← How to Run Ads
Glossary: How to Run Ads
Every key term from the course, in plain English. Bookmark this page — you'll come back to it.
- Impression
- One time your ad is shown to someone. Impressions measure reach, not results.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- The percentage of impressions that become clicks. Low CTR usually means the creative or targeting is off.
- Cost per click (CPC)
- What you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Varies wildly by industry and competition.
- Conversion
- The action you want: a purchase, signup, call, or form fill. Define this before spending anything.
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Your total ad spend divided by conversions. The number that tells you if ads are profitable.
- ROAS
- Return on ad spend — revenue divided by ad cost. A 3x ROAS means $3 back for every $1 spent.
- Pixel
- A snippet of code on your website that reports visitor actions back to the ad platform. The foundation of all tracking.
- Lookalike audience
- People the platform finds who resemble your existing customers. One of the highest-performing targeting options.
- Retargeting
- Showing ads to people who already visited your site. Warm traffic — usually your cheapest conversions.
- Broad match
- A keyword setting that lets Google show your ad for loosely related searches. Powerful but dangerous without negative keywords.
- Negative keywords
- Terms you tell Google NOT to show your ads for. The cheapest optimization in advertising.
- Ad fatigue
- When your audience has seen the same creative too many times and stops responding. Fix with fresh creative, not more budget.
- Landing page
- The page your ad sends people to. It should match the ad's promise exactly — message mismatch kills conversions.
- A/B test
- Running two versions of an ad to see which performs better. Change one variable at a time or you learn nothing.
- Attribution
- Deciding which ad gets credit for a conversion. Different models give different answers — pick one and stay consistent.