--- title: "Glossary of UK media buying terms | AdBuyMCP" description: "This glossary defines 81 UK media buying and B2B awareness terms. Each gives the neutral answer first, then says where AdBuyMCP differs." url: "https://adbuymcp.com/glossary" --- [Home](https://adbuymcp.com/) / Glossary The words this industry uses # This glossary defines 81 terms in plain English. 81 terms from UK media buying and B2B awareness, defined plainly. The ones buyers ask about most have a full page each, and every entry says where AdBuyMCP does something different from the category default. - **terms defined**: 81 - **groups**: 7 - **sellers, regulators and prices**: UK [Get my plan and price](https://adbuymcp.com/start) [Book a 30-minute call with the founder](https://adbuymcp.com/contact#book) Free, with no card. We read your homepage, draft who buys from you and show your monthly price before you join the waitlist. Nothing is bought until you've approved the plan and the ads. Start here ## These are the terms UK buyers ask about most Each of these 24 has a full page: the neutral definition, what the term means when you buy media in the UK, what it costs where that applies, and where AdBuyMCP does something different. - Awareness and B2B buying ### [Day-one shortlist](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/day-one-shortlist) The vendors a business buyer already has in mind when a purchase begins, before any searching, comparing or talking to sellers. Studies of B2B buying find that most purchases go to a vendor on that list, so much of a vendor's chance is settled before the formal process starts. - Awareness and B2B buying ### [In-market and out-of-market buyers](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/in-market-buyers) In-market buyers are the businesses actively looking to buy in a category right now; out-of-market buyers will buy in that category at some point but are not looking yet. In B2B the out-of-market group is usually far larger, because companies replace most suppliers only every few years. - Awareness and B2B buying ### [Frequency](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency) The average number of times the people in an audience see an advert in a period, usually a week or a whole campaign. It is impressions divided by the people reached, so it describes the audience on average and says nothing certain about any one person. - Awareness and B2B buying ### [Buying group](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/buying-group) The people at a customer company who take part in a purchase, from whoever finds the supplier to the budget holder who signs. It also takes in the people who will use the product and anyone who can block it, such as finance, IT or legal, because most B2B purchases are decided by a group. - Channels and formats ### [Connected TV (CTV)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/ctv) Advertising delivered inside streaming television on an internet-connected device: a smart TV, a streaming stick, a games console. It is bought like digital media, with audience targeting and impression-level reporting, but watched like television, full-screen and usually unskippable. - Channels and formats ### [Addressable TV](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/addressable-tv) Television advertising where different households watching the same programme at the same time receive different adverts, swapped in at the set-top box or in the stream. It is bought on household attributes and geography rather than on programme and time slot. - Channels and formats ### [Digital out-of-home (DOOH)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dooh) Advertising on digital screens in public places: roadside billboards, rail stations, shopping centres, office lifts, gyms. Increasingly bought programmatically by screen, venue type, geography and time of day rather than as a fixed two-week poster site list. - Channels and formats ### [Cinema advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cinema-advertising) Advertising shown on cinema screens before a film, sold by audience packs, film genre and venue rather than by individual viewer. Delivered as a Digital Cinema Package and subject to its own age-rating clearance separate from broadcast clearance. - Channels and formats ### [Podcast advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/podcast-advertising) Advertising inside podcast episodes, either a produced spot inserted as an episode is downloaded or streamed, or a read in the host's own voice. The two are bought, priced and measured differently, and a host read is usually agreed show by show. - Channels and formats ### [Programmatic advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic) Buying advertising through automated systems that decide, impression by impression, whether to bid and how much to pay for it. It describes the transaction mechanism rather than a channel: CTV, audio, DOOH and display can all be bought programmatically. - Buying and commercials ### [Demand-side platform (DSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dsp) Software an advertiser uses to buy advertising across many publishers through one interface, bidding on impressions in real time. It sits on the buyer's side of the market and charges a fee, usually a percentage of the media spent through it. - Buying and commercials ### [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) The cost of one thousand advertising impressions, and the standard price unit for advertising bought on attention rather than on action. Television, streaming, audio, out-of-home and cinema are all quoted this way. - Buying and commercials ### [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) The share of an advertiser's media budget retained by the platform rather than spent on media, whether that share is disclosed or embedded in the price. The word is neutral about disclosure, which is why the useful question is the figure rather than the policy. - Targeting and identity ### [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) Data an organisation has collected directly from its own customers and visitors: a CRM list, purchase history, site behaviour. Distinguished from third-party data by the existence of a direct relationship with the person it describes. - Targeting and identity ### [Frequency capping](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency-capping) Limiting how many times one person or household sees the same advert within a given period, to control wear-out and wasted impressions. It is set per campaign, per channel or, rarely, across channels, and that granularity is what decides whether the cap means anything. - Measurement and evidence ### [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) The share of an outcome that happened because of the advertising, measured against what would have happened anyway. It is measured by comparing an exposed group with a comparable unexposed one, which counting the conversions that followed an advert cannot do. - Measurement and evidence ### [Geo-lift test](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/geo-lift) An experiment that runs advertising in some geographic markets and withholds it from comparable others, then compares outcomes between them. It can measure what the advertising caused without a login, a pixel or a match rate. - Measurement and evidence ### [Holdout](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/holdout) A group deliberately excluded