H.O.T. AGFrom CMP to DSP, from the supply chain to signal validation: definitions, connections and the questions advertisers should ask.
This is a simplified view of the buying relationship. Bid requests typically travel from the publisher side towards buyers; bids travel back. It is not a mandatory sequence of servers.
The advertiser or agency uses a DSP to evaluate opportunities and submit bids.
An exchange connects demand and supply; its functions may overlap with an SSP.
The SSP offers inventory for publishers or resellers. Several supply paths can coexist.
The actual website or app provides the placement. Its ad server coordinates final delivery.
CMP · CDP · DMP · Data Clean Room
These systems manage choices, profiles and permitted analysis. They are not successive inventory resellers.
Adserver · CDN · In-Ad · On-Site
Delivery, technical visibility, human activity and incremental impact require different evidence.
ads.txt · sellers.json · schain
Authorised accounts, seller identities and the declared selling path are complementary checks. None alone proves human traffic.
Direct bookings, guaranteed deals and closed platforms can follow different paths. Always check the actual setup.
100 of 100 terms
Ad clutter means high ad density. Ad refresh reloads ads in an existing slot; quality depends on triggers, visibility and user activity, among other factors.
Do extra impressions arise during actual use or merely through reloading?
A marketplace connecting inventory supply and demand, often running auctions. Exchange and SSP functions can coexist within one platform.
Who sells the inventory and which other selling stages are involved?
Intentional manipulation of ad delivery, interactions or billing to obtain an improper economic benefit. A suspicious signal alone does not establish fraud.
What evidence distinguishes manipulation, technical error and legitimate behaviour?
A counted advertising event under a specified measurement definition. A server request, rendering start and viewable ad are different events and are not interchangeable.
What triggers counting and which invalid events are removed?
A provider that aggregates and sells inventory from multiple publishers. Networks may also supply technology, targeting and campaign management.
Are the actual domains and apps receiving ads disclosed?
A system that selects, coordinates delivery of and logs creatives. A publisher ad server manages placements; an advertiser ad server coordinates campaigns across media properties.
Which counting events and priorities does the ad server use?
An ad tag is code or a URL used for delivery or measurement. A tracking pixel records a request; richer JavaScript can capture additional signals.
Which signals can actually be measured, and where are they missing?
A publisher's public file listing authorised seller accounts for web inventory. DIRECT denotes the publisher's direct control of the listed account, not necessarily a direct advertiser purchase.
Do the domain, seller account and actual supply path match?
The technologies used to plan, buy, deliver and measure digital advertising. Components may come from several vendors or one integrated platform.
Who performs each role, receives which data and earns which fees?
The company responsible for a campaign's objectives, budget and requirements, even when agencies execute it.
Are objectives, data rights and decision authority documented?
AI systems translating goals into multi-step actions using tools, for example in planning or campaign management. Autonomy, interfaces and permissions vary by system.
Which decisions may the agent make and which require human approval?
Requests by AI crawlers, assistants or agents, plus visits through their referrals. Automated requests and human visits from AI recommendations must be distinguished.
Is the request initiated by a person, agent or crawler?
An extension of ads.txt for app inventory, including CTV apps. The file is discovered through the developer website listed in the app store.
Do the app identity, developer domain and authorised sellers match?
Attention to advertising or content, directly studied or modelled from signals. Providers may mean gaze, interaction or other proxies.
Is attention observed or estimated and how was the model validated?
Rule-based or modelled allocation of outcomes to marketing touchpoints. Results depend on data access, model and time window and do not by themselves establish causality.
How do the time window and model change reported results?
A bid request describes an opportunity, including format, domain or app and permitted contextual signals. The stream of these requests is called the bidstream.
Do the declared attributes match actual delivery?
Automated access to websites, apps or services. Bots may perform legitimate tasks or be abused; their share of total web traffic is not an ad-fraud rate.
Are the compared figures based on web requests, sessions or ad impressions?
Measures against ad placements alongside broadly harmful or prohibited content. Parties must agree on definitions and measurement granularity.
Which content risks are checked, and at what level?
A brand-specific assessment of whether an environment fits its positioning and risk tolerance. A broadly safe environment may still be unsuitable for a particular brand.
Are brand-specific criteria explicit and sensitive to context?
Distributed infrastructure serving files such as images, video or HTML5 creatives. File delivery alone does not replace campaign management or independent measurement.
Are hosting, ad-serving and measurement costs itemised separately?
A platform that combines customer data from multiple sources into persistent profiles accessible to other systems. Its focus is the organisation's customer relationships.
