Google Ads Glossary

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  • Google Ads formerly Google Adwords

    Google Ads is Google’s digital paid advertising portal for digital marketing.

    Google Ads Campaign

    Ad Campaigns make up your groups on the platform. Your Google Ads campaigns could have the same budget, campaign type and additional ad settings. You have the freedom to run multiple campaigns from your Google Ads account.

  • Ad Groups

    An ad group in Google Ads is your set of keywords , budgets and targeting tactics to accomplish your marketing goals within the same campaign. If you are running an ad campaign for a flower bouquet sale, yu could set up ad groups to target for roses, lillies, or carnations.

    Campaign Type

    Your Google Ads campaign type is where you want your ads to be seen. Whether that’s through search ad results or display ad results.

  • Search or Text Ad

    A text ad in Google Ads is a form of marketing communication that a business can use to promote their product or service on the Google Network. “These ads appear on Google’s search results pages and across the Google Network.

    Display Ads

    A display ad is a visually creative form of advertising and it will appear in Google’s Display network of websites, videos, and YouTube.

  • Keywords

    Keywords are the blueprint of Google Ads. They are the words or word phrases you choose for your ads and help to determine where and when your ad will appear “When choosing your keywords, think like your customer and what they would be searching for when they want your product, service or offer.

    Quality Score

    Your Google Ads quality score is the measurement from Google based on the relevancy of your ad headline, description, keywords and destination URL to your potential customer seeing your ad. A higher Quality Score will get you better ad placement and lower costs

  • Impressions

    An impression is the measurement of how many times your ad is shown.

    Ad Rank

    Your Ad Rank Google’s value that’s used to determine where your ad shows up on a search result page. It’s based on your Quality Score and the amount you’re choosing to bid for that certain auction.

  • Mobile Ad

    Mobile ads are ads that your customers see on their mobile devices.

    Ad Extensions

    An ad extension in Google Ads contains bits of extra information about your business, such as your address, phone number, sales information or individual pages you’d like your customers to see.

  • Impressions

    An impression is the measurement of how many times your ad is shown.

    Ad Rank

    Your Ad Rank Google’s value that’s used to determine where your ad shows up on a search result page. It’s based on your Quality Score and the amount you’re choosing to bid for that certain auction.

  • Mobile Ad

    Mobile ads are ads that your customers see on their mobile devices.

    Ad Extensions

    An ad extension in Google Ads contains bits of extra information about your business, such as your address, phone number, sales information or individual pages you’d like your customers to see.

  • Impressions

    An impression is the measurement of how many times your ad is shown.

    Ad Rank

    Your Ad Rank Google’s value that’s used to determine where your ad shows up on a search result page. It’s based on your Quality Score and the amount you’re choosing to bid for that certain auction.

  • Call To Action (CTA)

    A call to action describes the action you want your user or customer to take. Actionable CTAs in your ads should be short and utilize power words such as “Buy Now”, “Try For Free”, “Learn More.

    Click Through Rate (CTR)

    Your Google Ads click-through-rate is the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of ad impressions. It basically reflects the clickability of your ad. Your CTR is one of the most important metrics in your Google Ads account settings. “It measures how many people who have seen your ad click through to your link destination.

  • Bid Strategy

    Your Google Ads bid strategy is basically how you set your bid type to pay for viewer interaction with your Google ads.

    Optimization

    Optimization in Google Ads means making the changes in your messaging or advertising in attempts to get higher results for your objectives.

  • Daily Budget

    Your Google Ads daily budget is what your company is willing to spend per day, per ad. Your daily cost is based on a daily average per month basis.

    CPC

    Cost-Per-Click is the most common bid type on Google Ads. It means you pay every time a person actually clicks on your ad. You set your “maximum CPC” in the bidding process, which means that dollar amount is the most you’ll pay for a click on your ad.

