Paid acquisition glossary
Definitions for the terms that actually change how you read ad performance data, written the way we use them internally, not textbook-generic.
Attribution window
An attribution window is the length of time a platform will credit a conversion back to an ad interaction, for example Meta's default 7-day-click, 1-day-view. Change the window and the same underlying conversions redistribute across campaigns differently, which means a reported performance swing after a window change is a measurement artifact, not a real change in results.
iOS ATT tracking loss
iOS ATT (App Tracking Transparency) tracking loss is the gap between conversions that actually happened and conversions a platform can observe, caused by iOS users declining the tracking-permission prompt Apple requires since iOS 14.5. Declined users' activity is modelled or estimated rather than directly observed, which systematically under-reports true performance on iOS traffic and inflates apparent cost-per-result.
MMM vs. last-click attribution
Last-click attribution credits a conversion entirely to the final ad interaction before it happened; MMM (Marketing Mix Modelling) instead estimates each channel's incremental contribution using aggregate spend and outcome data over time, without relying on individual user-level tracking. Last-click is simple and real-time but systematically over-credits bottom-funnel and retargeting; MMM is privacy-resilient and captures upper-funnel effects, but runs on a lag and needs real statistical rigor to trust.
Wasted spend
Wasted spend is ad spend on search queries, placements, or audience segments that have a demonstrated pattern of not converting, most commonly irrelevant search terms triggering an ad through broad or phrase match. It's identified by matching actual query-level (or placement-level) spend against a negative-keyword or exclusion audit, and reported as a range over a specific date window, never as a single lifetime figure.
Quality Score
Quality Score is Google Ads' 1-10 estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords and landing pages, built from expected click through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google states it is not an input in the ad auction and is not used at auction time to determine Ad Rank. It is a point-in-time diagnostic, not a metric to sum or average across a date range.
Conversion lag (IBNR)
Conversion lag is the delay between an ad click and the conversion event Google eventually reports for it, which means any recent date window is undercounted at the moment you look at it and gets backfilled for weeks afterward. IBNR (incurred but not reported, a term borrowed from insurance) describes exactly this: real conversions that already happened but haven't been reported yet, so a raw recent-window count always understates the true number.
Impression share and lost IS (budget vs. rank)
Impression share is the impressions your ads received divided by the impressions Google estimates they were eligible to receive. Beside it sit two loss columns, each measured as a percentage of time rather than as a split of the missing impressions: lost IS (budget), when your ads were not shown because of insufficient budget, and lost IS (rank), when they were not shown because of poor Ad Rank. The two attribute loss to different constraints, so treating them as one number hides which constraint Google actually measured.
Performance Max structure
Performance Max (PMax) is Google's automated campaign type, and structurally it has no ad groups and no keywords, unlike a Search campaign. You instead build 'asset groups' (headlines, images, video, text) and let Google's system decide where to show them and what to match them against. That means you can't see which search terms or keywords actually triggered a given result, so troubleshooting has to work through broader signals like asset group performance and audience signals, not keyword-level cause and effect.
Ad-platform settings that aren't real levers
Both Google Ads and Meta Ads show you numbers and labels that look like controls but mostly aren't. Google's Ad Strength and Optimisation Score are diagnostic labels describing how the system rates your setup; changing them requires you to edit something else (headlines, targeting) that then produces a new score. Genuine direct levers are things like bid amount, budget, targeting settings, and which conversion action you're optimising for. Confusing a score for a dial is a common reason people think they've 'tried everything' when they've mostly just read a report card.
'Conversions' (why it's not one number)
Both Google Ads and Meta Ads report a metric literally labelled 'Conversions,' but it can mean different things depending on account settings and where you're looking. Google distinguishes 'all conversions' from the subset marked 'primary' (the ones bidding algorithms actually optimise toward), and Meta reports conversions broken out by individual action type, purchase, lead, add-to-cart, each counted separately. Comparing two 'conversions' figures without checking whether both are using the same definition and the same underlying action is a routine, easy-to-make error.
Cross-campaign conversion attribution (Performance Max)
A Performance Max campaign's reported conversion count is not guaranteed to reflect conversions that campaign alone drove. Google's automated bidding and attribution systems use signals and assist paths that can span multiple campaigns you're running at once, and standard per-campaign reporting doesn't fully separate out that overlap. This means two campaigns can each report conversions that were partly influenced by the other, so comparing their standalone numbers, or cutting one because its number looks weak, can be comparing figures that were never fully independent.
