Glossary/Adtech & Programmatic

• Above the Fold (ATF)

  Ad placements visible on screen without scrolling, usually more viewable and priced higher than below-the-fold slots.

• Ad Blocking

  Software or browser features that prevent ads from loading, reducing publisher revenue and pushing formats like server-side ad insertion.

• Ad Exchange

  A digital marketplace where buyers and sellers trade ad impressions, usually via real-time auctions.

• Ad Fraud (Invalid Traffic)

  Impressions, clicks, or conversions generated by bots or deceptive practices rather than real people.

• Ad Inventory

  The total ad space a publisher has available to sell, usually measured in impressions.

• Ad Mediation

  Software in mobile apps that manages multiple ad networks to fill each ad request, historically by waterfall and increasingly through bidding.

• Ad Network

  A company that aggregates inventory from many publishers and sells it to advertisers in packages.

• Ad Operations (Ad Ops)

  The team and processes that set up, traffic, optimize, troubleshoot, and report on digital ad campaigns.

• Ad Refresh

  Reloading a new ad in the same slot after a time interval or user action while the page stays open, increasing impressions per page view.

• Ad Request

  A call from a page, app, or player asking an ad server or exchange for an ad to fill an available slot.

• Ad Server

  Technology that stores, delivers, and tracks ads across sites and apps.

• Ad Stacking

  Fraud where multiple ads are layered on top of each other in one slot so several impressions are counted but only one is visible.

• Ad Tag

  A snippet of code placed on a page, app, or in a player that calls an ad server to request and display an ad.

• Ad Tax

  The share of media spend absorbed by intermediaries before reaching the publisher.

• Ad Trafficking

  Setting up campaigns in an ad server, including uploading creatives, configuring line items, targeting, and tags, so ads deliver correctly.

• Ad Unit

  A defined space on a website or app where ads can appear, with set sizes and formats, configured in the ad server.

• Ad Verification

  Third-party measurement that confirms ads ran where, when, and how they were supposed to.

• Addressable TV

  TV advertising that serves different ads to different households on the same program.

• ads.cert

  An IAB Tech Lab protocol that uses cryptographic signatures to verify that bid requests and their contents genuinely come from the stated seller.

• ads.txt

  A publicly posted file listing companies authorized to sell a publisher's inventory.

• Agentic Advertising (Ad Context Protocol, AdCP)

  AI agents planning, negotiating, and buying media; AdCP is an open protocol launched in 2025 to let such agents transact across ad platforms.

• Allowlist (Inclusion List)

  A list of approved sites, apps, or channels an advertiser restricts its ads to, offering control at the cost of scale.

• Audience Segment

  A defined group of users sharing traits or behaviours, such as in-market auto shoppers, packaged for ad targeting.

• Banner Ad (Display Ad)

  A static or animated image ad shown in a defined space on a website or app, the most common digital ad format.

• Behavioral Targeting

  Targeting ads based on a person's past browsing or purchase behavior.

• Better Ads Standards

  Coalition for Better Ads guidelines identifying intrusive formats, such as pop-ups and auto-playing sound video, that Chrome has used to filter ads.

• Bid Density

  The number of bidders competing for an impression; more bid density generally raises clearing prices for publishers.

• Bid Request

  The data packet an SSP or exchange sends to buyers describing an available impression.

• Bid Response

  A DSP's reply to a bid request, containing its bid price, the ad creative or markup, and deal or tracking details.

• Bid Shading

  An algorithm that lowers a bid in first-price auctions toward the likely clearing price.

• Bidstream Data

  The user, device, location, and page or app information transmitted in bid requests during real-time auctions.

• Blocklist

  A list of domains, apps, channels, or keywords an advertiser excludes so its ads don't appear there.

• Bot Traffic

  Automated, non-human visits to sites or apps that generate fake impressions or clicks.

• Brand Safety

  Measures that keep ads away from content that could harm an advertiser's reputation.

