PPC and Google Ads Jargon Buster
Welcome to the PPC Jargon Buster. There are so many acronyms in digital marketing that there’s even one in the article title. This is intended to help you understand Google Ads, at Ethical Marketing Service we always try to explain things in a simple way and are always willing to talk to anyone about how things work. To see our services we could provide you, please see our PPC Management page.
PPC – Pay Per Click – A colloquial term for Digital Advertising (not just Google Ads, but Bing, Youtube, Mobile apps and Social Media). The term is self explanatory in that you pay only when a user clicks on your advert. Not just when it is shown (impressions)
Google Algorithms – Complex programmes and formula’s that index the trillions of websites to give the user the most suitable pages available.
KPI – Key Performance Indicator – The measures of success for a customer. Hopefully this would be agreed in advance and might be measured in conversions, clicks, or ROI
ROI – Return on Investment – Income minus advertising costs. The former must be higher than the latter to give a positive return.
Click – When someone clicks on the advert shown (after searching the keyword associated with the advert). This would take them to the chosen destination on the website. This shows in the Google Ads interface as a number of clicks in the selected time period.
Impressions – When the advert is shown (after searching the keyword associated with the advert. If this shows or not is driven by Max CPC and Quality Score). This shows in the Google Ads interface as a number of impressions in the selected time period.
Conversion – When someone completes the action deemed the desired result of a campaign. This could be giving their details (either email address or phone number) for a follow-up, subscribing, downloading, or calling a phone number. This shows in the Google Ads interface as a number of conversions in the selected time period.
Display Network – A collection of websites that accept google advertising to be placed on their pages. The ads can be in text, image or video format.
Campaign – The first and highest in the ladder of the account structure. Settings are decided at campaign level.
Ad groups – Each campaign is made up of ad groups and contain either keywords or ads or both.
Keywords – These are the words typed into google by a potential customer you want an ad to show for. The keywords need to be relevant to the audience and their needs. These can be in different match types:
Broad, Phrase, Exact, and Modified Broad
Negative Keywords – Words that you want to block in your searches that are not relevant. (i.e for a removal company you would not want to advertise to people searching for the words tattoo, wart or rubbish.
Feed – Google Shopping requires a feed, which is the source data for the products inputted into the Google Merchant Centre.
Landing page – A specific page to direct the ad traffic. This should be relevant to the searchers query, with the ultimate aim to have a higher probability to convert than a normal page on the site.
ICC – incremental cost per click – Cost of incremental clicks divided by number of incremental clicks.
CPA – Cost per acquisition – Total cost for each lead.
EPC – Earnings Per Click – Profit divided by visitors
ECPC – Enhanced cost per click – A bidding strategy where Google adjusts bid based on historical conversion data.
ROAS – Return on ad spend – does not include profit, simply ad spend and revenue.
CTR – Click through rate – Clicks divided by impressions.
LTV – Lifetime Value – What is a lead worth when considering the total value of the customer – not just the initial sale.
CPV – Cost Per View
CPC – Cost Per Click
Conversion Rate – Percentage of visitors which turned into customers
RLSA – Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
DSA – Dynamic Search Ads
View Through Conversions – People who viewed your ad, didn’t click but then converted later
Ad Extensions – Additional parts of ads outside headline and descriptions which may contain, phone numbers, links to other parts of your site, your physical location or other selling points about your business.
Quality Score – A ranking of your keywords out of 10, calculated by expected click through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.