Automated changes attributed to "system"
Both Google Ads' Change History and Meta's equivalent change log can show edits attributed to a generic "system" or "Google Ads" actor instead of a named team member. This happens because automated bidding, auto-apply recommendations, and other platform-side automation make their own micro-adjustments to bids, budgets, or targeting on your behalf, and those changes get logged the same way a human edit would. Anyone auditing the log to reconstruct "what did we change vs what happened on its own" needs to know this distinction exists, or they'll misattribute automated moves as deliberate decisions, or the reverse.
Absolute top impression share
Absolute top impression share, the Search abs. top IS column in Google Ads, is your impressions as the very first ad among top ads divided by the estimated impressions you were eligible for among top ads. It is not Impr. (Abs. Top) %. That is the absolute top impression rate: the percentage of your own impressions shown as the very first ad. One divides by opportunity, the other by what you already won. Riibon marks absolute top impression share as a ratio that is never summed or averaged across rows.
ROAS (return on ad spend)
ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue divided by ad spend over the same period. The figure every ad platform shows uses revenue the platform attributed to itself, which is not the same as revenue the business actually banked. A 4x platform ROAS and a 4x accounting ROAS are two different claims, and on most accounts only the first one has ever been checked.
CPA (cost per acquisition)
CPA (cost per acquisition) is ad spend divided by the number of conversions the platform counted. Both halves are softer than they look: conversions is a set of actions somebody configured, and the count for any recent period keeps rising for weeks after the click. A CPA quoted without saying which actions it counts, and how complete its window is, is not comparable to any other CPA.
Learning phase
The learning phase is the period after a new or significantly edited ad set during which delivery is still unstable and results are not yet representative. Meta says an ad set exits it once it can deliver stably, which usually happens after about 50 results in the week after its last significant edit. Leaving it is a delivery milestone, not a verdict: an ad set can exit the learning phase and still be losing money.
Broad match
Broad match lets Google show your ad for searches it judges related in meaning to your keyword, not only ones containing it. Google uses signals beyond the keyword itself, including your landing page, the other keywords in the ad group and the user's recent activity. It buys reach at the cost of control, and the only way to know what you bought is the search terms report.
View-through conversion
A view-through conversion is one credited after someone saw your ad without clicking it, within the platform's view window, which defaults to one day on Meta. It reflects something real, since ads can influence a purchase without a click. It is also the easiest place for a platform to credit itself with a sale it did not cause, because the qualifying event is simply that an impression was served.
Modelled conversions
Modelled conversions are conversions a platform estimates statistically rather than observes, filling the gap left by consent refusals, cross-device journeys and browser restrictions. Estimating is usually the honest response to a genuinely unobservable question. The problem is presentational: the estimates arrive in the same column as directly measured conversions, with nothing marking which rows are which.
Incrementality testing
Incrementality testing measures what advertising actually caused, by withholding it from a comparable group and comparing outcomes. It answers the one question attribution cannot: how many of these conversions would have happened anyway. Geo holdouts and budget-split tests are the usual formats, and the result is often uncomfortable for whichever channel the attribution model had been flattering.
Search lost IS (rank)
Google defines it as “the percentage of time that your ads weren’t shown on the Search Network due to poor Ad Rank in the auction”. The unit is the part people get wrong: it is a percentage of time, not a slice of the impressions you missed. Impression share beside it is a ratio of impressions, so the columns are measured differently and Google does not state anywhere that they add up to anything.
Cost per conversion vs cost per acquisition
In Google Ads, arithmetically yes. Cost/conv. is your total cost divided by the number in the Conversions column, and Google describes Target CPA, which it expands as cost per action, as your desired average cost per conversion. The difference is in the word. An acquisition usually means a new customer, while the Conversions column counts every primary conversion action the account includes, repeat and non-purchase ones too. So over the same cost, cost per new customer is cost per conversion multiplied by the ratio of conversions to new customers.
Display lost IS (budget)
Google defines Display lost IS (budget) as “the percentage of time that your ads weren’t shown on the Display Network due to insufficient budget”. It is a percentage of time, not a share of missed impressions, and is available at campaign level only. It is a separate column from Search lost IS (budget), measured on a different network, so the two are not comparable, and a Display campaign’s budget loss says nothing about whether its Search sibling is budget limited. Google reports impression share separately for each campaign type.
