ADLINGO Mega Glossary
I've compiled nearly 200 essential advertising terms into what I'm affectionately calling the Mega Glossary. Not just dictionary definitions, but real-world explanations of what these terms actually mean in practice.
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An open protocol that lets AI agents built by different vendors, on different frameworks, discover each other and communicate directly.
IAB Tech Lab's open-source umbrella framework for agentic advertising, organized into three pillars (Foundations, Protocols and Trust) and built on OpenRTB and AdCOM.
A value used to determine your ad position on the search results page, calculated using your bid amount, auction-time ad quality components, and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats.
The technology and process that places advertisements on websites, delivers them to users, and reports on their performance.
A file published by a publisher or data provider that declares which AI agents are authorized to sell its inventory or represent its data, and the type of relationship (direct, delegated or ad network).
An open standard, stewarded by AgenticAdvertising.org, that gives AI agents a shared language to discover, plan, buy and manage advertising across channels. It runs over MCP and A2A.
A cryptographic security specification that enables authentication of bid request information throughout the supply chain.
A text file placed on publishers' web servers that lists all authorized sellers of their digital inventory, helping to prevent unauthorized or misrepresented inventory sales.
A modeling concept that accounts for the lingering impact of advertising over time, including decay rates and cumulative brand building effects.
In ARTF, the declaration packaged with an agent container that lists its name, vendor, owner, supported intents, minimum compute resources and dependencies.
The use of autonomous AI agents to plan, buy, sell, negotiate and optimize media within limits set by a person or organization.
An open IAB Tech Lab standard for AI agents to describe, request and exchange audience signals in a privacy-preserving way. Formerly known as the User Context Protocol.
Commerce in which AI agents discover, evaluate and purchase products or services on behalf of people or businesses.
An open standard developed by OpenAI and Stripe for checkout and payment inside AI assistants, letting an agent complete a purchase on a user's behalf.
A venue where buyer and seller agents find each other, negotiate and transact, typically with identity verification and shared deal records.
The member organization that stewards the Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) and its related standards.
Contrasting approaches to media presence, either maintaining continuous presence or concentrating activity into high-impact periods.
Ads placed alongside or within an AI assistant's response to a user's question. This is ChatGPT's current core ad format.
The app equivalent of ads.txt, designed to help prevent unauthorized selling of in-app advertising inventory.
The spend level, volume or deal type at which a named person must sign off before an AI agent can commit.
An IAB Tech Lab specification that lets third-party agent services run as containers inside a host platform's infrastructure and propose changes to bid requests during the auction.
Measurements that go beyond basic viewability to assess the quality and depth of user engagement with advertising content.
The process of identifying and assigning credit to marketing touchpoints that contribute to a desired outcome or conversion.
The time period during which consumer actions are credited back to marketing exposure when analyzing campaign effectiveness.
The collection of factors and behaviors that influence how programmatic auctions function, including pricing mechanisms, timeout settings, and bidding strategies.
The ability to target specific audience segments across CTV inventory while maintaining household-level precision and privacy compliance.
A metric comparing the concentration of a target audience in a particular media vehicle to their concentration in the general population.
A programmatic supply path where every participant is verified and their role in the transaction is documented and validated.
The process of confirming that inventory sellers have legitimate relationships with the publishers they claim to represent.
A streaming service model where content is provided free or at a reduced cost in exchange for viewing advertisements.
Consumer behavior where viewers subscribe to or regularly use multiple ad-supported video streaming services.
The distinction between sales that would occur without marketing support (base) and additional sales generated specifically by marketing activities (incremental).
Measurement of how marketing activities increase performance above natural business baseline levels, controlling for seasonal and external factors.
The number of bids received in response to bid requests, often used as a measure of demand partner performance and auction competitiveness.
An algorithmic technique used in first-price auctions to help buyers bid optimally by estimating the minimum bid needed to win while avoiding overpayment.
The flow of bid requests, responses, and associated metadata between publishers and advertisers in programmatic advertising.
A record of agreed deal terms that the buyer and the seller each hold and can read independently.
A network of internet-connected devices infected with malware and controlled by a remote operator without the owners' knowledge.
A cross-industry group working to develop and implement brand safety standards and best practices.
