The world of pay-per-click advertising can seem like learning a foreign language with its own terminology and of course acronyms. In this post I have focused on some of the core fundamental terms you should be aware of when venturing into managing and monitoring PPC Campaigns.
Ad Copy – text consisting of a headline, description lines 1 & 2 and display URL, which create a PPC ad copy.
Ad Extensions – features that allow you to display additional information when your ad is shown on the search engine results page. Ad extensions include locations, call and sitelinks.
Ad Group – a collection of keywords, ads and their bids. Ad groups should contain a small number of tightly themed keywords with relevant ad copies.
Ad Scheduling – allows you to select the time of day and days of the week on which you would like your ads to appear.
Average Position – a metric that identifies the typical position of your ad on the search engine results page.
Bid – set at the keyword level, this is the maximum you are willing to pay for a click.
Campaign – a collection of ad groups and where daily budget is set. You can have multiple campaigns live.
Clicks – clicks are recorded when a user clicks on your ad on the search engine results page.
Click Through Rate (CTR) – a high CTR percentage demonstrates good performance and relevance. CTR is calculated by dividing clicks by impressions.
Conversion – when a user carries out a desired action, such as submitting an enquiry form, making a purchase on your site, requests a quote etc.
Conversion Rate – the conversion rate demonstrates that users who are clicking on your ads are then carrying out desired actions on your website. Conversion rate is calculated by dividing clicks by conversions.
Cost per Click (CPC) – the amount the advertiser pays to the search engine when a user clicks on their PPC ad.
Daily Budget – set at campaign level, this is the amount you would like to spend each day. On any single day you may spend up to 20% more than your daily budget.
Day Parting – using the ad scheduling tool you can select to automatically modify your bids by time of day or day of week.
Geo-targeting – a campaign setting that allows you to target specific geographical areas.
Google Display Network (GDN) – advertisers can select to show their ads on other websites including content websites and blogs that are part of the Google network.
Impression– an impression is recorded when your ad is displayed on the Search Engine results page.
Invalid Clicks – clicks that are identified as being unintentional or resulting from malicious activity.
Keyword – a word or phrase advertisers select to target in order to show their ads on the Search Engines.
Landing Page – the website page the user lands on after clicking on a PPC ad. The landing page quality is a key component of quality score.
Match Types – a keyword setting that allow advertisers to control whether or not their ad is displayed for certain user entered search queries.
Negative Keywords – adding negative keywords to PPC accounts will allow advertisers to specify user entered search queries for which they do not want their ads to be displayed.
Pay Per Click (PPC) – online advertising campaigns where the advertiser pays when a user clicks on their ad.
Quality Score – a score calculated by Google and other PPC providers that takes into account CTR and numerous other factors in order to determine the relevance of your keywords, ads and landing pages.
Remarketing – advertisers can build remarketing lists to target users who have previously visited their website or who have carried out a particular action. For example targeting users who have added items to the shopping basket, but not continued to complete the purchase.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – paid for online marketing activities such as PPC advertising.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – activity to increase the clicks generated from the organic website listings on the search engine results page.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) – The results page that is displayed to users after searching on a search engine. The results page usually consists of PPC ads and organic listings.
Search Query – the term that a user enters when searching on a search engine.
Hopefully the explanation of these terms will help you to get fluent in the language of pay-per-click advertising.
