Advertising Glossary

How it works The creative combines a clear action with a reason to take it.

Purpose It moves people from passive attention toward measurable interaction. With a StoryCode, the CTA should tell viewers both that they should scan and what they will receive after scanning.

For newbies A CTA is the part of the ad that says, “Here is what we want you to do now.”

Fun fact “Scan the QR code” is technically an instruction but usually a weaker proposition than explaining the benefit: “Scan to unlock 20% off.”

How it works Depending on the platform, the viewer selects an on-screen card with the remote or interacts through a paired device; deep linking can then open a specific destination inside an app.

Purpose It creates a lower-friction response path from television advertising.

For newbies Instead of finding an app yourself after seeing a TV commercial, you press a button and the TV helps take you directly there.

Fun fact “Click-to-app card” is not one universal cross-platform standard — implementations vary by TV operating system, publisher and advertising product.

How it works When an ad break arrives, the player requests an ad — often using VAST — loads it and then returns to the content.

Purpose It provides flexible ad selection and tracking on the device.

For newbies With CSAI, your TV app stops the show, fetches the commercial, plays it and then continues the show.

Fun fact CSAI is the conceptual opposite of SSAI, where the server stitches content and ads together before delivery.

How it works Video players send tracking events as an ad reaches milestones such as 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.

Purpose It indicates whether viewers remained with the video through its duration.

For newbies It tells you how often people got to the end of your video ad, not necessarily how carefully they watched it.

Fun fact A 100% completion does not necessarily mean 100% attention — a TV can continue playing while the viewer looks at a phone or leaves the room.

How it works Apps and streaming services deliver content and advertisements through internet-connected TV environments.

Purpose CTV combines the impact of a large television screen with digital targeting and measurement possibilities. StoryCodes can add an explicit phone-based interaction to a CTV creative without requiring the viewer to navigate the television interface.

For newbies If you watch streaming television through an internet-connected TV, you are watching CTV.

Fun fact CTV describes the viewing environment/device, whereas OTT describes delivery of content over the internet.

Sources: IAB , IAB

How it works Advertisers define actions — purchases, registrations, bookings, downloads, coupon claims — and measure when users complete them.

Purpose Conversions connect advertising to business outcomes. A StoryCode scan can itself be treated as an engagement or micro-conversion, while subsequent actions can be measured separately.

For newbies The ad asked someone to do something, and they actually did it.

Fun fact “Conversion” does not always mean a sale; even a completed lead form can be the campaign’s main conversion.

How it works If a campaign costs €5,000 and generates 100 defined actions, the CPA is €50.

Purpose It evaluates advertising in terms of business outcomes rather than exposure alone.

For newbies CPA tells you how much advertising money you spent, on average, to get one result.

Fun fact The “A” can mean acquisition or action depending on the platform and campaign, so marketers should always define it.

How it works Media inventory is priced or compared according to the cost of delivering one thousand impressions.

Purpose CPM is one of the fundamental currencies for buying and comparing advertising reach.

For newbies CPM answers: “How much does it cost me to show this ad one thousand times?”

Fun fact “Mille” is Latin for one thousand — which is why CPM contains an M rather than a T.

How it works If €10,000 of media and creative generates 2,000 scans, CPS is €5.

Purpose For StoryCodes, CPS can add a direct-response KPI on top of traditional measures such as impressions and reach. It should not be confused with cost per conversion because not every scanner will ultimately buy.

For newbies Instead of asking only what it cost to show the ad, you ask what it cost to make one person actively scan it.

Fun fact CPS is useful but is not a universally standardized advertising metric in the way CPM is.

How it works Identity solutions, authenticated data, clean rooms or probabilistic techniques can associate the different events.

Purpose It helps marketers connect a TV impression with a later mobile or web action. A StoryCode creates a simpler explicit bridge at the moment of interaction because the viewer deliberately moves from the TV or physical ad to their phone.

For newbies You see an ad on your television but buy on your phone. Cross-device attribution tries to connect those two events.

Fun fact Cross-device attribution is one reason identity graphs became important to CTV advertising.

How it works A curator combines qualifying inventory and makes it available to buyers programmatically, commonly through deal IDs.

