This Google Ads glossary contains some of the most common Google Ads terms and PPC definitions:
Ad Campaign: A set of ad groups that contain ads, keywords and bids. You can have one or multiple ad campaigns. The campaign level is also where you set location targeting, ad schedule, and daily budgets.
Ad Group: A set of keywords, ads, bids, placements and targeting methods. Each ad campaign contains one or more ad groups.
Ad Extensions: A feature that allows you to display extra information about your business in your ads, such as address, phone number, additional site links, reviews, product images and more.
Ad Rank: Ad Rank = Bids + Quality Score (+ Ad Assets). It is a value determined by Google that determines the position and location on a page where your ads are shown.
AdSense: A Google program wherein website owners are paid for showing relevant ads on their site.
Ads API: This Application Programming Interface allows advertisers to interact with and edit their Ads account through applications they create.
Average Position: Or (Avg. Pos.), this Ads metric shows how your ad ranks against other ads. This determines the order in which ads appear on a page.
Audience: Also known as remarketing lists, audiences are groups of people you can include in or exclude from targeting in your remarketing ad campaigns. They are used in place of keywords for your remarketing ads.
Automatic Bidding: A type of bidding wherein Google Ads automatically sets and adjusts your maximum bids.
Automatic Placement: Websites and other places where your ads can appear that are automatically matched to your keywords. Automatic placements are available only on the Display Network.
Auto-tagging: This feature creates custom destination URLs automatically. This helps you track the performance of your ad when using tracking programs like Google Analytics.
Bid: The maximum amount you are willing to spend per click for ad groups or individual keywords.
Bid Management: Managing bids in an attempt to lower your minimum bid through effective keyword grouping and optimization.
Bounce: When someone lands on a webpage and leaves the website without first visiting another page.
Broad Match: A keyword match type with no symbol that tells Google to show your ads for related searches, synonyms, and relevant variations of your keywords.
Conversion: When someone clicks on your ad and completes a desired action, such as a purchase or sign-up.
Conversion Optimizer: A feature in Google Ads that predicts which clicks are likely to be valuable, adjusting your bids to help you maximize your number of profitable clicks.
Conversion Rate: The number of times your ad resulted in a conversion.
CPA: Cost-per-acquisition is the cost of your total ad spend divided by the number of conversions.
CPC: Cost-per-click is a type of bidding wherein you pay for each click on your ads. You specify your CPC bids depending on how much you are willing to pay for each click your ad receives.
CTR: Click-through-rate is calculated by dividing an ad’s impressions by the number of clicks your ad receives.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): A prediction of the net profit a company will receive over the entire future relationship with a customer.
Daily Budget: A dollar amount you choose for each ad campaign to tell Google how much you want to spend each day.
Demand Gen Campaign: A campaign type that is able to show ads across YouTube, Discover, and Gmail. Ideal for those who are trying to increase brand awareness.
Descriptions: The part of your search ad that comes after headlines. You can put in a maximum of 4 descriptions (90 character limit).
Display Network: One of the networks (the others are the Search Network and the Shopping Network) on which you can show your ads. You can create text, image, animated, and video ads that will appear on millions of websites, videos, and apps.
Display URL: The Display URL is the combination of your domain plus your display path. Your display path can be added/edited when editing an ad. The display URL is not the actual URL that people are taken to when they click on your ad (that’s the Final URL), but something that you can use to give your ad more context, clarity, and information.
Dynamic Keyword Insertion: After inserting a “{” into your ad text and selecting “Keyword insertion”, Google Ads will automatically replace the code with the keyword that fired your ad.
Exact Match: A keyword match type that uses brackets to tell Google to show your ads for the exact keyword and very close variants of that exact term.
Google Ads: Google’s pay-per-click program where PPC managers can create their own ads using keywords of their choosing.
Google Analytics: A free Google program that provides in-depth reporting and metrics on how people use your website, including information about what they do after clicking on your ads.
Google Forwarding Phone Number (Google DNI): A unique phone number provided by Google that you can use in your account ads to track phone calls to your business.
Headline: The first section of your ads and the one potential customers will likely notice first. You can enter up to 15 headlines (up to 30 characters) and Google will display 2-3 per ad.
Impression: The number of times your ad is shown. An impression is counted every time your ad is shown on a SERP or other Google Network site.
Impression Share: Or (IS), this is the number of impressions your ads have received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive.
Keyword(s): Or KW(s), these are word or phrases you select that are highly relevant to your product or service to help determine where and when your ads appear.
Keyword Match Type: A group of five keyword settings that help determine how closely a given keyword needs to match a search query in order to fire your ad.
KPI: Key performance indicators are metrics used to help a company define and measure its progress toward certain goals.
Landing Page: The webpage where people who click your ad will be taken after clicking on your ad. This page is typically the same one entered into your destination URL.
Location Targeting: A setting in Google Ads that helps your ads show to customers in geographic locations you specify.
Low Search Volume: Keywords with this status have very little or no search history on Google. These keywords will be inactive until their search traffic increases.
Managed Placement: An option on the Display Network, managed placements are locations that allow you to specify where you want your ads to appear.
Manual Bidding: A type of bidding wherein you choose, set, and adjust your maximum bid amounts.
Negative Match: A keyword match type that prevents your ad from firing for a certain word or phrase.
Negative Placement: Locations you specify where you do not want your ads to appear.
PMAX Campaigns (Performance Max): A goal-based campaign type that is meant to complement your Search campaigns. It does not use keywords, but audiences and other signals. It can show ads across all of Google’s channels (YouTube, Display, Search, Discover, Gmail, and Maps). They are also able to connect with Google Merchant Center and show shopping ads.
Phrase Match: A keyword match type that uses quotations to allow your ad to appear only when a search query includes the keyword phrase, or close variations of the exact phrase of your keyword, and possibly additional words before or after the phrase as well.
Placement Tool: This Google Ads tool helps you find websites and other placements where you might want your ad to show.
PPC: Pay-per-click is an online advertising model wherein an advertiser pays a publisher (e.g. Google Ads) each time someone clicks on their ad.
Quality Score: A key metric that tells you how relevant your ads, keywords and landing page are to someone who sees your ad.
Remarketing: A feature on the Display Network that allows you to reach people who have previously visited your website.
ROI: Return on investment, in terms of Google Ads, is the amount of money you make less the amount you spend on ads. This figure can also be negative.
Search Network: One of two networks (the other is Display Network, see above) on which you can show your ads. You can create text ads that can appear on Google.com and Google search partner sites, like AOL.com and Ask.com.
SERP: The search engine results page is the listing of webpages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query.
Shopping Ads: Shopping campaigns are perfect for those with eCommerce websites. They are able to integrate with Google Merchant Center in order to promote your online and local inventory. Shopping ads appear at the top of the SERP as well as in the Shopping section of Google Search.
Smart Campaigns: Google’s abridged version of Google Ads, designed for local businesses that aren’t as skilled in Google Ads.
Split Test: Creating a new ad based on a winning ad with a slight variation to see which performs better.