Definition

The shortened form of 'advertisements' that marketers use because even they can't be bothered to say the full word for the things they spend their entire careers creating. These are the carefully crafted interruptions to your content consumption that brands pay obscene amounts of money for you to actively ignore or block. Fun fact: the average person sees between 4,000 to 10,000 ads per day, though they can only remember approximately zero of them.

Example Usage

We're running ads across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, which means we're paying three different platforms for the privilege of annoying the same person in three different places.

Source: Common marketing terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

CPC

Cost Per Click, or the exact dollar amount you pay every time someone accidentally taps your ad while trying to close it. It's like putting a coin jar next to a door handle and charging people for touching it on their way out.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

CPM

Cost Per Mille, meaning cost per thousand impressions, because apparently saying per thousand wasn't pretentious enough so they used Latin. You pay for a thousand eyeballs to theoretically see your ad while actually staring at their phone during a meeting.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Advanced

ascription

In data analytics and sociology, the act of assigning credit, blame, or characteristics to a person or thing based on analysis rather than self-identification. Marketers use this to decide who deserves credit for a conversion, while sociologists use it to study how society boxes people into categories they didn't choose. Both involve making assumptions that may or may not reflect reality.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

sequential messaging

Delivering ads in a specific order to tell a story or build a narrative over time. Because apparently one interruption isn't enough—you need a whole series.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

soft bounce

When your email gets temporarily rejected—maybe their inbox is full, their server is having a bad day, or Mercury is in retrograde. Unlike hard bounces, there's still hope for future delivery.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Advanced

marketing qualified account

In B2B marketing, an entire company or organization identified as a good-fit prospect rather than just an individual lead. Abbreviated as MQA, or 'that whole building full of people we want to sell to.'

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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See “ads” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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