  • PPC

    Pay per click advertising. The most common form of digital advertising on Google Ads. The business or advertiser will pay for each time a user or customer clicks on their ad.

    CPA

    Cost per acquisition or conversion in Google Ads. The business or advertiser will pay for each time a user or customer converts into a sale or conversion they considered to be a goal.

  • CPM

    CPM in Google Ads denotes cost-per-thousand impressions. It’s a bidding method that bases a business or advertiser’s costs on how many times your ads are shown.

    Headline

    Your Google Ads text headlines are the leading lines of your ad copy. They show up in blue clickable text on Google search result pages.

  • Destination URL

    A Google Ads destination URL is the landing page that your ad directs to when clicked. Your destination page can be a specific landing page that’s relevant to the users search and your product or service. It’s best practice to alter for different ads within ad groups.

    Display URL

    Your Google Ads display URL is what shows up in your ad copy. You can keep this simple and clean to increase your brand recognition, trust, and conversions.

  • Impressions

    The action of the ad message being displayed on a website. In PPC you don’t pay for the number of impressions, but rather for the number of clicks. Still impressions work great for the online exposure of your ad

    KPI

    Key performance indicators in Google Ads are specific measurements that evaluate your business and marketing goals.

  • Page Views

    The number of pages viewed by a customer or user.

    ROI

    Return on investment is the percentage of profits in relation to your Google Ads costs. The higher the ROI the more success you’ll have online.

  • ROAS

    Return on advertising spend is a marketing metric that measures your efficiency of your digital advertising campaigns based around your spend.

    ECPC

    Enhanced cost per click is a smart bidding strategy where Google Ads automatically sets bid levels based on user intent.

  • Conversion Rate Optimization

    Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the advanced tactic of increasing your website’s percentage of visitors who take the action that your business wants. It could be signing up for emails or direct sales from your website. It’s about understanding ” + “how your customers journey through your site, finding what’s stopping them from completing your goals, and fixing that for future success.

    GoogleBot

    Google’s spider program that crawls your Google Ads content and sees if it’s relevant to Google’s users.

  • Keyword Density

    Keyword density is percentage of words on your website that are focused on certain keywords. You don’t want to have too many of the same keywords on a single page because it could decrease user experience on the page.

    Keyword Research

    Keyword research is the data driven work that determines which keywords are relevant to your industry and customers.

  • Landing Pages

    A landing page is the website page that a user lands on when they click on one of your ads in a Google search result page.

    Long tail keywords

    Long-tail keywords are more specific and phrase-like search queries. A search for “shoes” is very broad, where “black oxford dress shoes” would be a long-tail search. Users are becoming much more prone to long-tail searches as they continue to be more comfortable in search engines.

  • SEM

    SEM is short for search engine marketing. This can include search engine optimization, paid search and other search-engine related services and functions that will increase exposure and traffic to your digital marketing campaigns.

    SERP

    SERP is short for search engine results page. This is the page that Google delivers to a user once they type in a search query.

  • URL

    URL is short for uniform resource locator, otherwise known as your website address.

    Negative keywords

    A negative keyword is a type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. If you’re a high-end retailer and add “inexpensive” as a negative keyword to your campaign or ad group, you tell Google Ads not to show your ad for any search ” + “containing the term “inexpensive”. This allows you to target a more exact audience and not pay for clicks from customers who aren’t willing to buy.

  • Ad Group Relevance

    Ad group relevance in Google ads determines how relevant your keywords and ad groups are compared to all the other keywords across Google Ads. If your ad group is below average your ad or keywords may need to be more specific to be effective.

    Manual Bidding

    Manual bidding in Google Ads is a method that lets you set your own maximum cost-per-click for your campaigns. It gives you complete control over what you’re paying.

  • Automated Bidding

    Automated bidding in Google Ads uses machine learning to automatically set your bids depending on whether or not Google’s algorithm thinks it’s serving an ad to a customer that’s more willing to click.

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