The terms that come up in ad accounts, reports and meetings, explained for anyone who has to make a decision based on them. No prior knowledge assumed.
Running two versions of something (an ad, a page, an audience) at the same time to see which performs better. Only useful when the difference is measured on the result you care about, such as cost per lead, not on clicks alone.
MeasurementThe layer inside a campaign where you choose who sees the ads, where they run and how much to spend. Meta calls it an ad set; Google calls it an ad group. The ads themselves sit inside it.
PlatformsThe rules for deciding which ad gets the credit for a sale or lead. A person might see a Facebook ad, search on Google a week later and then buy. Different attribution settings give the credit to different ads, which is why two platforms rarely agree on the same number.
MeasurementThe group of people an ad is shown to. Can be built from interests and demographics, from your own data (customer lists, website visitors), or by asking the platform to find people similar to your customers.
TargetingThe instruction you give the platform about how to spend. For example: get me the most conversions for this budget, or keep cost per conversion under this amount. The strategy you pick changes what the platform optimises for.
PlatformsSearches that include your business name. They convert well and cost little because the person was already looking for you. Worth keeping separate in reporting so they don't flatter the performance of everything else.
SearchA Google Ads keyword setting that lets your ad show for searches loosely related to the keyword. Reaches more people, and needs a good negative keyword list to avoid paying for irrelevant searches.
SearchWhat you tell the platform you want: awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, sales, app installs. The platform optimises towards that objective, so choosing traffic when you want sales usually buys clicks from people who don't buy.
PlatformsThe share of people who clicked an ad after seeing it. A low CTR usually points to the creative or the audience; a high CTR with no conversions usually points to the landing page or the offer.
MetricsMeta ads where the button opens a WhatsApp conversation with the business instead of sending people to a website. Common in markets where customers prefer to message. Meta counts the conversation as the result, so the business has to track what happens after.
PlatformsThe action you want someone to take: a purchase, an enquiry form, a phone call, a booking. Everything in performance marketing is judged on conversions and what they cost.
MeasurementThe share of visitors who convert. If 100 people visit a page and 3 enquire, the conversion rate is 3%. Improving it is often cheaper than buying more traffic.
MetricsThe set-up that records conversions and tells the ad platform about them. Without it, the platform can't learn who converts and the reports can't say what the ads produced. Usually built with a pixel, Google Tag Manager and GA4.
MeasurementA way of sending conversion data from your server (or website platform) straight to Meta, rather than relying only on the pixel in the visitor's browser. Browsers block a lot of pixel data now, so running both together gives Meta a fuller picture of real sales.
MeasurementWhat you paid, on average, for each conversion. Ad spend divided by conversions. The number most businesses should care about more than clicks or reach.
MetricsThe average amount paid each time someone clicks the ad. Useful for comparing platforms and keywords, but a cheap click that doesn't convert is still wasted money.
MetricsAd spend divided by the number of leads. Worth measuring twice: cost per lead as the platform counts it, and cost per qualified lead once someone has checked the leads are real.
MetricsThe cost of showing an ad a thousand times. "Mille" is Latin for a thousand. CPM tells you how expensive attention is on a platform or in a market; it says nothing about whether the attention turned into anything.
MetricsMeta's general term for what you paid per outcome, whatever the campaign objective was. For an engagement campaign it's cost per engagement; for a leads campaign it's cost per lead. Check what the "result" actually is before comparing two campaigns.
MetricsThe ad itself: the image or video, the text, the headline and the call to action. On social platforms the creative usually has more effect on cost per result than the targeting does.
CreativeWhen the same audience has seen the same ad so often that it stops responding. Results drift down over a few weeks. The fix is new creative, which is why ads are tested on a regular cycle.
CreativeAn audience built from your own data: a customer list, people who visited your website, people who engaged with your page or watched a video. The starting point for retargeting and for lookalike audiences.
TargetingA recorded action on your website or app, such as a page view, add to basket or purchase. Tracking tools send events to GA4 and the ad platforms so they know what happened.
MeasurementMeta's score, out of 10, for how well it can match the events you send to real people. Low scores usually mean customer details like email and phone aren't being passed, and the platform is working with a partial picture.
MeasurementThe average number of times each person has seen your ad. Rising frequency with falling results is the usual sign of creative fatigue.
MetricsGoogle's website and app analytics. Records what visitors do, independent of any ad platform, and feeds conversions into Google Ads. The current version of Google Analytics.
MeasurementA free tool that holds all the tracking code for a website in one place, so tags for GA4, Meta, TikTok and others can be added or changed without editing the site every time.
MeasurementThe number of times an ad was shown. One person seeing an ad three times is three impressions and one person reached.
MetricsThe page someone arrives on after clicking an ad. It should say what the ad promised, load quickly on a phone, and make the next step obvious. A lot of "the ads aren't working" is a landing page problem.
CreativeA person who has shown interest and given a way to contact them: a form, a call, a message. Not every lead is a prospect, which is why qualified leads are counted separately.
MeasurementA form that opens inside Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, pre-filled with the person's details, so they can enquire without leaving the app. Fast and high-volume; a qualifying question keeps the quality up.
PlatformsAn audience the platform builds by finding people who resemble a source group, such as your customers or your best leads. Works as well as the source data you give it.
TargetingSearches you tell Google Ads not to show your ad for, such as "free", "jobs" or "how to". One of the first things to review in any account, because they stop money going on searches that will never convert.
SearchThe platform's process of learning which people, placements and times produce the result you asked for, and shifting delivery towards them. It can only optimise on what it can see, which is why tracking comes first.
PlatformsA Google Ads campaign type that runs across Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Maps from one set of assets. Works well with clean conversion tracking and enough data; wastes money without them, because it will count brand clicks and poor placements as wins.
SearchA small piece of code on your website that tells an ad platform what visitors did, so it can measure conversions and build audiences. Increasingly blocked by browsers, which is why server-side tracking like the Conversions API runs alongside it.
MeasurementWhere an ad appears: Facebook feed, Instagram Stories, Reels, YouTube, the Google Display Network, and so on. Some placements cost less and convert worse; the placement report shows which.
PlatformsA lead that has been checked against what the business actually wants, such as budget, location or timing. The count that matters more than the raw lead number.
MeasurementThe number of different people who saw an ad at least once. Useful for launches and awareness; not a measure of sales.
MetricsShowing ads to people who have already interacted with you: visited the site, watched a video, started a conversation. Cheaper and more effective than reaching strangers, because they already know who you are.
TargetingRevenue from the ads divided by what the ads cost. A ROAS of 5 means £5 of revenue for every £1 spent. The ROAS a business needs depends on its margins, so a "good" ROAS is different for a restaurant and a property developer.
MetricsThe Google Ads report showing the actual searches that triggered your ads, as opposed to the keywords you chose. The quickest way to find money being spent on the wrong searches.
SearchSending tracking data from your server rather than the visitor's browser. Less affected by ad blockers and browser privacy settings. The Conversions API is Meta's version; Google Tag Manager has a server-side container.
MeasurementTikTok ads that boost an existing organic post, from your own account or a creator's, so the ad keeps the likes, comments and shares of the original. The usual format for creative that is meant to look native.
PlatformsMeta's count of video views that were watched to the end, or for at least 15 seconds. A better measure of attention than a plain view, which counts after a few seconds.
MetricsCreative that looks like it was made by a customer rather than a brand: phone footage, talking to camera, unpolished. Often outperforms studio creative on TikTok and Reels because it doesn't read as an ad.
CreativeNothing matches that. Try another word, or ask and I'll add it.
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