Digital Cheat Sheet

0–9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
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  • — 0–9 —
  • ‘360-degree videos,’ also called immersive videos, are panoramic videos shot using an omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras. Viewers can manually explore the video in 360 degrees, usually by clicking and dragging. A virtual reality headset is necessary—though many 360-degree videos are also accessible in full VR.
  • ‘4K video’ has a resolution of 3840 pixels × 2160 lines (or 8.3 megapixels, with an aspect ratio of 16:9). No idea what that means? That’s okay, Cynopsis Digital can translate for you: As its “Ultra HD” moniker would suggest, 4K video is, well, ultra-high definition. In fact, it’s the highest definition video format commonly used by consumers. An increasing number of devices and services, including Netflix, are starting to make use of 4K video.
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  • — A —
  • In online advertising, ‘above the fold ads’ are ads that are visible to webpage visitors without any scrolling. Typically, publishers will charge higher rates for above the fold inventory. “Above the fold” was originally a newspaper term.
  • ‘Ad mediation’ technology sends advertising requests to multiple ad networks in order to help publishers find the best available network to fill their ad slots. Publishers first rank ad networks in order of preference; the mediation platform then tries the top-ranked network.
  • ‘Ad ops,’ short for ‘ad operations,’ is a broad term referring to the technical tasks, processes and systems that support the delivery and sale of online advertising. Well-executed ad ops ensure good inventory management and smooth delivery for insertion orders.
  • ‘Ad server’ refers to the technology and service that places ads on websites. Ad serving technology companies generally provide software to advertisers and websites to help serve ads, count them, choose the ones that will make the website or advertiser the most money, and monitor the progress of different campaigns.
  • In ad tech, a ‘stack’ refers to a single vendor that offers a variety of marketing services. Stacks are designed to consolidate the steps of ad-buying, ad-selling, inventor management, billing, measurement, and reporting into a single integrated software suite. Depending on which package is chosen, services such as social media, search, retargeting, and offline media might also be part of the offering.
  • ‘Advertainment’ refers to a video ad that uses storytelling to communicate a brand message. More specifically, it typically refers to video creative that prioritizes entertainment over advertising, and that clocks in at over sixty seconds in length.
  • In online advertising, ‘affiliate marketing’ refers to an agreement between an advertiser and a publisher in which the publisher receives compensation for every click delivered, and/or for every sale made of the advertiser’s service or product.
  • In digital advertising, a ‘trading desk’ is a centralized management platform used by ad agencies that specialize in programmatic media and audience buying. Trading desks are generally layered on top of demand-side platforms (DSPs), or other audience-buying technology. In addition to planning and buying media, trading desks usually measure results and report audience insights to clients.
  • API
    ‘API’ is short for ‘application programming interface.’ An API is a set of protocols and tools for building software applications. APIs specify how software components should interact. For a third-party developer to incorporate another company’s software application into its own technology, the developer needs access to the original API.
  • In marketing, ‘attribution’ refers to the process of identifying a set of user actions (also known as “events” or “touchpoints”) that contribute to a desired outcome, and then giving each of those actions a specific value. The goal is for marketers to enhance their understanding of which combinations of events, in which particular order, can effectively influence consumers to engage in a desired behavior. With the rise of digital platforms and the growing availability of sophisticated data-gathering tools, attribution models have grown increasingly prevalent – and increasingly important.
  • While virtual reality creates a wholly simulated environment for the user, ‘augmented reality,’ or ‘AR,’ creates computer-generated sensory information - images, videos, sounds, graphics, etc. - within a real-world environment. (The Pokémon Go app is currently the most famous example of AR.) In the long run, most analysts expect the AR industry to be larger than the VR industry.
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  • — B —
  • A company engages in ‘throttling’ over a wireless mobile network when it manually limits the speed of users’ data connections. In the case of video, throttling data inevitably leads to lower quality.
  • ‘Behavioral data’ is data that’s collected about an individual’s behavior, to be used for marketing purposes. In digital marketing, behavioral data is mostly collected online, though there are offline sources of behavioral data as well. Among other types of behavioral data, marketers often record activity and comments on social media and on websites.
