Breaking Down Buzzwords: Terms You Should Know

You’re new to the digital media industry, and it’s your first week on the job. In meetings, co-workers are throwing around words like “demand side platform” and “viewability” and “programmatic direct” and “cookies.” You’re left scratching your head in bewilderment – and, wait a second, cookies? Someone brought cookies? You don’t see cookies in this conference room.

Nope, unfortunately, no one brought cookies. What they’re talking about is an HTTP cookie – a string of text sent from a web server to a user’s browser. Cookies store a unique identifier, and may contain information like what ads were recently seen and when the web cookie was created.

See? It’s hard to keep up.

Ad tech is already rife with complexity, but throw in advertising buzzwords and jargon on top of that and you’ve got a recipe for confusion, miscommunication and misunderstanding.

So, to help you out, we’ve created a quick cheat sheet to help you understand some of the more common and popular terms being thrown around the industry. Soon enough you’ll be the one dropping these words into casual conversation.

To those of you who have been in the digital media space for quite some time, rest assured that this guide is useful for amateurs and seasoned veterans alike. You digital experts might not think you need a refresher, but it couldn’t hurt. Technology is constantly evolving, and everyone has different definitions for the terminology, so it’s good to have this handy.

Read the cheat sheet here!