Digital Media Planning Glossary: 170+ Terms Marketers Should Know

A digital media planning glossary is a plain-English reference to the terms, metrics and formulas used to plan, buy and measure paid media across search, social, video, CTV, programmatic, retail media and out-of-home. This one defines 174 terms from A to Z, with formulas, worked examples in US dollars, and the newer terms most glossaries still miss, such as GEO, AI Overviews, share of model, data clean rooms and India’s DPDP Act.

Every definition starts with a direct answer, key metrics include the formula, and the most important terms include a worked example with numbers. Related terms are cross-linked, so you can jump from GRP to TRP to cost per point without leaving the page. If you are new to the job, pair this page with our media planning playbook for beginners.

How to use this glossary: use the letter links below to jump to a section, or search the page for a term (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F). Start with the formula cheat sheet if you need numbers fast. Each term has its own link, so you can share a single definition with a colleague or client by copying the address with the #term at the end.

Jump to: Formulas | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | Y | Z

Media planning formula cheat sheet

Metric	Formula	Use it to
CPM	(Cost ÷ Impressions) × 1,000	Price and compare awareness buys across channels
vCPM	(Cost ÷ Viewable impressions) × 1,000	Pay only for ads that had a chance to be seen
eCPM	(Total cost ÷ Impressions) × 1,000	Compare CPC, CPV and CPA buys on one scale
CPC	Cost ÷ Clicks	Judge search and traffic campaigns
CTR	Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100	Check whether creative earns attention
Conversion rate	Conversions ÷ Clicks × 100	Check landing page and offer strength
CPA / CPL	Cost ÷ Conversions (or Leads)	Measure performance efficiency
CPV / CPCV	Cost ÷ Views (or Completed views)	Price video buys
Completion rate	Completed views ÷ Video starts × 100	Judge video creative and placement quality
Reach %	Unique people reached ÷ Target audience × 100	Size how much of your audience you covered
Average frequency	Impressions ÷ Reach	Check exposure per person
GRP / TRP	Reach % × Average frequency	Express campaign weight in one number, TV and digital
CPP	Cost ÷ GRPs (or TRPs)	Compare TV and video buys on cost per point
SOV	Brand ad spend ÷ Category ad spend × 100	Benchmark your weight against competitors
ESOV	SOV % - Share of market %	Judge whether you are spending enough to grow
ROAS	Revenue ÷ Ad spend	Judge revenue efficiency of ads
Break-even ROAS	1 ÷ Gross margin	Set the minimum ROAS target before launch
ROI	(Gross profit - Cost) ÷ Cost × 100	Judge true profitability
LTV	AOV × Orders per year × Years × Gross margin	Set how much you can pay to win a customer
Payback period	CAC ÷ Monthly gross profit per customer	Check how fast acquisition spend comes back

Worked example: from budget to GRPs

Example: say a skincare brand has $7,200 for a four-week YouTube and Instagram awareness burst in India. Its target audience, women aged 18 to 34 in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, is estimated at 8,000,000 people, and the blended CPM is $1.80.

1. Impressions = $7,200 ÷ $1.80 × 1,000 = 4,000,000 impressions.
2. The platforms estimate unique reach of 1,200,000 people, so reach % = 1,200,000 ÷ 8,000,000 × 100 = 15%.
3. Average frequency = 4,000,000 ÷ 1,200,000 = 3.33.
4. GRPs = 15 × 3.33 = 50. (Check: impressions ÷ audience × 100 = 4,000,000 ÷ 8,000,000 × 100 = 50.)
5. Cost per point = $7,200 ÷ 50 = $144 per GRP.
6. If the plan sets effective frequency at 3 and 500,000 people see the ad 3 or more times, 3+ reach is 500,000 ÷ 8,000,000 = 6.25% of the audience.

The same maths works at any budget: $10,000 at a $5 CPM buys 2,000,000 impressions. You can run these numbers for your own plan with the calculator linked in the next steps section.

Which media metrics matter at each funnel stage?

Funnel stage	Main KPIs	Typical buying model	Common channels and formats
Awareness	Reach, frequency, GRP, vCPM, brand lift	CPM, vCPM, fixed rate, CPCV	CTV, bumper ads, in-stream, DOOH, sponsorships
Consideration	VTR, completion rate, CTR, engagement rate	CPV, CPC, CPE	Demand Gen, Shorts ads, native, influencers
Conversion	Conversion rate, CPA, ROAS	CPC, CPA, target ROAS bidding	Search, Performance Max, Advantage+, retail media
Loyalty	LTV, repeat purchase rate, iROAS	CPM or CPA on customer lists	Custom audiences, retargeting, email and CRM

Media planning terms starting with A

A/B Testing

A/B testing is an experiment that randomly splits an audience between two versions of an ad, page or setting to see which performs better. Change one variable at a time. See also: Holdout Test.

Above the Fold

Above the fold is the part of a web page visible without scrolling. Ads placed there tend to be more viewable, so publishers often charge more for them.

