Programmatic DOOH borrows words from three worlds: traditional out-of-home media, digital ad tech and location data. This glossary defines the terms that come up most often, grouped by topic, with a link to our deeper guide wherever one exists. Where a definition comes from an industry standard, we link to it.
Terms that are often confused
| These terms | The difference |
|---|---|
| DOOH and programmatic DOOH | DOOH is the medium (digital screens out of home); programmatic is one way of buying it |
| Ad play and impression | An ad play is one showing of the ad; an impression estimates the people who could see it |
| Gross and viewable impressions | Gross counts potential exposures; viewable also requires the ad to be seeable, under MRC standards |
| RTB and programmatic | RTB is one auction method; most programmatic DOOH spend runs through private deals instead |
| CMS and SSP | The CMS runs the screens; the SSP sells their slots to programmatic buyers |
| Attribution and incrementality | Attribution links exposure to outcomes; incrementality asks what would not have happened without the ads |
Fundamentals
OOH (out-of-home): Any advertising seen outside the home, printed or digital, from billboards to posters in stations.
DOOH (digital out-of-home): Out-of-home advertising shown on digital screens. See our complete guide to DOOH.
pDOOH (programmatic DOOH): Buying and selling DOOH through automated platforms (DSPs and SSPs) instead of manual deals. See what pDOOH is and how it works.
Programmatic OOH: Often used as a synonym for pDOOH, since only digital screens can be bought this way. See what programmatic OOH is and its advantages.
Media owner: The company that owns or operates the screens and sells their time, directly or through an SSP.
Network: A group of screens sold together, usually by one media owner or in one venue type.
Venue type: The kind of place a screen is in, such as transit, retail or outdoor. The OpenOOH venue taxonomy standardises these categories for programmatic bid requests in three tiers, for example Retail, then Malls.
Buying and trading
DSP (demand-side platform): The software advertisers use to choose inventory, set rules and bid. See our guide to choosing a DSP for programmatic DOOH.
SSP (supply-side platform): The software media owners use to make their screens' ad slots available to programmatic buyers.
Bid request: The message an SSP sends to buyers describing an available slot: screen, venue, time and estimated audience.
OpenRTB: The IAB Tech Lab standard for programmatic bid requests and responses. Version 2.6 includes a DOOH object for out-of-home inventory and a way to pass an impression multiplier.
RTB (real-time bidding): Buying individual slots through an auction at the moment they come up. Our guide to how programmatic DOOH buying works explains where it fits.
Open auction: RTB open to any eligible buyer. In WOO's study of 2025 spend, it was a minority of programmatic DOOH.
PMP (private marketplace): An auction limited to invited buyers, usually with agreed terms. Private marketplace deals took 75.7% of global programmatic DOOH spend in 2025, according to WOO's study.
PG (programmatic guaranteed): A deal with fixed price and volume, booked in advance but delivered through programmatic pipes.
Deal ID: The code that links a buyer's DSP to a specific PMP or PG deal.
Floor price: The minimum price a seller will accept for a slot.
Direct-sold: Inventory booked through a negotiated deal with the media owner, outside programmatic platforms.
Self-service: Booking campaigns yourself through a platform's dashboard, without an agency. See self-service programmatic DOOH.
Managed service: A model where an agency or the platform's team plans and runs the campaign for you.
Screens, creative and technology
CMS (content management system): The software that schedules content, sends it to screens and logs what played. See our guide to digital signage software.
Media player: The device attached to a screen that stores and plays the scheduled content.
Loop: The repeating sequence of ads and content on a screen.
Slot (or spot): One position in the loop that an advertiser buys.
Share of voice: The share of a loop or of total plays given to one advertiser.
Creative specs: The technical requirements a file must meet, such as size, format, colour mode and length. See our creative specs and ad formats guide.
Creative approval: The media owner's review of each ad before it runs, which applies to programmatic buys too.
HTML5 creative: A self-contained web package that can show live data; support varies by network and DSP.
DCO (dynamic creative optimisation): Creative that changes with conditions such as weather or time. See dynamic creative based on weather and time.