  • ‘Behavioral targeting’ refers to the use of behavioral data (i.e., previous online user activity, such as content viewed, searches, or pages viewed) to generate a segment that is then used to match advertising creative to users.
  • ‘Bounce rate,’ also called ‘abandonment rate,’ refers to the percentage of a webpage’s visitors who exit without visiting another page on the site. A high bounce rate can alarm publishers: It may mean that something about the site is failing to compel users to stick around.
  • In online advertising, ‘brand safety’ refers to practices and tools that are used to make sure that an advertiser’s brand is not damaged due to inappropriate or improper placement of ads. For instance, let’s a say a Jack Daniel’s banner ad was placed directly above an article about the dangers of alcohol abuse; that would be a glaring brand safety failure.
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  • — C —
  • ‘Carousel ads’ are an advertising format in which several items – such as videos, photos, or text – are displayed and rotate within a banner. Users generally scroll through the items manually, making the format interactive.
  • In digital advertising, ‘click-through rate’ refers to the percentage of people visiting a page who access a link to a particular ad. It’s a vital metric for judging the success of an online ad campaign.
  • The ‘client-side’ refers to operations that are performed by the client in a client–server relationship in a computer network. Generally, a client is a computer application (such as a web browser) that runs on a user's local computer and connects to a server.
  • ‘Computer vision’ is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the ways in which computers can be made to gain high-level understanding from videos or digital images. From an engineering standpoint, computer vision seeks to automate tasks that the human visual system can perform.
  • ‘A connected TV’ (or ‘CTV’) is a television set that is connected to the Internet via OTT devices, Blu-ray players and gaming consoles, or has built-in Internet capabilities (in other words, a so-called ‘smart TV’). Connected TVs can generally access short- and long-form web-based content.
  • The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) defines a ‘content distribution network’ as a service that hosts online assets and provides content management via servers located around the globe in order to reduce the latency of downloads to users.
  • A ‘Content Management System’ (‘CMS’) is an online application that allows a user to draft, edit, share, index, and schedule digital content. A CMS often supports multiple workers in a collaborative environment.
  • In digital video advertising, The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) defines ‘Cost Per Point (CPP)’ as a pricing model where the advertiser only pays for a video start. CPP is typically sold at 1000 impressions.
  • In online video advertising, ‘cost per view’ is a pricing model where the advertiser only pays for a video start. Cost per view is typically sold at 1000 impressions, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
  • CPA
    ‘CPA,’ short for ‘cost per action,’ is an online advertising pricing model in which an advertiser pays for each specified action – for instance, an impression, a sale, or a click.
  • CPM
    ‘CPM,’ short for ‘cost per mille,’ is a measurement metric referring to the cost of an ad reaching 1,000 members of its audience. Digital display ads are generally sold under a CPM system.
  • ‘Cross-device targeting’ refers to serving the same consumer targeted ads across more than one device. Effective cross-device targeting enables advertisers to reach audiences repetitively, regardless of which devices they’re using.
  • CTA
    ‘CTA’ is short for ‘call to action.’ In digital marketing, a CTA is a phrase, included within an ad or a graphic element, that invites the audience to take a certain action.
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  • — D —
  • ‘Data onboarding’ – sometimes called ‘data on-ramping’ – is the process of transferring offline data into actionable digital data. Vendors specializing in data onboarding will use a company’s offline data – such as customer email addresses, phone numbers, or sales transaction data – to gather digital information about those customers, such as their Facebook profiles or their Twitter handles. An effective onboarding campaign would also yield customer data such as interests, tweets, and social media statuses. The end result: digitally addressable consumers, and a richer array of data about them.
  • A new film is said to receive a ‘day-and-date release’ when it debuts simultaneously in theaters and on online distribution platforms. 2015’s Beasts of No Nation, which premiered on Netflix and in theaters on the same day, is one example.
  • ‘Device-agnosticism’ refers to the capacity of a computing component to work with various systems without the need for special adaptations. A device-agnostic mobile app, for instance, would be compatible with most operating systems, and might also work on different types of devices (tablets, smartphones, etc.).
  • ‘DoubleClick Bid Manager’ is Google’s programmatic demand-side-platform. Among other things, advertisers can buy YouTube video ad inventory through the platform.