from seeing a campaign and kept as a comparison against the group that was exposed to it. Without one, the counterfactual (what would have happened anyway) has to be assumed rather than observed. - Measurement and evidence ### [Minimum detectable effect (MDE)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/minimum-detectable-effect) The smallest true effect a test could reliably detect, given its sample size, the variance in the data and the power the design was set to. Effects smaller than the MDE will usually be missed even when they are real. - Measurement and evidence ### [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) Assigning credit for an outcome to the advertising touchpoints that preceded it, according to a rule the advertiser chose. It describes correlation in a conversion path, and it cannot show on its own that the advertising caused anything. - Measurement and evidence ### [Marketing mix modelling (MMM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/marketing-mix-modelling) A statistical method that estimates each channel's contribution to an outcome by regressing historical sales against historical spend and external factors. Works without personal data and covers channels that cannot be tracked individually. - Compliance and clearance ### [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) The legal ground relied on to process personal data, of which six exist under UK GDPR and at least one must be identified before processing begins. In advertising the two that matter are consent and legitimate interests, and the basis has to be settled before the processing starts. - Compliance and clearance ### [Clearcast](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/clearcast) The body that pre-approves UK television advertising for the major broadcasters, checking copy against the broadcast advertising code before it can air. Approval is required before a broadcaster will air the advert. - AdBuyMCP's own vocabulary ### [Fidelity score](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/fidelity-score) A published score out of 100 answering one question: how much of an audience definition survives translation into a channel's native targeting words. It describes that translation, so it makes no forecast of reach or performance and says nothing about the quality of the media. Index ## Every term is listed from A to Z If you know the word you want, find it here in alphabetical order. Terms without a page of their own jump to their definition further down. A - [Ad exchange](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-exchange) - [Ad tech tax](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-tech-tax) - [Addressable TV](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/addressable-tv) - [Arbitrage](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/arbitrage) - [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) - [Audience segment](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/audience-segment) B - [BCAP and CAP codes](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#bcap) - [Brand lift](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/brand-lift) - [Buying group](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/buying-group) C - [CACI Acorn](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#caci-acorn) - [Cinema advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cinema-advertising) - [Cinema Advertising Association (CAA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#caa) - [Clearcast](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/clearcast) - [Connected TV (CTV)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/ctv) - [Consent](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#consent) - [Contextual targeting](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#contextual-targeting) - [Cost per outcome (CPO)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cost-per-outcome) - [CPA](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cpa) - [CPC](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cpc) - [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) D - [Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#dpia) - [Day-one shortlist](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/day-one-shortlist) - [Deal ID](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#deal-id) - [Deduplication](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#deduplication) - [Demand-side platform (DSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dsp) - [Difference-in-differences](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#difference-in-differences) - [Digital audio advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/digital-audio) - [Digital out-of-home (DOOH)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dooh) E - [European Unified ID (EUID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#euid) - [Evidence ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/evidence-ledger) - [Evidence provenance](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#provenance) - [Experian Mosaic](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#experian-mosaic) - [Exposure ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/exposure-ledger) F - [Fidelity score](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/fidelity-score) - [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) - [Frequency](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency) - [Frequency capping](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency-capping) G - [Geo-lift test](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/geo-lift) H - [Holdout](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/holdout) - [Household graph](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#household-graph) I - [Identity resolution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#identity-resolution) - [In-market and out-of-market buyers](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/in-market-buyers) - [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) - [Insertion order (IO)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/insertion-order) L - [Last-click attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#last-click) - [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) - [Lawful-basis manifest](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis-manifest) - [Legitimate interests](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#legitimate-interest) - [Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#lia) - [Linear TV](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/linear-tv) - [Lookalike audience](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#lookalike-audience) M - [Marketing mix modelling (MMM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/marketing-mix-modelling) - [Matched market](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#matched-market) - [Minimum detectable effect (MDE)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/minimum-detectable-effect) - [Mobile advertising ID (MAID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/maid) - [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/mcp) - [Modelled](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#modelled) O - [Out-of-home (OOH)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#out-of-home) P - [Paid search](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/paid-search) - [Paid