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61 terms
The DOOH and ad-tech glossary.
61 definitions covering programmatic advertising, digital out-of-home, the video-ad standards and the measurement plumbing that connects them. Written for engineers and media buyers, current to 2026 spec.
DOOH Fundamentals
Core concepts of digital out-of-home advertising, what a place-based screen is, how impressions are counted, and how attention is measured.
Ad SlotA single time-window on a screen where one ad plays, typically 10-30 seconds in DOOH, sold as one impression-bearing unit.Attention MetricsSecond-generation viewability, beyond 'screen was on,' measures gaze direction, head pose, and per-person dwell to estimate real attention.Digital Out-of-HomeLong-form name for DOOH, digital screens in public/shared venues, bought as media inventory and measured like CTV.DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home)DOOH is digital screen-based advertising in public and shared spaces, bars, gyms, retail, transit, bought and measured the same way as web or CTV.Dwell TimeAverage seconds a viewer spends in front of a screen, the foundational input to DOOH attention and viewability.ImpressionOne opportunity for one person to see one ad. In DOOH, an impression is a playout × audience-size, not just a playout.OOH (Out-of-Home)The umbrella category for all advertising outside the home, billboards, transit, posters, plus the digital subcategory DOOH.Place-Based MediaAdvertising on screens located inside a specific kind of venue, bar, gym, salon, doctor's office, where the audience self-selects by being there.Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH)DOOH inventory bought through real-time auctions instead of insertion orders, the same DSP/SSP plumbing that runs web and CTV.ViewabilityThe probability that a served impression was actually visible to a human. In DOOH, viewability = playout completed × audience present.
DSP, SSP & Exchange
The plumbing of programmatic ad-tech: demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, ad exchanges, and the OpenRTB protocol that connects them.
Ad ExchangeA real-time auction venue that matches DSP buyers with SSP sellers, the marketplace where ad impressions are priced and cleared.ads.txt / sellers.jsonTwo IAB transparency standards declaring which SSPs are authorized to sell a publisher's inventory, the spine of supply-side fraud prevention.DSP (Demand-Side Platform)A buy-side ad-tech system. Advertisers (or their agencies) log into a DSP to set targeting, budgets, and creatives, then bid into exchanges.Header BiddingPre-auction technique where multiple SSPs bid in parallel before the ad-server call, invented on the web, ported to CTV, now reaching DOOH.OpenRTB 2.6The current IAB Tech Lab spec for real-time bidding. Adds native DOOH support, CTV pod-level requests, and ID-less identity primitives.PrebidThe open-source header-bidding library, the de facto standard for parallel SSP auctions on the web, CTV, and (growing) DOOH.RTB (Real-Time Bidding)The auction protocol that prices ad impressions in ~100ms, bid request out, bid response in, winning creative served.sellers.jsonAn SSP's published list of authorized sellers, pairs with ads.txt to make the full supply path auditable.SSP (Supply-Side Platform)A sell-side ad-tech system. Publishers and screen networks expose their inventory through an SSP, which auctions it to DSPs.Supply Path Optimization (SPO)Buy-side practice of preferring the shortest, cleanest path from advertiser to impression, cutting reseller hops and arbitrage layers.WaterfallLegacy sell-side technique: SSPs are called sequentially in a fixed order, and the first to fill wins. Largely replaced by header bidding.
Video Ad Standards
IAB Tech Lab specifications that every CTV and DOOH player implements, VAST, VPAID, OMID, and the IMA SDK.
Completion RatePercentage of video ad impressions that played to 100%. The headline quality metric for CTV/DOOH; ~95% is the floor for premium inventory.IMA SDKGoogle's Interactive Media Ads SDK, the most-deployed VAST player in the world. Handles tag fetching, parsing, error fallback, and pixel firing.OMID (Open Measurement Interface Definition)IAB Tech Lab spec that lets third-party verification scripts measure viewability and brand-safety from inside any video player.Quartile EventsVAST tracking pixels fired at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of video playback, the standard for measuring playback progress.VAST (Video Ad Serving Template)The IAB XML spec that tells a video player where to fetch a creative, what tracking pixels to fire, and how to handle errors.VAST TagThe URL a video player calls to fetch a VAST XML response, the entry point of the ad-serving handshake.Viewability BeaconA tracking pixel that fires only when an impression meets the MRC viewability threshold, distinct from a raw impression pixel.VPAID (Video Player-Ad Interface Definition)Deprecated IAB spec for interactive video ads, a JavaScript-based ad runtime that ran inside the player. Replaced by OMID + SIMID.
Pricing & Metrics
How DOOH and CTV advertising is priced and measured, CPM, eCPM, fill rate, ROAS, and brand-lift.