  • DRM
    ‘DRM,’ short for ‘digital rights management,’ is the practice of technologically restricting what users can and can’t do with digital media content. Next time you find yourself unable to download or copy a video or music file - you’re being restricted by DRM controls. For a consumer, effective DRM restrictions can be a bummer. For a publisher, they’re an absolute necessity.
  • DSP
    ‘DSP’ is an abbreviation for ‘demand-side platform.’ A DSP is a system that lets digital ad buyers manage multiple ad exchange and data exchange accounts through a single interface. Or, to translate it into English, it’s a piece of software that allows buyers to purchase advertising – generally display, video, mobile, and search ads – in an automated fashion.
  • ‘Dynamic ad insertion’ technology allows advertisers to remove the ads that aired during initial broadcast, replacing them with new ads. The technology can theoretically be used across all VOD platforms, both cable and digital. Many networks and tech companies have touted DAI’s potential ability to let advertisers precisely target different households based on specific characteristics – a concept known as ‘addressability.’
  • ‘Dynamic creative’ refers to video ad creative that’s customized in advance and/or is able to be transformed upon delivery. The “transformation” in question would be geared toward more precise targeting of audience segments. Customization features might include delivering a specific combination of ad content, such as background images, copy, and the color and size of a call-to-action button.
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  • — E —
  • ‘Earned content’ is content that is created and shared to social and digital platforms by fans of a marketer’s message – as opposed to the marketer itself.
  • In tech, the phrase ‘end-to-end solution’ refers to when the supplier of an application, system, or program provides all the hardware and/or software components and resources necessary to meet the customer’s needs. When a supplier provides a truly end-to-end solution, no other supplier needs to be involved.
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  • — F —
  • In virtual reality, ‘field of view’ refers to the area that’s visible to a user at one time. In the real world, a human being’s field of view is about 170 degrees. With modern-day VR headsets, field of view generally ranges from 90 to 120 degrees. Considering that previous generations of VR headsets featured a field of view closer to 40 degrees, that’s pretty good. Still, there’s room for improvement.
  • In programmatic video, ‘first look’ refers to a situation in which the media-seller gives certain buyers first priority in access to ad inventory. For instance, a publisher selling its inventory through two ad networks might give the first ad network a chance to buy the inventory first. If the network passes, the publisher would then offer the inventory to other buyers.
  • ‘First party data’ is information compiled about visitors’ direct relationships with particular sites. ‘Second party data,’ which is provided by digital media companies or by advertisers, refers to information previously aggregated from online and offline sources. And ‘third party data’ refers to descriptive data than can be collected by outside vendors in order to create broad sets of data segments.
  • As a general rule in online advertising, showing users the same ad too many times will lead to diminished response, and possibly to lasting hostility toward one’s brand. That’s where ‘frequency capping’ comes in. Ad-buyers use frequency caps to restrict the number of times that a specific website visitor is shown a specific advertisement. The restriction is applied to all websites serving ads from the same advertising network.
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  • — G —
  • In virtual or augmented reality, ‘gaze control’ refers to a user’s ability to control an interface and navigate an experience by looking in a certain direction. A headset generally directs gaze control by picking up on movements from the neck and head; some of the most sophisticated headsets can even pick up on eye movements.
  • ‘Geotags’ are directional coordinates that can be attached to pieces of online content. For instance, Instagram users will often use geotagging to highlight the location where their photo was taken.
  • In online marketing, ‘geotargeting’ refers to determining the geographical location of Internet users (such as their country, region, state, city, or even zip code) and then delivering ad content to them based on where they are. If you’ve ever seen a display ad for an event or merchant in your city or town, odds are you’ve been geotargeted.
  • In online advertising, ‘gross exposures’ are the total number of times an ad is served, including duplicate downloads to the same individual.
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  • — H —
  • ‘Haptics,’ or ‘touch feedback,’ refers to technology that recreates a sense of touch. Haptic devices might apply forces, vibrations, or motions to a user. A vibrating video game controller is a good example. Virtual reality, meanwhile, still mostly uses sight and sound. But some companies are developing haptic gloves – and even full-body haptic suits – to complement the VR experience.
  • ‘HDMI’ is an abbreviation of ‘high-definition multimedia interface.’ An HDMI interface is used for transferring video data and digital audio data from a source device to a different, compatible device, such as a television or a computer monitor. For example, Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick are widely-used HDMI-based devices.
