Essential Glossary of Advertising Terms
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With new fields of advertising and terms created frequently in today’s digital age, it has become difficult to remember what everything means. At Media Place Partners, we’ve created a glossary of advertising terms that we think are most important in all fields of advertising.
Meet the glossary of advertising terms:
Broadcast TV Advertising Terms
Digital Advertising Terms
Display Advertising Terms
General Marketing Terms
Out-of-Home (OOH) Marketing Terms
Over-the-Top (OTT) Advertising Terms
Print Advertising Terms
Radio Advertising Terms
Social Media Marketing Terms
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Glossary of advertising terms: Broadcast TV advertising
Addressable TV – When viewers in different households experience different advertisements while watching the same program.
Integrated Segments – A term used to describe when advertisers merge different segments by either preferences or behavior.
Product Placement – When an advertiser pays to put their brand in a television show or movie to promote their product.
Rating – Average audience per minute of a program.
Share – Used to describe the percentage of a target audience exposed to the media.
Scatter – The process of buying and selling TV inventory that has not been transacted in the upfront.
Spot Length – Used to describe the length of the advertisement.
Upfront – In the television industry, an upfront is a gathering at the start of important advertising sales periods.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Digital advertising
Ad Exchange – A system in which advertisers, publishers, and networks buy and sell inventory.
Data Providers – Companies who build and maintain the profiles of users on the internet, this allows advertisers to use these profiles for targeting campaign targeting purposes.
Landing Page – The destination on which a user lands after clicking an ad.
Real-Time Bidding – The process of bidding by using automated actions in real-time. Bid uses the past performance of ads and other statistics to generate dynamically.
Specs – Is a term that refers to the file size and the ad server of your creative unit.
Static – Used to describe creatives that feature no animation.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Display advertising
Banner Ads – A form of advertisement which is a rectangular image-based ad. These ads stretch across the top, side, or bottom of a webpage.
Contextual Data – Information on the contents of a webpage that the user is viewing.
Display Advertising – Form of digital advertising where your advertisements are shown on various websites.
Dynamic Ads – Banners that change automatically to adapt content specifically for each user.
HTML5 – The current markup language of the internet. Stands for Hypertext Markup Language Version 5.
Opt-In – When a company is given permission by an individual to use data collected by them for a specific reason.
Retargeting – The act of targeting a user who has performed an action in the past and is more likely to do the same action in the future.
Rich Media – Banner ads that offer the ability of user interaction.
Run-Of-Network – Scheduling of online advertising across the sites an ad network represents.
Viewability – Used to measure whether an ad has been seen by the user (different from impressions).
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Glossary of advertising terms: General marketing
Action – A metric that measures how many times a listener completed an action following listening to an audio advertisement.
Ad Servers – Advertising technology that is used by advertisers to manage campaigns.
Agency – Acts as an extension of an advertiser’s brand or marketing team.
Call To Action (CTA) – A prompt for the viewer to act. Clickbait- Headline that is used to attract people to their website yet does not contain information that is relevant to the actual content.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – Unit of measurement used to measure how many times users click on ads. Calculated by dividing impressions by clicks.
Conversion – When a user completes an action that the advertiser desires on a page. For example, making a purchase, leaving a review, sharing products with a friend.
Cost Per Thousand (CPM) – Cost of delivering a thousand impressions to the members of a specific audience.
Cross-Platform – Involves marketing music across multiple platforms and streaming services.
Currency – When a media buy is negotiated between buyers and sellers.
Flight Dates – The start and end dates of an advertising campaign.
Frequency – The average number of times a listener has the opportunity to hear an advertisement in a given time.
Impression – A unit of measurement for how many times an advertisement is presented to a user.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) – A numerical goal that is set for a facet of your campaign that measures performance.
Lift – The amount of improvement that is the result of a new campaign.
Reach – The total number of people who have seen a post.
Remnant – Any ad units that have not been purchased by an advertiser.
Share of Voice (SOV) – Percentage of total advertising weight per brand in a competitive set.
Specs – The file size and the ad server of your creative unit.
