Glossary

The price an advertiser is charged for each click their ad receives. Calculated as: CPC = total cost of campaign ÷ number of clicks CPC rates reduce risk for advertisers because payment is only triggered when someone…

Cost Per Completed View (CPCV) is a pricing model used in video and animation advertising where the advertiser is only charged when a user watches an ad through to the very end. Unlike CPM, which bills on the basis of…

Also known as: cost per thousand CPM is the price an advertiser pays for 1,000 ad impressions. "Mille" is Latin for "thousand," which explains both the name and the unit. Because the cost of a single impression is…

Also known as: CPVM vCPM (or CPVM) is an ad pricing model where an advertiser pays for every 1,000 viewable impressions — that is, impressions that were actually seen by a user rather than simply served by a server. It…

A creative is the actual graphical advertisement that a user is exposed to — the visual or multimedia asset delivered by an ad server and rendered in a placement. Common formats include GIF, JPEG, and HTML5 (which…

A creative tag is a snippet of code used in ad serving to indicate where a creative (the actual ad unit — banner, video, rich media, etc.) should be placed within a page or app. Publishers and ad servers rely on…

A customer data platform (CDP) is a category of marketing technology designed to collect and organize data from a wide range of online and offline sources into a unified system. CDPs give marketers the ability to view…

Also known as: waterfalling, the publisher's waterfall A daisy chain is a media-buying process in which a publisher's ad server loads ad network, SSP, and ad exchange tags sequentially — one after another — until an ad…

Also known as: data provider, data supplier A data broker is a business that collects user data from multiple sources and sells it to online advertising companies, such as Data Management Platforms (DMPs) and…

A data-management platform (DMP) is a specialized platform that collects and integrates first-party, second-party, and third-party data from various sources, then makes that data actionable and usable for advertisers.…

Also known as: first-party data onboarding Data onboarding is the process of taking offline customer information — such as CRM records, purchase histories, or loyalty programme data — and integrating it with online…

The process by which AdTech platforms — including ad servers, supply-side platforms (SSPs), demand-side platforms (DSPs), and ad exchanges — determine which ad to serve for a given impression. The decision is driven by…

The process of identifying and removing duplicate data entries from databases and audience segments within AdTech platforms. Duplication arises when advertisers run campaigns across multiple AdTech platforms…

Also known as: DSP An AdTech platform that enables agencies and advertisers to purchase ad inventory from Supply-side platforms (SSPs) and ad exchanges. DSPs are typically used to buy inventory on an…

Descriptive attributes about a user, such as age, gender, income, and job title. Brands often collect this data directly — through account registration, surveys, or purchase history — and it is sometimes sold to data…

Deterministic matching is the process of identifying the same user across different devices using a unique and persistent identifier, such as an email address. Because the identifier is fixed and verified — rather than…

Also known as: canvas fingerprinting, browser fingerprinting, machine fingerprinting Device fingerprinting is a process used to identify a device or browser based on its specific and unique configuration. By collecting…

The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) is an industry association made up of numerous online advertising companies, collectively responsible for establishing and maintaining self-regulatory standards in digital…

Display advertising refers to image- and text-based advertisements that appear on web pages across desktop and mobile browsers. It is the earliest form of online advertising and remains widely used by advertisers today.…

Also known as: dynamic creative ad, DCA A type of digital advertisement in which the content, design, and layout change dynamically based on data available at the time of serving. Rather than displaying a single static…

The price of an ad impression within a real-time bidding (RTB) auction, which fluctuates based on data signals known about a particular user at the moment of the auction. Rather than applying a flat rate to every…

The percentage of a publisher's available ad inventory that is actually sold and filled with ads over a given period. Formula: Fill rate = ad impressions generated in the ad space ÷ total inventory available on that ad…

A cookie created by the domain the user is currently visiting. First-party cookies are set directly by the website a user interacts with and persist only for that domain. Common uses include remembering language…

Also known as: English auction In a first-price auction, the winner pays exactly the amount they bid — no adjustment, no discount. This stands in contrast to second-price (Vickrey) auction models, where the winner pays…