social](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/paid-social) - [Persona compiler](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/persona-compiler) - [Podcast advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/podcast-advertising) - [Private marketplace (PMP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#private-marketplace) - [Programmatic advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic) - [Proof of play](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#proof-of-play) R - [Rate card](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#rate-card) - [Reach](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#reach) - [Real-time bidding (RTB)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#real-time-bidding) - [Retargeting](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#retargeting) S - [Share of voice](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#share-of-voice) - [Statistical power](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/statistical-power) - [Supply-side platform (SSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ssp) T - [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) - [TCF consent string](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#tcf) - [Third-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#third-party-data) - [Total addressable market (TAM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/total-addressable-market) U - [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) - [Unified ID 2.0 (UID2)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#uid2) V - [VAST](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#vast) - [Viewability](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#viewability) W - [Working media](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#working-media) Every term ## The terms are grouped by the part of the job they belong to Sorting the terms into 7 groups shows where the hard parts are. Most of the difficulty in media buying lives in targeting and identity, and most of the money lives in buying and commercials. ### Awareness and B2B buying 7 terms How B2B buyers choose vendors, and the words for planning how often your market sees you and how big that market is. - [Day-one shortlist](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/day-one-shortlist) - [In-market and out-of-market buyers](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/in-market-buyers) - [Frequency](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency) - [Buying group](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/buying-group) - [Total addressable market (TAM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/total-addressable-market) Defined here #### Reach The number of distinct people or households exposed to a campaign at least once, as opposed to the total number of impressions delivered. Usually expressed as a count or as a percentage of a defined universe. In practice: Reach across channels is almost always modelled, because no single seller can see the others, and no UK service de-duplicates reach across out-of-home, streaming TV, podcasts and ChatGPT ads. AdBuyMCP's weekly report keeps each channel's count in its own unit, and any reach AdBuyMCP models carries the label modelled wherever it appears. Adding each channel's reach together inflates the total, because a household reached on two channels is counted twice. [Frequency](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency) [Deduplication](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#deduplication) [Frequency capping](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency-capping) [Share of voice](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#share-of-voice) [Modelled](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#modelled) #### Share of voice Also called SOV A brand's advertising presence expressed as a proportion of all advertising in its category, in a given market and period. Used as a planning benchmark on the argument that share of voice above share of market tends to precede growth. In practice: Useful for setting a budget's order of magnitude and of little use for judging a campaign, because it is a share of spend. It is worth knowing mainly because it is the reasoning behind most large brand budgets, and therefore the frame a buyer arrives with when they ask what a channel costs. An AdBuyMCP awareness plan is sized another way, from the number of people in your market and how often they should see you. [Reach](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#reach) [Frequency](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency) [Brand lift](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/brand-lift) ### Channels and formats 11 terms The channels UK advertisers buy, and the words the sellers use for them. - [Connected TV (CTV)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/ctv) - [Addressable TV](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/addressable-tv) - [Linear TV](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/linear-tv) - [Digital out-of-home (DOOH)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dooh) - [Cinema advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cinema-advertising) - [Digital audio advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/digital-audio) - [Podcast advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/podcast-advertising) - [Paid search](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/paid-search) - [Paid social](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/paid-social) - [Programmatic advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic) Defined here #### Out-of-home (OOH) Also called outdoor advertising, billboards All advertising encountered outside the home: billboards, transport, street furniture and retail environments, printed or digital. Covers both classic printed sites and the digital screens that are steadily replacing them. In practice: Worth separating from DOOH when reading a media plan, because the two behave differently. Classic OOH is bought for a fixed period at a fixed price and cannot be paced, targeted by daypart or turned off, while digital screens can. Outsmart put UK out-of-home revenue for 2025 at £1.44bn, 67% of it digital (checked 20 October 2026), so an out-of-home line in a plan is usually partly digital. An AdBuyMCP awareness plan can book both: printed sites by place, and digital screens by place and time of day. [Digital out-of-home (DOOH)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dooh) [Proof of play](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#proof-of-play) ### Buying and commercials 16 terms How media is transacted and where the money goes. The terms in this group are the ones a price conversation turns on. - [Demand-side platform (DSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dsp) - [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) - [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) - [Arbitrage](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/arbitrage) - [Insertion order (IO)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/insertion-order) Defined here #### Supply-side platform (SSP) Also called supply side platform Software a publisher uses to sell its advertising inventory to many buyers at once, running the auction and setting price floors. It sits on the seller's side of the same market a DSP buys from. In practice: An SSP matters to a buyer because of the fee stack: a