Which sources, identity rules and usage rights underpin the profiles?
Linking advertising exposures to later outcomes such as purchases within accessible data. A closed data loop alone does not establish incremental advertising impact.
Which purchases remain outside the data and how is duplicate attribution handled?
Technology to capture, manage and communicate consent choices. It can display choices and pass the resulting signals to connected systems.
Does actual data processing follow the choices communicated?
Advertising using commercial touchpoints and transaction data. It includes retail media and other business models such as travel, mobility and payment services.
Which customer relationship and transaction signals underpin the offer?
Confirmation of a plausible device differs from confirmation of human use. Vendor labels require their method, evidence and scope to be interpreted.
What was actually confirmed: device, behaviour, person or attention?
Selecting advertising environments by content, such as a page's topic, language or meaning. Placement uses context rather than necessarily relying on an individual profile.
Is the individual page analysed or only the whole domain classified?
A conversion is an action defined as a goal. Conversion rate relates these actions to a specified base such as sessions or clicks.
Are the goal event, denominator, deduplication and actual business quality clear?
Cost per counted click: included costs divided by the click count. A cheap click is useful only if it can lead to a relevant visit.
Which clicks are valid and how many lead to useful visits?
Cost per lead or acquisition or specified action. The definition of a lead, acquisition or action must be explicit; raw contacts are not equivalent to qualified customers.
Are qualification, cancellations and duplicate counts accounted for?
Cost per thousand counted impressions: cost divided by impressions, multiplied by 1,000. Comparisons require the same cost base and counting method.
Does the price refer to delivered, valid or viewable impressions?
The organisation and technical support of customer relationships, including sales, service and contact history. A CRM system can supply data to a CDP without necessarily performing the same functions.
How are marketing contacts connected to genuinely qualified customer relationships?
The ratio of counted clicks to counted impressions. A high rate may indicate relevance but may also reflect accidental clicks, unsuitable placements or manipulation.
Do clicks lead to plausible, relevant visits?
Internet-connected televisions or attached streaming devices. CTV describes the device environment; it guarantees neither active viewing nor delivery quality.
Can the app, device, playback and measurement access be verified?
Packaging inventory and, where applicable, data or quality filters into a tradable offer, often through a deal ID. Curators may receive additional fees.
How are selection criteria validated and how is the curator paid?
A controlled environment for matching or analysing parties' data under defined access and output rules. It limits disclosure without automatically making data anonymous or accurate.
Which data enter, and do output controls prevent inferences about individuals?
A technical identifier linking an opportunity to agreed deal terms. The identifier alone proves neither exclusivity, a direct supply path nor traffic quality.
Which publishers, sellers, data and fees sit behind the identifier?
Combining technical attributes to recognise devices or browsers or assess their plausibility. A fingerprint is not reliable proof of a person and can change.
Is the purpose recognition or plausibility assessment, and how stable is it?
A booking negotiated directly with a publisher or sales house. An insertion order records deliverables and terms; execution may use conventional or programmatic systems.
Are placements, volumes, fees and evidence requirements contractually defined?
A platform for collecting and segmenting audience data for advertising. Traditional DMPs often use pseudonymous device or cookie identifiers; boundaries with CDPs depend on the product.
How current and reliable are the segments, and how are they activated?
Misrepresenting a domain or app to sell inventory as another environment. A plausible bid-request declaration does not prove the delivery location.
Can the actual delivery location be independently confirmed?
Digital advertising on screens in public or publicly accessible places. Playback records and modelled audience exposures are different measures.
How are playbacks translated into audience exposures and validated?
A buying platform that lets advertisers or agencies evaluate inventory, bid and manage campaigns. It represents demand in programmatic trading.
Can bids, fees, delivery locations and exclusions be traced?
Data a company collects directly through its own relationships and touchpoints, such as purchases or website use. Origin alone guarantees neither quality nor unrestricted use.
Are origin, permitted purpose, freshness and signal quality documented?
Forensic measurement technology used by H.O.T. AG to analyse technical and behavioural signals in-ad and on-site. Coverage and interpretability depend on the environment and implementation.
Where is measurement implemented, what remains unmeasured and which decision does the finding support?
Measures intended to support content discovery and interpretation in generative search and answer systems. Citation and recommendation remain dependent on the system.
Are actual mentions, relevant visits and outcomes measured?
Invalid traffic detectable through routine filtering or standard checks, such as known crawlers. The classification describes the detection method.
Which lists and filters are used and how often are they updated?
A process in which multiple demand sources compete for an opportunity before the publisher ad server makes its final selection. It can run in the browser or server-side.