Purpose It aims to combine programmatic scale with more control and transparency than a completely open marketplace.

For newbies Instead of shopping through the entire advertising supermarket, someone has already assembled a basket of the places most relevant to you.

Fun fact A curated deal can include inventory from several publishers rather than being tied to a single media owner.

How it works Participating organizations transform authenticated information into privacy-conscious pseudonymous identifiers that can be used across compatible advertising systems.

Purpose It provides an alternative identity mechanism as third-party cookies and other legacy signals decline.

For newbies Instead of websites recognizing you with lots of separate cookies, participating companies use a protected code that can help them recognize the same user while keeping the actual email or phone number out of the ad transaction.

Fun fact EUID is based on the UID2 technology framework but adds European-specific privacy and consent requirements.

Source: euid.eu

How it works If a campaign reaches 50% of the target audience an average of two times, it delivers 100 GRPs.

Purpose GRPs allow advertisers to compare the overall weight of broadcast campaigns.

For newbies It is an old-school TV score that combines how many people you reached with how often you reached them.

Fun fact 100 GRPs does not mean every person saw an advertisement once — many different combinations of reach and frequency can produce 100 GRPs.

How it works Examples include account IDs, mobile advertising IDs, hashed emails and privacy-preserving identity tokens.

Purpose Identifiers can enable targeting, frequency management, attribution and audience matching.

For newbies It is like giving each device or customer a number so a system can recognize that it has seen the same one before.

Fun fact An identifier does not necessarily reveal someone's name; many advertising identifiers are deliberately pseudonymous.

How it works It creates relationships between signals such as logins, hashed emails, devices, browsers, CRM IDs and sometimes offline data using deterministic or probabilistic matching.

Purpose Identity graphs support cross-device targeting, frequency control, personalization and attribution.

For newbies Imagine a map showing that your laptop, phone and smart TV probably belong to the same household.

Fun fact A person may generate dozens of digital identifiers even though they are only one human being.

How it works The ad system records an event when defined delivery conditions are met.

Purpose Impressions are the basic unit behind many media metrics and pricing models such as CPM.

For newbies The system says, “We showed the ad once.” It does not automatically mean someone actually looked at it.

Fun fact An impression does not necessarily mean a human paid attention to the ad.

How it works Experiments compare a treatment group exposed or eligible for the advertising intervention with an appropriate control group.

Purpose It separates true advertising impact from sales or actions that would have occurred anyway.

For newbies If 100 people bought after your ad, incrementality asks the harder question: “How many of those people bought because of the ad?”

Fun fact A campaign can have many attributed conversions but much lower incremental conversions if many customers would have bought regardless.

Source: Google Help

How it works Services can include campaign execution, media buying, content creation, data, email, SEO, analytics and lead generation.

Purpose MSPs allow organizations to access specialist capabilities without building all of them internally.

For newbies It is a specialist company hired to do parts of another company's marketing work.

Fun fact An MSP can operate behind an agency or brand without consumers ever knowing its name.

How it works Measurement vendors ingest media, panel, device, sales or exposure data and produce standardized metrics or studies.

Purpose They provide evidence about whether media was delivered and what effect it had.

For newbies It is like hiring an independent referee to check what your advertising actually achieved.

Fun fact In CTV, independent measurement has become particularly important because viewing is spread across many devices, operating systems and streaming services.

How it works Media buyers choose channels, publishers, deal types, budgets and bidding strategies and then execute the purchases directly or through platforms such as DSPs.

Purpose Their job is to obtain effective media exposure at an appropriate price.

For newbies The agency decides where an ad should appear; the media buyer actually goes out and buys those places.

Fun fact Modern programmatic media buyers increasingly manage software and data rather than negotiating every placement manually.

How it works The normal video is paused and the platform replaces or supplements the paused screen with a usually static or lightweight advertising unit until playback resumes. Google's YouTube Pause Ads, for example, appear on CTV after the content has been paused for ten seconds.

Purpose Pause Ads use a viewer-initiated break rather than interrupting the program itself, making them particularly suitable for QR and StoryCode interaction.

