Inferal Advertising Delivery State Ontology

The Advertising Delivery State Ontology separates what an advertiser intends from whether the provider lets it serve, why delivery is held, and whether the advertising entity remains live.

This is an unofficial specification of version 0.1.0 of this Inferal ontology module. The vocabulary remains a draft.

Feedback should be sent to contact@inferal.com.

The key words MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, and MAY in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals.

RDF data conforms to the vocabulary when it uses the terms according to their normative meanings below. A data producer claiming closed-world conformance MUST also satisfy the SHACL graph distributed with this module. OWL and RDFS entailment do not imply that an omitted value is false.

Namespace

Prefix	Namespace IRI
`adel`	`https://ontology.inferal.com/modules/advertising-delivery-state/`

Scope

This module covers reified delivery states, advertiser intent, the serving state a provider reports, repeatable serving holds with their origins, lifecycle standing, and an optional interval over which a state is effective.

Advertising hierarchy tiers, budgets, metrics, provider policy taxonomies, and transition histories are outside this module. A hold may point to one of those resources without redefining it.

Competency Questions

Which entities cannot serve, and why?
Which entities are blocked by a resource other than themselves?
Where does advertiser intent disagree with the reported serving state?
Which holds can the advertiser act on, and which originate elsewhere?
Which entities were switched off rather than archived or removed?
Which holds can no shared hold kind route, whichever provider reported them?
Which entities can serve now, including those serving in a limited capacity?

Conceptual Model

Independent state axes

Delivery intent is a configuration setting, serving state is what the provider reports about whether the entity may serve, and lifecycle standing records whether the entity still exists. A serving state does not say that impressions are delivered: delivery is measured by the Advertising Measurement module. Limited serving is narrower than serving, so a consumer asking which entities can serve follows skos:broader to adel:serving instead of comparing against it. Producers MUST state these axes separately instead of collapsing them into one status value.

First-class holds

A delivery state can have several simultaneous holds. Each hold names one kind and the resource where it originated, allowing a consumer to distinguish a local problem from an inherited account, campaign, or policy problem.

Observation over time

A delivery state describes an entity during an interval. A later state does not invalidate an earlier observation when their effective intervals differ.

Term Reference

Every term in this section is exported for cross-reference. Definitions state the term's meaning; the relations column summarizes declared RDFS and SKOS links. Closed-world cardinalities are specified separately in Validation.

Classes

Term	Kind	Normative meaning	Relations
`adel:DeliveryIntent`	Class	What the advertiser wants the entity to do: run, or not run. Intent is a setting, and it is independent of whether delivery actually occurs.	Subclass of: `skos:Concept`
`adel:DeliveryState`	Class	The reported delivery situation of one advertising entity: what the advertiser intends, whether the provider lets it serve, the holds preventing it, and its lifecycle standing.	Subclass of: `prov:Entity`
`adel:HoldKind`	Class	The category of a serving hold, such as a policy review outcome, a billing problem, an exhausted allowance, or an ancestor that is paused.	Subclass of: `skos:Concept`
`adel:LifecycleState`	Class	Whether the entity is live, archived out of the working set, or deleted.	Subclass of: `skos:Concept`
`adel:ServingHold`	Class	A first-class reason an entity is not serving despite the advertiser intending it to, naming the kind of hold and the resource it originated from.	No local domain or range restriction.
`adel:ServingState`	Class	Whether the provider lets the entity serve, independent of what the advertiser intends. Whether impressions are delivered is measured by advertising-measurement, not stated by a serving state.	Subclass of: `skos:Concept`

Properties

Term	Kind	Normative meaning	Relations
`adel:effectiveDuring`	Property	The interval a delivery state was observed to hold over. Open above when the state is current.	Domain: `adel:DeliveryState`; Range: `rng:Range`
`adel:heldBy`	Property	A hold preventing delivery. A state may carry several, and an entity intending to run with no holds should be serving.	Domain: `adel:DeliveryState`; Range: `adel:ServingHold`
`adel:holdKind`	Property	The category of the hold, which determines who can act on it.	Domain: `adel:ServingHold`; Range: `adel:HoldKind`
`adel:intendedDelivery`	Property	What the advertiser wants the entity to do.	Domain: `adel:DeliveryState`; Range: `adel:DeliveryIntent`
`adel:lifecycleStanding`	Property	Whether the entity is live, archived, or deleted.	Domain: `adel:DeliveryState`; Range: `adel:LifecycleState`
`adel:observedServing`	Property	Whether the provider lets the entity serve.	Domain: `adel:DeliveryState`; Range: `adel:ServingState`
`adel:originatingResource`	Property	The resource the hold came from. For an inherited hold this is the ancestor that is paused; for a hold arising from the entity itself it is that entity.	Domain: `adel:ServingHold`; Range: `rdfs:Resource`
`adel:stateOf`	Property	The advertising entity this delivery state describes.	Domain: `adel:DeliveryState`; Range: `rdfs:Resource`