  • HDR
    ‘HDR,’ or ‘High Dynamic Range,’ refers to viewing technology that allows for a wider and richer range of colors, brighter whites, and darker blacks. HDR content preserves details in the darkest and brightest areas of a picture that are otherwise lost. HDR content requires an HDR-enabled TV set, or the Dolby Vision.
  • ‘Header bidding’ is a way for publishers to hold direct auctions, bypassing the inefficiencies that keep websites from finding the best prices for their ad inventory. First, a site reaches out to its ad server to get an ad. (Whereas direct-sold ads are usually negotiated by a site’s sales team, and served up first to the available ad space.) Next, the rest of the site’s ad space is made available through an ad server (often that server is Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers) in what’s called a “waterfall” sequence. The phrase waterfall stems from the fact that unsold inventory is offered to the top-ranked ad exchange. If it remains unsold, it then goes to the second-ranked exchanged, and so on.
  • HMD
    ‘HMD’ is short for ‘head-mounted display’. A head-mounted display is a display device, worn on the head or as part of a helmet, which situates a display optic in front of one or both eyes. If you want to be geeky about it, you can accurately refer to any virtual reality headset as an HMD.
  • In interactive AR and VR, ‘hotspots’ are tappable spots within the experience. Hotspots, which can be animated and are often shown as glowing orbs, reveal more content or options when they’re activated.
  • ‘Human augmentation’ refers to technologies, including implants, prosthetics, and other physical additions or modifications, that enhance human productivity or capability.
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  • — I —
  • ‘In-article video’ refers to a video ad that loads and plays dynamically between paragraphs of editorial content, existing as a standalone branded message.
  • ‘In-feed ads’ are ads inserted in-between content.
  • A TV network is said to have in-season tacking rights when it obtains the right to stream all episodes of a series’ current season on its digital platforms. It’s common for TV nets to make only a “rolling five” available – i.e., the five most recent episodes. But in an effort to compete with the likes of Netflix, many networks have begun pushing harder for in-season stacking rights. Earlier this year, NBC Chairman Bob Greenblatt went so far as to say that stacking “is the future of our business.”
  • The phrase ‘inbound link’ refers to when a website links back to another site’s content. The more inbound links the better; they’re indications of high-quality content, and Google’s search algorithm takes them into account.
  • ‘Inventory’ refers to the number of advertisements, or amount of ad space, that a publisher has available to sell to an advertiser or advertisers. When it comes to mobile ad tech, inventory is frequently valued in terms of impressions that a publisher can deliver to an advertiser.
  • ‘IPTV,’ short for “Internet protocol television,” IPTV is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as an LAN or the Internet – as opposed to being delivered through traditional cable or satellite formats.
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  • — J —
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  • — K —
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  • — L —
  • A ‘landing page’ is a webpage that users are directed to after they click on a display or paid search ad.
  • In virtual reality, ‘latency’ refers to a phenomenon in which visuals don’t quite keep up with a user’s of vision when the users head is moved. The lower the amount of latency, the more realistic the experience.
  • The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) defines ‘long-form video’ as video content that always has a content arc with a beginning, middle, and end, and that typically lasts longer than 10 minutes. (Most frequently, that means movies or series.) If long-form video content is ad supported, it typically contains mid-roll ad breaks.
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  • — M —
  • MCN
    ‘MCN’ is an abbreviation of ‘multi-channel network.’ An MCN owns or partners with multiple channels across one or more video platforms, most often YouTube. In exchange for funding, promotion, or other support, an MCN generally gets a cut of the ad revenue.
  • In contrast to pre-roll and post-roll advertising, ‘mid-roll advertising’ is a form of video ad placement in which the ad is played during a break in the middle of video content.
  • ‘Mobile viewability’ is an advertising metric that aims to track only impressions that can actually be seen by mobile users. The Media Rating Council’s guidelines stipulate that a viewable impression has taken place after fifty percent of a mobile ad has been viewable to a user for either one second (for static ads) or two seconds (for video ads).
