Glossary

Disapproval means the platform refused to serve an ad or asset because it violates policy or technical requirements. Fix the cited reason, resubmit, and check whether the issue is account-level (billing, verification) or ad-level (creative, destination, category).

Note: Policy Watch tracks platform rule changes; disapprovals often follow updates you missed.

Advantage+ creative (Meta) automatically tests combinations of images, videos, headlines, and primary text across placements. It can improve efficiency when you supply diverse assets — but weak inputs get recombined at scale. Monitor placement and creative breakdowns; turn off when brand control or legal review requires fixed copy.

Note: Formerly “Dynamic Creative” on some Meta surfaces — naming varies by ad account version.

Aspect ratio is width ÷ height of the creative frame (e.g. 1:1 square, 4:5 vertical feed, 9:16 Reels/Stories, 16:9 YouTube). Wrong ratio triggers cropping, letterboxing, or disapproval — the Validator checks uploaded files against live spec tables.

Note: Safe zones matter on 9:16: keep logos and CTAs inside platform “safe area” guides.

An attribution window is the lookback period after an ad interaction during which a conversion can be credited to that ad. Click windows (7-day click is common on Meta) and view windows (1-day view) can both count — inflating reported ROAS if finance only recognizes click-through. Align platform defaults with your MMM or incrementality study before scaling.

Note: Shortening windows drops reported conversions without changing actual business outcomes.

Bid strategy is how a platform sets auction bids to hit your goal — manual CPC/CPM, target CPA/ROAS, maximize conversions, or lowest cost. Automated strategies need conversion volume to learn; switching strategies or budgets mid-flight resets learning on Meta and TikTok. Match strategy to funnel stage: Maximize Conversions for bottom-funnel, Target Impression Share for brand defense on Search.

Note: “Lowest cost” is not the same as “lowest CPA” — it minimizes cost per result within delivery constraints, not absolute efficiency.

A click-through conversion is credited when a user clicks an ad and converts within the click attribution window. It is the closest analog to last-click in platform reporting and usually the baseline for Search efficiency — but still platform-defined, not your ERP truth.

Note: Do not confuse CTA (attribution) with CTR (click-through rate) — different acronyms, same letters.

Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of impressions that earn a click: CTR = clicks ÷ impressions (often shown as a percentage). It signals creative/message fit and auction competitiveness on click-based inventory (Search, many social feed units). Low CTR can raise effective CPC in auctions that weight expected CTR; high CTR with weak downstream conversion may mean the ad over-promises.

Note: Industry CTR varies wildly by channel — compare against your own historical baselines and placement mix, not generic blog benchmarks.

Conversion rate is conversions divided by clicks (or sometimes sessions, depending on the report): CVR = conversions ÷ clicks. It measures post-click efficiency — a strong CTR with weak CVR often points to landing page, offer, or audience mismatch rather than ad copy alone.

Note: Platform “conversions” follow each network’s attribution window and counting rules.

Cost per action (often used interchangeably with cost per acquisition) is spend divided by counted conversions: CPA = spend ÷ conversions. It is the primary efficiency metric for lead-gen and purchase campaigns when the conversion event is well-defined and stable.

Note: Define the conversion event explicitly (purchase vs. lead vs. signup) before comparing CPA across campaigns.

Cost per click (CPC) is average spend divided by clicks: CPC = spend ÷ clicks. It is the primary efficiency metric for traffic and many lead-gen campaigns on click-priced auctions (Search, some social objectives). CPC rises when competition, audience narrowness, or low Quality Score / relevance increase your auction cost.

Note: “CPC cap” bidding sets a ceiling; actual CPC can still vary click-by-click within the cap.

Cost per impression is spend divided by impressions — mathematically equivalent to CPM ÷ 1,000 when both use the same impression definition. Operators usually say CPM for awareness buys and “cost per impression” when reconciling billing lines or non-standard inventory.

Note: Synonym confusion with CPM is common; always check whether the report uses 1,000-impression units.

Cost per mille (CPM) is what you pay for one thousand ad impressions. Formula: CPM = (spend ÷ impressions) × 1,000. Use CPM when buying or comparing awareness inventory (display, video, some social reach buys) — not when your goal is clicks or conversions, where CPC or CPA is the better lens. A $12 CPM on one platform is not automatically “more expensive” than $8 elsewhere if viewability, audience quality, or placement differ.

Note: Platforms report CPM in the ads manager UI; auction CPM and billed CPM can diverge when pacing, frequency caps, or learning phase apply.

Customer acquisition cost is total sales & marketing cost to acquire a customer — often broader than CPA (includes non-platform spend, promos, agency fees). Paid media CPA is a subset. Compare CAC to LTV before scaling prospecting; platform CPA alone can look healthy while blended CAC fails payback.

Note: Define “customer” consistently (first order vs. subscriber vs. trial activation).