supply-side platform takes a fee and an exchange layer can take another on top of it, which is how the cumulative 'ad tech tax' arises without any single layer looking expensive. Knowing the SSP layer exists is what lets you ask the question that settles a media price: how much of this pound reaches the publisher? [Demand-side platform (DSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dsp) [Ad exchange](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-exchange) [Ad tech tax](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-tech-tax) [Working media](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#working-media) #### Ad exchange A marketplace in which advertising impressions are auctioned between demand-side platforms buying and supply-side platforms selling. It matches bids to inventory in the milliseconds between a page or stream starting to load and the advert appearing. In practice: Mostly invisible to a buyer, and mostly should be, except that each hop in the chain takes a margin, and the number of hops is rarely disclosed. Supply-path transparency, meaning a published account of which intermediaries a bid passes through, is something the largest advertisers now demand and smaller ones almost never get. [Supply-side platform (SSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ssp) [Demand-side platform (DSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dsp) [Real-time bidding (RTB)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#real-time-bidding) [Ad tech tax](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-tech-tax) #### Real-time bidding (RTB) Also called RTB The auction mechanism underneath most programmatic advertising: when an impression becomes available, buyers bid on it and the winner's advert is served, all within roughly a hundred milliseconds. In practice: For a buyer, price is set per impression rather than per campaign, so a plan's CPM is a forecast. The auction is also where most of the ad tech fee stack is levied, which is why the cumulative take between advertiser and publisher can be far larger than any single platform's disclosed rate. [Ad exchange](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-exchange) [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) [Ad tech tax](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-tech-tax) [Private marketplace (PMP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#private-marketplace) [How programmatic advertising works](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic#programmatic-advertising) #### Private marketplace (PMP) Also called PMP, private auction, deal A negotiated arrangement in which a publisher makes specific inventory available to specific buyers at agreed terms, transacted programmatically through a deal identifier rather than in the open auction. In practice: This is how named-show podcast buying and most premium audio actually happens: you negotiate a deal, then execute it programmatically. AdBuyMCP's audio compiler emits a named-show package as a deal specification, because the deal has to exist before the plan can spend against it. [Deal ID](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#deal-id) [Podcast advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/podcast-advertising) [Programmatic advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic) #### Deal ID The identifier that carries a negotiated private-marketplace arrangement into a programmatic buying system at auction time, telling the auction which buyer gets access to which inventory at which agreed price. In practice: Worth knowing because it is the practical boundary between what a platform can buy on your behalf today and what needs a conversation first. AdBuyMCP's compiled channel plans start with no deals attached: a deal is added when a buyer hand-picks inventory or when one has been negotiated. [Private marketplace (PMP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#private-marketplace) [Programmatic advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic) #### CPC Also called cost per click The cost of one click on an advert, and the standard price unit for paid search and for much of paid social, where the advertiser pays for a response rather than for the impression that produced it. In practice: A CPC transfers delivery risk to the seller, which is why it dominates the channels where clicks are plentiful and is almost unknown on television, cinema and out-of-home. Comparing a CPC channel to a CPM channel on cost per click is a category error: it flatters search and tells you nothing about whether the other channels created the demand search then harvested. [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) [CPA](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cpa) [Paid search](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/paid-search) [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) #### CPA Also called cost per acquisition, cost per action The cost of one completed action, whether that is a sale, a lead or a booking, calculated by dividing spend by the actions attributed to it. That makes it entirely dependent on the attribution model underneath. In practice: CPA is widely quoted, but two CPAs are only comparable if they share an attribution window, a model and a definition of the action, and they almost never do. A CPA computed on last-click will always flatter search and starve everything that created the demand. This is the number an incrementality test exists to check. [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) [Last-click attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#last-click) [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) [Cost per outcome (CPO)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cost-per-outcome) #### Cost per outcome (CPO) Also called guaranteed outcomes, outcome-based pricing A pricing model in which the advertiser pays only when a defined outcome occurs (an install, a purchase, a store visit), with the platform carrying the delivery risk and embedding its margin in the outcome price. In practice: The most aggressive pricing innovation in this category. tvScientific offers it on connected TV, restricted to qualifying advertisers. For a performance buyer who qualifies, it can be the better offer. It requires measurement maturity and risk capital, and AdBuyMCP does not offer it: its awareness plans are priced on the size of your market and how often it should see you. [CPA](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cpa) [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) [AdBuyMCP vs tvScientific](https://adbuymcp.com/compare/tvscientific) #### Working media The portion of an advertising budget that actually buys advertising, as opposed to the portion consumed by platform fees, data costs, agency fees, ad serving and production. Usually expressed as a percentage of total spend. In practice: Working media is the number to compare fees on. A platform fee on top of a data cost and an agency retainer adds up to more than any one of them, and every intermediary between the advertiser and the publisher takes its share before the money arrives: ISBA's 2020 study with PwC found about half of advertiser spend reaching publishers. Under an all-in price, such as an AdBuyMCP plan's, the working-media share sits inside the price, so the useful question becomes what each channel delivered against the plan. [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) [Ad tech