• Brand Suitability

  Advertiser-specific rules about which content is appropriate, beyond baseline brand safety.

• Buy Side vs. Sell Side

  The buy side (advertisers, agencies, DSPs) purchases ad inventory; the sell side (publishers, SSPs, exchanges) offers and monetizes it.

• Clearing Price

  The final price paid for an impression in an auction, after any floors, fees, or shading are applied.

• Click Fraud

  Generating fake clicks on ads, via bots, click farms, or scripts, to drain advertiser budgets or inflate publisher earnings.

• Click Injection

  Mobile fraud where a malicious app detects another app's install and fires a fake click just before it completes to steal attribution credit.

• Connected TV (CTV)

  Television content streamed over the internet to a TV via smart TVs or streaming devices.

• Contextual Targeting

  Placing ads based on the content of a page or video rather than the viewer's identity.

• Cost Per Install (CPI)

  A mobile pricing model or metric where the advertiser pays for each app install driven by an ad.

• Cost Per Lead (CPL)

  A pricing model or metric where the advertiser pays for each lead, such as a form fill or sign-up.

• Cost Per Point (CPP)

  The cost to buy one rating point (1% of the target audience), a traditional TV and radio planning metric.

• Cross-Device Targeting

  Reaching the same person or household across phones, computers, and TVs by linking devices through identity data.

• Curation (Curated Marketplace)

  Packaging inventory and data from multiple publishers into a deal for buyers, often done on the sell side by SSPs or data companies.

• Dayparting

  Scheduling ads to run only during specific hours or days when the target audience is most likely to respond.

• Deal ID

  A unique identifier that links a buyer and seller's negotiated terms in a programmatic transaction.

• Demand-Side Platform (DSP)

  Software advertisers and agencies use to buy ad impressions across many exchanges from one interface.

• Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH)

  Digital screens in public places, increasingly bought programmatically.

• Discrepancy

  The difference between impression, click, or spend counts reported by two systems, such as a publisher's and an advertiser's ad server.

• Domain Spoofing

  Fraud where low-quality or fake inventory is misrepresented in bid requests as coming from a premium publisher's domain.

• Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)

  Technology that assembles and tests ad variations in real time based on data about the viewer.

• Effective CPM (eCPM)

  Revenue or cost per thousand impressions calculated across any pricing model, used to compare CPC, CPA, and CPM performance on one basis.

• FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV)

  Linear-style streaming channels that are free to viewers and funded by ads.

• Fill Rate

  The percentage of ad requests that are filled with an ad.

• First-Price Auction

  An auction in which the winner pays exactly what they bid.

• Floor Price

  The minimum price a publisher will accept for an impression.

• Frequency Capping

  A limit on how many times one person sees an ad over a set period.

• General Invalid Traffic (GIVT)

  Non-human or invalid traffic identifiable through routine filtering, such as known crawlers, data-center traffic, and bot lists.

• Geofencing

  Targeting ads to devices inside a defined geographic boundary.

• Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM)

  A World Federation of Advertisers initiative that created shared brand safety and suitability frameworks; it was discontinued in 2024.

• Global Privacy Platform (GPP)

  An IAB Tech Lab framework that packages consent and privacy signals for multiple jurisdictions into a single string for the ad supply chain.

• Google Ad Manager (GAM)

  Google's publisher ad server and exchange platform, used by many publishers to manage direct deals, programmatic demand, and inventory.

• Header Bidding

  A technique that lets publishers offer inventory to multiple demand sources at once before calling their ad server.

• Homepage Takeover

  A premium buy where one advertiser owns most or all ad placements on a site's homepage for a set period, often including site skins.

• IAB Content Taxonomy

  A standardized IAB Tech Lab classification of content categories used to label pages and apps for contextual targeting and brand safety.