Supply-Side Platform (SSP) – An advertising platform that is utilized by publishers to sell their available inventory space.
Visit – A metric that indicates the number of times listeners visit the marketer’s website following listening to the ad.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Out-of-Home (OOH) marketing
Ad Retention – A metric that measures the number of consumers who remember seeing the ad in an OOH display.
Copy Area – The viewing area of an OOH Unit.
Dwell Time – Used to describe an interval time when a consumer is near an OOH advertisement.
Exposure – The measure of actual eye contact with an OOH advertisement.
Illumination – The action of supplying or brightening a poster with light from above or behind.
Message Duration – Interval of time when a digital OOH advertising message is viewed.
Minimum Booking – Minimum period that a client can book a location or site.
Out-of-Home Advertising (OOH) – Any form of media and/or advertising which targets and impacts consumers when out of their home.
Snipe – An adhesive stripe that is used to cover up a portion of copy displayed on an OOH advertisement.
Tri-Vision – An OOH unit with a face that allows three different copies to revolve at different times.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Over-the-Top (OTT) advertising
Aggregators – Services that scan multiple video streaming publishers to list movies available on various platforms.
Linear TV – Type of television that was available prior to on-demand programs.
Over-The-Top Advertisement – Ability to bypass traditional TV providers that control media distribution.
Video on Demand – Video content that is available to watch whenever a viewer chooses to do so.
Viewers – People who are watching streaming content.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Print advertising
Above the Fold – When an advertisement can be read in a newspaper without opening it, making it more valuable for potential customers who do not even need to read the paper.
Agate Line – A space one column wide and ¹/₁₄ inch deep.
Circulation – The number of copies of an advertisement that have been made.
Checkerboard – Advertising in magazines that use diagonal or half-page ads that alternate with the editorial.
Double Truck – A newspaper ad unit that uses two facing full pages.
Direct Response – Promotions that request the reader to directly reach out to the advertiser.
Line Rate – Cost per agate line for newspaper.
Placement – The purchase of space within a publication.
Readership – Metric used to measure the number of readers per issue.
Readers Per Copy – Average number of readers per copy published.
Split Run – Scheduling two or more appearances of an advertisement in alternate copies of a magazine’s circulation in an issue.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Radio advertising
Audience Composition – Used to describe the demographic profile of a station’s audience.
Cluster – A group of stations in the same market under the same ownership or management.
Companion Impression – A metric that indicates how many visual displays accompany the audio ad.
Coverage Area – The geographic area that is covered by the signal of a station.
Fixed Position – Commerical scheduled to run at a specific time.
Gross Rating Points (GRPs) – Sum of all rating points achieved.
Live Read – A specific type of commercial when the announcement is read live on-air by a station personality.
Net Reach – Number of people who will hear the commercial at least once.
Piggy-Back – When two commercials are scheduled to run back-to-back who are owned by the same advertiser.
Rating Point – the number of people who watch or listen to a television or radio program, expressed as a percentage of the total possible audience.
Rotation – The process in which commercials are distributed across days and hours of a purchased time period.
Sponsorship – Purchase of a radio program or a specific feature.
Unit – Used to describe a singular commercial message regardless of length.
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Glossary of advertising terms: Social media marketing
Brand Hashtags – A hashtag that features the brand name or motto, used primarily for branding purposes.
Dark Social – Area of social media where analytics are unable to be used.
Engagement Rate – Metric that is used to measure audience engagement with content.
Geo Tagging – A feature that is offered by social media networks for using location-based sharing. For example, taking a picture and then tagging your location.
Influencer – A person who has significant influence within their fan base.
Optimization – A process in which content is modified based on its performance.
Social Media Optimization (SMO) – Set of practices that are used to generate publicity throughout social media.
Viral – A description used for when a piece of content’s popularity has grown rapidly across platforms.
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Congrats! You’ve made it to the end of our glossary of advertising terms. Whether you’re a veteran or a newcomer to advertising, we hope you are more confident in your knowledge of common industry terms. There’s a ton more out there to know – if you have any questions over something we didn’t cover, don’t hesitate to reach out!