Average target CPA
Average target CPA is, in Google's words, the traffic-weighted average CPA that your bid strategy optimised for. It includes the average of your device bid adjustments, your ad group Target CPAs and any changes you made to your Target CPA over time, so it may be different from the Target CPA you set. Google says to compare the CPA you achieved with it, because it more accurately reflects what Smart Bidding is optimising towards.
Conversion cycle
The example Google gives of a conversion cycle is the amount of time it takes for a click to result in a conversion. Google uses it to time how long Smart Bidding can take to settle. Its learning period page says the learning period can take up to around 50 conversion events or 3 conversion cycles. Its Target ROAS page adds that after a target change the bidder will need some time to hit the new target, and to give it one to two conversion cycles.
Significant edit
A significant edit is Meta's name for a change that sends an ad set back into the learning phase. Meta says every edit has some effect on delivery, but not every edit causes the ad set to re-enter the learning phase: only a significant edit does. It lists them as any change to targeting, to ad creative or to the optimisation event, adding a new ad to the ad set, pausing the ad set for seven days or longer, and changing bid strategy.
Learning limited
Learning limited is the status Meta's Delivery column shows when an ad set isn't getting enough optimisation events to exit the learning phase. Meta says an ad set becomes learning limited when it is unlikely to receive about 50 optimisation events in the week after your last significant edit. It says learning limited isn't a penalty, but an indication that your budget isn't being spent effectively because the ad delivery system can't optimise performance with your current setup.
All conversions
All conversions, shown as All conv., is the Google Ads column that, in Google's words, shows comprehensive data for all primary and secondary conversion actions and includes other special conversion sources, such as view-through conversions. The Conversions column, by contrast, shows the conversions you've received across your primary conversion actions, and Google says its data is what your bidding strategies use. All conversions is the wider view; Conversions is what the bidder reads.
Conv. value/cost
Conv. value/cost, conversion value per cost, is the Google Ads column that, in Google's words, estimates your return on investment. It is calculated by dividing your total conversion value by the total cost of all the ad interactions. Google's Target ROAS page uses it as the historical reference for setting a target, beside your business goals: add the Conv. value/cost column, then multiply it by 100 to get your Target ROAS percentage.
Conversions (by conv. time)
Conversions (by conv. time) is the Google Ads column that reports conversions by the time that they occurred rather than the time of the ad click. Google's primary conversion columns are calculated based on the time of the click, not the time of the conversion, which Google says lets you accurately measure cost per conversion or return on ad spend, because ad spend is also calculated based on the time of the click.
Target ROAS
Target ROAS is a Google Ads Smart Bidding strategy. Google says Google Ads will set the maximum cost per interaction bids to maximise your conversion value, while trying to achieve an average return on ad spend equal to your target. Your Target ROAS is the average conversion value you'd like to get for each pound you spend on ads: in Google's example, £5 of sales for each £1 of ad spend is a Target ROAS of 500%.
Primary and secondary conversion actions
In Google Ads, conversion actions are grouped together into conversion goals, and most actions can be set as primary or secondary. Google says primary actions are reported in the Conversions column in your reports and used for bidding as long as the standard goal they are part of is used for bidding. Secondary actions are for observation only: they are used for reporting in the All conversions column, but not for bidding, even if the goal they are included in is used for bidding.
Conversion goal
A conversion goal is a group of conversion actions. Google says conversion actions are grouped together based on related categories to form conversion goals, which represent the type of transaction, for example Purchases, Contacts or Submit lead forms, and that these goals are used to drive bidding optimisation for your campaigns.
Account-default conversion goals
Account-default goals are the conversion goals Google Ads applies across your account. Google says that if you enable the account default setting for a conversion goal, the primary conversion actions within that goal will be tracked as conversions in your reporting and used for bidding across all your campaigns, except those where you've set up campaign-specific goals.
Campaign-specific conversion goals
Campaign-specific goals are a Google Ads setting that, in Google's words, allows you to override your account-default goals and specify which goals you'd like to track in your conversion reporting and use for bidding in a particular campaign. You can apply standard goals, a custom goal or a combination, and Google notes that you can only use one custom goal per campaign.
Smart Bidding
Smart Bidding is Google's name for bidding strategies that, in its words, use Google AI to optimise for conversions or conversion value in every auction, a feature known as auction-time bidding. Google lists Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximise conversions and Maximise conversion value as Smart Bidding strategies.