Pre-bid filters that prevent ads from appearing alongside specific content categories or keywords deemed inappropriate or harmful to the brand.
Predetermined threshold levels that define the minimum acceptable content standards for ad placement.
In the AdCP ecosystem, a file where a brand declares the properties it owns or works with and the nature of each relationship (owned, direct or delegated).
A deprecated match type that allowed advertisers to specify that certain words must appear in any order for ads to show.
An AI agent acting on behalf of an advertiser or agency to discover inventory, evaluate offers and book media within a defined mandate.
In AdCP, always-on compliance that ties a campaign's transactions to its approved media plan and checks each one through three independent parties.
A unified, persistent database that creates a single customer profile from multiple data sources and makes this data accessible to other marketing systems.
The distribution of advertising investment across different media channels and platforms to achieve campaign objectives efficiently.
Methods for estimating the number of people watching content simultaneously on the same device, particularly in living room environments.
Guidelines specifying the minimum distance or time required between competing brand advertisements in the same media property.
A pricing model where advertisers pay only when a specific action (purchase, sign-up, etc.) is completed.
The cost an advertiser pays per thousand impressions of their ad.
The indirect positive impact that marketing activities in one channel have on performance in other channels or on overall brand metrics.
Coordinated frequency management across multiple devices and platforms to prevent oversaturation at the user level.
The process of tracking and assigning credit for user actions across multiple devices, channels, and platforms to understand the full customer journey.
Google’s Core Web Vitals (Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint and Cumulative Layout Shift) as measured in the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), a public dataset of real-user data from Chrome, reported at the 75th percentile over 28 days.
Television sets connected to the internet either directly (smart TVs) or through streaming devices.
Social media ads that don't appear on the advertiser's timeline and are only visible to targeted users.
The practice of dividing the day into time periods and adjusting media delivery based on audience behavior patterns and campaign objectives.
Technology that automatically generates and optimizes personalized ad creative based on data about the viewer, context, or both.
The net unique audience reached across multiple platforms or campaigns after accounting for overlap in viewership.
Tools and processes for finding and evaluating programmatic CTV deal opportunities across multiple supply sources and platforms.
A unique identifier that enables buyers and sellers to find each other in the open auction environment and execute pre-negotiated deals.
An IAB Tech Lab specification for passing deal terms from the system where a deal is created to the system that delivers it.
Breaking down total business performance into constituent contributing factors to understand the relative impact of different marketing and non-marketing drivers.
The process of analyzing and optimizing the path between advertisers and publishers to reduce waste and improve efficiency in programmatic advertising.
A mapping of relationships between different devices owned by the same household or user, used for cross-screen targeting and measurement.
The economic principle where continued investment in a marketing channel yields progressively smaller incremental returns beyond certain spending thresholds.
A specific designation in transparency files indicating that a seller has a direct relationship with the publisher rather than operating as an intermediary.
Google's former visual ad campaign type for YouTube, Gmail and Discover feeds. Google upgraded all Discovery campaigns to Demand Gen campaigns between late 2023 and March 2024.
A platform that collects, organizes, and activates first-, second-, and third-party audience data for digital marketing.
Software platform that allows advertisers to buy digital ad inventory across multiple exchanges through a single interface.
The ability to adjust the number and timing of advertisements shown to viewers based on factors like content type, viewer behavior, or inventory demand.
Real-time adjustment of media investment across channels and tactics based on performance data and optimization algorithms.
Real-time decisioning technology that determines the optimal combination of ads to serve within a commercial break based on campaign goals, frequency caps, and competitive separation rules.
A model in which an AI agent's authority expands in stages, with each expansion requiring evidence of performance and approval from a person.
The percentage of the target audience exposed to advertising at a frequency determined to be effective for achieving campaign objectives.
The percentage of people who interacted with your content (likes, comments, shares, clicks) divided by the total number of impressions or reach.
Streaming services that offer linear-style TV channels supported entirely by advertising revenue rather than subscriptions.
Data that a company collects directly from its customers or audience through owned channels and platforms.
An auction model where the winning bidder pays exactly what they bid, as opposed to the second-price model where they pay just above the second-highest bid.
Part of Google's Privacy Sandbox, a proposal for interest-based advertising that keeps user data local to the browser.
The specified start and end dates for an advertising campaign or specific tactical components within a larger campaign.