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  • — N —
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  • — O —
  • ‘Omni-channel marketing’ is a marketing strategy that targets consumers across all channels and devices as part of a seamless and consistent customer experience. An omni-channel strategy accounts for the likelihood that a consumer’s path to purchase may begin on one channel and/or device (for instance, a brand’s website on a desktop PC) and move to another channel and/or device (for instance, an ad on a mobile Facebook app). An omni-channel strategy operates under the assumption that, if marketers place their products in front of consumers on multiple channels and devices as part of one fluid experience, those consumers will be more likely to make a purchase.
  • The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) defines ‘on-target percentage’ (‘OTP’) as the percentage of total ad campaign delivery that is within the advertiser’s campaign-defined goals.
  • Online profiling is the practice of tracking information about consumers' interests by monitoring their movements online. It’s how advertisers, vendors, and publishers gain access to behavioral data.
  • An ‘open-source app’ is an app designed using ‘open-source’ software. With open-source software, the copyright holder makes the source code publicly available, allowing anyone to change, study, or distribute it. Open source apps are a valuable learning tool for aspiring developers.
  • ‘Organic Traffic’ is website traffic deriving from search results that haven’t been paid for or sponsored by the publisher.
  • Not surprisingly, ‘out-of-home marketing’ refers to any marketing that reaches consumers outside the home. Billboards and posters are age-old examples of out-of-home marketing. But in the digital age, an out-of-home campaign can be shockingly sophisticated, making use of tools such as advanced data and location-based targeting.
  • ‘Out-stream video’ placements are video ad units that aren’t tied to content. An out-stream ad can run between paragraphs of text, on the side of a page, etc. (By comparison, in-stream video ads appear before, after, or in the middle of a piece of video content). For advertisers, one appealing aspect of out-stream ads is that they can guarantee 100% viewability.
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  • — P —
  • ‘Page load time’ is the amount of time it takes for a webpage to load in a browser window. Images and videos – and therefore ads - often slow down load time. As a result, slow load times are often cited as a major motivator in consumers’ installation of ad blockers.
  • ‘Paid content’ is content that a marketer puts out by any paid means, such as Google Adwords or Facebook Ads.
  • In virtual reality, ‘positional tracking’ refers to a headset’s ability to recognize its exact spatial position, registering forward, backward, upward, downward, rightward, and leftward movements. By contrast, headsets that are limited to “head tracking” can only register the rotations and movements of a user’s head. At the moment, mobile phone-based VR systems like the Samsung Gear VR and the Google Cardboard are not powerful enough for positional tracking (though some companies are trying to change that). A higher-end headset like the HTC Vive, which is powered by an advanced computer rather than a mobile phone, does have positional tracking capabilities.
  • ‘Premium inventory’ refers to ad space on a site that a publisher has deemed higher quality, and therefore tries to sell at a higher price. What makes ad inventory premium? Tougher question than you might think. Maybe it’s above-the-fold, maybe it’s on a popular section of a site, or maybe there’s some other reason. Really, it’s up to the publisher to decide.
  • In virtual reality, ‘presence’ refers to a user’s perception of being physically present in a virtual world – a state of consciousness where the VR experience appears and feels real. If you’ve designed a virtual reality experience that elicits a true sense of presence in users, it’s safe to say you’ve done your job well.
  • In programmatic ad buying, a private exchange is an ad exchange that is open only to an invited group of buyers. Private exchanges are usually run by major publishers; they allow brands and publishers to work with partners of their choice.
  • 'Programmatic direct' is an ad-buying process that provides automation of guaranteed deals. (Unlike programmatic real-time bidding, there is no auction, and no need to bid.) With programmatic direct, inventory availability and price are made directly available to buyers. The transaction phase of a direct sale is automated, and campaign delivery is automated through integration with a publisher’s ad server.
  • In virtual reality, ‘pupil swim’ refers to an image-distorting effect that sometimes occurs when a user moves his or her eye around the lens of a VR headset.
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  • — R —
  • Real-time bidding, or RTB, refers to the buying and selling of online ad impressions through real-time auctions – in other words, auctions that occur in the time it takes a webpage to load. RTB auctions are generally facilitated by supply-side platforms (SSPs) or ad exchanges. RTB is a type of programmatic advertising, though it’s worth clarifying that not all programmatic advertising uses RTB. Some programmatic platforms let publishers sell inventory ahead of time, for a fixed price. As mentioned in a previous Codebreaker, this is known as “programmatic direct” or “programmatic guaranteed.”
