Guides: PPC & Digital Marketing Glossary
— Because over here, marketing is more than metrics — it's your empire in motion. —
About This Guide:
This glossary is your go-to reference for all things PPC. Whether you’re brushing up on the basics or breaking down a metric mid-meeting, these terms keep your strategy sharp and your confidence high. With categories covering bidding, campaign setup, performance metrics, and more, you’ll never second-guess a definition again. Because fluent marketers don’t just run ads — they speak the language of ROI.
Bidding & Ad Auction
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Not to be confused with Ad Position, Ad Rank is a value that’s used to determine your ad position behind the scenes. This is calculated as the product of your bid and Quality Score.
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Automatic bidding lets you put your bidding on autopilot to get the most possible clicks within your budget. You can also set a CPC bid limit if you don’t want to exceed a particular price for each click.
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The maximum amount you are willing to pay for a search keyword click. There are several ways to bid on your keywords, depending on what matters most to you and your business.
Bidding Types: The 3 main bidding types focus on clicks (CPC), impressions (CPM), or conversions (CPA).
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There are several ways to bid on your keywords, depending on what matters most to you and your business. There are three main bidding types available: focus on clicks (CPC), impressions (CPM), or conversions (CPA).
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The maximum amount you’re willing to pay for an ad click on the Display Network.
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The default bidding option where CPC bids are set manually for a particular keyword, placement, etc. Advertisers also have the option to turn on Automatic Bidding if they don’t want to control their CPC bids manually.
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A complex and partially hidden formula used by search engines that takes CTR and several other factors into account to decide whether your keywords are relevant to your ads and landing page. This is multiplied by your max CPC to calculate your Ad Rank to see what your ad position will be.
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A subset of automated bidding strategies that uses Google’s machine learning to optimize bidding in each auction. There are 4 smart bidding strategies.
Smart Bidding Strategies: Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions, and Enhanced CPC.
Campaign Optimizations
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The order in which your ad appears on a page in relation to other paid ads. An ad position of “1” means that your ad is the first ad on a page.
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A preference that determines which ad in your ad group should show when you have multiple ads active. Rotation settings include Optimize and Rotate Indefinitely. Optimize uses Google’s machine learning to automatically choose the ad most likely to win the auction. Rotate Indefinitely will rotate your ads evenly across all auctions. This setting is important to check to ensure that you have a proper balance between testing of your messaging and performance of your account.
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A status for each ad that describes whether that ad is able to run, and if so, whether there are any policy restrictions on how or when it can run. Common ad statuses include Under Review, Eligible, Approved and more.
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Automated ad extensions created by Google to help improve your ad's performance. Automated extensions include dynamic sitelinks, locations, seller ratings and more.
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A statistic that describes how your ad is typically positioned on search results pages.
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The default matching option, broad match means that your ad may show if a search term contains your keyword terms in any order, and possibly along with other terms. Your ads can also show for singular or plural forms, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations. Sticking with the, broad match, default is a great choice if you don't want to spend a lot of time building your keyword lists and want to capture the highest possible volume of ad traffic.
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You can add a modifier, a plus sign (+), to your broad match keywords if you'd like your ads to show when someone searches for close variants of your keywords in any order. Close variants include misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms. Unlike broad match, using a modifier excludes synonyms or related searches. For this reason, it adds an additional level of control. Using, broad match modifier, is a good choice if you want to increase relevancy even if it means you might get less ad traffic than broad match.
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Feature that enables users to display a Google forwarding or business, phone number, along with their PPC ad.
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A PPC text ad extension that allows you to promote unique offers, like free shipping or price matching.
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Another name for Call Extensions, where you can add a business phone number to your ad. The “click-to-call” comes from users having the ability to simply click on the phone number in your ad to place the call.
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Electronics that can display a PPC ad. Supported devices include desktops/laptops, mobile devices and tablets.
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The webpage address that is shown with your ad. This is often different from your destination URL and much shorter. Just make sure you only have one display URL per ad group and that it uses the same root domain as your destination URL. AdWords allows 35 characters for Display URLs, and if your domain is longer than that they may show a shortened version.
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The most specific of the keyword match types and triggers your ad when users type your keyword exactly as is and in the same order.
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Keyword-level settings that help control how closely the keyword needs to match a person’s search term in order to trigger your ad. These include broad, modified broad, phrase, exact and negative match types. You also have the ability to specify whether or not you want your phrase and exact match terms to show for plurals, misspellings or close variants.
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Type of, extension, that includes a business address and phone number into text ads. These can be a great way to help attract more customers to local businesses.