The planned distribution of advertising weight or pressure across a campaign period, whether continuous, pulsing, or flighting (on/off periods).
Google's retired proposal for cookie-less targeting that would have grouped users with similar browsing behaviors into cohorts for ad targeting.
The minimum price a publisher will accept for their ad inventory in programmatic auctions.
A restriction placed on the number of times an ad is shown to a unique user within a specified time period.
Aligning media tactics and investment with different stages of the consumer journey from awareness through consideration to conversion.
A programmatic advertising technique where publishers offer inventory to multiple ad exchanges simultaneously before making calls to their ad servers.
Implementation of simultaneous auction technology specifically adapted for connected TV environments to maximize yield and demand competition.
A software architecture that separates a system’s back end (data, content and business logic) from its user interface, exposing every capability through APIs so other applications and AI agents can use it directly.
An encryption method that allows mathematical operations to be performed on encrypted data without decrypting it first, producing results identical to those obtained from unencrypted data.
In ARTF, the SSP, DSP or exchange that runs third-party agent containers inside its own infrastructure, calls them during the auction and decides which proposed changes to apply.
An operating model in which a person must review and approve defined AI agent actions before they take effect.
A directory in the IAB Tech Lab Tools Portal where companies list the MCP and A2A agents they operate, which other agents can query.
A unique key attached to each request that changes data, so a repeated request has the same effect as the original and does not create duplicates.
The process of connecting multiple identifiers and data points to create a single, unified view of a customer across devices and touchpoints.
Experimental design that measures the net impact of advertising by comparing results between exposed and control groups.
In ARTF, the label attached to a mutation that states its purpose, such as adding metrics or activating a deal, so the host can decide whether to allow it.
Any activity that doesn't come from a legitimate user with genuine interest in the content, including both fraudulent and accidental non-human traffic.
Methods and protocols for verifying that ad inventory originates from claimed sources and hasn't been manipulated or misrepresented.
Quantifiable measurements used to evaluate the success of an advertising campaign in meeting specific objectives.
An ARTF rule that agents receive only the minimum bid request data the host allows, with private and competitive signals removed.
Google ad format for service businesses that displays Google-screened and verified professionals at the top of search results.
Detailed records of every auction, bid, and impression including timestamps, prices, targeting criteria, and outcome data.
Using data analytics to identify and target audiences that share characteristics with existing high-value customers.
A targeting method that uses algorithms to find users who share similar characteristics with your existing customers or best-performing audience segments.
The predicted total revenue a business expects to generate from a customer throughout their entire relationship.
The written set of limits that governs what an AI agent may do, typically covering budget, pricing, audiences, brand safety rules and the conditions that require human approval.
The collection of controllable and uncontrollable factors included in marketing mix models to explain business performance, including marketing tactics, competitive activity, seasonality, and macroeconomic conditions.
Mathematical models that describe the relationship between marketing investment levels and business outcomes, accounting for factors like diminishing returns and minimum effective spending levels.
Settings that control how closely a search query needs to match your keyword for your ad to enter the auction.
An automated bidding strategy that sets bids to help get the most conversion value for your campaign within a specified budget.
An open standard for connecting AI applications to external data sources, tools and workflows through a common interface. AdCP uses MCP as a transport layer.
In AdCP, the object representing a complete campaign, including its packages, budget, targeting and creatives.
Websites or content created primarily to generate advertising revenue rather than provide value to users.
A statistical analysis technique that uses historical data to estimate the impact of various marketing activities on sales and other business outcomes.
A third-party platform that specializes in attributing mobile app installs and post-install events across multiple advertising sources.
A method of attribution that assigns credit to multiple touchpoints along the customer journey rather than just the first or last interaction.
In ARTF, a single proposed change to an OpenRTB bid request, defined by an intent, an operation (add, replace or remove) and a path. The host accepts or rejects each mutation independently.
Keywords that prevent your ad from being triggered by certain words or phrases.
Content or ad inventory directly controlled by a media company rather than third-party affiliates or partners.
A standardized way for measurement providers to collect data from ads served in mobile apps and web video players.
A draft object in IAB Tech Lab's AAMP 3.0 work that describes what is being bought and sold in a structured format AI agents can parse.