Target CPA
Target CPA bidding is an automated Google Ads bid strategy that, in Google's words, sets bids for you to get as many conversions or customer actions as possible. You set your desired average cost per conversion, and Google Ads uses that target to set a bid based on the likelihood of the ad to convert. Google says some conversions may cost more than your target and some may cost less, but altogether Google Ads will try to keep your cost per conversion equal to the Target CPA that you set.
Maximise conversions
Maximise conversions is a Google Ads Smart Bidding strategy that, in Google's words, uses Google's AI to set bids to help get the most conversions for your campaign while spending your budget. Google says it will try to fully spend your average daily budget.
Conversion action segment
The Conversion action segment splits a Google Ads table into rows by conversion action, which Google describes as the name of the conversion tracking action that you set up. It is how you see what a blended Conversions figure is made of.
Seasonality adjustment
A seasonality adjustment is, in Google's words, an advanced tool that can be used to inform Smart Bidding of expected changes in conversion rates for future events like promotions or sales. You schedule a conversion rate adjustment, an increase or a decrease, for the event's dates, and Google says your campaigns return to their pre-adjusted performance after the event is finished.
Conversion delay
Conversion delay is Google's name for the time between impression and conversion, which Google says affects which values you see in your account. Sometimes the conversion happens within a day of the click, but Google says conversions can be reported up to 90 days after the click, depending on the conversion window that you've chosen.
Days to conversion
Days to conversion is a Google Ads segment. Google defines it as the time difference between the customer's ad impression and the subsequent conversion, and says to use it to understand how long you should wait for a given reporting day before you interpret your conversion numbers.
Eligible impressions
Eligible impressions are the denominator of impression share. Google describes impression share as the percentage of impressions that your ads receive compared to the total number of impressions that your ads could get, and writes the formula as impression share = impressions/total eligible impressions. It says eligible impressions are estimated using many factors, including targeting settings, approval statuses and quality.
Avg. monthly searches
Avg. monthly searches is a historical metric in Google's Keyword Planner. Google defines it as the average number of times that people have searched for a keyword and its close variants based on the month range as well as the location and Search Network settings that you selected. By default, the number of searches for the term (regardless of language) is averaged over a 12-month period.
Keyword Planner forecasts
A Keyword Planner forecast is Google's estimate of how a set of keywords might perform. Google says it draws on historical search data to make estimates on what you might get from a set of keywords based on your spending. Its Keyword Planner guide adds that your plan forecast shows you how many conversions, clicks or impressions you're likely to get for your keywords based on your spend.
Conversion rate
Google says conversion rate ('Conv. rate') tells you how often, on average, an ad click or other ad interaction leads to a conversion. It's calculated by dividing 'Conversions' by the total eligible interactions (e.g. ad clicks or video ad views).
Ad impression share (Keyword Planner)
Ad impression share in Keyword Planner is, in Google's words, the number of impressions that you've received divided by the total number of searches for the location and network that you're targeting that matched the keyword exactly in the last calendar month.
Conversion value
Google defines total conversion value ('Total conv. value') as the sum of conversion values for your 'Conversions', and says you have to enter a value for your conversion actions to make this metric useful. In the new Google Ads experience the column is called 'Conv. value'.
Value per conversion
Google says value per conversion ('Value/conv.') tells you approximately how much, on average, each of your conversions is worth. It's calculated by dividing your total conversion value by the number in your 'Conversions' column, so it is an average across every action in that column, not the value of any one of them.
Maximise conversion value
Maximise conversion value is a Google Ads Smart Bidding strategy. Google says that when you are using it, Google will aim to spend your budget to maximise conversion value for your campaigns. Bidding still occurs for every conversion, but the value varies on the type of conversion, and the cost stays within your specified budget.
Bid strategy status
Google says your bid strategy status calls attention to the state of your automated bid strategy at any given point in time. The statuses are Inactive, Active, Learning, Limited, and two Misconfigured states: one for a Maximise bid strategy with a shared budget, one for a conversion setting.
Reddit Max campaigns
Max campaigns are an automated campaign type on Reddit Ads. Reddit says Max campaigns optimise campaign settings and creative rotation for every impression to drive better performance with less work, and that they are now available for lead generation to help increase lead volume and improve efficiency.