Ad Exchange

An ad exchange is a digital marketplace where publisher inventory is bought and sold, usually in real-time auctions between DSPs and SSPs. See also: RTB.

Ad Fraud

Ad fraud is deliberate activity that makes advertisers pay for impressions, clicks or conversions no real person generated, such as bot traffic, domain spoofing, hidden ads and fake installs. See also: IVT, SIVT.

Ad Network

An ad network aggregates inventory from many publishers and resells it to advertisers, often packaged by audience or content category.

Ad Recall

Ad recall is the share of people who remember seeing your ad when surveyed, usually measured against a control group in a brand lift study. See also: Brand Lift.

Ad Server

An ad server stores creatives, decides which ad fills a placement, and counts impressions and clicks. Advertisers use their own, such as Campaign Manager 360, to verify publisher numbers.

Addressable Advertising

Addressable advertising shows different ads to different households watching or reading the same content, based on data about them. It is most common in CTV.

ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers)

ads.txt is a public file a publisher hosts on its domain listing every company authorized to sell its inventory. The IAB Tech Lab standard helps buyers avoid spoofed inventory; app-ads.txt covers apps. See also: sellers.json, SPO.

Advantage+ (Meta)

Advantage+ is Meta’s AI automation suite that handles targeting, placements, budget and creative variations for Facebook and Instagram ads. It includes Advantage+ sales, app and leads campaigns. See also: Performance Max.

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

AEO is structuring content so featured snippets, voice assistants and AI chatbots can lift a direct answer from it, using question-led headings, short definitions and FAQ schema.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing pays publishers, creators, coupon and cashback sites a commission for each sale or lead they drive, tracked through unique links or codes.

Agentic Commerce

Agentic commerce is shopping in which an AI agent searches, compares and sometimes buys on a person’s behalf. Your product data, prices and reviews must be readable by machines. See also: AI Agent.

AI Agent

An AI agent is software built on a large language model that plans and completes multi-step tasks, such as research or booking, with limited human input. See our explainer on Meta Muse, Meta’s personal AI agent.

AI Mode (Google)

AI Mode is a Google Search experience that answers queries conversationally, supports follow-up questions and links to sources. In India it works in English, Hindi and other Indian languages including Bengali, Tamil and Telugu. See also: AI Overviews.

AI Overviews (Google)

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to sources. Brands now track whether they are cited in them, not only where they rank. See also: GEO.

AOV (Average Order Value)

AOV is the average revenue per order. A higher AOV lets you afford a higher CPA.

Formula: AOV = Total revenue ÷ Number of orders

ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India)

ASCI is India’s self-regulatory body for advertising content. Its influencer guidelines require clear labels such as #ad, #sponsored, #collaboration or #partner on paid, gifted or bartered promotions. See also: Influencer Marketing.

Attribution

Attribution assigns credit for a conversion to the ads and touchpoints a customer interacted with beforehand. The model you choose changes which channels look profitable. See also: Data-Driven Attribution, Incrementality.

Attribution Window

An attribution window, or lookback window, is the period after an ad click or view during which a conversion can be credited to that ad.

Example: With a 7-day click window, a purchase 9 days after the click is not credited.

AVOD (Advertising-Based Video on Demand)

AVOD is on-demand streaming video that is free to watch and funded by ads, such as YouTube or the ad-supported tiers of streaming apps. See also: SVOD, FAST.

Media planning terms starting with B

BARC India (Broadcast Audience Research Council)

BARC India is the joint industry body of broadcasters (IBDF), advertisers (ISA) and agencies (AAAI) that runs India’s TV audience measurement. Its data is the currency for Indian TV buying. See also: TRP.

Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral targeting shows ads based on a person’s past actions, such as sites visited, searches or purchases. It depends on identifiers and consent, so privacy rules hit it hardest. See also: Contextual Targeting.

Bid Strategy

A bid strategy is the rule a platform uses to set your auction bids, such as manual CPC, maximize conversions, target CPA or target ROAS. Automated strategies need steady conversion data.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions with no meaningful interaction. In Google Analytics 4 it is the share of sessions that were not engaged.

Brand Lift

Brand lift is the increase in awareness, ad recall, consideration or intent caused by a campaign, measured by surveying exposed and control groups.

Formula: Absolute lift = Exposed group % - Control group %

Example: 38% recall among exposed people against 30% in the control group is an 8-point lift.

Brand Safety

Brand safety is keeping ads away from content harmful for almost any advertiser, such as hate speech or graphic violence, using exclusion lists, platform controls and verification vendors. See also: Brand Suitability.

Brand Suitability

Brand suitability matches ads to content that fits one brand’s values and risk tolerance. A plane crash report may suit a snack brand but not an airline.

Bumper Ads

Bumper ads are non-skippable YouTube video ads of up to 6 seconds, built for cheap reach and frequency and best used as reminders alongside longer ads.

Media planning terms starting with C

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

CAC is the total cost of winning one new customer, including media and often agency, tools and sales costs. Unlike CPA, it counts only new customers. See also: LTV.

