Here is your handy guide summarising some of the terminology that is often associated with a Google AdWords campaign.
Campaign - An ad campaign on Google AdWords is made up of your ad groups, adverts, keywords and your other settings. There can be more than one ad group within a campaign. All ad groups within a campaign share a budget, location targeting, and other settings
Ad groups - An ad group includes your set of adverts, keywords, budgets and targeting methods for a particular objective, within the same campaign. You can have multiple adverts in each ad group
Adverts - These are the items displayed on Google. An advert is made up of a headline, display URL, description and advert extensions. These typically change dependent on the search term, device and ad rank
Keywords - Keywords are very important in your Google Ads campaign. These are the words or phrases that trigger your adverts to display via Google search. These keywords will help to determine where and when your adverts will appear
Most Common Metrics
Clicks - Is the number of clicks on the advert through to your website. You only pay once someone has clicked on your advert. (Google has built-in algorithms to ensure your budget isn’t wasted by spam or competitors clicking multiple times)
Impressions - An impression is the measurement of how many times your ad is shown via Google search. An impression is counted each time your ad is shown on a search result page and doesn’t cost anything to display
CPC - Cost-Per-Click is the most common bid type on Google AdWords. It means you pay every time a person actually clicks on your ad
Click Through Rate (CTR) - Your CTR is an important metric. It measures how many people who have seen your ad click through to your link destination
Additional Metrics
Quality Score - A 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 can get you better ad placement and lower costs
Ad Rank - Your Ad Rank is the value that’s used to determine where your ad shows up on a page. It’s based on your Quality Score and your bid amount
General AdWords Terms
Ad extensions - Ad extensions is additional information about your business, such as your local address, phone number, services you offer.. They’re what shows up in blue below your ad description and essentially bulk up the advert to ensure its prominent when being displayed
Call to Action (CTA) - A CTA is the action you want your searcher to take. This can be for example to either get in touch via an enquiry form or phone call
Landing Page - Your landing page is a specific page on your website in which you drive all traffic to from your adverts
Optimization - Optimization in Google AdWords is like optimization elsewhere in marketing. It means making the changes in your ad that get you higher results for your objectives
Split Testing - Split testing includes A/B and multivariate testing. It’s a method of controlled marketing experiments with the goal being to improve your objective results (such as higher CTR’s, increased conversion or even better advert ranking)
Cost Related AdWords Terms
Bid Strategy - Your bid strategy is how you set up your bidding activity to meet your overall goals. This can be for example to maximise clicks
Daily budget - Your daily budget is what you’re willing to spend on Google AdWords per day. This can vary dependent on the keywords used, time of day, day and even location
Advert Specific Terms
Headline - Your advert headline is the header of your advert. It generally appears in bold at the top of the advert
Destination URL - Your destination URL is the landing page your advert is directed to when it’s clicked. Your destination site can be a specific page. You can change it for differing ads within ad groups. Your audience does not see it in the ad
Display URL - Your display URL is what shows up as part of your advert. It’s good practise to include a specific keyword or phrase to ensure your advert is relevant at every opportunity.