In-market audiences on Reddit
In-market audiences are a Reddit Ads targeting option, in beta, that Reddit says help advertisers reach people actively researching or considering making a purchase, including in categories such as Enterprise and Business AI and Cybersecurity. Reddit says they are available automatically through Max campaigns.
Cost per lead
Cost per lead is ad spend divided by the number of leads it produced. In Google Ads, Google says Cost per conversion ('Cost/conv.') is calculated by dividing your total cost by the number in your 'Conversions' column, so it is your cost per lead only when the actions in that column are leads and nothing else.
Conversion count setting
Conversion count is a setting on a Google Ads conversion action. Google says you can choose to count every conversion after an interaction or only one conversion after an interaction, and advises selecting 'Every' for sales to track each purchase and 'One' for leads to prevent duplicate counts from page refreshes.
Ad rotation
Ad rotation is a Google Ads setting that, in Google's words, allows you to specify how often you'd like the ads in your ad group to be served relative to one another. Google says you can use it in Shopping, Search and Display campaigns, and that there are 2 settings: 'Optimise' and 'Do not optimise'.
Responsive search ad
A responsive search ad is a Google Search ad you build from several headlines and descriptions. Google says you enter multiple headlines and descriptions, and over time Google Ads tests different combinations and learns which combinations perform best. You can provide up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions for a single responsive search ad.
Ad variations
Ad variations are a Google Ads tool that, in Google's words, allow you to easily create and test variations of your ads across multiple campaigns or your entire account. Google's example is testing how well your ads perform if you were to change your call to action from 'Buy now' to 'Buy today'.
Pinning headlines and descriptions
Pinning fixes a headline or description to a specific position in a responsive search ad. Google says that by default headlines and descriptions can appear in any order, and that pinning one causes it to show only in that specific position, preventing other headlines or descriptions from showing in its place.
Search lost IS (budget)
Google defines Search lost IS (budget) as the percentage of time that your ads weren't shown on the Search Network due to insufficient budget. The unit is time, not a share of the impressions you missed, and the data is available at the campaign level only. It sits beside Search impression share, which is a ratio of impressions, and beside Search lost IS (rank), which attributes the loss to Ad Rank instead.
Search exact match IS
Search exact match IS is, in Google's words, the impressions you've received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive on the Search Network for search terms that matched your keywords exactly (or were close variants of your keyword). It is unavailable for Shopping campaigns. Read beside ordinary impression share, it shows whether a low share is low on every search or only on the broader ones.
Display lost IS (rank)
Google defines Display lost IS (rank) as the percentage of time that your ads weren't shown on the Display Network due to poor Ad Rank. It is a percentage of time, measured on the Display Network, and it is a separate column from Search lost IS (rank). Google notes that Lost IS (rank) won't be shown on your Ad groups tab if you ran out of budget at any point during the date range being examined.
Search top IS
Search top IS, short for Search top impression share, is the impressions you've received among top ads divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive among top ads. It is not Impr. (Top) %, which Google defines as the percentage of your own ad impressions that are shown among top ads. Google lists the share among the metrics you can use as a target to set your bid, and does not recommend using the rate that way.
Search lost top IS (rank)
Google's definition: Search lost top impression share (rank) estimates how often your ad didn't show anywhere among top ads due to poor Ad Rank. Its partner column, Search lost top IS (budget), covers how often Google puts the same miss down to a low budget. Our reading: the column does not say whether the ad showed lower on the page or did not show at all. It does not separate the two.
Search lost top IS (budget)
Google's definition: Search lost top impression share (budget) helps you to understand how often your ad didn't show anywhere among top ads due to a low budget. It is the budget side of a shortfall in Search top IS. Its partner, Search lost top IS (rank), estimates how often the same shortfall was due to poor Ad Rank.
Search lost abs. top IS (rank)
Google's definition: Search lost absolute top impression share (rank) estimates how often your ad wasn't the very first ad among top ads due to poor Ad Rank. Its partner column, Search lost abs. top IS (budget), estimates how often the same thing happened due to a low budget.
Overlap rate
Overlap rate is a column in the Google Ads auction insights report. Google defines it as how often another advertiser's ad received an impression when your ad also received an impression. A row showing 60% means that in 6 out of every 10 times your ad showed, an ad from that advertiser showed as well.
Outranking share
Outranking share is a column in the Google Ads auction insights report. Google says it tells you how often your ad ranked higher in the auction than another advertiser's ad, or if your ad showed when theirs didn't. Our reading: on a competitor's row it is your score against that advertiser, not theirs against you.