tax](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ad-tech-tax) [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) #### Ad tech tax Also called supply chain fees The cumulative share of an advertiser's budget taken by the intermediaries between advertiser and publisher, none of which individually looks large. Those are the demand platform, exchange, supply platform, data vendors and verification. In practice: It is cumulative and mostly undisclosed, which is why it is the category's most persistent grievance. The defence is supply-path transparency: knowing which intermediaries a bid passes through and what each one keeps. [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) [Working media](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#working-media) [Supply-side platform (SSP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#ssp) [Arbitrage](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/arbitrage) [Which kind of company takes which share](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/programmatic#programmatic-advertising-company) #### Rate card A seller's published list prices for its advertising inventory, before any negotiation, discount or volume agreement is applied to them. In practice most large media is bought below rate card, which makes the card a starting position rather than a price. In practice: Relevant to a small advertiser mainly as a warning: the discount available depends on the volume behind them, which is one of the genuine arguments for buying through an intermediary. It is also the reason a published platform fee and a published rate card are different kinds of promise. [Take rate](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/take-rate) [CPM](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cpm) ### Targeting and identity 16 terms How an audience is described to a seller, and how much of the description survives. Most media-buying problems start at this translation step. - [Audience segment](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/audience-segment) - [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) - [Frequency capping](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency-capping) - [Mobile advertising ID (MAID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/maid) Defined here #### Third-party data Audience data collected by one organisation and licensed to another for targeting, with no direct relationship between the licensee and the people described. Sold as segments through data marketplaces attached to buying platforms. In practice: Third-party data can add its own cost on top of the media, so ask whether a quote includes the audience. You also need to know where it came from, which is what a lawful-basis manifest exists to answer: which provider, on what basis, with which conditions still owed by you. Consent-chained means the provider asserts a consent chain. Nobody downstream has necessarily verified every link in it. [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) [Audience segment](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/audience-segment) [Lawful-basis manifest](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis-manifest) [TCF consent string](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#tcf) #### Contextual targeting Targeting based on the content an advert appears beside rather than on data about the person seeing it: a show, a genre, a page subject, a venue type. Requires no personal data about the audience. In practice: Because it needs no personal data, contextual targeting is increasingly the sensible default as behavioural identifiers decline. It is how an AdBuyMCP awareness plan buys podcasts, by show and category, and ChatGPT ads, matched to the topic of a conversation; AdBuyMCP's audio compiler expresses it as show and genre allowlists, graded content-level at 65. The same logic puts cinema and DOOH delivery outside UK GDPR scope: a venue catchment is a property of a place. [Audience segment](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/audience-segment) [Fidelity score](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/fidelity-score) [Digital audio advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/digital-audio) #### Lookalike audience Also called similar audience, act-alike An audience built by finding people who resemble a seed group (usually the advertiser's existing customers) on whatever signals the platform holds. The resemblance model is the platform's and is not disclosed. In practice: Effective and opaque in equal measure, and available only where a platform has both your seed list and enough signal to model against it, which in practice means the large social platforms. A lookalike inherits every bias in the seed: modelling on your existing customers reliably finds more people like your existing customers, and growth usually needs someone new. [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) [Paid social](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/paid-social) [Audience segment](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/audience-segment) #### Retargeting Also called remarketing Showing advertising to people who have already interacted with a brand: visited a site, abandoned a basket, opened an email. Depends on being able to recognise the same person again on a later occasion. In practice: The channel where attribution flatters itself most, because retargeting reaches people who were already going to convert. It usually looks like the best-performing line in a plan and is usually the one most in need of an incrementality test. A geo-lift or holdout design is the reliable way to find out how much of it was incremental. [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) [Holdout](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/holdout) [Last-click attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#last-click) #### Deduplication Also called dedup, cross-channel deduplication Removing the double-counting that occurs when the same person is reached by more than one channel or placement in a campaign, so that combined reach reflects distinct people rather than the sum of each channel's separate count. In practice: The reason a cross-channel plan needs one exposure record where it would otherwise have a report from every seller. Without it, a launch that buys the same households on television, streaming and out-of-home reports three audiences that are substantially one audience, and the number that reaches a board is wrong by a wide and unknowable margin. Deduplication at launch matters more than at any other moment, because a launch buys the same people repeatedly by design. [Reach](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#reach) [Frequency capping](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/frequency-capping) [Exposure ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/exposure-ledger) #### Experian Mosaic Also called Mosaic A UK geodemographic classification that assigns every household to one of a set of named types based on demography, affluence, life stage and location. Used to select households for addressable television and direct media. In practice: UK addressable television is bought in Mosaic's vocabulary. A brief naming senior business decision makers compiles into Mosaic groups and occupation attributes intersected with postcode districts, which is why the grade is household, and why AdBuyMCP's catalogue grades addressable TV 55 out of 100. You are