Have a hard time comprehending what you’re hearing at the latest media presentation? Help is right below. Here are a handful of media terms that you may or may not know.

The Basics

Impression: When someone sees your ad.

Click: When someone actually clicks on your ad.

Reach: The percentage of people who see your ad.

Frequency: The number of times people see your ad.

CPM (Cost Per Thousand): The price you pay for every 1,000 impressions.

CTR (Click Through Rate): How often someone clicks on your ad.

CPC (Cost Per Click): How much you pay every time someone clicks on your ad.

Digital Dialect

Native Ad: Advertising designed to blend in with surrounding editorial content.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization): What helps your website appear high within a person’s search results.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing): Using paid advertising tactics to help your website appear high within a person’s search results.

Targeting Terminology

Behavioral Targeting: Advertising to someone based on their past behaviors.

Contextual Targeting: Advertising to someone based on where they are likely to be at the moment.

Location or “Geo” Targeting: Advertising to someone based on where they have been/are currently located.

Cookie: Information stored on a person’s computer that remembers his/her preferences, that then advertisers use to target a consumer.

Retargeting: When an advertisement is shown to a user based on actions he/she has recently made on the web (i.e., they visit Zappos.com, next day they see a Zappos ad). NOTE: This strategy uses cookies.

Video Vernacular

OTT (Over the Top) Device: A device connected to or built within a TV to facilitate the delivery of Internet-based video content (e.g., Roku and Playstation Vue).

Connected TV (“Smart TVs”): Television sets connected to the Internet via OTT devices.

Addressable TV: Technology that allows publishers to show different ads to different households while they are watching the same program.

Daypart: How TV and radio outlets describe and sell their inventory (i.e., “Network Prime” from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.).

Pre-Roll and Mid-Roll Video: An online video commercial that appears prior to or as a break in video content, respectively.