Position above rate
Position above rate is a column in the auction insights report for Search campaigns only. Google says it is how often the other advertiser's ad was shown in a higher position than yours was, when both of your ads were shown at the same time. A row showing 5% means their ad showed above yours in 5 out of every 100 times your ads showed at the same time.
Ad relevance diagnostics
Ad relevance diagnostics are three columns in Meta Ads Manager: quality ranking, engagement rate ranking and conversion rate ranking. Meta says they can help you diagnose whether the ads you ran were relevant to the audience you reached, and that they assess each ad's past performance in the ad auction over the date range you've selected.
Optimisation event
An optimisation event is the outcome Meta's system bids on in the ad auction for an ad set. Meta says the optimisation event is chosen within your ad sets and can be different from your campaign objective: you can choose sales as your campaign objective, but choose to optimise for link clicks within an ad set.
Creative fatigue
Creative fatigue is Meta's term for when an audience has seen the same creative too many times. Meta says people may be less likely to engage with your ad, which can lead to a higher cost per result. When it believes your audience has seen the same ad too many times, you see Creative limited or Creative fatigue in the Delivery column status for your ad set or ad.
Meta ad auction
Each time there's an opportunity to show an ad to someone, Meta runs an auction to decide which ad to show. Meta says the winner is the ad with the highest total value, subject to a price floor that may affect whether an ad is shown and the price paid, and that total value is a combination of three major factors: the bid, estimated action rates and ad quality.
Auction overlap
Auction overlap is Meta's name for what can happen when you create ad sets with overlapping audiences: multiple ads from your Page may enter the same ad auction. Meta says it then chooses the ad with the highest total value to compete, and your other ads are not considered in that auction. That stops your ads bidding against one another, but Meta says it can prevent an ad set from spending its full budget or achieving enough results to exit the learning phase.
Audience fragmentation
Audience fragmentation is what Meta calls splitting your audience across several ad sets, and its help page on the subject is about undoing it by combining ad sets and campaigns. Meta's example is three ad sets with the same objective and creative, aimed at people interested in dogs, dog toys and dog collars. It says splitting them could decrease performance because the total audience size is split across multiple ad sets, and that combining them into one broader ad set could improve it.
Meta breakdowns
Breakdowns are how Meta Ads Reporting customises the way your results appear in a report, including by level, time, demographics, geography, delivery or actions. Examples Meta gives include age, gender, country, region, placement, platform, impression device and conversion device. Meta suggests breakdowns as the alternative to fragmenting audiences across separate ad sets for reporting purposes.
Opportunity score
Opportunity score is a point score from 0 to 100 in Meta Ads Manager that represents how optimised your campaigns, ad sets and ads are. Meta says it is based on how many Ads Manager recommendations you apply, ranked by estimated performance impact, and that the score, including a high score, does not itself reflect your actual or future performance.
Portfolio bid strategy
A portfolio bid strategy is, in Google's definition, an AI-powered, goal-driven bid strategy that groups together multiple campaigns, ad groups and keywords. Google says it applies to the Smart Bidding strategies Maximise conversions, Maximise conversions value, target ROAS and target CPA, and to the automated strategies Maximise clicks and Target impression share. Portfolio bid strategies are not available for Performance Max campaigns.
Bid limits
Bid limits are a maximum and a minimum CPC bid you can set on a portfolio Target CPA or Target ROAS bid strategy. Google describes the maximum bid limit as the highest CPC bid that you want Google Ads to set when using Target CPA bidding. It says setting bid limits for Target CPA isn't recommended, because it can restrict Google Ads' automatic optimisation of your bid and prevent Google Ads from adjusting your bids to the amount that best meets your Target CPA.
Bid strategy report
The bid strategy report is, in Google's words, a snapshot of key metrics relevant to each bid strategy type. For Target CPA it is where you find the average Target CPA beside your Actual CPA, which Google says represents the actual CPA that this strategy was able to achieve. For Target ROAS it puts the average target beside Actual ROAS.
Enhanced conversions
Enhanced conversions is a Google Ads feature that, in Google's words, supplements your existing conversion by sending hashed first party conversion data (from your website tags or your imported offline events) to Google in a privacy-safe way. Google says it can improve the accuracy of your conversion measurement and unlock more powerful bidding, and that it uses a secure one-way hashing algorithm called SHA256 on first-party customer data, such as email addresses, before sending to Google.
