Ad It Up+: Making Ad Tech Simple(r)

How do advertisers measure the success of Connected TV (CTV) advertising? In this episode of Ad It Up+, hosted by Mediaocean's Kristin Sanford, learn the basics of CTV advertising measurement, including impressions, reach and frequency, video completion rates, campaign outcomes and attribution.

Discover how advertisers measure ad delivery, understand audience exposure, evaluate video engagement and track actions such as website visits, QR code scans, app downloads and purchases. Plus, learn why no single metric tells the full story and how attribution helps advertisers understand the role CTV ads play in the customer journey.

Whether you're new to advertising or looking to brush up on ad tech fundamentals, Ad It Up+ breaks down complex advertising concepts into simple, everyday language.

Listen to learn:

• What are impressions, reach and frequency in CTV advertising?
• How is CTV video completion rate measured?
• How can advertisers track outcomes from CTV ads?
• What is advertising attribution, and how does it work?
• Why do advertisers need multiple metrics to measure campaign performance?

How does CTV advertising work? What is the difference between CTV and traditional TV? And how does an ad actually get from an advertiser to your television screen?

In this episode of Ad It Up+, Kristin Sanford breaks down the basics of connected TV (CTV) advertising and explains what happens behind the scenes when you see an ad while streaming your favorite show.

You’ll learn what CTV means, how CTV advertising differs from traditional linear TV, and how internet-connected television brings data, targeting, and ad tech capabilities to the big screen. Kristin also explains the difference between CTV and OTT, including why CTV refers to the television environment while OTT describes the delivery of video content over the internet.

The episode then follows a CTV ad through the advertising ecosystem—from the advertiser’s initial campaign strategy and creative development to campaign setup, buying platforms, ad servers, DSPs, SSPs, publishers, ad opportunities, programmatic selection, delivery, and measurement.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What is CTV advertising?
• What does CTV stand for?
• How is CTV different from traditional TV?
• What is the difference between CTV and OTT?
• How are CTV ads selected and delivered?
• What role does ad tech play in CTV advertising?
• What are DSPs, SSPs, ad servers, and publishers?
• What is an ad impression?
• How does programmatic advertising work in CTV?
• How are CTV ad impressions measured?

This episode provides a beginner-friendly look at the technology behind CTV advertising and sets up the next episode of Ad It Up+, which explores CTV measurement, performance, and how advertisers determine whether their campaigns drove meaningful outcomes.

What is an AI agent? What is agentic AI? What does an AI hallucination mean, and what’s the difference between AEO and GEO?

In Part II of our AI Glossary series, Kristin Sanford breaks down some of the most important AI terms shaping advertising and marketing today—including AI agents, agentic AI, multi-agent systems, agentic workflows, AI hallucinations, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).

Learn how AI agents differ from traditional AI assistants, how multiple agents can work together, why AI-generated answers can sometimes be confidently wrong, and how marketers can structure content so AI and search engines can more easily find, understand, and use their brand as an answer.

The episode also brings the concepts together into a simple AI framework: data → model → prompt → inference → output → agents → human oversight.

Whether you're new to AI, work in advertising and marketing, or simply want to understand the terminology behind the latest AI developments, this episode makes complex AI concepts easy to understand.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What an AI agent is and how it differs from an AI assistant
• What agentic AI and agentic workflows mean
• How multi-agent systems work
• What AI hallucinations are and why human review matters
• What AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) means
• What GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) means
• How AEO and GE
• differ and where they overlap
• How data, models, prompts, inference and outputs fit together
• How AI is evolving from generating and predicting to deciding and acting

AI jargon everywhere you look? LLMs, tokens, RAG, models, prompts, generative AI… it can be a lot to keep straight.

In this episode, host Kristin Sanford goes back to the fundamentals and breaks down the AI concepts you’re hearing everywhere, in simple, everyday language.

We cover:

• What AI actually is
• Machine learning vs. deep learning
• What generative AI means
• What an LLM (Large Language Model) is
• What AI tokens are and why they matter
• What a context window is
• What an AI model is
• How AI models are trained
• What RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) means
• What prompts and prompt engineering are
• How to write better AI prompts

And this is just Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll break down AI agents, hallucinations, AEO vs. GEO, and more. Listen now!

What the heck is AI search? What is AEO? How does it work?

In this episode of Ad It Up+, Kristin Sanford explores how AI search is reshaping the holiday shopping journey for retail and CPG brands. Instead of simply searching for products and clicking through traditional search results, consumers can now ask AI highly specific questions and receive curated recommendations based on their intent.

The episode breaks down why this shift matters for advertisers, how AI is changing the traditional search funnel, and what brands can do to increase their chances of appearing in AI-generated answers. Kristin also explains Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and why marketers should focus on creating clear, useful and authoritative information that answers the questions consumers are actually asking.

From product descriptions and reviews to FAQs, use cases and information across the broader digital ecosystem, discover how marketers can prepare their brands for the next evolution of search, just in time for the holiday shopping season.

AI is everywhere in advertising—but what is it actually capable of today?

In this episode of Ad It Up+, we cut through the AI hype to explore how artificial intelligence is already changing ad tech, from campaign optimization and creative generation to audience targeting, predictive analytics, and agentic AI.

We break down what AI can automate, where it can help marketers make faster and smarter decisions, and—just as importantly—where human expertise is still essential. From optimizing bids and budgets in real time to generating creative variations and predicting consumer behavior, AI is moving beyond content creation and becoming a powerful decision-making and optimization engine.

But AI isn't a replacement for marketers. The real advantage comes from knowing where to use it, when to trust it, and when human strategy, creativity, and judgment need to take the lead.

In this mini episode, we're tackling one of ad tech's biggest pain points: acronyms. From DCO and CTV to ROAS, KPI, and MTA, the industry is full of shorthand that can make even seasoned marketers feel lost. We break down some of the most common creative, media, and measurement acronyms in plain English, explaining not just what they stand for, but why they matter.

Ever wonder why you keep seeing certain ads, or why some seem perfectly timed? It's not random.

In this episode, we're breaking down the fundamentals of digital advertising delivery. Learn the different types of ad placements, how advertisers decide who sees an ad, and the optimization strategies that help campaigns perform better.

Listen for an easy-to-understand break down ad servers, diving into what they are, how they work, and why they're so important in modern advertising.

In episode 2, we dive deeper into the ad tech ecosystem, breaking down how the process works from ideating an ad, to setting it live, to fine tuning it, and more.