buying homes whose profile over-indexes on the attribute you asked for. [Addressable TV](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/addressable-tv) [CACI Acorn](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#caci-acorn) [Fidelity score](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/fidelity-score) #### CACI Acorn Also called Acorn A UK consumer classification that segments postcodes into named types by demographics, lifestyle and behaviour, used to rank areas rather than people. In practice that means catchment work: which cinema, which retail park, which high street. In practice: The intended basis for ranking cinema venues by how far their catchment over-indexes on a target audience. We do not hold an Acorn licence. Cinema venue lists are currently built from the persona's own postcode districts, the catchment over-index figures shown on a sandbox booking brief are sample data, and the client for CACI's postcode classification API is built but holds no licence and no Acorn data. The supply page grades it accordingly. [Cinema advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cinema-advertising) [Experian Mosaic](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#experian-mosaic) [Evidence grades for each connector](https://adbuymcp.com/supply) #### European Unified ID (EUID) Also called EUID A consent-based identifier for European advertising, derived from a hashed email or phone number provided with consent, designed to let first-party audiences be addressed across publishers without third-party cookies. In practice: The intended bridge from a customer list to premium inventory under UK and EU data protection. AdBuyMCP's CTV compiler emits an empty EUID audience list, so no plan carries one today: the EUID client is built and waits on an EUID participation agreement. [Unified ID 2.0 (UID2)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#uid2) [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) [Mobile advertising ID (MAID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/maid) [Identity resolution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#identity-resolution) #### Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) Also called UID2 An open-source, consent-based advertising identifier derived from a hashed email or phone number, developed as an industry alternative to third-party cookies. EUID is its European counterpart. In practice: Mentioned here mainly so the family is legible: UID2 is the North American implementation and EUID the European one, and a vendor discussing one may mean either. Neither is in use here today. [European Unified ID (EUID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#euid) [First-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/first-party-data) [Identity resolution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#identity-resolution) #### Household graph A dataset linking devices, identifiers and addresses believed to belong to the same household, allowing a television, a laptop and a phone in one home to be recognised as one buying unit. In practice: What makes deduplication between connected TV and addressable television possible at all, since neither can see an individual. It is also the point where a privacy review should press hardest, because a household graph is an inference about people who never supplied it. AdBuyMCP's ledger keys on an opaque household key issued by a separate key-translation service and never resolves it back to anything. [Identity resolution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#identity-resolution) [Deduplication](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#deduplication) [Exposure ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/exposure-ledger) [Mobile advertising ID (MAID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/maid) #### Identity resolution The process of deciding that two different identifiers refer to the same person or household, so that behaviour seen under one can be joined to the other. In practice: The highest-risk operation in advertising data and the one worth isolating architecturally. In AdBuyMCP exactly one module performs identity joins (the key-translation service), and the exposure ledger every channel writes into never resolves a key back to a person or across key spaces. That boundary is why the 90-day retention rule has one place to be enforced and one place to be audited. [Household graph](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#household-graph) [Mobile advertising ID (MAID)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/maid) [Exposure ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/exposure-ledger) [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) [The identity boundary](https://adbuymcp.com/security) #### TCF consent string Also called Transparency and Consent Framework, TCF v2.3 A standardised, encoded record of what a user consented to, produced at the point of collection and readable by every participant downstream. It is passed along the advertising supply chain so that each participant can check whether it has a basis to process that person's data before it does. In practice: The consent string is what lets a buyer check a 'consent-chained' claim. AdBuyMCP's policy engine attaches a standing condition to every consent-chained data source requiring that the supply chain be framework-validated and that the vendor attestation be verified on connection. That is a condition you still owe, and a lawful-basis manifest is a list of conditions of that kind. [Lawful-basis manifest](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis-manifest) [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) [Consent](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#consent) [Third-party data](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#third-party-data) ### Measurement and evidence 16 terms What you can prove afterwards, and how to tell a number that means something from one that does not. - [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) - [Geo-lift test](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/geo-lift) - [Holdout](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/holdout) - [Statistical power](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/statistical-power) - [Minimum detectable effect (MDE)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/minimum-detectable-effect) - [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) - [Marketing mix modelling (MMM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/marketing-mix-modelling) - [Brand lift](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/brand-lift) Defined here #### Matched market A control market chosen because its historical outcome pattern closely tracks the test market's, so that a later divergence can be attributed to the campaign. In practice: Matching is done on the pre-campaign series, because two cities that look alike on paper often behave differently commercially. Getting this wrong is invisible in the output: a badly matched pair produces a confident number that means nothing, which is why the pairing and the power analysis both have to happen before the media runs. [Geo-lift test](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/geo-lift) [Holdout](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/holdout) [Difference-in-differences](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#difference-in-differences) #### Difference-in-differences Also