Formula: CAC = Total acquisition cost ÷ New customers

CDP (Customer Data Platform)

A CDP unifies first-party data from your site, app, CRM and stores into one profile per customer and sends audiences to ad and marketing tools. See also: DMP.

Commerce Media

Commerce media is advertising sold by any business with shopper or transaction data, such as delivery apps, travel sites and payment companies. Retail media is its best-known part.

Completion Rate (VCR)

Completion rate is the share of video ad starts that play to the end, the main quality signal for non-skippable and CTV video.

Formula: Completion rate = Completed views ÷ Video starts × 100

Example: 42,000 completions from 60,000 starts is a 70% completion rate.

Consent Mode (Google)

Consent Mode passes each visitor’s consent choices to Google tags, which adjust what they collect. Its ad_user_data and ad_personalization signals are needed for measuring and personalizing ads for EEA users.

Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting places ads next to content matching a chosen theme or keyword, such as running shoes on a marathon article. It needs no personal data.

Continuity

Continuity is a schedule that runs advertising at a steady level with no gaps, suited to products people buy all year, such as groceries. See also: Flighting, Pulsing.

Control Group

A control group is a set of people deliberately not shown your ads, used as the baseline for what would have happened anyway. See also: Incrementality.

Conversion

A conversion is any valuable action you track after an ad interaction, such as a purchase, lead form, app install, sign-up or call.

Conversion Lift

Conversion lift is an experiment that measures extra conversions caused by a campaign by comparing a randomly held-out control group with the exposed group.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of clicks or sessions that end in a conversion.

Formula: Conversion rate = Conversions ÷ Clicks × 100

Example: 60 purchases from 2,000 clicks is a 3% conversion rate.

Cookieless Advertising

Cookieless advertising uses first-party data, context, modeling and clean rooms instead of third-party cookies. In October 2025 Google confirmed Chrome keeps third-party cookies and is retiring most Privacy Sandbox APIs, but Safari, Firefox and consent laws still restrict them. See also: First-Party Data.

CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

CPA is the average cost of one conversion, whether a sale, lead or sign-up. See also: CAC.

Formula: CPA = Total cost ÷ Conversions

Example: $6,000 for 300 orders is a $20 CPA; $4,000 for 160 sign-ups is a $25 CPA.

CPC (Cost Per Click)

CPC is the price you pay for each click. In search auctions your actual CPC is often below your maximum bid.

Formula: CPC = Total cost ÷ Clicks

Example: $3,600 for 4,500 clicks is a $0.80 CPC.

CPCV (Cost Per Completed View)

CPCV is what you pay for each video ad watched to the end, common in CTV and programmatic video.

Formula: CPCV = Total cost ÷ Completed views

CPE (Cost Per Engagement)

CPE is the cost of each engagement, such as a like, comment, share, save or click, as the platform defines it.

Formula: CPE = Total cost ÷ Engagements

CPI (Cost Per Install)

CPI is the cost of each app install from ads. Pair it with retention, because installs that never open the app are wasted.

Formula: CPI = Total cost ÷ Installs

CPL (Cost Per Lead)

CPL is the cost of each lead, such as a form fill or call. Judge it with lead-to-sale rate, not alone.

Formula: CPL = Total cost ÷ Leads

Example: A $30 lead closing at 2% costs $1,500 per sale; a $90 lead closing at 10% costs $900.

CPM (Cost Per Mille)

CPM is the cost of 1,000 ad impressions (“mille” is Latin for thousand). It is the standard price unit for awareness media and for comparing channels. See also: vCPM, eCPM.

Formula: CPM = (Total cost ÷ Impressions) × 1,000

Example: $3,000 for 2,000,000 impressions is a $1.50 CPM; $5,000 for 1,250,000 impressions is a $4 CPM.

CPP (Cost Per Point)

CPP, or cost per rating point, is the cost of one rating point (1% of the target audience). It is the classic TV buying metric.

Formula: CPP = Total cost ÷ GRPs (or TRPs)

Example: $36,000 for 150 TRPs is a $240 CPP.

CPR (Cost Per Result)

CPR is Meta’s average cost of the result a campaign optimizes for, such as a purchase or lead. Some planners use CPR for cost per reach, so confirm which is meant.

Formula: CPR = Amount spent ÷ Results

CPV (Cost Per View)

CPV is what you pay per video view, where each platform defines a view. See how YouTube’s view count rules changed.

Formula: CPV = Total cost ÷ Views

Example: $1,000 for 100,000 views is a $0.01 CPV.

Creative Fatigue

Creative fatigue is the drop in performance, such as falling CTR and rising CPA, when people see the same ad too often. Rotate fresh creative. See also: Wear-Out.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

CTR is the percentage of impressions that led to a click. It measures whether an ad earns attention, not whether it sells.

Formula: CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100

Example: 1,800 clicks from 120,000 impressions is a 1.5% CTR.

