Marketing
glossary

The terms below come up in almost every ad report, website proposal and CRM conversation. I've kept each definition short and added why it matters to a small business. Terms are grouped by topic, then listed alphabetically.

Advertising metrics

• Ad rank: Google's score that decides where your ad shows and what you pay. It mixes your bid, ad quality and the expected effect of your assets.
• CPA (cost per acquisition): what you pay in ads for one conversion, such as a booking or a sale.
• CPC (cost per click): what one click on your ad costs. It varies a lot by industry and city; read more in cost per click explained.
• CPL (cost per lead): ad spend divided by the number of enquiries. For service businesses, the number I watch most closely.
• CPM (cost per mille): the price of 1,000 ad impressions. Common on Facebook and Instagram.
• CTR (click-through rate): clicks divided by impressions. A low CTR usually means the ad doesn't match what people searched.
• Frequency: how many times, on average, one person saw your ad. Too high and people start ignoring it.
• Impression: one showing of your ad on a screen, whether or not anyone noticed.
• Quality Score: Google's 1 to 10 rating of how well a keyword, ad and landing page fit together.
• ROAS (return on ad spend): revenue from ads divided by ad spend. A ROAS of 4 means $4 back for every $1 spent. See ROAS explained.
• ROI (return on investment): profit after all costs, including my fee and your margin, divided by those costs.

Campaign types and ad tools

• Demand Gen: a Google campaign type that shows image and video ads on YouTube, Discover and Gmail.
• Lead form ad: an ad where the customer fills in their details without leaving Facebook, Instagram or Google.
• Local Services Ads (LSA): Google ads shown above regular results with a verification badge, paid per lead rather than per click, available in many Canadian cities for many service categories.
• Match type: how closely a search must match your keyword: broad, phrase or exact.
• Negative keyword: a word that stops your ad from showing, such as "free", "jobs" or "DIY".
• Performance Max (PMax): a Google campaign that runs across Search, Maps, YouTube and Display at once, guided by your conversion data.
• Remarketing: showing ads to people who already visited your site. Also called retargeting.
• Search terms report: the list of real searches that triggered your ads. The fastest way to find wasted spend.

Analytics and tracking

• Attribution: the rule for giving credit to the ad or channel that led to a sale.
• Conversion: an action you count as a result: a call, a form, a booking, a purchase.
• Conversions API (CAPI): sends conversion data from your server to Meta, so fewer results go missing when browsers block the pixel.
• Consent Mode: a Google setting that adjusts tags based on the visitor's cookie choice.
• Enhanced conversions: Google Ads matching of hashed form data to clicks, for more accurate reporting.
• GA4 (Google Analytics 4): Google's free analytics tool. It counts events, not sessions, which confuses many first-time users. A GA4 guide for small business covers the basics.
• GTM (Google Tag Manager): one container that manages all tracking codes on your site without editing the code each time.
• Pixel: a small piece of code from Meta, TikTok or others that reports visits and conversions back to the ad platform.
• UTM tags: labels added to a link (source, medium, campaign) so analytics knows where a visitor came from.

Websites and SEO

• Bounce rate: in GA4, the share of visits that weren't engaged. Useful only next to other numbers.
• CMS (content management system): the panel where you edit pages. I build a custom CMS for each project instead of using a page builder.
• Core Web Vitals: Google's speed and stability measures for real visitors' page loads.
• CRO (conversion rate optimization): changes to a page that raise the share of visitors who call or fill in a form.
• Google Business Profile (GBP): your free listing on Google Search and Maps. For local businesses, often the biggest source of calls.
• Landing page: a single page built for one offer and one action, usually paired with an ad.
• Local pack: the three business listings with a map that Google shows for local searches.
• Organic traffic: visitors who came from unpaid search results.
• SEO (search engine optimization): work that helps your pages rank in unpaid search results.
• SERP: the search engine results page, everything Google shows for a query.

Sales, CRM and customers

• CAC (customer acquisition cost): all marketing and sales costs divided by new customers won. See customer acquisition cost.
• Close rate: the share of leads that become paying customers.
• CRM (customer relationship management): one system that holds every lead, conversation and deal, with reminders.
• Funnel: the path from first contact to purchase, and where people drop off along the way.
• Lead: a person who left contact details or called about your service.
• LTV (lifetime value): the total profit one customer brings over the whole relationship.
• MQL and SQL: a marketing-qualified lead looks interested; a sales-qualified lead has been checked and is ready to talk price.
• Speed to lead: how quickly you reply to a new enquiry. Usually the cheapest way to win more of them.

Canadian rules

• AODA: Ontario's accessibility law. Organizations with 50 or more employees must meet WCAG 2.0 AA on their websites.
• Bill 96: the 2022 law that strengthened Quebec's Charter of the French Language, including rules for commercial content in French.
• CASL (Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation): requires consent for commercial emails and texts, clear sender details and a working unsubscribe.
• Competition Act: the federal law that, among other things, targets fake reviews and drip pricing.
• PIPEDA: the federal privacy law for how private businesses collect and use personal information.
• Quebec Law 25: Quebec's privacy law. It requires consent for cookies and tracking, a privacy officer and a published privacy policy.
• WCAG: the international web accessibility guidelines that AODA and other rules refer to.

Missing a term? Ask me, or go deeper on the blog. If you'd rather have someone else worry about these numbers, that's what Google Ads management is for.