For newbies You pause your show to answer the door, and instead of a frozen picture the TV shows an ad. Because the screen stays there, you have plenty of time to scan a StoryCode.

Fun fact Research summarized by eMarketer found that 54% of surveyed streaming viewers paused for 1–5 minutes and another 24% for 30–60 seconds — dramatically longer than most conventional ad exposures.

Sources: Google Help , EMARKETER

How it works The platform records validated scans and bills according to a predefined rate or hybrid pricing model.

Purpose It brings performance-style commercial logic to traditionally non-clickable media.

For newbies Instead of paying only because an ad was shown, the advertiser pays partly because somebody actually scanned it.

Fun fact Unlike CPM, pay-per-scan is not an established universal media-buying currency, which means scan validity, fraud rules and attribution need to be defined contractually.

How it works Campaigns are optimized toward metrics such as leads, purchases, installations, sign-ups or cost per acquisition.

Purpose It connects media spending closely to measurable results. StoryCodes can introduce performance signals such as scans and post-scan actions into TV, OOH, print and packaging environments that historically relied heavily on reach and awareness.

For newbies Instead of saying “a million people probably saw our ad,” performance marketers want to know, “What did people actually do afterward?”

Fun fact Performance marketing and brand advertising increasingly overlap rather than existing as completely separate disciplines.

How it works A publisher or seller creates a deal — commonly identified by a deal ID — that eligible DSP buyers can activate.

Purpose PMPs provide more control, transparency or premium inventory than an open exchange while keeping the transaction programmatic.

For newbies Instead of an auction that everybody can enter, the seller creates a private auction for approved buyers.

Fun fact A PMP is not the same thing as “programmatic” itself; it is one particular way of transacting programmatically.

How it works Platforms such as DSPs, SSPs and exchanges evaluate opportunities and transact according to targeting, pricing and campaign rules.

Purpose It replaces much of the manual process of contacting publishers, booking placements and managing delivery.

For newbies Instead of people phoning each other to buy every ad space, computers do most of the buying automatically.

Fun fact “Programmatic” describes how media is transacted, not a particular type of advertisement. A billboard, video or CTV placement can all be bought programmatically.

Source: IAB

How it works Publishers expose eligible CTV impressions through ad-tech infrastructure and DSPs evaluate and purchase them using data, deal rules or real-time bidding.

Purpose It gives advertisers scalable access to TV-screen audiences with digital-style buying and targeting.

For newbies The computer buys the TV ad automatically, and data may also help decide which household receives it.

Fun fact Programmatic CTV can be addressable, but “programmatic” describes the buying mechanism whereas “addressable” describes who receives which ad.

Source: IAB Tech Lab

How it works Screens or groups of screens expose inventory digitally, allowing buyers to activate campaigns according to parameters such as location, time, audience signals and sometimes weather or other context. OAAA defines programmatic DOOH around automation of DOOH sales transactions.

Purpose It makes public-screen advertising faster, more flexible and data-driven. StoryCodes can add a measurable interaction layer to the creative displayed on those screens.

For newbies It is automated online-style ad buying, except the advertisement appears on a real screen in the street.

Fun fact The ad can change programmatically without the physical screen moving or being replaced.

Source: OAAA

How it works The commercial terms are fixed rather than determined through an open real-time auction.

Purpose It combines the certainty of a direct media deal with programmatic workflow efficiency.

For newbies The advertiser reserves the seats in advance, but software handles the booking and delivery.

Fun fact “Programmatic” does not always mean “auction.” Programmatic Guaranteed is the clearest example.

How it works Technology helps identify and purchase suitable programs, channels or audience opportunities, while the advertisement may still be broadcast to everyone watching that feed.

Purpose It brings automation and data into traditional TV buying.

For newbies It is old-fashioned television with a smarter automated system for deciding where to buy the commercials.

Fun fact Programmatic Linear TV does not automatically mean addressable TV — automated buying and personalized delivery are separate capabilities.

How it works Publishers make their ad opportunities available directly or through ad servers, SSPs and exchanges.

Purpose They monetize audiences and content by selling advertising access.