Consent mode
Consent mode lets you communicate your users' cookie or app identifier consent status to Google, and Google says tags adjust their behaviour and respect users' choices. It is not a banner: Google says consent mode doesn't provide a consent banner or widget, and instead interacts with your banner to obtain visitor consent.
Google tag
The Google tag (gtag.js) is, in Google's words, a single tag you can add to your website that allows you to use a variety of Google products and services. Instead of managing multiple tags for different Google product accounts, you can use the Google tag across your entire website and connect the tag to multiple destinations. Google notes that the global site tag (gtag.js) is now the Google tag.
Offline conversion import
An offline conversion import records in Google Ads a sale that happened after the click, somewhere other than your website. Google describes the case: sometimes an ad doesn't lead directly to an online sale, but instead starts a customer down a path that ultimately leads to a sale in the offline world, such as at your office or over the phone. By importing offline conversions, it says, you can measure what happens in the offline world after your ad results in a click or call to your business.
Search partners
Search partners are, in Google's definition, sites in the Search Network that partner with Google to show ads. Google says they can extend the reach of Google search ads and listings to hundreds of non-Google websites, as well as YouTube, and that you are charged only when a user clicks on your ad.
Google Display Network
The Google Display Network is the part of the Google Network that shows ads beside content rather than beside a search. Google says it helps you reach people as they browse millions of websites, apps and Google-owned properties (such as YouTube and Gmail).
Shared budget
In Google's words, a shared budget is a single average daily budget that's shared by multiple campaigns in an account. Google says it streamlines your budget across campaigns by letting money one campaign leaves unspent automatically reallocate to budget-capped campaigns. Instead of setting individual budgets, it says, you allow your overall budget to freely distribute between campaigns.
Campaign total budget
A campaign total budget is one amount for a campaign's whole run, set instead of an average daily budget. Google says it takes into account how much has been spent so far and adjusts spending daily to attempt to spend the total budget in the remaining days, with no daily spending limits, and you will never be charged more than your total budget.
Expected CTR
Expected click through rate (Exp. CTR) is one of the three components of Google Ads Quality Score. Google defines it as the likelihood that your ad will be clicked when shown, and evaluates it as Above average, Average or Below average, based on a comparison with other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days.
Ad relevance
Ad relevance is one of the three components of Google Ads Quality Score. Google defines it as how closely your ad matches the intent behind a user's search, and evaluates it as Above average, Average or Below average, based on a comparison with other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days.
Landing page experience
Landing page experience is one of the three components of Google Ads Quality Score. Google defines it as how relevant and useful your landing page is to people who click your ad, and evaluates it as Above average, Average or Below average, based on a comparison with other advertisers whose ads showed for the exact same search over the last 90 days.
Ad quality
Ad quality is Google's estimate of the experience that users have when they see your search ads and once they reach your landing page. Google summarises its assessment in your Quality Score, and notes that ad quality varies with the context of every search.
Search terms report
The search terms report shows how your ads performed when triggered by actual searches within the Search Network. Google says it lists search terms used by a significant number of people, and that some search terms without enough query activity are omitted to keep with its standards on data privacy.
Negative keywords
Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns. Unlike your other keywords, they won't match to close variants or other expansions, so Google says you'll need to add synonyms and singular or plural versions if you want to exclude them. They automatically account for casing and misspellings.
Close variants
Close variants allow keywords to match to searches that are similar, but not identical to the targeted keyword. Google says that by default all keyword match types are eligible to match to close variants, and there's no way to opt out.
Exact match
Exact match is the narrowest of Google's three keyword matching options. Google says ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or same intent as the keyword, and that of the three, exact match gives you the most steering over who views your ad, but reaches fewer searches than both phrase and broad match.
Top of page rate
Top of page rate is a column in the Google Ads auction insights report for Search campaigns only. Google says it tells you how often your ad, or the ad of another advertiser depending on which row you're viewing, was shown at the top of the page, above the unpaid search results. Google's example: if you had 100 impressions out of which 20 impressions appear in any of the positions above the organic search results, the top-of-page rate will be 20%.
Absolute top of page rate
Absolute top of page rate is a column in the Google Ads auction insights report for Search campaigns only. Google says it tells you how often your ad, or the ad of another advertiser depending on which row you're viewing, was shown at the absolute top of the page as the very first ad above the organic search results.