• IAB Standard Ad Sizes

  Common display dimensions defined by the IAB, such as 300x250 medium rectangle, 728x90 leaderboard, 160x600 skyscraper, and 320x50 mobile banner.

• IAB Tech Lab

  The IAB's technical standards body, which publishes specifications such as OpenRTB, VAST, ads.txt, sellers.json, and the Open Measurement SDK.

• Impression Multiplier

  A DOOH factor estimating how many people see one ad play on a screen, converting a single play into audience impressions.

• In-App Advertising

  Ads served inside mobile or CTV apps, commonly as banners, interstitials, native units, or rewarded video.

• In-App Bidding

  Real-time auctions where ad networks bid simultaneously for mobile app inventory, replacing the traditional mediation waterfall.

• Insertion Order (IO)

  A signed contract between advertiser and publisher or vendor specifying the media to run, dates, quantities, pricing, and terms.

• Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)

  The digital advertising trade association that develops industry standards, research, and policy for advertisers, publishers, and ad tech companies.

• Interstitial Ad

  A full-screen ad that appears between content or app screens and can be closed by the user.

• Inventory Avails

  Forecasted impressions available to sell for given targeting and dates, used to plan and price direct deals.

• Line Item

  An ad server entry defining one part of a campaign, including its dates, budget, priority, targeting, and pricing.

• Lookalike Audience

  A modeled audience of new people who resemble an advertiser's existing customers.

• Loop (DOOH)

  The repeating sequence of ad spots on a digital out-of-home screen; buyers purchase spots or share of time within the loop.

• Macro (Ad Tag Macro)

  A placeholder in an ad tag or URL, such as a timestamp or click URL, that the ad server replaces with a real value at serve time.

• Made-for-Advertising (MFA) Sites

  Low-quality sites built mainly to arbitrage ad revenue rather than serve readers.

• Makegood

  Free or compensatory ad delivery a publisher provides when a campaign under-delivers or runs incorrectly.

• Malvertising

  Using ads to distribute malware or redirect users to scam sites, often via compromised creatives in programmatic channels.

• Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP)

  A third-party platform, such as AppsFlyer, Adjust, or Branch, that attributes app installs and in-app events to the ads that drove them.

• Native Advertising

  Paid ads that match the look and feel of the surrounding content.

• Open Auction

  Programmatic inventory available to any qualified buyer through an exchange.

• Open Bidding

  Google Ad Manager's server-side unified auction that lets third-party exchanges bid for publisher inventory alongside Google's demand.

• Open Measurement SDK (OM SDK)

  An IAB Tech Lab software kit that gives third-party verification vendors a single, standard way to measure viewability and verification in apps and CTV.

• Open Web

  Ad-supported websites and apps outside the major walled gardens, typically monetized through programmatic exchanges and SSPs.

• OpenRTB

  The IAB Tech Lab protocol that standardizes communication between buyers and sellers in real-time bidding.

• Out-of-Home (OOH)

  Advertising people encounter outside their homes, such as billboards, transit, and street furniture, in both static and digital forms.

• Over-the-Top (OTT)

  Video content delivered over the internet, bypassing cable or satellite, on any device.

• Pacing

  How evenly a campaign spends its budget or delivers impressions over its flight, compared with the planned schedule.

• Post-Bid Blocking

  Preventing an ad from rendering after the impression was already won when verification flags the placement as unsafe or fraudulent.

• Pre-Bid Targeting

  Applying verification filters for brand safety, fraud, or viewability before bidding so a buyer avoids unwanted impressions entirely.

• Prebid

  The open-source framework most publishers use to run header bidding.

• Preferred Deal

  A non-guaranteed programmatic deal where a buyer gets first look at inventory at a fixed price.

• Principal-Based Buying (Principal Media)

  An agency model where the agency buys inventory for its own account and resells it to clients at a markup instead of buying as agent.

• Private Marketplace (PMP)

  An invitation-only programmatic auction where select buyers access premium publisher inventory.