Daily budget is the average amount a campaign or ad set may spend per calendar day on a given platform. Spend can exceed the daily budget on high-traffic days because networks pace delivery across the week — it is a pacing target, not a hard invoice cap. Raising daily budget resets learning on some Meta and TikTok objectives; lowering it can throttle delivery mid-day.

Note: Use lifetime budget when flight dates are fixed (events, promos); use daily budget for always-on performance.

Frequency is the average number of times each reached user saw your ad in a period: frequency = impressions ÷ reach. High frequency on a small audience can signal audience exhaustion, bid cap issues, or over-narrow targeting — especially on social and video.

Note: Reach and frequency caps are the primary levers when frequency climbs without incremental conversions.

An impression is counted when an ad is served and enters the measurable viewport (platform rules differ on viewability thresholds). Impressions are the denominator for CPM and CTR; rising impressions with flat clicks usually means creative or audience fatigue, not “more reach for free.”

Note: Viewable impressions (Active View, etc.) may be lower than served impressions — compare metrics apples-to-apples in reporting.

Lifetime budget is a fixed spend cap for a scheduled flight (start/end dates). Platforms pace delivery to exhaust the budget by the end date — unlike daily budget, you are committing to total spend over the flight. Common for promos, product launches, and TikTok/Meta burst tests.

Note: Underspend at period end means delivery could not win auctions or audiences were too narrow — not always “unused budget to refund.”

A lookalike audience is a prospecting segment modeled from a seed list (purchasers, leads, site visitors) so the platform finds new users with similar attributes. Quality depends entirely on the seed: polluted seeds (all visitors, one-SKU buyers) produce broad, expensive audiences. Refresh seeds after major promo periods; exclude existing customers when the goal is new-customer acquisition.

Note: Meta % lookalike sizing trades reach for similarity; smaller % is not always “better” if CPM becomes prohibitive.

Marketing efficiency ratio is total revenue divided by total marketing spend across channels (often blended, not platform-attributed): MER = revenue ÷ ad spend. It is a sanity check when platform ROAS disagrees — useful for founders, not for intraday bid tweaks.

Note: MER includes non-platform costs only if you define it that way — document the formula for your team.

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that serves across Search, Shopping, Display, Discover, Gmail, YouTube, and Maps from one asset group and conversion goal. You do not pick individual placements — you supply assets and signals; Google maps them to eligible surfaces.

Note: Use placement reporting and brand exclusions when PMax delivery skews to low-intent inventory.

Quality Score is Google Ads’ composite relevance signal (expected CTR, ad relevance, landing page experience) expressed as 1–10 at keyword level in Search. Higher QS lowers auction CPC for the same position — it is not a “grade” on creative beauty, but on match between query, ad, and page.

Note: Display and Video use different diagnostic labels (e.g. ad strength) — do not expect QS on every Google campaign type.

Retargeting shows ads to people who already interacted with your site, app, or customer list. It typically lifts conversion rate at higher CPC/CPM because the audience is warm — but list freshness, frequency caps, and consent (GDPR/CPRA) govern whether you can legally and effectively reach them.

Note: Platform naming: Google “remarketing,” Meta “custom audiences,” TikTok “retargeting.”

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is revenue attributed to ads divided by ad spend: ROAS = revenue ÷ spend (sometimes expressed as a ratio like 3.2× or 320%). It answers “did this spend pay for itself?” for ecommerce and revenue-tracked funnels. Break-even ROAS depends on margin — a 4× ROAS target for a 25% margin product is not the same as for a 60% margin SKU.

Note: Platform ROAS uses each network’s attribution window and model; cross-check with your source-of-truth (shopify, GA4, MMM) before reallocation decisions.

Skippable in-stream ads play before, during, or after YouTube content; viewers can skip after five seconds. Billing models vary (CPV after 30s watch or skip threshold depending on campaign type). Non-skippable and bumper units have hard duration caps — do not traffic 30s masters into 6s bumper slots.

Note: Companion banners and CTAs differ between YouTube campaigns and Demand Gen — check the active campaign type.

Thumb-stop ratio is the share of impressions where a user paused on your video ad (Meta and some video platforms expose a related metric). It is a creative hook diagnostic — low thumb-stop with acceptable CPM means the first frame is not earning attention.

Note: Not available uniformly across Google Search/Display — primarily social/video tooling.

A view-through conversion is counted when a user sees an ad (impression) but does not click, then converts within the platform’s view attribution window. View-through credit inflates reported ROAS on video and display-heavy mixes — compare click-through and view-through columns before reallocating budget. Finance teams often exclude view-through from payback models.

Note: Default windows differ: Meta 1-day view vs. Google Ads view-through settings per conversion action.

Viewability measures whether an ad had a chance to be seen — typically 50% of pixels in view for at least one second (display) or two seconds (video), per MRC/IAB standards. Served impressions exceed viewable impressions on long-tail Display and Audience Network; compare CPM on viewable basis when auditing partner inventory.

Note: Platforms report “viewable impressions” differently — export raw logs for audits, not just dashboard totals.