A collaborative industry group that develops and maintains the OpenRTB protocol specifications for programmatic advertising.
Evaluation of potential returns from alternative media investments to optimize resource allocation.
In programmatic supply chain transparency, "originals" are direct publisher relationships while "intermediaries" are entities that resell inventory.
A metric that estimates the potential for an ad to be seen by the target audience, based on placement and delivery parameters.
In AdCP, a specific advertising product within a media buy, with its own pricing and targeting. It maps to the line item in a traditional ad server.
A unique identifier that tracks the flow of money through the programmatic supply chain, making it possible to reconcile who got paid what for each impression.
Google's automated campaign type that uses machine learning to optimize performance across all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign.
The use of automation and data to deliver tailored content or experiences to large audiences while maintaining efficiency.
An automated reservation-based buying method where publisher and advertiser agree to a fixed price and guaranteed volume delivered through programmatic pipes.
An invitation-only marketplace where select publishers make their ad inventory available to specific buyers through programmatic channels.
Curated bundles of premium inventory made available to select buyers through private marketplace deals, often themed around specific audiences or content types.
The duration and number of ad slots in a commercial break during streaming content.
The practice of grouping multiple video ads together in a single ad break, similar to traditional TV commercial breaks.
A framework for categorizing media opportunities based on whether they require direct investment (paid), exist on brand-controlled properties (owned), or are generated through organic audience actions (earned).
An industry initiative bringing together advertisers, agencies, publishers, and ad tech companies to develop and implement new standards for digital advertising privacy and addressability.
An open-source header bidding wrapper that manages multiple demand partners' bids before making calls to the ad server.
Collaborative working groups focused on developing and maintaining specific aspects of the Prebid open-source project.
A server-side implementation of Prebid that moves header bidding auctions from the browser to a dedicated server.
The maximum duration allowed for demand partners to respond with their bids before the auction proceeds without them.
A media buying model in which an agency buys ad inventory for its own account, then resells it to clients at a price the agency sets, acting as the principal in the transaction. The agency’s underlying media cost is typically not disclosed.
Google's initiative to build privacy-preserving web standards for advertising in Chrome. In October 2025, Google retired most of its APIs, including Topics, Protected Audience and Attribution Reporting.
Direct deals between specific publishers and advertisers executed through programmatic technology, often with guaranteed inventory levels and fixed pricing for CTV inventory.
An IAB Tech Lab initiative to rearchitect digital marketing in a way that balances personalization and privacy.
Statistical analysis that predicts the likelihood of specific audience segments to take desired actions or convert.
A programmatic advertising feature that allows publishers to define and control how multiple ads are grouped together within a commercial break.
A metric used by search engines to rate the quality and relevance of both your keywords and PPC ads, influencing your ad rank and cost per click.
Campaign objectives that specify the desired percentage of the target audience to be exposed to advertising (reach) and the optimal number of times each person should be exposed (frequency).
Additional inventory sources beyond a platform's owned and operated properties, often including third-party apps, websites, or devices.
A planning approach that prioritizes reaching consumers close to their purchase decision moment rather than building high frequency over time.
The practice of cryptographically signing an API request so the receiver can verify who sent it and detect whether it was altered in transit.
A proxy service that routes internet traffic through IP addresses assigned to real home internet connections, so the traffic appears to come from ordinary households.
A search ad format that automatically tests different combinations of headlines and descriptions to determine which performs best.
A marketing metric that measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.
An automated auction process where digital advertising inventory is bought and sold on a per-impression basis in real-time.
An AI agent acting on behalf of a publisher or seller to describe, price and sell inventory. In AdCP, a sales agent is an MCP server that exposes a publisher's inventory for discovery, buying and campaign management.
Assessment of the point at which additional marketing investment yields insufficient returns due to market or audience saturation.
Development of multiple media plan versions based on different budget levels, market conditions, or performance assumptions.
Technology and reporting capabilities that identify the physical dimensions of the screen where streaming content and advertisements are displayed.
A packaged set of code libraries and tools that developers bundle into their apps to add functionality such as ads, analytics, payments or measurement.
A Google tool that combines Search Console and Analytics data to provide content and search performance insights.
A report showing the actual search queries that triggered your ads and resulted in clicks.