Brand-Safety RatePercentage of impressions that ran in content that meets the advertiser's content-safety policy, typically GARM-aligned categories.CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)Total ad spend divided by attributable customer acquisitions, the bottom-of-funnel ROI metric for performance campaigns.CPM (Cost Per Mille)Cost per thousand impressions, the universal pricing unit for display, video, CTV, and DOOH advertising.CTR (Click-Through Rate)Clicks divided by impressions. Largely irrelevant for DOOH (no click target) but a foundational metric in web display and search.eCPM (Effective CPM)CPM normalized for viewability, fraud, and brand-safety pass rates, the apples-to-apples comparison metric across inventory types.Fill RatePercentage of ad requests that result in a paid impression. 100% means every slot filled; sub-50% means half the inventory is wasted.Lift StudyA controlled experiment measuring the incremental effect of an ad campaign, exposed group vs. holdout, before vs. after.ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)Revenue divided by ad spend. The inverse framing of CPA, preferred when revenue is variable per conversion.
Audience & Measurement
How buyers describe the people in front of a screen, taxonomies, segmentation, frequency control, and the ID-less future.
Audience TaxonomyA standardized hierarchical vocabulary for describing audience segments. IAB Audience Taxonomy 1.1 is the industry default.First-Party DataAudience data the advertiser collected directly from its customers, CRM records, on-site behavior, purchase history. The cookie-deprecation winner.Frequency CappingA campaign rule limiting how many times one viewer (or screen) can see one ad in a time window, prevents wear-out and budget waste.IAB Audience Taxonomy 1.1The IAB Tech Lab's standard audience segment vocabulary, released 2022, segtax=4, covers demographics, interest, intent, and behavior.ID-less TargetingAudience targeting that works without per-user identifiers, contextual, cohort-based, and signal-based. The post-cookie default.Lookalike AudienceA modeled audience built by finding people similar to a seed group, typically a CRM list or pixel-fired conversion cohort.segtax (Segment Taxonomy Code)A 16-bit code in OpenRTB that identifies which audience taxonomy a segment ID belongs to. Lets multiple taxonomies coexist on the wire.Third-Party DataAudience data sourced from outside the advertiser and publisher, typically licensed from data brokers. In decline as identity deprecates.
Trillboards-Specific
Concepts unique to the Trillboards platform, proof-of-play signatures, on-device sensing, and the buyer-grade audience signals we ship.
Attire ArchetypeBuyer-grade audience clothing signal, business, casual, athleisure, formal, uniform, streetwear, outdoor. Unique to Trillboards.Cohort CompositionA discrete audience-group descriptor, solo, pair, small_group, mixed_group, family_unit, coworkers. Trillboards' headline audience signal.CTV MeasurementThe discipline of measuring connected-TV ad performance, viewability, reach, frequency, attribution, across multi-app environments.Ed25519 SignatureAn elliptic-curve cryptographic signature scheme, fast, small (64 bytes), and high-assurance. The signing primitive for Trillboards proof-of-play.Edge InferenceRunning ML model inference on the end device (the screen) rather than in the cloud, with sub-100ms latency.Intent StageA funnel-position descriptor for on-screen audiences, awareness, consideration, decision, post_purchase, unknown. Trillboards-emitted.Proof-of-PlayA cryptographically-signed log entry attesting that a specific creative played on a specific screen at a specific time. Trillboards uses Ed25519.Sensing SDKTrillboards' on-device computer-vision package, face detection, attention, audience composition. It keeps a record for every person the camera detects.
Industry Bodies & Compliance
The standards organizations, trade groups, and regulators that govern programmatic advertising.
AdExchangerIndustry trade publication and research firm focused on programmatic ad-tech. The canonical daily-news source for DSPs, SSPs, and exchanges.DPAADigital Place Based Advertising Association, the global trade body for digital OOH. Sets standards for DOOH measurement and impression definition.eMarketer (Insider Intelligence)Industry-standard research firm publishing ad-spend forecasts and digital-media benchmarks. Renamed Insider Intelligence in 2021.GDPR / CCPA ComplianceEU and California privacy regulations governing personal-data processing in advertising. Foundational for any global ad-tech operation.IAB Tech LabThe technical standards arm of the IAB. Maintains OpenRTB, VAST, OMID, ads.txt, sellers.json, and the IAB taxonomies.Magna IntelligenceIPG Mediabrands' research arm, produces the most-cited global ad-spend forecasts. Foundational for industry sizing.MRC AccreditationMedia Rating Council certification that a measurement methodology meets industry standards, required for billable viewability claims.OAAAOut of Home Advertising Association of America, the US trade body for OOH. Maintains the canonical US OOH taxonomy and the proof-of-play standard.