CTV (Connected TV)

CTV is streaming content watched on a TV screen via smart TVs, streaming sticks or consoles. CTV ads pair full-screen TV exposure with digital targeting and measurement. See also: OTT.

Custom Audience

A custom audience is a list you build in an ad platform, such as hashed customer contacts or site visitors, to target or exclude. Google’s customer list version is Customer Match. See also: Lookalike Audience.

Media planning terms starting with D

Data Clean Room

A data clean room is a secure environment where a brand and a partner, such as a retailer, match and analyze first-party data without seeing each other’s raw user records. Google Ads Data Hub and Amazon Marketing Cloud are examples. See also: First-Party Data.

Data-Driven Attribution (DDA)

Data-driven attribution uses machine learning on your conversion paths to credit each ad interaction by its contribution. It is the default for most conversion actions in Google Ads, which has retired first click, linear, time decay and position-based models. See also: Last-Click Attribution.

Dayparting

Dayparting is scheduling ads, or adjusting bids, by time of day and day of week to match when your audience is active.

Example: A food delivery brand raises bids from 7 pm to 10 pm.

DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization)

DCO automatically assembles ad variations from components (headline, image, offer) and serves the best combination to each audience or context.

Deal ID

A deal ID is a code linking a buyer’s DSP to a pre-negotiated private marketplace, preferred deal or programmatic guaranteed deal.

Demand Gen (Google)

Demand Gen is a Google Ads campaign type for visual ads across YouTube (including Shorts), Discover, Gmail and the Google Display Network. Google is moving Display campaigns into it.

Display Advertising

Display advertising is visual ads, such as banners, rich media and native units, on websites and apps, usually bought on CPM.

DMP (Data Management Platform)

A DMP segments mostly anonymous, cookie-based audience data, often third-party, for programmatic targeting. Many brands have moved this job to CDPs and clean rooms.

DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home)

DOOH is advertising on digital screens in public places, such as airports, malls, metro stations and roadside billboards, often bought programmatically. See also: OOH.

DPDP Act (Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023)

The DPDP Act is India’s data protection law, requiring clear, specific consent that people can withdraw anytime. The DPDP Rules were notified in November 2025 with an 18-month phased compliance period. See also: Consent Mode.

DSP (Demand-Side Platform)

A DSP is software buyers use to purchase display, video, CTV, audio and DOOH across many exchanges, bidding per impression. Examples: Display and Video 360, The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP. See also: SSP. Amazon DSP now also buys ads inside ChatGPT: see our ChatGPT ads and Amazon DSP explainer.

Media planning terms starting with E

eCPM (Effective Cost Per Mille)

eCPM converts any pricing model into a cost, or publisher revenue, per 1,000 impressions so buys compare on one scale.

Formula: eCPM = (Total cost or earnings ÷ Impressions) × 1,000

Example: A CPC buy spending $900 over 300,000 impressions has a $3 eCPM.

Effective Frequency

Effective frequency is the number of exposures a person needs before an ad does its job. There is no universal number: it depends on brand, creative and competition, so test it. See also: Effective Reach, Wear-Out.

Example: If the plan sets effective frequency at 3, only people reached 3 or more times count toward effective reach.

Effective Reach

Effective reach is the number or percentage of your audience reached at or above your effective frequency, often written as 3+ reach.

eGRP (Equivalent GRP)

eGRP usually means GRPs converted to a standard spot length (often 30 seconds) so different ad lengths compare. Some planners use it for effective GRPs, so check.

Formula: eGRP = GRP × (Spot length ÷ Standard length)

Example: 100 GRPs of a 15-second spot equal 50 eGRPs on a 30-second base.

Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is the share of impressions, reach or followers that engaged with a post or ad. State the denominator. Try our free engagement rate calculator.

Formula: Engagement rate = Engagements ÷ Impressions × 100

ESOV (Excess Share of Voice)

ESOV is the gap between share of voice and share of market. Planners read positive ESOV as a sign a brand is spending enough to grow.

Formula: ESOV = SOV % - Share of market %

Example: 18% SOV and 12% market share gives +6 points ESOV.

Exclusion List

An exclusion list, or block list, names sites, apps, channels or keywords where your ads must not run. Its opposite is an inclusion list.

Media planning terms starting with F

FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV)

FAST is free, scheduled streaming channels with ad breaks, like traditional TV delivered over the internet. Samsung TV Plus and Pluto TV are examples.

First-Party Data

First-party data is information you collect directly from your customers with consent, such as purchases, site behavior and CRM records. It is the most reliable, privacy-safe base for targeting. See also: Zero-Party Data.

Fixed Rate

A fixed rate is a price agreed in advance for a placement or volume, instead of an auction price. Sponsorships and programmatic guaranteed deals use them.

Flighting

Flighting alternates bursts of advertising with gaps of none, stretching budget and concentrating weight around launches or sales. See also: Pulsing.

Example: A 12-week plan runs weeks 1 to 3, 6 to 8 and 11 to 12.