• Programmatic Advertising

  The automated buying and selling of digital ad inventory using software and data rather than manual insertion orders.

• Programmatic Direct

  Buying specific publisher inventory through automated pipes at a pre-negotiated price, covering programmatic guaranteed and preferred deals.

• Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH)

  Buying digital out-of-home screen time through automated platforms, with triggers such as time, weather, or audience data.

• Programmatic Guaranteed

  A programmatic deal with fixed price and guaranteed volume between one buyer and one seller.

• Real-Time Bidding (RTB)

  An auction in which each ad impression is bought and sold in milliseconds as a page or app loads.

• Remnant Inventory

  Ad space a publisher hasn't sold directly, typically filled programmatically or through networks at lower prices.

• Retargeting

  Serving ads to people who previously visited a site or engaged with a brand.

• Revenue Per Mille (RPM)

  Publisher revenue earned per thousand page views or impressions, used to gauge monetization performance.

• Rewarded Video Ad

  An opt-in video ad users choose to watch in exchange for an in-app reward, such as extra lives or content access.

• Rich Media

  Interactive ad formats that include video, audio, or other engaging elements.

• Run of Site (ROS)

  An ad buy that runs anywhere across a single publisher's site rather than in specific sections, usually at a lower price.

• SDK Spoofing

  Mobile fraud that fakes the signals of a real app's SDK to report installs or events that never happened.

• Second-Price Auction

  An auction in which the winner pays just above the second-highest bid.

• Sell-Through Rate

  The percentage of a publisher's available inventory that was actually sold over a given period.

• Seller-Defined Audiences (SDA)

  An IAB Tech Lab spec letting publishers label bid requests with standardized audience segments from their first-party data without exposing user identity.

• sellers.json

  A file SSPs publish disclosing the sellers they represent, improving supply transparency.

• Server-to-Server (S2S) Header Bidding

  Header bidding where the auction runs on a server, such as Prebid Server, instead of in the user's browser, reducing page latency.

• Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT)

  Harder-to-detect invalid traffic, such as advanced bots, hijacked devices, and spoofing, requiring advanced analytics to identify.

• Supply Chain Object (schain)

  An OpenRTB field listing every company that handled a bid request, letting buyers verify each hop against sellers.json.

• Supply Path Optimization (SPO)

  Buyers' practice of choosing the most efficient, transparent routes to the same inventory.

• Supply-Side Platform (SSP)

  Software publishers use to sell their ad inventory to many buyers and maximize yield.

• Take Rate

  The share of ad spend kept by an intermediary, such as a DSP, SSP, or exchange, as its fee.

• Third-Party Ad Serving (3PAS)

  Serving and tracking ads through an advertiser-side ad server, such as Campaign Manager 360, separate from the publisher's ad server.

• Trading Desk

  A team, often inside an agency, that manages programmatic buying.

• Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF)

  IAB Europe's standard for passing users' GDPR consent choices from consent platforms to publishers and ad tech vendors.

• Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)

  An industry initiative that certifies companies for fighting ad fraud, malware, and piracy and promoting supply-chain transparency.

• Viewability

  Whether an ad had a real chance to be seen; MRC standard is 50% of pixels for one second (display).

• Viewable CPM (vCPM)

  A pricing model or metric based on cost per thousand viewable impressions rather than all served impressions.

• Walled Garden

  A closed advertising ecosystem, such as Google, Meta, or Amazon, that controls its own inventory, data, and measurement and limits outside access.

• Waterfall (Daisy Chaining)

  A legacy method of offering inventory to demand sources one at a time in priority order.

• Win Rate

  The percentage of bids a buyer submits that win their auctions; low win rates often signal bids too low or targeting too narrow.

• Working Media

  The portion of an ad budget actually spent on buying media, as opposed to fees, tech, data, and production costs.

• Yield Management

  The publisher practice of maximizing ad revenue through pricing, floors, demand partners, and inventory allocation.