Does the same opportunity reach the DSP through multiple paths?
Linking identifiers or interactions to a profile, device or household. Deterministic methods use direct links; probabilistic methods estimate associations.
What entity is being matched and how are incorrect matches measured?
Measurement in the context of ad delivery. It examines instrumented ad events and, where available, their environment; it does not automatically measure later website visits.
What share of all delivered ads is actually instrumented?
The additional effect of an intervention compared with the expected outcome without it. Controlled experiments or suitable causal methods estimate the difference.
How is a credible comparison without the advertising intervention established?
Traffic or advertising events excluded as invalid under a measurement method. This can include legitimate automation, so IVT is not synonymous with fraud.
What denominator, measurement coverage and detection rules apply?
A metric used to assess a defined objective. Delivery, quality, behaviour and business results are different levels; one metric cannot substitute for all of them.
Which decision does the metric improve and can it be manipulated?
Individual records of events such as bids, deliveries or measurements. Granularity, fields and retention vary between providers.
Can costs and measurement findings be reconciled at the same event level?
Coverage describes the observable share of a defined scope. Sampling analyses a subset; even a census of instrumented events may omit other deliveries.
100 percent of what: booked, delivered, measurable or successfully measured?
A structured review of strategy, buying, execution, costs or quality against agreed criteria. A programmatic audit focuses on platforms, deals, supply paths and data access.
Are scope, independence, data access and assessment criteria agreed?
Hypothesis-led investigation of media environments, technical signals and supply chains. It produces traceable findings on provenance, manipulation and risk with explicit limitations.
Are observation, interpretation and recommendations clearly separated?
Rules, responsibilities and evidence for media decisions, data access, quality controls and escalation. Governance connects strategic objectives to verifiable execution.
Who may decide, who verifies, and what triggers corrective action?
A term for properties strongly designed around ad revenue and generating many ad exposures. Boundaries depend on the methodology; MFA does not automatically mean bot traffic.
Which combination of content, ad load and traffic sourcing supports the classification?
An MSA sets overarching contractual terms. An SLA specifies service levels such as response times or reporting duties. The actual agreed contents determine their scope.
Are data access, responsibilities, quality criteria and escalation explicitly defined?
IAB Tech Lab technology giving supported measurement providers access to standardised signals in integrated environments. Available verification depends on integration and platform.
Which signals are actually accessible in this specific inventory?
Measurement on the visited website, including sessions, interactions and source signals. It covers observable visits and does not replace upstream ad-delivery measurement.
Which origins can be established and which visits are absent from measurement?
An auction generally open to all buyers admitted by the platform. Access is broader than in a private auction.
Which inventory sources and sellers are excluded before bidding?
An IAB Tech Lab standard for exchanging bid requests and responses. It defines data fields and processes without certifying the truth of their contents.
Which fields are present, consistent and independently verifiable?
Systematic analysis of publicly accessible information, such as operators, domains or website networks. Public availability does not automatically make a source reliable.
Are sources, timestamps and alternative explanations documented?
Delivering video or other media over the internet outside traditional broadcast distribution. OTT content can be consumed on CTV devices, phones or computers.
On which devices and in which apps does delivery occur?
PII refers to information capable of identifying a person. European personal-data concepts also cover indirect identifiability; pseudonymous identifiers are not automatically anonymous.
Could a person be identified using available additional information?
Paid media are purchased placements, owned media are an organisation's channels, and earned media are attention generated by third parties. They interact but offer different degrees of control.
What role does each area play in reach, relevance and credibility?
Pre-bid verification evaluates opportunities before bidding, often using existing classifications. Post-bid verification examines events after purchase. Predictions and observed delivery must be distinguished.
Which risks are filtered in advance and which are actually measured after delivery?
An agreement offering a negotiated price and preferential buying opportunity, usually without committed reserved volume. The buyer can select suitable opportunities.
What priority does the deal receive and how much inventory is realistically available?
An auction for selected buyers, often with an agreed price floor. Buyers still compete, and volume is usually not guaranteed.
Which buyers compete and which inventory sources are allowed?
Terms for restricted programmatic access and individually negotiated terms. Depending on the provider, they may mean private auctions or other deal models.
Is this an auction or fixed price, with or without a volume guarantee?
Automated buying and selling of digital inventory according to agreed rules. It includes auctions and programmatically executed fixed-price agreements.
Which transaction type, inventory sources and controls are used?
Programmatic execution of a reserved-inventory agreement with a fixed price and committed volume. A delivery commitment does not prove human attention.