Floor Price

A floor price, or reserve price, is the lowest bid a publisher will accept for an impression.

Frequency

Frequency is the average number of times each reached person saw your ad in a period. Averages hide spread. See also: Effective Frequency, Frequency Cap.

Formula: Average frequency = Impressions ÷ Reach

Example: 3,000,000 impressions reaching 750,000 people is an average frequency of 4.

Frequency Cap

A frequency cap limits how often one person sees your ad in a period, such as 3 times a week, cutting waste and annoyance.

Media planning terms starting with G

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

GEO is making your content more likely to be cited in AI answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, a term formalized in a 2023 research paper. Check pages with our free GEO readiness score. See also: AEO, Share of Model.

Geo Lift

Geo lift measures incrementality by running ads in some regions and holding comparable regions back, then comparing sales. It needs no user-level tracking.

Example: Advertise in Pune and Jaipur, hold back Nagpur and Lucknow, then compare sales growth.

Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting shows ads only to people in chosen locations: countries, states, cities, postal codes where supported, or a radius around a store.

GIVT (General Invalid Traffic)

GIVT is invalid traffic caught by routine filtering, such as known data-center traffic, crawlers and declared bots. It is the easier of the MRC’s two invalid traffic types. See also: SIVT.

GRP (Gross Rating Point)

GRPs measure total campaign weight, where one point equals 1% of the target population; they can exceed 100. In digital, GRPs use on-target impressions, so TV and online video plan in one currency. See also: TRP, CPP.

Formula: GRP = Reach % × Average frequency

Example: Reaching 40% of your audience 3 times on average delivers 120 GRPs.

Media planning terms starting with H

Hashed Email

A hashed email is an address converted by a one-way algorithm such as SHA-256, so platforms can match it without seeing the plain address.

Header Bidding

Header bidding lets publishers offer each impression to several SSPs at once before calling their ad server, raising competition. Prebid is a widely used open-source framework. See also: Waterfall.

Heavy-Up

A heavy-up is a period of increased spend within a campaign, such as the weeks before Diwali.

Holdout Test

A holdout test withholds ads from a random slice of your audience and compares them with people who could see ads. It proves whether retargeting or loyalty campaigns add sales.

Media planning terms starting with I

Identity Graph

An identity graph links identifiers belonging to the same person or household, such as emails, device IDs and CTV IDs, for cross-device targeting and measurement.

Impressions

An impression is counted each time an ad is served. Impressions measure delivery, not attention, and one person can generate many.

Formula: Impressions = Reach × Average frequency

In-Stream Ads

In-stream ads play before, during or after other video content. On YouTube, skippable in-stream ads can be skipped after 5 seconds. See also: Bumper Ads.

Incrementality

Incrementality is the extra result caused by advertising that would not have happened without it, measured with holdouts, geo lift or conversion lift. See also: iROAS.

Formula: Lift = (Test conversion rate - Control conversion rate) ÷ Control conversion rate × 100

Example: 2.4% conversion in the test group against 2.0% in control is a 20% lift.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing partners with creators to feature a brand in their content, often boosted as paid ads from the creator’s handle. In India, ASCI requires clear disclosure labels. See also: ASCI.

Insertion Order (IO)

An insertion order is the signed agreement listing placements, dates, volumes, rates and budget for a buy. In some DSPs, it is also a budget container.

Inventory

Inventory is the ad space a publisher or platform has available to sell, counted in impressions, slots, spots or screens.

iROAS (Incremental Return on Ad Spend)

iROAS measures revenue caused by ads, not just attributed to them, usually from a lift test or MMM.

Formula: iROAS = Incremental revenue ÷ Ad spend

Example: $120,000 spend driving $300,000 incremental revenue is an iROAS of 2.5.

IVT (Invalid Traffic)

IVT is any impression or click not made by a real, interested person, from crawlers to fraud. The MRC splits it into GIVT and SIVT. See also: GIVT, SIVT.

Media planning terms starting with K

Keyword Targeting

Keyword targeting shows ads when people search for, or read about, chosen words. Google Ads match types (broad, phrase, exact) set how close the match must be.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

A KPI is the metric that defines success for a campaign: reach for awareness, completion rate for consideration, CPA or ROAS for conversion. Pick one primary KPI.

Media planning terms starting with L

Last-Click Attribution

Last-click attribution gives all credit to the final ad clicked before a conversion. It undervalues upper-funnel video and display.

Linear TV

Linear TV is scheduled television watched as it airs on broadcast, cable or DTH. In India, BARC measures it.

LLM (Large Language Model)

An LLM is an AI model trained on vast text to understand and generate language, powering ChatGPT, Gemini and AI search. Our guide to prompt engineering for marketers shows how to use one well.

Lookalike Audience

A lookalike audience is a new audience a platform builds from people resembling a seed list, such as your best customers. Seed quality beats seed size.

LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)

LTV is the gross profit you expect from a customer over the whole relationship. Compare it with CAC. See also: CAC, Payback Period.

