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Programmatic Advertising Acronyms: 44 Terms to Know

Learn what these 44 Programmatic Advertising acronyms mean to understand what your colleagues or customers are saying when they use it. Explained with simple words, by Ted Jordan, for Digital Advertising beginners.
A person learning Programmatic Advertising acronyms to understand what they mean.

When starting a career in Programmatic Advertising or in Digital Marketing, we are confronted with a lot of new terms. Most of them are acronyms, which complicates our understanding of what they mean.

We created this glossary of Programmatic Advertising acronyms for you, using simple words. This glossary is perfect for beginners.

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ACR

ACR is an Automatic Content Recognition tool used with CTV to measure performance.

AI

AI refers to Artificial Intelligence, which is commonly used in Programmatic to automate and optimise campaigns.

API

API means Application Programming Interface. An API allows connection to external applications and data transfer from multiple platforms. This data is gathered in a unified dashboard.

CCPA

The CCPA, or California Consumer Privacy Act, is a law designed to limit the way publishers collect and use user data in California. It’s crucial to learn about this law if you deliver ads in the state of California.

CMP

A CMP is a Customer Management Platform, a unified database used to managed user profiles and data.

CPA

The term CPA corresponds to Cost Per Action. It’s the average cost of a specific action (a conversion, a click, a download…).

CPC

CPC stands for Cost Per Click. A CPC corresponds to the average cost of a click on an ad or can be used as a billing method (vs CPM).

CPCV

The term CPCV means Cost Per Completed View, which is the cost that advertisers pay only when a video is viewed entirely by a user.

CPL

CPL means Cost Per Lead, which corresponds to the average cost of a lead (filled form, conversion…).

CPM

CPM stands for Cost Per Mille, which corresponds to the average price of delivering 1,000 impressions. It’s also a billing method often used in Programmatic.

CPRA

The CPRA, or California Privacy Rights Act, is a law passed in 2020 that strengthens the CCPA.

CPV

CPV means Cost Per View. This term is mainly used in video campaigns because that’s the average cost per view of a video. It’s used as a billing method; an alternative method would be CPCV.

CRM

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, a system used to manage user data and that might be used for targeting purposes.

CRO

A CRO is a Conversion Rate Optimisation technique used to increase the percentage of users who take a specific action (=a conversion).

CTA

A CTA is crucial in advertising, this is the Call-To-Action of your ad: click, subscribe, download, etc.

CTR

CTR is one of the basic terms to know in Programmatic: it means Click-Through Rate. The CTR formula is CTR= (Clicks/Impressions) x100.

CTV

A CTV is a Connected TV, a device that connects to stream content: smart TVs, XBOX, mobile phones, etc. CTV also characterises a specific ad format on these devices.

Mix of devices: phone, tablet, laptop, TV.

DID

The acronym DID means Device ID, a unique code used to identify specific devices like Connected TVs or mobiles.

DMP

A DMP is a Data Management Platform, a system used by publishers, agencies and advertisers to manage collected data and create customer profiles. A DMP can also be used to integrate first-party data.

DOOH

The term DOOH means Digital Out-Of-Home, which is a type of Programmatic advertising format found in public environment: billboards, directory screens in airports, etc.

DSP

DSP stands for Demand-Side Platform, a platform that automates the availability and purchase of ad spaces.

eCPM

eCPM, or Effective Cost-Per-Mille, represents the number of impressions actually paid for while using CPM billing method.

GDPR

The GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, is a European law about consumer privacy and data. You must learn about this law if you advertise in the EU and use cookies.

IDFA

IDFA means Identifier For Advertisers. It’s a device ID used on iOS to track user activity.

KPI

KPI means Key Performance Indicator: it’s one of the basic terms to know in Programmatic. A KPI is really important because that’s how you know if a campaign performs well or not.

LP

A LP is a Landing Page in advertising.

OTT

The term OTT corresponds to Over-The-Top and describes the delivery mechanism for streamed content through a device.

O&O

The acronym O&O means Owned And Operated. In advertising, this term describes an ad inventory owned by a publisher or some ad placements on their partners’ inventory when those are highly qualitative.

PCA

A PCA is a Post-Campaign Analysis document created to highlight a campaign performance after it ended.

Two persons having a meeting.

PG

PG stands for Programmatic Guaranteed, a type of bidding used in Digital Marketing. Publishers and advertisers negotiate a price and terms of use for a specific ad inventory.

PPC

PPC or Pay-Per-Click is a billing method for campaigns using CPC.

PMP

PMP stands for Private Market Place. Basically, publishers decide which advertisers can advertise on their websites and only these advertisers can bid on an ad space.

ROAS

ROAS means Return On Ad Spend. This is how much money you earn vs how money you spend on advertisements. The formula to calculate the ROAS of a campaign is ROAS=money earned/money spent.

ROI

ROI or Return On Investment corresponds to the money you make after investing in advertisements.

RSS

One of the key terms to know in Digital Marketing is RSS: Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. This is a web feed format allowing users to receive updated content from websites.

RTB

RTB corresponds to Real-Time Bidding which is one of the most common types of bidding in Programmatic Advertising.

SKAN

The acronym SKAN, or the term SKAdNetwork, mean StoreKit Ad Network. It was introduced by Apple in 2018 to facilitate attribution in digital campaigns while preserving user privacy and security on their mobile phone.

SSP

A SSP is a Supply-Side Platform, a platform making ad space available to advertisers.

VAST

A VAST is a Video Ad-Serving Template used to structure tags and metadata in order to deliver a video ad.

VCR

VCR is a video marketing metric, a KPI, which stands for Video Completion Rate. It measures how many users watched a video from start to finish.

VTC

VTC stands for View-Through Conversion. It happens when a user sees an ad for the first time, does not click on it but converts later.

VOD

VOD means Video On-Demand. VOD is a technology used to deliver video content on various devices. The term “streaming VOD” may be used by some publishers to talk about CTV.

1P

1P stands for 1st Party data or/and cookies. This is considered as a cookieless targeting data which brings great value to advertisers.

3P

3P stands for 3rd Party (data or/and cookies). 3P is largely used by advertisers in advertising but might disappear soon…

A cookie.

Now, you know all the Programmatic Advertising acronyms. Why not join an Online Course to get certified and highlight your Programmatic knowledge?