The ABC’s of PPC
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April 1, 2019
CPC? What is that?
CTR? What does that mean?
Impression share? Who am I sharing this with?
There are many useful metrics within Google Ads to gauge how well your ads are performing. Unfortunately, Google has not made it very easy to find out what these metrics mean within the tool. Thankfully, we have created a handy-dandy guide with all the important terms (and abbreviations) you need in order to keep track of how your ads are doing!
PPC
While many people use this to talk about “advertising” in general, it actually means pay-per-click. This is the primary method used to charge campaigns.
PPI/PPM
Pay-Per-Impression/Pay-Per-Mille. This means you are charged when people view your ad, not necessarily click on it.
PPV
Pay-per-view is a TV term. Not important.
Campaign
This is the container that holds your ad groups, keywords, and ads.
Ad Group
This is the container that holds your keywords and ads.
Keyword
A list of terms within an ad group that are bid on to trigger your ads when someone searches for that keyword.
Bid
The maximum amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad from a search term.
Impressions
The number of times your ad appears when someone searches for a keyword you’re targeting.
Clicks
The number of times someone clicks on your ad.
CTR (Clickthrough Rate)
This is the percentage of searchers who click on your ad after seeing your ad (clicks/impressions).
Avg. Position
How high up in the Google search results your ad shows up on average. There are ad placements at the top and bottom of each page (4 top, 3 bottom).
CPC (Cost Per Click)
How much a click on one of your ads costs on average
Cost
How much your campaigns have spent.
Conversions
The number of times someone takes an action on your site after clicking on an ad (contact form fills, calls to the firm, chats).
Quality Score
A score out of 10 of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing pages are to a person who sees your ads.
SIS (Search Impression Share)
Of the number of times your ads were eligible to appear in the search results, this is the percentage of time they actually appeared.
Search Lost IS (budget)
How often your ad did not appear in the search results because your campaign’s daily budget was too low.
Search Lost IS (Rank)
How often your ad did not appear in the search results because your campaign’s Ad Rank was too low.
Click Share
Of the number of times your ads were eligible to receive clicks, this is the percentage of time they were actually clicked on..
Search (Top) IS
Of the number of times your ads were eligible to appear at the top of the Google search results, this is the percentage of time they actually appeared.
View-Through Conversions
Conversions that are recorded when a user views (but doesn’t click on) your ad, and then converts later.
View-Through Conversion Window
A period of time that you set to allow Google Ads to count view-through conversions.
Ad Rank
This determines your ad position and whether your ads will show at all. There are 3 things that affect your Ad Rank: bids, expected clickthrough rate, and quality score.
Understanding the meaning of these metrics is just one part of running successful Google Ads campaigns. Take a look at some of our other articles about advertising, or download our free guide for more help.