Formula: LTV = AOV × Orders per year × Years retained × Gross margin

Example: $30 × 4 orders × 3 years × 40% margin = $144.

Media planning terms starting with M

Make-Good

A make-good is compensation, usually free extra spots or impressions, that a media owner gives when a campaign under-delivers or runs incorrectly.

Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel models the stages a buyer moves through: awareness, consideration, conversion and loyalty. Plans assign channels, KPIs and budget to each.

Match Rate

Match rate is the percentage of uploaded customer records an ad platform or clean room matches to its users.

Example: 55,000 matches from 100,000 hashed emails is a 55% match rate.

Media Brief

A media brief sets out the objective, audience, budget, timing, markets and KPIs for a campaign before planning starts.

Media Buying

Media buying is negotiating, booking and optimizing the placements a media plan calls for.

Media Mix

The media mix is the combination of channels in a plan and the share of budget each one gets.

Media Plan

A media plan sets out channels, formats, audiences, dates, budgets and expected reach and results. For a step-by-step process and a copyable template, see our guide on how to create a digital media plan. See also: Media Brief.

Media Planning

Media planning is deciding where, when and how often to run ads to reach the target audience within budget, and how to measure success.

MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling)

MMM is a statistical model using years of weekly sales and spend data, plus price and seasonality, to estimate each channel’s contribution. It needs no user-level data; Google’s Meridian and Meta’s Robyn are open-source. See also: Incrementality.

MRC (Media Rating Council)

The MRC is a US-based industry body that sets measurement standards, including viewability and invalid traffic, and accredits measurement companies.

MTA (Multi-Touch Attribution)

MTA splits conversion credit across several touchpoints using rules or algorithms. Cookie loss and consent limits have made it less complete.

Media planning terms starting with N

Native Advertising

Native ads match the look of the platform they appear on, such as in-feed posts and sponsored articles, and must still be labeled as ads.

New-to-Brand (NTB)

New-to-brand is a retail media metric counting purchases from shoppers who have not bought the brand within a set lookback period.

Media planning terms starting with O

OOH (Out-of-Home)

OOH is advertising seen outside the home: billboards, hoardings, bus shelters, transit and malls.

Open Auction

The open auction is programmatic inventory sold in real time to any eligible buyer. It offers scale and low CPMs but less quality control.

OTS (Opportunity to See)

OTS is the number of times a person had the chance to see an ad. Average OTS is effectively average frequency.

OTT (Over-the-Top)

OTT is video or audio delivered over the internet on any device, bypassing cable or DTH. In India it is also shorthand for streaming platforms.

Media planning terms starting with P

Pacing

Pacing is how evenly a budget spends across a flight. Underpacing leaves money unspent; overpacing runs out early.

Payback Period

Payback period is how long a new customer’s gross profit takes to cover their acquisition cost.

Formula: Payback (months) = CAC ÷ Monthly gross profit per customer

Example: $120 CAC and $20 monthly gross profit is a 6-month payback.

Performance Max (Google)

Performance Max is a goal-based Google Ads campaign that reaches all Google Ads inventory, including YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail and Maps, from one campaign. See also: Demand Gen.

Placement

A placement is a specific location where an ad can run, such as a site, app, channel or ad slot.

PMP (Private Marketplace)

A PMP is an invitation-only programmatic auction for selected inventory, usually with a floor price, accessed through a deal ID.

Preferred Deal

A preferred deal gives one buyer first look at inventory at a fixed price before auction, with no volume commitment.

Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is automated buying and selling of digital ads through DSPs, SSPs and exchanges, covering real-time auctions and pre-negotiated deals. See also: DSP, RTB.

Programmatic Audio

Programmatic audio is buying ads in music streaming, podcasts and digital radio through DSPs.

Programmatic Guaranteed (PG)

Programmatic guaranteed is a fixed-price, guaranteed-volume deal agreed in advance and delivered through a DSP.

Pulsing

Pulsing keeps a low continuous level of advertising with periodic heavier bursts around peak seasons.

Media planning terms starting with Q

Quartile Reporting

Quartile reporting shows how many viewers reached 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of a video ad.

Media planning terms starting with R

Rate Card

A rate card is a media owner’s published price list. Large buys are usually negotiated below it.

Reach

Reach is the number or percentage of unique people in your target audience who saw your ad at least once. Estimate it with our free reach and frequency calculator. See also: Frequency, Effective Reach.

Formula: Reach % = Unique people reached ÷ Target audience × 100

Example: 1,200,000 people reached in an audience of 8,000,000 is 15% reach.

Recency

Recency planning holds that ads work best near the moment someone is ready to buy, so steady weekly reach beats piling up frequency.

Regional Language Targeting

Regional language targeting runs ads in languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali or Marathi, and targets people by language, to reach audiences beyond English-speaking metros. See also: Tier 2 and Tier 3 Cities.

