Glossary · 34 terms
Streaming TV advertising glossary: CTV terms explained
Short answer
Thirty-four terms buyers meet when they plan, buy and measure streaming TV ads, each in one to three sentences, with a link to the lesson that goes deeper.
By The Playback Desk · Best CTV Ad Platforms · Published 2026-10-15
Desk research from public vendor pages. Editorial assessment; we did not run campaigns on these platforms.
A
- Ad pod
- A group of ads shown together in one break inside streaming content, like a commercial break on linear TV. Pod position can affect attention and price.
- Addressable TV
- TV advertising targeted to specific households rather than everyone watching a channel. CTV is addressable by default; some cable and satellite set-top boxes are too.
- Attribution window
- The period after an ad is shown during which a visit, purchase or install is still credited to it. Compare platforms only on the same window. Read more
B
- Brand lift
- A study that measures change in awareness, consideration or intent between people who saw an ad and people who did not, usually through surveys.
- Brand safety
- Controls and checks that keep ads away from content an advertiser considers unsuitable. Often supported by third-party verification partners.
C
- Completion rate (VCR)
- The share of video ad impressions watched to the end. CTV completion rates are usually high because many ads are non-skippable.
- Connected TV (CTV)
- A television that streams content over the internet, directly or through a stick, box or console. CTV advertising runs in the streaming apps on that screen. Read more
- Control group
- The households or regions deliberately not shown a campaign, used as the baseline for measuring incrementality. Read more
- CPA
- Cost per acquisition: media spend divided by the number of conversions attributed to it.
- CPM
- Cost per mille: the price of one thousand ad impressions. The most common pricing model for CTV. Read more
D
- Deterministic matching
- Linking a TV household to other devices using exact identifiers such as a shared IP address or login, as opposed to statistical inference.
- DMA
- Designated market area: a US media market region, often used to plan and target TV and to design geo tests.
- DSP
- Demand-side platform: software buyers use to purchase ad inventory programmatically across many publishers and exchanges.
F
- Frequency cap
- A limit on how many times the same household sees an ad in a set period. Too high wastes budget; too low may not register.
G
- Geo holdout test
- An experiment that runs a campaign in some regions and withholds it in matched regions, then compares outcomes to estimate lift. Read more
H
- Household graph
- A data set that groups devices believed to belong to the same household, used for targeting and attribution on CTV.
I
- Incrementality
- The share of an outcome that happened because of the advertising and would not have happened without it, measured against a control group. Read more
- iROAS
- Incremental return on ad spend: incremental revenue divided by media spend. A stricter measure than attributed ROAS.
L
- Linear TV
- Traditional scheduled television delivered by broadcast, cable or satellite, where everyone watching a channel sees the same ad.
- Live sports inventory
- Ad breaks in live sports streams. Often priced higher and sometimes sold through special packages or calendars.
M
- Managed service
- An operating model where the platform's team plans and runs campaigns for the advertiser, usually with higher minimums. Read more
- Marketing mix modelling (MMM)
- A statistical method that estimates each channel's contribution to sales from spend and outcome data over time, without user-level tracking.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- An open protocol that lets AI assistants connect to outside tools and data. A CTV platform with an MCP server lets an assistant read campaign data and, if allowed, make changes. Read more
- MMP
- Mobile measurement partner: a company that attributes app installs and in-app events across ad sources, such as AppsFlyer, Adjust or Singular.
- Multi-touch attribution (MTA)
- Attribution that splits credit for a conversion across several ad exposures and channels instead of giving it all to one.
N
- Non-skippable ad
- A video ad the viewer cannot skip. Common on CTV, which is one reason completion rates are high.
O
- OTT
- Over the top: video content streamed over the internet without a cable or satellite subscription box, on any screen. CTV is OTT viewed on a TV.
P
- Pixel
- A small piece of code on a website that records visits and conversions so they can be matched to ad exposure. Read more
- Programmatic buying
- Automated buying of ad impressions through software and auctions or deals, instead of manual insertion orders.
R
- ROAS
- Return on ad spend: revenue attributed to ads divided by ad spend. On CTV it is usually view-through and should be checked against a lift test.
S
- Self-serve platform
- A platform where advertisers open an account and run campaigns themselves, often with card payment and no contract. Read more
V
- Verification
- Third-party checks that ads ran where intended, were viewable and reached valid traffic.
- View-through conversion
- A conversion credited to an ad that was seen but not clicked. Nearly all CTV conversions are view-through.
W
- Walled garden
- A publisher that sells its inventory and data mainly through its own tools, so results are usually measured inside its own systems. Read more