called diff-in-diff, DiD A method that compares the change in an exposed group against the change in a control group over the same period, so that anything moving both in step (seasonality, a competitor, the weather) cancels out. In practice: The readout underneath a geo-lift result. It is worth understanding because it explains what the test is actually robust to: shared shocks cancel, and anything that hit only the test markets stays in. That is the residual risk in any geo experiment and the reason a result should carry a confidence interval as well as a point estimate. [Geo-lift test](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/geo-lift) [Matched market](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#matched-market) [Statistical power](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/statistical-power) #### Last-click attribution An attribution rule that gives all the credit for an outcome to the final advertising touchpoint before it, and none to the rest. Simple, universally available, and systematically biased towards whichever channel sits closest to the conversion. In practice: It reliably over-credits search and retargeting and under-credits everything that created the demand they harvested, which is why a business optimising purely on last-click tends to shrink towards its existing customers. It is still useful as a consistent operational signal, but it cannot answer whether a channel was incremental, and no amount of modelling on top of it turns it into an answer. [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) [Retargeting](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#retargeting) [CPA](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#cpa) #### Viewability Whether an advert was actually rendered in a position where a person could have seen it, measured against an industry threshold: commonly half the pixels for one second for display, two seconds for video. In practice: A served impression and a viewable impression are different things, and the gap is where a meaningful share of digital budgets goes. AdBuyMCP has no independent verification integration yet: no viewability, brand-safety or fraud vendor is wired in. [Proof of play](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#proof-of-play) [Evidence provenance](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#provenance) [Working media](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#working-media) #### Proof of play A seller-supplied record confirming that a specific advert played on a specific screen at a specific time, with the play logged rather than estimated. The out-of-home equivalent of an impression log, since a screen cannot report who was in front of it. In practice: The strongest delivery evidence out-of-home can produce, and the reason a DOOH report proves the media ran. It is a delivery fact about the screen, and a plan that treats proof-of-play counts as reach is overstating by whatever the seller's audience model says. [Digital out-of-home (DOOH)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/dooh) [Viewability](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#viewability) [Evidence provenance](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#provenance) [Reach](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#reach) #### VAST Also called Video Ad Serving Template The industry XML standard that tells a video player where to fetch an advert, how long it runs and which tracking events to fire. Most connected TV and online video advertising runs on VAST. In practice: Relevant to a buyer mainly as a delivery requirement: a CTV creative is a video file plus its trafficking metadata, and a mismatch between them is a common reason a campaign fails to start. AdBuyMCP generates storyboards with the metadata attached so the creative and its trafficking record are one object. [Connected TV (CTV)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/ctv) [Proof of play](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#proof-of-play) #### Evidence provenance Also called provenance label, evidence label A label attached to a number recording how it was produced, so anyone reading the number can see how strong the evidence behind it is. The number may be reported by the seller, observed on your own property, estimated by a model, or established by a powered experiment. In practice: The mechanism that keeps four kinds of evidence from collapsing into one flattering number. AdBuyMCP uses four labels: provider-reported, observed, modelled and powered causal, and only the last supports the word caused. The governing rule is blunt: no provenance label may advance on the strength of sandbox or API-shaped data. That is why no sandbox campaign can ever reach a causal grade, and none has. [Attribution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/attribution) [Incrementality](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/incrementality) [Marketing mix modelling (MMM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/marketing-mix-modelling) [Modelled](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#modelled) #### Modelled Also called modeled, estimated A number produced by a formula or an estimate rather than counted directly from observed events, and therefore carrying assumptions with it. Deduplicated reach and frequency across channels are the common examples, since no single seller can observe the others. In practice: The word matters because a modelled number and a counted one look identical in a report. AdBuyMCP's reach and frequency figures carry the label modelled wherever they appear, so a modelled estimate cannot be quoted as an observation by accident. [Evidence provenance](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#provenance) [Reach](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#reach) [Marketing mix modelling (MMM)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/marketing-mix-modelling) ### Compliance and clearance 9 terms UK data protection and UK advertising clearance: what has to be true before an ad runs. - [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) - [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) - [Clearcast](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/clearcast) Defined here #### Legitimate interests A lawful basis permitting processing necessary for interests pursued by the controller or a third party, provided those interests are not overridden by the rights of the individual. Requires a documented balancing assessment. In practice: The basis most advertising targeting actually relies on, and the one most often asserted without the assessment that makes it valid. AdBuyMCP attaches a standing condition to every legitimate-interest source stating that an assessment must be on file for it. That condition states what you owe; it does not confirm the assessment exists. [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) [Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#lia) [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) [Consent](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#consent) #### Consent A freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication that someone agrees to their data being processed. Must be as easy to withdraw as to give, and cannot be inferred from silence or inactivity. In practice: In advertising, consent is usually collected far upstream by a publisher or a data vendor and passed down the chain as an encoded string. 