Retail Media

Retail media is advertising sold by retailers and marketplaces on their sites, apps and stores, targeted with shopper data and measured against sales. Amazon Ads and Flipkart Ads are examples. See also: Commerce Media.

Retargeting

Retargeting, or remarketing, shows ads to people who already interacted with you. Many would have bought anyway, so test incrementality.

RFP (Request for Proposal)

An RFP asks agencies or media owners to propose plans, prices and terms against a brief.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

ROAS is revenue generated per unit of ad spend. Compare it with break-even ROAS before calling a campaign profitable. See also: ROI, iROAS.

Formula: ROAS = Revenue ÷ Ad spend; Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ Gross margin

Example: $25,000 spend driving $112,500 revenue is a 4.5 ROAS; at 40% margin, break-even is 2.5.

ROI (Return on Investment)

ROI measures profit relative to cost. Because it uses profit, not revenue, a high ROAS can still mean a negative ROI.

Formula: ROI = (Gross profit - Cost) ÷ Cost × 100

Example: $4,500 gross profit on $2,500 cost is an 80% ROI.

RTB (Real-Time Bidding)

RTB is the auction in which each impression is sold in milliseconds as a page loads: the SSP sends a bid request, DSPs bid, and the top bid wins.

Run of Site (ROS)

Run of site lets ads appear anywhere on a publisher’s site, usually at a lower rate than fixed sections.

Media planning terms starting with S

Search Advertising

Search advertising shows ads when people search on Google, Bing, YouTube or Amazon, usually bought on CPC. It captures existing demand.

Second-Party Data

Second-party data is another company’s first-party data shared with you through a partnership, often via a clean room.

sellers.json

sellers.json is an IAB Tech Lab file in which SSPs and exchanges list the sellers and intermediaries they represent, so buyers see who really sells an impression.

Share of Model

Share of model is how often AI models such as ChatGPT or Gemini mention your brand in relevant answers against competitors, tracked by running fixed prompts repeatedly.

Share of Voice (SOV)

Share of voice is your brand’s share of all category advertising, by spend, impressions or GRPs. See also: ESOV.

Formula: SOV = Brand ad spend ÷ Category ad spend × 100

Example: $2 million out of $10 million category spend is a 20% SOV.

Shorts Ads (YouTube)

Shorts ads are vertical video ads between organic videos in the YouTube Shorts feed, which viewers can swipe past. They run through campaign types including Demand Gen and Performance Max.

SIVT (Sophisticated Invalid Traffic)

SIVT is hard-to-detect invalid traffic needing advanced analysis, such as bots posing as users, hijacked devices, hidden ads and faked viewability.

Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is paid placement on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Snapchat.

SPO (Supply Path Optimization)

SPO is buyers cutting duplicate routes to the same inventory, favoring direct, low-fee paths using ads.txt, sellers.json and bid data.

Sponsorship

A sponsorship pays to associate a brand with a show, event, podcast or property, usually for a fixed fee.

SSP (Supply-Side Platform)

An SSP is software publishers use to sell inventory to many buyers, set floor prices and manage deals.

SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand)

SVOD is paid subscription streaming. Many services now add cheaper ad-supported tiers.

Media planning terms starting with T

Target Audience

The target audience is the group a campaign is built to reach, defined by demographics, location, interests or intent.

Third-Party Data

Third-party data is audience data collected by companies with no direct relationship to the people in it, sold as segments. It is the least transparent data type.

Tier 2 and Tier 3 Cities

Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are Indian cities below the metros in size, such as Indore, Jaipur and Lucknow (commonly called Tier 2). Plans treat them separately because language and media habits differ.

Tracking Pixel

A tracking pixel, or tag, is code on a website that sends visits and actions to an ad platform, like the Meta Pixel or Google tag. Server-side options include Meta’s Conversions API.

TRP (Target Rating Point)

TRPs are rating points against a specific target audience rather than the whole population. In India, “TRP” is also everyday shorthand for any TV rating, and official ratings come from BARC India. See also: GRP, BARC India.

Formula: TRP = Target audience reach % × Average frequency

Example: 25 spots each seen by 6% of your target deliver 150 TRPs.

TVR (Television Rating)

TVR is the average percentage of a target audience watching a channel or spot. Adding TVRs across spots gives GRPs or TRPs.

Media planning terms starting with U

Unique Users

Unique users is the de-duplicated count of people or devices that saw an ad or visited a site in a period.

Upfront

An upfront is an annual event where TV and video owners present programming and advertisers commit budgets early for better rates.

UTM Parameters

UTM parameters are URL tags (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content) that tell GA4 which campaign sent traffic. Use our free UTM campaign builder.

Example: example.com/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=paid_social

Media planning terms starting with V

vCPM (Viewable CPM)

vCPM is the cost per 1,000 viewable impressions, so you pay only for ads that met the viewability standard.

Formula: vCPM = (Total cost ÷ Viewable impressions) × 1,000

Example: A $1.20 CPM at 50% viewability is a $2.40 vCPM.

