CAS key terms

The number or percentage of distinct people or households exposed to an advertising message at least once within a defined time period and media schedule.

The average number of times each reached person or household is exposed to an advertising message during a defined period; often paired with reach as a planning trade-off.

The total count of ad exposures across a medium or campaign, counting repeat views to the same person separately rather than counting unique people.

A media metric equal to reach percentage multiplied by average frequency, expressing total delivery weight of a schedule against a target population.

Rating points calculated against a specific target audience rather than the total population, showing delivery weight among the people the campaign most wants to reach.

The cost of delivering one thousand advertising impressions, used to compare the relative efficiency of media vehicles and placements across formats and channels.

The amount paid each time a user clicks a digital advertisement, calculated by dividing total spend by total clicks and used in performance-based buying.

The average cost incurred to generate one desired conversion, such as a sale or lead, calculated by dividing campaign spend by the number of acquisitions.

Revenue attributed to advertising divided by the advertising spend that generated it, typically expressed as a ratio or multiple rather than a percentage.

A profitability measure comparing net gain from an investment to its total cost, expressed as a percentage and often including non-media costs.

The specific group of people a campaign is designed to reach and persuade, defined by demographics, behaviors, attitudes, or needs relevant to the product.

Dividing a market into distinct groups with shared characteristics or needs so that messaging, media, and offers can be tailored to each group.

A research-based profile representing a typical member of a target segment, describing goals, motivations, media habits, and objections used to guide creative and media decisions.

The distinct place a brand or product occupies in the minds of target customers relative to competitors, shaped by claims, imagery, and consistent communication.

A concise statement of the specific benefit a product delivers, for whom, and why it is superior to available alternatives, forming the core of campaign messaging.

A model describing customer progression from awareness through consideration, conversion, and loyalty, used to align objectives and channels at each stage.

A short planning document that states the objective, target audience, key message, support, tone, and mandatory elements guiding development of advertising creative.

A sequence of sketched frames with notes showing planned shots, action, and audio for a video or animation, used to align stakeholders before production.

The explicit instruction in an advertisement telling the audience what to do next, such as buy, sign up, visit, or call, ideally with urgency and clarity.

The specific web page a user arrives at after clicking an ad, designed to continue the message and drive a single conversion action.

A controlled experiment comparing two or more versions of an ad, page, or email by varying one element while holding others constant and measuring outcomes.

The percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as a purchase or form submission, out of all users who had the opportunity to do so.

Automated buying and selling of digital ad inventory using software and data, often through real-time auctions, to target audiences and optimize delivery.

An auction mechanism where ad impressions are bought and sold individually in milliseconds as a page loads, with bids based on user and placement data.

Software used by advertisers and agencies to buy digital ad inventory programmatically across multiple sources, set targeting, and manage bids in one interface.

The process of assigning credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints a user encountered before converting, based on a chosen model and rules.

A model giving all conversion credit to the final marketing touchpoint clicked before conversion, which understates earlier awareness and consideration efforts.

A family of models that distribute conversion credit across several touchpoints in the customer journey, using rules or data-driven weighting rather than a single interaction.

The additional outcome caused by a marketing activity, measured as the difference between a treated group and a comparable control group not exposed to it.

A controlled experiment withholding advertising from a randomly selected comparable group to isolate the causal effect of the campaign on the exposed population.

A statistical technique using historical sales and spend data across channels to estimate each channel's contribution and guide budget allocation, independent of user-level tracking.

The likelihood that an observed difference in results is not due to chance alone, typically assessed against a chosen confidence level before declaring a test winner.

The predicted total profit or revenue a customer generates over the entire relationship with a brand, used to justify acquisition spending and retention investment.

The added value a brand name carries in the marketplace, reflected in customer preference, pricing power, and loyalty built through consistent marketing over time.

The extent to which target consumers recognize or recall a brand and associate it with a product category, often an upper-funnel campaign objective.

A brand's advertising spend or presence as a proportion of total category advertising, often linked to share-of-market growth in competitive planning.

The combination and allocation of budget across advertising channels and vehicles chosen to achieve campaign objectives efficiently against the target audience.

A rule limiting how many times a given user or household is shown a specific ad within a time window, controlling waste and reducing ad fatigue.

The number of exposures judged necessary within a purchase cycle to move a target consumer toward the desired response, balancing persuasion against wasted repetition.

Systematic review of rival brands' messaging, media placement, pricing, and creative to identify gaps, benchmarks, and differentiation opportunities for planning.