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A specific keyword phrase that consists of 2 or more words. Most advertisers use long-tail keywords to target the customer at or near their buying stage. These also generally have less competition since they are more specific, which leads to reduced CPCs.
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Matching option that allows advertisers to control when their ad triggers for a particular search query.
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Feature that allows people to text you directly from your ad to book an appointment, get a quote, ask for information, or request a service.
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Advertisers add negative keywords to their account so their ads do not display when a customer types in a search query containing that keyword. Negative keywords help you qualify the clicks to your site more effectively.
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Keyword setting that allows ads to show only when someone's search includes the exact, phrase, of your keyword or close variations of the specific keyword phrase.
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Feature for PPC search ads that showcase your services or products by linking people directly to what interests them on your site. Price extensions appear below your text ad and can have up to 8 cards of different options and prices.
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Feature of PPC search ads that showcases promotional offers below your text ads. Promotion extensions highlight deals for your customers to help generate new sales for your business.
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An automated extension shown underneath PPC text ads on Google. Once launched, seller ratings, showcase the overall rating of a business on a 5-star scale or in an "XX%" positive format. The ratings can come from Google sources and approved third-parties.
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Feature that displays links to different pages of a website beneath the ad text. Sitelinks, can appear in ads at the top and bottom of the SERPs and for some search partners. Sitelinks need to direct users to a different destination URL than what your main ad points to.
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Feature that appears alongside your PPC search ads that showcase a list of products or services with a predefined header. The, structured snippet, predefined headers include brands, destinations, and courses as well as several other header options.
Campaign Structure
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A setting that determines how quickly you want Google to use your budget each day: either spread throughout the day (standard) or more quickly (accelerated). This setting affects when during the day your ads are likely to show, especially if your campaigns are limited by budget.
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Additional incentives that increase the likelihood that users will click your ads. Advertisers can include business addresses, phone numbers, additional site links, promotions, or specific product information.
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A set of keywords, ads, and bids that is a key part of how your account is organized. Each campaign is made up of one or more ad groups, while each ad group typically includes about 5-10 keywords.
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A set of ad groups (ads, keywords, and bids) that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings. Your AdWords account can have one or many ad campaigns running.
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The URL address for the page you’re sending traffic from your PPC ads. This is allowed to be different from the display URL, although it has to direct users to the same domain as what is in the display URL
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A word or phrase that PPC advertisers use to target and display their ads in the sponsored search results.
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Specified by the destination URL, this is the webpage where customers end up after they click your ad. It is important to note that landing page quality is an important factor in determining Quality Score.
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A goal-based Google Ads campaign that uses automation across all Google inventory to maximize conversions.
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Search ads that include rich product information, such as images, pricing, and business names, without requiring additional keywords or ad text. Ads of this nature appear under the Google Shopping results automatically for consumer queries relating to one of your product offerings.
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Formatted for the Google Display Network, these are ads that include graphics to help promote your business. Ads of this type support a variety of sizes and formats, such as static, animated or flash.
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A dynamic ad format that auto-tests different combinations of headlines and descriptions to improve performance. The ads served are triggered by a user's specific search query, and can be shown on both Google search and display networks.
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A basic search query is what the user enters when searching on any search engine. If their search includes the keywords that you are bidding on your ad will appear (depending on match types and all of the other targeting options, of course).
Campaign Tools
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Setting that allows you to control and specify which hours and days you want your ads to appear, targeting periods of time when you expect your ads to be more successful. It can also be used to automatically adjust bids during specific time periods (which is also known as dayparting).
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A tool that lists the changes you’ve made to your account during the past two years. See details about changes like bid adjustments, status changes, keyword additions and more. This is particularly helpful because you can filter changes based on a specific date or date range.
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Also known as Location Targeting, this campaign setting allows advertisers to specify the geographical countries, regions, states, etc. where their ads will be served.
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Online advertising, platform, that offers, pay-per-click advertising and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads and more.
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Found in the AdWords interface, this tool helps advertisers find new keyword ideas and add them to your account. This can also be used to estimate traffic volume, identify negative keywords and determine competition level as well.
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Service provided by, certified agencies, or individuals that help businesses achieve their PPC goals and maximize returns.
Cost & Profitability Metrics
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The average amount that you've been charged for a click on your ad. Average CPC, is calculated by dividing the total cost of your clicks by the total number of clicks.
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The amount of money an advertiser pays search engines and other Internet publishers for a single click on its advertisement that brings one visitor to its website.
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Also referred to as Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA), this refers to the amount of money an advertiser pays search engines and other internet publishers for a lead generated on its advertisement.