  • Repurposing refers to the reformatting of existing content in order to extend the content’s use. For instance, if a thirty second ad runs on linear TV, and is then shortened to ten seconds and reformatted in order to run on Snapchat, that ad has been repurposed.
  • A ‘revenue share model’ is a partnership between a publisher and an ad provider in which profits from ad-serving are split between the two. It used to be that such agreements tended to come in at about 50/50. Since the rise of programmatic buying, the split has tended to favor of the publisher.
  • ‘Rewarded videos’ are modified video ads that are structured around an in-app economy. Rewarded video ads give users premium content, such as credits or coins, in exchange for watching a short video ad. A major benefit of rewarded video is that it encourages interactivity, and therefore viewer engagement. Rewarded videos are used primarily, though not exclusively, in gaming apps.
  • RFP
    RFP is short for ‘Request for proposal.’ An RFP refers to when a brand or media agency reaches out to a publisher or other firm to request a specific media buy on that property. Generally, a digital RFP outlines volume, spend, timeline, and ad units for a media plan.
  • ROS
    ‘ROS,’ short for ‘run of site,’ refers to the scheduling of Internet advertising whereby ads from an advertiser run across an entire site. ROS ads are often sold at a lower rate to the advertiser than if ads had been purchased for specific site sub-sections.
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  • — S —
  • 'SaaS,' short for 'Software as a Service,' refers to a model in which a third party licenses software on a subscription basis. The software is centrally hosted. SaaS is sometimes called “on-demand software.”
  • SDK
    ‘SDK’ is short for 'software development kit.' An SDK is a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a specific development platform. For instance, developers creating an iPhone app would need the iOS SDK.
  • An online advertiser measuring its ‘share of voice’ is gauging how visible its brand is during a specific time period, usually by looking at percentage of total exposures. In other words, let’s say a brand’s ads comprise 25% percent of all advertisements on a website during an ad campaign that lasted from September 1 to September 30. We could then say that the advertiser garnered 25% of the share of voice on that site during its September campaign.
  • Editorial, image, or video content is ‘shoppable’ when it provides an easy way for consumers to directly purchase its featured products. For instance: If an ad for a handbag is clickable, and takes you to an e-commerce page where you can buy that handbag, then lo and behold – you’ve just encountered shoppable content (and hopefully purchased a nice new handbag).
  • As defined by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), ‘short-form video’ is video content that has a duration of ten minutes or less.
  • ‘Snap Ads,’ formerly called ‘3V Ads,’ are Snapchat’s full-screen vertical video ads. As Snapchat is quick to point out, the ads are 100% viewable.
  • Snapchat’s ‘geofilters’ are location-based overlays that users can apply to their Snaps. The overlays generally feature the names of the locations where the Snap is taken.
  • ‘Social VR’ refers to a type of virtual reality app designed to create a shared VR space in which users can interact and participate in activities. The social VR startup Altspace VR is a good example; among other activities, the app allows users to play virtual Dungeons & Dragons together.

  • ‘Sourced traffic’ refers to a practice in which publishers acquire audiences from third parties, then represent those audiences as their own. Publishers generally do so in order to fulfill advertiser commitments. As the Association of National Advertisers has warned, sourced traffic represents far less fertile territory for advertisers, as it is particularly susceptible to fraudulent traffic generated by bots and other shady practices. Buying sourced traffic is a fairly common practice, and the ANA argues that it represents a major (and highly under-recognized) threat to digital advertisers.
  • A ‘splash page’ is a preliminary webpage that precedes the page that the user has requested. Splash pages usually promote site features, provide advertising, or inform users of what kind of software or browser they need in order to view the rest of the site’s pages. Splash pages generally move on to the requested page after a set time period, or after a click.
  • SSP
    ‘SSP’ is short for ‘supply-side platform.’ (An SSP is also sometimes referred to as a ‘sell-side platform.’) An SSP is a technology platform that enables web publishers to manage their advertising space inventory, fill it with ads, and receive revenue. Online publishers use SSPs to sell display, video, and mobile ads in an automated fashion. SSPs are a sort of flip-side to DSPs (demand-side platforms), which are used by marketers and ad-buyers.