A JSON file that SSPs and exchanges publish to list all the sellers (publishers and intermediaries) they work with, providing transparency about who's selling inventory.
The process of cross-referencing seller IDs across different supply chain transparency files to confirm the legitimacy of inventory sources.
The percentage of total advertising exposure within a specific market, category, or platform that can be attributed to a single brand or campaign.
In AdCP, a server that lets buyers discover and activate audience, contextual and other targeting signals, privately for one buyer or across a marketplace.
Invalid traffic that requires advanced analytics, multi-point corroboration or significant human intervention to detect, as defined in the MRC's Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines.
Apple's privacy-centric attribution framework for measuring app install campaigns without exposing user-level data.
Automated bid strategies that use machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value in each auction.
The psychological phenomenon where people look to the actions of others to determine their own behavior.
Media planning approach that aims to achieve or maintain a specific percentage of category advertising exposure relative to competitors.
A ChatGPT ad unit, announced by OpenAI on September 16, 2026, that opens a labeled conversation between a user and a brand's own AI agent inside ChatGPT.
An open standard within the AdCP ecosystem for branded, conversational experiences inside AI assistants. SI handles the engagement, while commerce protocols such as ACP handle transactions.
Technology that stitches advertising content into video streams at the server level rather than the client device.
Methods to validate that server-side ad insertion is functioning correctly and ads are being delivered as intended in streaming content.
In AdCP, a bundle of compliance tests that verifies an agent can perform the protocol tasks or specialisms it claims to support.
Detailed examination of all fees and charges applied to media transactions as they flow through the programmatic supply chain.
A component of the OpenRTB protocol that provides a complete record of all parties who are selling, reselling, or participating in the delivery of a bid request.
Industry-agreed protocols and specifications for documenting and sharing information about all participants in programmatic transactions.
The process of analyzing and optimizing programmatic supply paths to reduce redundancy, improve transparency, and maximize cost efficiency in the bid stream.
Analysis and selection of the most efficient and transparent paths to access CTV inventory through programmatic channels.
A scoring system that evaluates the efficiency, transparency, and legitimacy of different paths to purchasing the same inventory.
A proposed open-source framework for maintaining addressability in digital advertising while respecting user privacy preferences.
A cross-industry initiative to fight criminal activity and promote transparency in digital advertising.
A standardized classification system for digital advertising inventory that helps buyers and sellers speak the same language about content categories, ad units, and audience segments.
The process of implementing and managing digital advertising campaigns, including upload, testing, and monitoring of creative assets and campaign settings.
AdCP's real-time layer that matches packages to individual impressions, using separate context and identity checks. It replaced the earlier Agentic eXecution Engine (AXE).
An Android device built on the Android Open Source Project that has not passed Google's Play Protect certification and cannot legitimately access the Google Play Store.
A single auction environment where all demand sources compete simultaneously for CTV inventory, theoretically ensuring fair competition and optimal pricing.
Identity resolution frameworks that aim to provide consistent user identification across different platforms and environments while respecting privacy.
A Google-led open standard for checkout, payments and fulfillment inside AI assistants and agents.
A persistent identifier that can recognize users across different websites and platforms without relying on third-party cookies.
Identity resolution solutions designed to provide consistent audience identification across CTV apps and platforms while maintaining privacy compliance.
A script that provides information about which video ad to play, how the ad should play, and how it should be tracked.
Advanced video ad serving template specifications designed specifically for connected TV environments, including support for mezzanine file quality and interactive elements.
Standardized error codes that indicate various types of failures in video ad delivery and playback.
Third-party measurement of viewability, brand safety, and valid traffic that confirms proper ad delivery and engagement.
Ad traffic that has been authenticated as coming from actual human users rather than bots or other forms of invalid traffic.
A metric that tracks whether an ad impression was actually viewable by a human user, typically requiring 50% of display ad pixels to be in view for at least one continuous second.
Adjusting media investment based on historical or predicted viewability rates across different placements and partners.
A World Wide Web Consortium working group focused on developing web standards that support advertising use cases while protecting user privacy.
A closed ecosystem where the operator has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts access to non-native components.
A technology layer that manages multiple header bidding partners and their timeout settings while providing unified reporting and analytics.
Data that a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand, often through surveys, preferences, or profile information.
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