What counts as fulfilled delivery and which quality requirements apply?
Operator of a media property, website or app carrying advertising. The publisher, sales house and reseller are not necessarily the same organisation.
On which actual property does the ad appear, and who operates it?
Reach counts distinct people, households or identifiers within a period. Frequency capping limits exposures per available identifier; cross-device limits depend on matching.
Are people, households or devices counted and how are they deduplicated?
A party reselling another provider's inventory. Intermediaries can add services, costs and reduced transparency.
What demonstrable service justifies each additional selling stage?
Advertising using retailers' inventory or data: on their sites and apps, on external inventory or in stores. Proximity to purchase does not replace quality and effectiveness measurement.
Which deliveries and sales are linked, and how?
Re-engaging audiences based on previous interactions, such as a website visit. Existing interest can explain high conversion rates without the ad causing the conversion.
What additional effect remains compared with an appropriate control group?
The ratio of attributed revenue to included advertising costs. ROAS is not automatically profit or proof of additional revenue caused by advertising.
Which costs and revenues are included and what share is incremental?
An auction process offering and bidding on individual advertising opportunities in real time. RTB is one form of programmatic, not a synonym for it.
Which auction rules apply, and is the winning impression actually delivered?
Paid advertising in search engines, often triggered by queries. Selection and evaluation depend on search intent, bids and landing pages, among other factors.
Which conversions would have occurred without the paid ad?
Another company's first-party data made available through a direct partnership. Provenance and specific terms of use matter.
Can provenance be traced to the original collection?
A mapping published by advertising systems linking seller IDs to publishers or intermediaries. It helps identify seller accounts; confidential entries can limit visibility.
Can the identity behind each relevant seller ID be established?
Technical and editorial optimisation for search-engine discovery. Crawlability, indexing and ranking are different stages; none guarantees business results.
Is important content accessible, indexed and relevant to the query?
In media, the systematic analysis of delivery, behaviour and contextual signals to inform decisions. Its value depends on signal provenance, coverage and validation.
Which defensible decision follows from the signals beyond the dashboard?
Assessing whether technical and behavioural signals are plausible, consistent and fit for a particular claim. It combines evidence rather than relying on a single metric.
Which independent signals support the claim and which contradict it?
Invalid traffic requiring advanced analysis and multiple signals to identify. A low reported rate may also reflect limited detection.
Which complex patterns can this measurement setup actually detect?
Evaluating and selecting buying paths by transparency, quality, cost and access. Fewer intermediaries may help; the shortest path is not automatically best.
Does the selected path improve measurable quality after all costs?
Server-side insertion of ads into an audio or video stream. Measurement events may originate on the server; their connection to actual playback must be traceable.
Which events come from the player and which only from the server?
A platform through which publishers or sales houses offer inventory, aggregate demand and manage revenue. It represents the supply side of programmatic trading.
Does the SSP act directly for the publisher or through intermediaries?
A bid-request structure intended to describe parties involved in selling or reselling an opportunity. It describes the selling and payment path, not every technical service provider.
Is the chain declared complete and consistent with ads.txt and sellers.json?
An IAB Europe industry framework for representing processing purposes and communicating privacy choices. A technical TCF signal does not replace checking actual processing.
Is the communicated signal respected throughout the integration?
Data supplied by an external provider, often aggregated from several sources. Quality depends on collection, modelling, freshness and matching.
Are the data observed, inferred or modelled, and with what error rate?
Delivery management and measurement by an external ad server, often for the advertiser. Ad-serving services and charges can still arise when creative files are hosted elsewhere.
Which events are billable and what does the contract include?
Buying visits with the aim of earning more from subsequent monetisation than the traffic costs. The model can distort quality incentives but is not inherently fraud.
Where do visits originate and what actual value do visitors receive?
An IAB Tech Lab standard describing video ads, media files and tracking events. A valid VAST response does not prove successful playback.
Are errors, wrapper chains and actually played ads analysed?
A measure of the technical opportunity to see an ad, based on visible area and duration under defined rules. Viewability proves neither attention nor advertising impact.
Which standard, formats and measurable denominator apply?
A platform ecosystem controlling major parts of data, buying, delivery and measurement. External verification and export capabilities may be limited.
Which claims can be independently verified outside the platform?
Working media denotes a budget portion available for media, but definitions vary. Contracts may include data or tracking costs; the inventory value must be identified separately.
Which cost base applies and to what are percentage fees charged?
An industry term for information people intentionally provide, such as interests or survey preferences. These declarations may change or be inaccurate.
When and in what context were the declarations made?