Glossary

Ad Group - An ad group contains one or more ads which target a set of keywords, placements, or both. You set a bid, or price, to be used when your ad is triggered by the keywords or placements in the ad group. This is called a cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM) bid. You may also set prices for individual keywords or placements within the ad group.

Campaign - Campaigns are used to give structure to the products or services you want to advertise. The ads in a given campaign share the same daily budget, language and location targeting, end dates, and syndication options. Within each campaign, you can create one or more ad groups. While a campaign may represent a broad product class, the ad groups within that campaign can be more focused on the specific product you want to advertise.

Click - A click (sometimes called a click through) occurs when a user sees your ad and clicks on the title of your ad, leading them to your website.

Conversion - A conversion is said to occur when a visitor reaches a goal. This goal page could be a purchase confirmation page, a “thank you for registering” page, a download page, or an online presentation. Optionally, goals may be combined with a defined Funnel – a series of pages through which the user must navigate in order to reach a goal.

Destination & Display URL - When you create your ad, you’ll specify two URLs: a destination URL and a display URL. Here’s an example:
Advertise with Google
Want fast results?
Create your campaign today!
adwords.google.com

Display URL: The display URL (the URL users see) in the sample ad above is adwords.google.com.

Destination URL: The destination URL is the exact URL within your website that you want to send users to from your ad. This is also the URL users don’t see until they click on your ad (https://adwords.google.com/select/starter/signup/ForkAuth).

Because users won’t see your destination URL in the ad, it can direct people to a specific webpage beyond your website’s home page. In the example above, the destination URL directs users straight to the account sign-up page, making it easier for users to quickly create a campaign and get started.

Domain - A domain is a specific virtual area within the Internet, defined by the “top level” of the address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). The top level is the end of the address; example: “whitehouse.gov”. In this example, the top-level part of the domain is “.gov”, indicating a US government entity. The “whitehouse” part is the second-level domain, indicating where within the “.gov” domain the information in question is to be found. Other common top-level domains include “.com”, “.net”, “.uk”, etc.

End User - The final user of the computer software. The end user is the individual who uses the product after it has been fully developed and marketed.

Google AdWords - Google’s advertising program based on cost-per-click pricing.

Impression - The number of impressions is the number of times an ad is displayed on Google or on sites or products in the Google Network.

Keywords - The keywords you create for a given ad group are used to target your ads to potential customers. Keyword searching is the most common form of text search on the internet.

Landing Page - The first page that a user views during a session. This is also known as the ‘entrance page.’

Maximum Cost-per-Click - Your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) is the highest amount that you are willing to pay for a click on your ad. You can set a maximum CPC at the keyword- or ad group-level. The AdWords Discounter automatically reduces this amount so that the actual CPC you are charged is just one cent more than the minimum necessary to keep your position on the page.

Optimization - Optimization is the process of modifying your ad campaigns to improve the quality score and performance of your ads. Based on your advertising goals, optimization can involve ad text improvements, new keywords or changes to keyword settings, strategic changes to your bids, better organization within your campaign, and changes to ad targeting options.

Quality Score - Quality Score is a measure of how relevant your ad, keyword, or webpage is. Quality Scores help ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network.
Return on Investment (ROI) – (Revenue – Cost) / Cost, expressed as a percentage. For example, if an investment of $150 was made for advertising, and led to $500 in sales, the ROI would be: ($500 – $150) / $150 = 2.33 or 233%.

Tracking Code - The Google Analytics tracking code is a small snippet of code that is inserted into the body of an HTML page. When the HTML page is loaded, the tracking code contacts the Google Analytics server and logs a page view for that page, as well as captures information about the visit and non-identifying information about the visitor.