Controlled concepts

Term	Kind	Normative meaning	Relations
`adel:accountRestrictionHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented because the platform has restricted or suspended the advertiser account as a whole. The remedy lies with the account owner, through the platform's review or appeal process.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:allowanceExhaustedHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented because the governing budget or spend cap is spent. The remedy is a configuration change.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:ancestorHeldHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented by an ancestor that itself cannot serve. The originating resource names which ancestor, which is the part provider enumerations omit.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:archivedEntity`	Concept	The entity is removed from the working set but retained. Its historical metrics remain valid and readable.	Scheme: `adel:LifecycleStateScheme`
`adel:billingHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented by the account's payment standing. The remedy lies with whoever owns the account, not with the entity.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:configurationHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented by the setup of the entity where the hold originates, which may be an ancestor of the held entity: a required setting, targeting or asset is missing or misconfigured, or the entities beneath it are missing or all switched off. The remedy is a change to that setup, which the advertiser makes.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:intendToHold`	Concept	The advertiser has switched delivery off.	Scheme: `adel:DeliveryIntentScheme`
`adel:intendToRun`	Concept	The advertiser wants the entity to deliver.	Scheme: `adel:DeliveryIntentScheme`
`adel:limitedServing`	Concept	The entity is eligible to serve, but the provider reports that it serves only in part.	Scheme: `adel:ServingStateScheme`; broader: `adel:serving`
`adel:liveEntity`	Concept	The entity exists in the advertiser's working set.	Scheme: `adel:LifecycleStateScheme`
`adel:notServing`	Concept	The provider does not let the entity serve, for reasons its intent or its holds record.	Scheme: `adel:ServingStateScheme`
`adel:outsideScheduleHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented because the current time falls outside the entity's flight or dayparting. Nothing is wrong.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:policyReviewHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented pending or following a platform policy decision. The advertiser's remedy is to amend the entity or appeal.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:processingHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented while the platform finishes work on a recent change. Transient and requiring no action.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`
`adel:removedEntity`	Concept	The entity no longer exists. Historical metrics may survive it, and a query joining to the entity will not resolve.	Scheme: `adel:LifecycleStateScheme`
`adel:serving`	Concept	Nothing the provider reports prevents the entity from serving.	Scheme: `adel:ServingStateScheme`
`adel:unclassifiedHold`	Concept	Delivery is prevented for a reason the provider does not name, or names in terms no other hold kind covers. Who can act is unknown until the provider's own reason is read. Provider profiles place their unmapped hold kinds under this one, so a single query finds them across providers.	Scheme: `adel:HoldKindScheme`

Concept schemes

Term	Kind	Normative meaning	Relations
`adel:DeliveryIntentScheme`	Concept scheme	Controlled vocabulary of what an advertiser intends an entity to do.	No local domain or range restriction.
`adel:HoldKindScheme`	Concept scheme	Controlled vocabulary of reasons delivery is prevented.	No local domain or range restriction.
`adel:LifecycleStateScheme`	Concept scheme	Controlled vocabulary of whether an entity still exists.	No local domain or range restriction.
`adel:ServingStateScheme`	Concept scheme	Controlled vocabulary of whether the provider lets an entity serve.	No local domain or range restriction.

Validation

The module's SHACL constraints provide the closed-world conformance profile. The following requirements summarize the constraints that affect ordinary data producers.

A delivery state MUST identify exactly one subject, intent, observed serving state, and lifecycle standing.
A delivery state MAY have any number of serving holds and MAY have one effective interval.
Every serving hold MUST have exactly one hold kind and exactly one originating resource IRI.
Controlled intent, serving, hold-kind, and lifecycle values MUST be IRIs in their corresponding SKOS schemes or compatible extensions.
A lifecycle standing MUST be adel:liveEntity, adel:archivedEntity, or adel:removedEntity, or a profile concept whose single skos:broader is one of the three, such as a draft narrower than live.

Examples

@prefix adel: <https://ontology.inferal.com/modules/advertising-delivery-state/> .
@prefix ex: <https://example.com/advertising-delivery-state/> .

ex:ad-state a adel:DeliveryState ;
    adel:stateOf ex:ad ;
    adel:intendedDelivery adel:intendToRun ;
    adel:observedServing adel:notServing ;
    adel:lifecycleStanding adel:liveEntity ;
    adel:heldBy ex:billing-hold .

ex:billing-hold a adel:ServingHold ;
    adel:holdKind adel:billingHold ;
    adel:originatingResource ex:ad-account .

Extension and Interoperability

Controlled vocabularies use SKOS so provider profiles MAY add narrower or matched concepts without replacing the shared classes. Extensions MUST preserve the meanings and constraints of terms they reuse. A mapping MUST NOT assert equivalence merely because two provider fields have similar labels. A profile hold kind SHOULD be narrower than exactly one shared hold kind, and a hold kind the profile cannot classify is narrower than adel:unclassifiedHold.

Privacy and Security Considerations

Hold reasons can disclose billing problems, policy decisions, or operational outages. Publishers SHOULD limit access where those facts are sensitive. The vocabulary records state and provenance but does not authorize remediation actions.