For newbies The publisher owns the place where the audience is watching, so it owns or controls the ad space around that content.

Fun fact In CTV, a publisher might be a television network, a streaming app, a FAST channel or another content service.

How it works Identity-resolution processes convert and connect underlying authenticated or customer signals to pseudonymous RampIDs, including person- and household-level identifiers.

Purpose It supports identity resolution, audience activation and measurement without putting raw personal identifiers into every advertising transaction.

For newbies Different companies may know you by different IDs; RampID tries to provide them with a privacy-conscious common reference so compatible systems can recognize the same person or household.

Fun fact RampID was previously known as IdentityLink.

Source: LiveRamp

How it works Platforms deduplicate impressions against the best available audience identifiers or measurement methodology.

Purpose It tells advertisers how broadly their campaign spread.

For newbies Reach counts how many different people you got to, rather than how many times the ad was shown.

Fun fact One million impressions can produce far less than one million reach because the same person may receive several impressions.

How it works When an eligible impression becomes available, participating buyers evaluate it and submit bids; the winning eligible bid receives the opportunity according to the auction rules.

Purpose It allows media value and targeting decisions to happen impression by impression.

For newbies While the content is loading, computers conduct a tiny auction to decide which ad gets the space.

Fun fact RTB is only one form of programmatic advertising; PMP and Programmatic Guaranteed deals can also be programmatic without operating as a fully open auction.

How it works With an appropriate identifier, consent and lawful basis, the prior interaction can place someone into an audience that advertising platforms can activate later.

Purpose It focuses follow-up advertising on people who have already shown interest. A StoryCode interaction can become a useful retargeting signal when the necessary consent and platform integrations are in place.

For newbies You looked at a pair of shoes yesterday; today the shoe company reminds you about them somewhere else.

Fun fact Retargeting is often why you see ads for a product shortly after visiting its website.

How it works When a webpage, ad or application loads or triggers the relevant event, it sends a request containing permitted campaign and contextual information to an analytics or advertising system.

Purpose Pixels support measurement, optimization and — where legally permitted — audience creation or retargeting.

For newbies It is an invisible signal that tells an analytics system, “This page or event just happened.”

Fun fact A “pixel” does not necessarily have to be a visible 1×1 image anymore; the term is often used for the tracking mechanism more generally.

How it works A VAST response can tell the player which media file to play, where tracking events should be sent, which interactive or verification resources apply and other instructions.

Purpose It lets video advertising work consistently across many publishers, platforms and devices.

For newbies VAST is like a standardized instruction sheet delivered with a video ad telling the TV or video player what to play and what to measure.

Fun fact The current published generation is VAST 4.3; the original VAST 1.0 is no longer supported. VAST also distinguishes InLine responses containing the ad information directly from Wrapper responses that point the player to another VAST source.

Source: IAB Tech Lab

How it works Measurement signals are collected from supported players, apps and ad systems and compared with verification rules.

Purpose It gives advertisers independent evidence about the quality of the media they purchased. Open Measurement was specifically designed to standardize access to such measurement signals.

For newbies It is an independent inspector checking that your digital advertising was delivered properly and not wasted on fake traffic.

Fun fact Verification can confirm that an ad was technically on screen, but it still cannot guarantee that a human actually paid attention to it.

Source: IAB Tech Lab

How it works A VMAP response indicates where advertising breaks should occur and points the player toward the corresponding ad resources.

Purpose It lets content owners describe an ad-break schedule even when they do not control the final video player or distribution platform.

For newbies VMAP tells the player, “Put commercial breaks here, here and here”; VAST tells it what commercial to play.

Fun fact VMAP organizes the breaks, while VAST primarily describes the ads that are played within those advertising workflows.

Source: IAB Belgium

How it works Advertising code could execute inside the player and control or report interactive behaviour.

Purpose VPAID helped enable rich interactive video ads, but its security, performance and interoperability limitations led the industry toward newer standards.

For newbies VPAID was an old way for an interactive ad to control parts of a video player; SIMID is the newer, safer approach.

Fun fact IAB Tech Lab now lists VPAID as deprecated and replaced by SIMID for interactive use cases.

Source: IAB Tech Lab