View-Through Conversion

A view-through conversion is credited when someone saw an ad without clicking and converted later. It is easy to over-credit, so validate with lift tests.

Viewability

Viewability measures whether an ad could be seen. Under the MRC standard used by Google, display ads need at least 50% of their area on screen for one second (30% for very large ads), and video ads 50% for two seconds while playing. See also: vCPM, MRC.

Formula: Viewability rate = Viewable impressions ÷ Measurable impressions × 100

VTR (View-Through Rate)

VTR is the percentage of video ad impressions that became a counted view. Some teams mean completion rate, so define it.

Formula: VTR = Views ÷ Impressions × 100

Media planning terms starting with W

Walled Garden

A walled garden is a closed platform, such as Google, Meta or Amazon, that sells its own inventory with its own data and measurement.

Waterfall

Waterfalling is the older practice of offering each impression to demand sources one at a time in fixed order, largely replaced by header bidding.

Wear-Out

Wear-out is the point where repeated exposure to the same creative stops working or starts to annoy.

Media planning terms starting with Y

Yield Management

Yield management is how publishers maximize revenue by balancing price floors, direct deals and programmatic demand.

Media planning terms starting with Z

Zero-Party Data

Zero-party data is information customers intentionally share, such as preferences or quiz answers. It is accurate and given with clear consent.

Which media planning terms do people confuse most?

• Reach vs impressions: reach counts unique people; impressions count every exposure. 100,000 impressions could be 100,000 people once or 20,000 people five times.
• GRP vs TRP: GRPs are weight against a broad population; TRPs are weight against your specific target. Always ask which base a quote uses.
• ROAS vs ROI: ROAS uses revenue, ROI uses profit. A 3x ROAS can lose money at a 30% margin.
• CTR vs conversion rate: CTR measures the ad; conversion rate measures what happens after the click.
• Viewable impression vs view: a viewable impression means the ad was on screen long enough to count; a video view (CPV) follows each platform’s own rules.
• Attribution vs incrementality: attribution divides credit for sales that happened; incrementality tests whether the ads caused them.
• DMP vs CDP: a DMP handles anonymous, mostly third-party segments; a CDP unifies known first-party customer profiles.
• OTT vs CTV: OTT is the delivery method on any screen; CTV is OTT watched on a television.
• Brand safety vs suitability: safety avoids content bad for everyone; suitability avoids content wrong for your brand.

What this means for marketers and creators

Frequently asked questions

What is media planning?

Media planning is the process of deciding where, when and how often to run ads so they reach the right audience within a budget. A media planner chooses channels and formats, sets reach, frequency and cost targets, schedules the campaign and defines how success will be measured, usually with a KPI such as reach, CPA or ROAS.

What is the difference between media planning and media buying?

Media planning decides the strategy: which audience, which channels, how much budget, when and at what reach and frequency. Media buying carries out that plan: negotiating rates, booking placements, setting up programmatic deals and optimizing delivery. In small teams one person often does both, but the skills differ: planning is analytical, buying is negotiation and execution.

What is a good CPM?

There is no single good CPM, because CPM varies by channel, country, audience, format and season. CTV and premium video tend to cost more per thousand than open-web display. Judge CPM against your own history for the same audience, and against outcomes: a higher CPM that delivers viewable, on-target impressions and lower CPA is often better value.

What is the difference between reach and frequency?

Reach is the number or percentage of unique people who saw your ad at least once. Frequency is the average number of times each of those people saw it. Multiply them and you get total exposure: reach times frequency equals impressions, and reach percentage times frequency equals gross rating points.

What does GRP mean in digital marketing?

GRP stands for gross rating point, a measure of total campaign weight where one point equals 1% of the target population. In digital, GRPs are calculated from on-target impressions: reach percentage multiplied by average frequency. Using GRPs for online video and CTV lets planners compare and combine digital with TV in one currency.

What are the 4 types of media?

The four types of media are usually described with the PESO model: paid media (ads you buy), earned media (press coverage, reviews and shares), shared media (social posts and community content) and owned media (your website, app, email list and channels). Strong plans connect all four instead of treating paid media alone.

What is programmatic advertising in simple words?

Programmatic advertising is buying digital ads through software instead of manual orders. A demand-side platform bids on each ad impression, often in real time, based on the audience and context, while publishers sell through supply-side platforms. It covers open auctions as well as private and guaranteed deals with fixed prices.

Are third-party cookies going away in Chrome?

No. Google has confirmed that Chrome will keep its current approach, letting users manage third-party cookies in settings, and is retiring most Privacy Sandbox APIs. However, Safari and Firefox already restrict third-party cookies by default, and consent laws limit their use, so first-party data and contextual targeting still matter.

Next steps

Put these terms to work. Estimate reach, frequency and GRPs for your next campaign with the free reach and frequency calculator, follow the step-by-step process in our Media Planning Playbook for beginners, or browse all free TechMachaw tools for UTM, budget and GEO checks. Bookmark this glossary; we update it as platforms and standards change.

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