell Side specific metric which represents the percentage of ads served based on the total number of page impressions available.
  • First Look
    First look is an advertising term that describes a situation when certain advertisers are offered a prioritized access to a publisher’s ad inventory.
  • First Party Data
    First Party Data is the term defines data that is collected directly from users such as website visitors, and stored for advertising and marketing purposes.
  • First Price Auction
    A First Price Auction (sometimes referred to as a First Price Sealed Bid Auction or a Blind Auction) is where bidders submit the highest bid price they are prepared to pay and the highest bidder wins.
  • Geotargeting
    Geotargeting is an advertising term that describes determining the location of a website visitor in order to serve them personalized ads
  • GRP
    GRP stands for Gross Rating Point and is a measure of the size of an advertising campaign in relation to the size of the targeted audience or population
  • Header Bidding
    Header Bidding enables bid requests from multiple demand sources simultaneously using programmatic protocols such as OpenRTB.
  • Insertion Order
    An Insertion Order can best be considered a Purchase Order between the parties. A Insertion Order is usually issued by the Publisher but frequently issues by the Advertiser.
  • Instream Video
    Instream video is an advertising term which defines the placement of video advertisements in correlation to the original content a consumer decided to watch.
  • Interstitial Ads
    Interstitial Ads / Over the Page Ads are full-screen ads that run over the top of publisher content on Desktop, Tablet or Mobile devices.
  • Media Ratings Council
    Media Rating Council (often referred to as the MRC) is a nonprofit organization that gives media research and advertising accreditations to ad platforms.
  • MidRoll
    MidRoll is an advertising term describing video ads that are served to consumers in the middle of the original content’s playback.
  • MRC
    MRC or Media Rating Council is a nonprofit organization that gives media research and advertising accreditations to ad platforms.
  • Outstream Video
    Outstream video, also referred to as in-read or native video, is an advertising term describing video advertisements placed in otherwise non-video original content.
  • Pay Per Click
    Pay Per Click (PPC) is an advertising term that describes online advertising payment models where advertisers pay per each click.
  • Personally Identifiable Information
    Personally Identifiable Information stands for personal information of each user which is subject to advertising.
  • PII
    PII or Personally Identifiable Information stands for personal information of each user which is subject to advertising.
  • PMP
    PMP is a programmatic marketing term that stands for Private Marketplace. PMPs are a private advertising auction, as opposed to public marketplaces.
  • Post Roll
    Post Roll is an advertising term that describes video advertisements which are served to the consumer after the original video has finished playing.
  • PPC
    PPC is an advertising term that describes online advertising payment models where advertisers pay per each click.
  • Pre Roll
    Pre Roll is an advertising term describing video ads that play right before the video, typically 15, 30 or 60 secs in duration and sold on a CPM or CPV basis.
  • Price Floor
    What is a Price Floor? Think of a Price Floor in a similar way to the reserve price for a Real Estate auction. i.e the price that the auction will be passed in if there are not a single bid that exceeds the reserve.
  • Rate Card
    Rate card is an advertising term describing the documents in which the publisher states the price of their ad inventory.
  • Real Time Bidding
    Real Time Bidding is the buying or selling of ad impressions through ad exchanges and platforms via Demand Side Platforms (referred to as DSPs).
  • Remarketing
    Remarketing is an advertising practice in which advertisers can re-engage potential customers who have already shown interest in a product or a brand,
  • Retargeting
    Retargeting is an advertising term which describes the process of recapturing visitor attention with the goal of driving sales.
  • RON
    Run of Network (sometimes referred to as “RON”) is the term where an advertising campaign or PMP is applied to the entire network of websites within an Ad Network.
  • ROS
    Run of Site, also referred to as ROS, is an advertising term that pertains to advertisers giving up control over the placement of their ads.
  • RTB
    RTB is an advertising term that describes an automated process of selling and buying ad inventory through a programmatic online auction.
  • Run of Network
    Run of Network (sometimes referred to as “RON”) is the term where an advertising campaign or PMP is applied to the entire network of websites within an Ad Network.
  • Run of Site
    Run of Site, also referred to as ROS, is an advertising term that pertains to advertisers giving up control over the placement of their ads.
  • Second Party Data
    Second Party Data is the type of data collected and stored about customers, and it’s commonly used for marketing and advertising purposes.
  • Second Price Auction
    A Second Price Auction (sometimes referred to as a Vickrey Auction) is where each bidder submits a bid which is the highest amount they are willing to pay. The highest bidder wins but the price paid is the second-highest bid plus $0.01
  • Sell Through Rate
    Sell Through Rate is a sell side metric which is sourced and calculated from either an Ad Network’s Ad server or a individual publisher ad server and represented as a percentage.
  • Share of Voice
    Share of Voice is a phrase often used in media planning and buying. Share of Voice is expressed as a percentage and represents the relative portion of ad impressions bought compared to all ads available for that given period of time.
  • SOV
    SOV is a phrase used in media planning & buying. SOV is the relative portion of impressions bought to all ads for a time period.
  • SSP
    A SSP (referred to as a Supply Side Platform) is a software platform used by publishers to monetize their inventory with ad exchanges, ad networks, and DSPs at the same time to sell impressions at their highest value in real time.
  • Supply Side Platform
    A Supply Side Platform (referred to as SSP) is a software platform used by publishers to monetize their inventory with ad exchanges, ad networks, and DSPs at the same time to sell impressions at their highest value in real time.
  • Third Party Data
    Third Party Data is data collected for advertising purposes. Third Party Data is collected from multiple sources and based on demographics and behaviors.
  • VAST
    VAST or Video Ad Serving Template is an IAB specification that explains how video players communicate with ad servers, and serve ads.
  • vCPM
    vCPM is an advertising metric that stands for Viewable Cost per Mille. vCPM tracks the cost for viewable thousand impressions.
  • Video Ad Serving Template
    Video Ad Serving Template or VAST is an IAB specification that explains how video players communicate with ad servers, and serve ads.
  • Video Completion Rate
    Video Completion Rate is a video advertising metric represented as a percentage. It indicates the number of times that a video plays to the end.
  • View Through Rate
    View Through Rate (or VTR) is an advertising metric describing the number of times an ad has been viewed completely.
  • Viewability
    Viewability or viewable impressions is an advertising metric used to define impressions which can actually be seen by users,
  • VPAID
    VPAID or Video Player-Ad Interface Definition is advertising technology that complements VAST (Video Ad Serving Template)
  • VTR
    VTR or View Through Rate is an advertising metric describing the number of times an ad has been viewed completely.
  • Whitelist
    A Whitelist is a list of website domains that the advertiser is willing to serve its ads on. Many advertisers who buy advertising programmatically will only buy from a whitelist or against a blacklist.
  • Win Rate
    Win Rate is the percentage that measures the total number of impressions won in programmatic buys divided by the total number of impressions bid on.