AI-powered optimisation: Machine learning used for forecasting, bidding, pacing or creative choice. See AI-powered pDOOH.
Interactive DOOH: Screens that respond to touch, motion or nearby devices. See interactive digital screens.
Spectacular: A very large, high-impact screen in a landmark location, usually sold at premium prices.
Street furniture: Screens built into bus shelters, kiosks and urban panels at street level.
Measurement and verification
Ad play: One showing of an ad on one screen.
Proof of play: The log confirming which ad played, on which screen and when.
Impression multiplier: A factor that converts one ad play into an estimated number of impressions, based on how many people are expected near the screen.
Exposure zone: The area in front of a screen from which people could see it.
Gross impressions: Potential exposures, counted when people are present in the exposure zone while the screen works, under the Media Rating Council's out-of-home standards (December 2025).
Viewable impressions (opportunity to see): Impressions that also meet a viewability condition; under the MRC standards the ad must be fully on screen for one second (static) or two seconds (video), and obstructions rule it out.
Likelihood to see: A further adjustment to viewable impressions for the chance the ad was actually noticed.
Audience: The estimated number of people in the exposure zone, the strictest of the MRC levels.
Dwell time: How long people typically spend near a screen.
Reach and frequency: How many different people saw the campaign, and how many times on average.
Ad verification: Checking that ads played, screens are what sellers say, and context was safe. See ad verification in programmatic DOOH.
Ad fraud: Paying for plays or impressions that did not happen as described; in DOOH, misdescribed screens and missing plays are more relevant than bot traffic.
Brand safety: In DOOH, avoiding the wrong message in the wrong real-world moment, such as near an accident or a vigil.
Attribution: Linking exposure to outcomes such as visits or sales. See measuring pDOOH success.
Footfall attribution: Measuring store visits by devices exposed to the ads against a matched control group. See location intelligence and footfall attribution.
Control group: People, devices, stores or areas not exposed to the ads, matched to the exposed group for comparison.
Lift: The difference in an outcome between exposed and control groups; report both absolute and relative lift.
Incrementality: The part of an outcome caused by the campaign, beyond what would have happened anyway.
Geopath: The US out-of-home audience measurement body; it and the OAAA selected Ipsos in 2026 for a pilot of a next-generation system, with full adoption planned for 2028.
MRC (Media Rating Council): The US body that sets measurement standards and accredits measurement services, including the out-of-home standards finalised in December 2025.
Audience and data
Location intelligence: Using location data, usually from mobile device panels, to plan, target and measure campaigns.
Geofence: A virtual boundary around a place, used to count devices inside it.
Location panel: The set of mobile devices whose apps share location data with consent, used to estimate audiences and visits.
First-party data: Data a brand or retailer collects from its own customers, used in retail media to plan and measure.
Retail media network: A retailer's advertising business, increasingly including in-store screens. See retail media networks and programmatic DOOH.
Dayparting: Running different ads, or bidding differently, by time of day.
Audience targeting: Choosing screens and times by the expected audience rather than by location alone, as in our guide to reaching Gen Z and Millennials.
Pricing and business
CPM (cost per mille): The cost of 1,000 impressions, the usual price unit in programmatic DOOH. See what a digital billboard costs or use our free DOOH CPM calculator.
Make-good: Replacement delivery a seller provides for plays that did not run as agreed.
ROI (return on investment): The return on a campaign relative to its cost. See our pDOOH versus traditional billboards ROI comparison.
SMB DOOH: Smaller, local campaigns for small and mid-size businesses, often bought self-service. See our worked budget for retail and restaurant chains in Singapore.
Sustainable DOOH: Reducing the environmental footprint of out-of-home, for example by avoiding printed changeovers. See the future of sustainable advertising in pDOOH.
IAB and IAB Tech Lab: The Interactive Advertising Bureau and its standards body, which maintains technical specifications such as OpenRTB.
For market size, growth and benchmarks, see our programmatic DOOH statistics, where each figure is listed with its source.