NEW YORK: The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and comScore are helping marketers confused by the "jargon of the ad-delivery space" by defining many of the key terms within the industry's growing digital lexicon.

Serge Matta, comScore's president/CEO, spoke about this subject at the ARF's Audience Measurement 2015 conference in New York City.

And he reported that the two organisations' efforts to produce a dictionary-in-progress were motivated, in part, by the changing shape of marketing conversations.

"The discussion now seems to have its own language - jargon of the ad-delivery space," he said. (For more, including selected definitions, read Warc's exclusive report: Digital basics: comScore, ARF come to terms.)

Given the level of complexity facing brands and agencies, he continued, it is no surprise that this "jargon" has appeared.

"Digital media is complicated," said Matta. "There's the difference between 'display' and 'video'. Between 'desktop' and 'mobile'. There's 'in-app' versus 'browser'.

"Some people may have heard of the term 'Non-Human Traffic'. Now 'NHT' is called 'Invalid Traffic' or 'IVT'."

New technologies like programmatic have also been accompanied by the advent of distinctive vernaculars which can be difficult for novices to comprehend.

Further, Matta asserted, the fact there are now "countless vendors and differing standards" only adds to the overall sense of confusion.

The attempts by comScore and the ARF to provide greater clarity are thus based around the crucial notion of "viewability".

In defining this concept, they focused on the "opportunity of an ad to be seen by a consumer" - and they have been working together to improve such standards in practice, too.

Other entries featured in their glossary include everything from "above the fold" and "engagement" to "tag rotation" and "validated GRP".

Data sourced from Warc