  • ‘Stickiness’ is a measure used to gauge how effectively a site is retaining individual users. It’s usually measured by the duration of users’ visits.
  • In virtual reality, ‘stitching’ is the process of taking footage from different cameras that have been used in a 360-degre camera mount, and then combining that footage into spherical video. The stitching process leaves a VR video looking like it’s one continuous view, rather than an assembly of different angles.
  • ‘SVOD,’ ‘TVOD,’ and ‘AVOD’ are abbreviations for ‘subscription video on demand,’ ‘transactional video on demand,’ and ‘advertising video on demand,’ respectively. SVOD streaming services (think Netflix) require a subscription fee. TVOD (think of buying a movie on iTunes) entails a simple exchange of money for product. AVOD streaming services (think Sony’s Crackle) are ad-supported, and can be free.
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  • ‘TrueView' is popular Google ad format, most widely used for YouTube’s pre-roll ads. The format gives viewers options – most commonly, the ability to skip the ad after five seconds. As many advertising experts will tell you, the act of manually skipping an ad can actually lead a viewer to mentally engage with that ad. It’s really a win-win.
  • A ‘TV Everywhere’ platform (generally a mobile app or an Internet-based service) allows consumers to view pay TV content by authenticating themselves as current subscribers to a channel. As long as you subscribe to a major cable or satellite TV service, you likely have access to a lot of TV Everywhere content.
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  • — U —
  • ‘User-generated content’ refers to content, such as photos, videos, articles, or quotes, that’s created by consumers. Online marketers frequently ask consumers to create user-generated content, which is then used to support an ad campaign. User-generated might include product testimonials, or videos of a consumer using a product.
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  • — V —
  • On social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, some pages and profiles and profiles are ‘verified’ to confirm that they’re authentic. Well-known celebrities, public figures, brands, businesses, and media figures tend to have verified accounts. The badge of a verified account is the same across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: a little checkmark next to the username.
  • ‘Video ad completion rate’ is a measurement referring to the percentage of all video ads that play through their entire duration. It’s also known as ‘Video Completion Rate’ (‘VCR’) or ‘View Through Rate’ (‘VTR’).
  • A ‘virtual MVPD’ (‘multichannel video programming distributor’) is an MVPD that offers a range of premium video content without having to own any network infrastructure. Examples include Internet video service providers such as Dish’s Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue.
  • Just like TV, a VR experience presents a user with a series of images. ‘Refresh rate’ refers to how fast those images get updated. A higher refresh rate means that the experience will be more responsive – and that users will be less likely to experience VR motion sickness. Any refresh rate below 60 frames per second is likely too low.
  • ‘VR sickness,’ a feeling similar to motion sickness, is primarily caused by a disconnect between what a user’s eyes are seeing and what the user’s vestibular system - the parts of the inner ear and brain that help control balance and eye movements – is sensing. Some VR users are more susceptible to VR sickness than others.
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  • A ‘walled garden’ is a software system in which a carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applications or content. On the Internet, a walled garden is an environment that controls a user’s access to Web content and services. The garden directs the user’s navigation within particular areas, in order to allow access to certain material or prevent access to other material. Although a walled garden doesn’t prevent users from navigating to other environments, it does make it more difficult to navigate away than to stay within the environment. Facebook Instant Articles and Snapchat Discover are sometimes cited as examples of walled garden environments, as they encourage users to consume third-party content in-app, instead of actually moving to third-party sites.
  • In programmatic video, the term ‘waterfall’ refers to the order of priority in which advertisers have the opportunity to buy inventory. Demand sources might include exchanges, direct sales, or networks.

  • A ‘white label service’ is a service that is produced by one company, but designed to be used and rebranded by other companies as if they themselves had made it. A white label OTT service, for example, would provide content distributors a customizable platform through which to distribute streaming content.
  • ‘Whitelisting’ refers to marking a particular entity as approved in order to ensure that it’s included. For example, someone using an ad blocker might whitelist a specific website, allowing that one site to serve them ads. Some websites, such as Forbes.com, will withhold content from users until they agree to whitelist the site. Other sites, such as Bloomberg.com, simply greet users with a message politely asking that they whitelist the site.
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