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The maximum amount you're willing to pay for a phone call. This feature will only work when using call extensions and a Google forwarding number with your ad.
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Mille is French for thousand. CPM is a pricing model in digital advertising where advertisers pay a fixed cost for every 1,000 ad impressions, regardless of whether users click on the ad.
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This bidding option, used with TrueView video campaigns, allows users to pay each time their video is played.
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An amount set for each ad campaign to specify how much, on average, you'd like to spend each day. It is important to know that on any single day, you can spend up to twice your daily budget; however, your daily budget will average out by end-of-month.
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Set at the ad group level, this represents the maximum amount you're willing to pay for each ad click. If you don't set a specific keyword bid, AdWords will apply your default max. CPC bid.
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Automatic bid management, feature, designed to increase your ROI by raising or lowering your bids for keywords that the system predicts are more likely to convert.
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A method of advertising where the advertiser pays for each click received through the search engines.
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The ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of advertising (PPC) money invested (revenue generated per dollar spent).
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Ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the total funds invested (net profit after all costs).
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AdWords budgeting option that allows advertisers to specify a particular amount for a group of campaigns to spend on a given day. This can be a good way to avoid spreading the budget too thin, particularly in smaller accounts.
Performance Metrics
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In PPC, a click is registered when someone clicks on one of your Search or Display Network ads.
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A way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. CTR, is determined by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad by the number of impressions.
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A desired action taken by a website visitor, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. Search engines track visitors for up to 30 days, so your, conversion, may not happen until a subsequent visit several days later.
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Conversions divided by clicks – that represent the rate at which a click on your ad resulted in a conversion or key event.
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A feature that enables advertisers to create a threshold for the number of times your ads appear to the same person on the Display Network.
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The number of people who see your PPC ad.
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Impression share (IS) is the number of impressions you've received divided by the total eligible number of impressions received. Eligibility is based on your current ads' targeting settings, approval statuses, bids, and Quality Scores. Data is available at the campaign and ad group levels.
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Also known as Click Fraud, these are clicks on ads that Google considers to be illegitimate, such as unintentional clicks or clicks resulting from malicious software.
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Performance measurement that stems from your primary metric or what is most important to a particular business's success. For example, conversions and cost-per-acquisition can be popular KPIs for many PPC advertisers.
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Desired action taken by customers, such as filling out a form, submitting an email, or downloading a whitepaper, etc., that allows marketers to capture a user's information for later use.
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Provides the measurement of the number of online conversions that happened within 30 days after a user saw a Google Display Network ad, didn't click on that ad, and then converted via another means.
Targeting & Tracking
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In PPC, audiences are used to define the customers you target with your PPC ads. An audience can also refer to a group of users that have visited one or more pages of a website or completed a specific action. After this happens, they are included on lists that can be used to enhance your Display Network and Remarketing efforts. Advertisers can also create custom combinations, which can be a good way to target more specific audiences. Audiences used to define the customers you target with your PPC ads.
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A feature in AdWords that automatically appends a custom code to your destination URLs to help you track your ad performance using website, tracking, and programs like Google Analytics (GA4).
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A collection of more than a million websites, videos, and apps where your ads can appear. Google's network is called the Google Display Network, while Bing's network of sites is called the Content Network. In a lot of PPC circles, the terms are used interchangeably.
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Placement targeting lets AdWords advertisers choose individual spots in the Google content network where they'd like to see their ads displayed. These are basically individual sites that you want your ads to appear on.
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As opposed to auto tagging, this option allows advertisers to tag their destination URLs manually with "_utm" information that can be read and understood by Analytics or 3rd party tracking solutions. These are also used heavily in email blasts, promotional campaigns and more.
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Similar to a negative keyword, exclusions prevent your ads from appearing on individual websites or categories of websites. These are designed to help increase relevancy and control of ad placement on the Display Network.
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Allows advertisers to show ads to users who've previously visited your website as they browse other sites on the Display Network. This creates a network of high-intent and relevant users that have the opportunity to click on your ad and return to your site to make a purchase or complete the desired conversion.
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Feature that lets you target people who have previously visited your site with your search ads and optimize your PPC bids to increase the likelihood of reaching the audience. Targeting and optimizing, remarketing lists, can lead to highly qualified customers visiting your site.
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A group of search-related websites where your ads can appear, including Google search sites and search partners.
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Websites partnered with Google to show PPC advertisements on the Search Network. They can be opted out of in the Google interface, but advertisers can't bid exclusively on search partners.
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Tracking tags added to URLs to help measure performance in Google Analytics.
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