'Consent-chained' means a provider asserts that chain exists. Nobody downstream has necessarily verified every link in it. Withdrawal propagation, meaning that a withdrawal upstream actually stops downstream processing, is the part most implementations handle worst. [TCF consent string](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#tcf) [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) [Legitimate interests](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#legitimate-interest) #### Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA) Also called LIA The documented three-part test of purpose, necessity and balancing that underpins any reliance on legitimate interests. It must be completed and retained before an organisation may rely on legitimate interests as its lawful basis for processing personal data. In practice: The document a data protection officer will ask for first when a plan relies on legitimate interests, and the one most advertisers discover they do not have. AdBuyMCP surfaces the requirement as a condition on the compiled plan, so it arrives before the review does, and producing the assessment is the advertiser's obligation. [Legitimate interests](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#legitimate-interest) [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) [Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#dpia) [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) #### Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) Also called DPIA A structured assessment of the privacy risks of a processing activity, required where processing is likely to result in a high risk to individuals, as large-scale profiling for advertising generally is. In practice: AdBuyMCP has not completed an impact assessment for its exposure ledger. The inputs one would draw on (per-source lawful basis, per-key legal grading and a documented retention rule) exist, and the assessment itself does not. [Legitimate Interests Assessment (LIA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#lia) [UK GDPR](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/uk-gdpr) [Lawful basis](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis) [Identity resolution](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#identity-resolution) [AdBuyMCP's security status](https://adbuymcp.com/security) #### Cinema Advertising Association (CAA) Also called CAA The body that clears advertising for UK cinema, issuing a certificate and an age rating that determines which films an advert may be shown alongside. Separate from broadcast clearance and required before print traffic. In practice: The age rating is a media constraint as much as a creative one: copy containing strong language restricts pairing to 15 and 18 certificate films, which changes the audience you can reach. That is worth knowing at the scripting stage, before production, which is why the pre-check flags it there. [Clearcast](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/clearcast) [Cinema advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cinema-advertising) [BCAP and CAP codes](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#bcap) #### BCAP and CAP codes Also called BCAP, CAP code, advertising code The two UK advertising codes, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority: BCAP governs broadcast advertising and CAP governs everything non-broadcast. They set the rules on substantiation, harm, offence and specific product categories. In practice: Under both codes, objective and superlative claims need documentary substantiation. Medicines, medical devices and health claims require evidence and are frequently blocked outright. Rules on specific categories (alcohol, gambling, financial products) constrain both copy and placement. AdBuyMCP's pre-check names the rule alongside each finding, so a flag tells you what to fix. [Clearcast](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/clearcast) [Cinema Advertising Association (CAA)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary#caa) [Cinema advertising](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/cinema-advertising) ### AdBuyMCP's own vocabulary 6 terms These are the terms AdBuyMCP either coined or uses more strictly than the category does. - [Fidelity score](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/fidelity-score) - [Lawful-basis manifest](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/lawful-basis-manifest) - [Persona compiler](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/persona-compiler) - [Exposure ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/exposure-ledger) - [Evidence ledger](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/evidence-ledger) - [Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://adbuymcp.com/glossary/mcp) How each entry works ## Each entry says where we differ from the norm Each entry opens with the neutral answer, which holds whoever you buy from. Then it says what the term means for a UK buyer and where AdBuyMCP works differently from the category default. The take-rate entry, for example, explains how an all-in price differs from a fee on top, and the frequency entry explains why a plan's frequency is planned. Bring your market ## Bring your market and we'll price a plan with you. In a 30-minute call with the founder, we work out how big your market is, price 3, 5 and 12 times a week and talk through how we'd balance the four channels for your market. [Get my plan and price](https://adbuymcp.com/start) [Book a 30-minute call with the founder](https://adbuymcp.com/contact#book) Free, with no card. Talk your market and your plan through with James Rooney, who built AdBuyMCP and wrote its code. ## Questions about these definitions ### What is the 95-5 rule in B2B marketing? Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute estimates that something like 5% of business buyers are in the market in a given quarter, a rule of thumb that varies by category. So at any one time most of the companies that could buy from you are not looking, and they will buy later, often from vendors they already know. ### What is the difference between attribution and incrementality? Attribution assigns credit for an outcome to the touchpoints that preceded it, according to a rule you chose. Incrementality asks whether the outcome would have happened anyway, by comparing an exposed group with a comparable unexposed one. Attribution is a description of a conversion path; incrementality is a causal claim. Almost every reported media result is the first presented as though it were the second. ### What does consent-chained actually mean? That the data provider asserts a consent chain exists back to the individual. Nobody downstream has necessarily verified every link in it. AdBuyMCP records the assertion in the plan's lawful-basis manifest along with the condition that comes with it: the supply chain must be framework-validated and the vendor attestation verified on connection. That is a condition you still owe. ### What is the difference between reach and frequency? Reach counts the distinct people or households who saw a campaign at least once. Frequency is how many times, on average, each of them saw it in a period, so impressions are reach times frequency. An AdBuyMCP awareness plan is sold by frequency, 3, 5 or 12 times a week, and states it as planned: each channel reports delivery in its own unit, and no UK service de-duplicates reach or frequency across sellers.