What is DMA (Designated Market Area)?

A DMA (designated market area) is a geographic region defined by Nielsen where the population receives the same local television and radio offerings — for example, the "Dallas–Ft. Worth" market. Advertisers use DMAs to plan and buy media by metro area; the United States is divided into 210 DMAs.

DMAs remain the standard geography for TV planning, but streaming advertising can go far finer — down to ZIP codes or a radius — so a DMA is now the ceiling, not the floor, of geographic precision.

Local businesses usually need only a slice of a DMA; paying for the whole market is exactly the waste that ZIP-level streaming targeting eliminates.