Glossary (Official 3.25.20) Flashcards
An option where you can specify a set amount of money that you’d like your account to spend over a set period of time.
Account budget
It’s available to advertisers who use monthly invoicing as a payment setting.
- Note: Account budgets were formerly known as budget orders.
- To view the status of any budget, including the amount of spend remaining in each, navigate to your Billing pages and click Account budgets.
- Your account will stop running ads if your budget is spent or you reach the end date you’ve set for your budget. Check your account budgets regularly to make sure that your ads continue to run.
- If you set your budget amount to “Unlimited,” your total spend won’t be limited by the account budget, but by the average daily budget that you’ve set for each campaign.
- If a budget has an end date and an amount, the daily spend will still be controlled by average daily budgets, but the budget amount is an additional limit for the set time frame.
A technology on YouTube and certain Display Network websites and mobile apps that allows Google Ads to determine if your ad is viewable by potential customers
Active View
- A display ad is considered viewable when at least 50% of its area is visible for at least 1 second. A video ad is considered viewable when at least 50% of its area is visible while the video is playing for at least 2 seconds.
- Note: For large display ads of 242,500 pixels or more, the ad is counted as viewable when at least 30% of it’s area is visible for at least 1 second.
- Active View-enabled websites allow you to use a viewable CPM bid for display campaigns, to set a different bid amount for impressions on sites where the ad appears in a viewable position.
- You might see this term in certain column names for your video and Display Network reports, such as “Measurable cost,” “Measurable impr.,” or “Viewable rate.”
- Active View metrics are compliant with the industry standards for the viewability of online ads.
- Keep in mind: Active View can tell you when ads are viewable, but it can’t guarantee that a user is looking at the screen at that time.
The final amount you’re charged for a click.
Actual cost-per-click (CPC)
- You’re often charged less – sometimes much less – than your maximum cost-per-click (max. CPC) bid, which is the most you’ll typically be charged for a click.
- Actual CPC is often less than max. CPC because with the Google Ads auction, you only pay what’s minimally required to clear the Ad Rank thresholds and beat the Ad Rank of the competitor immediately below you. And if there are no competitors immediately below you (for example, if no competitors other than you have cleared their Ad Rank thresholds), you only pay the reserve price. (See Ad Rank thresholds to learn more.) Keep in mind that your actual CPC may exceed your max. CPC if, for example, you’ve enabled Enhanced CPC or if you’ve set a bid adjustment.
How this works
- We combine the auction-time ad quality (including expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience), the max. CPC bid, the Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of an auction, the context of the person’s search, and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats to determine Ad Rank. When estimating the expected impact of extensions and ad formats, we consider such factors as the relevance, expected clickthrough rates, and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page. Each advertiser’s Ad Rank is then used to determine where the ad appears and what types of extensions and other ad formats will show with the ad (or whether the ad or ad format will appear at all).
- For ads on the Search Network, the Ad Rank thresholds (and the resulting Actual CPCs) are typically higher for ads above search results in order to maintain a high-quality experience and to help ensure that actual CPCs reflect the value of the ads’ prominent location. As a result, the actual CPC when you appear above search results is often higher than the actual CPC if you appear below search results, even if no other advertisers are immediately below you. Although you may pay more per click, top ads usually have higher clickthrough rates and may allow you to show certain ad extensions and other features available only in the top ad slot. As always, you’re never charged more than your max. CPC bid (unless you’re using automated bidding tools).
- Also note that the competitiveness of an ad auction can affect your actual cost-per-click. If two ads competing for the same position have similar ad ranks, each will have a similar opportunity to win that position. But as the gap in ad rank between two advertisers’ ads grows, the higher-ranking ad will be more likely to win but also may pay a higher cost-per-click for the benefit of the increased certainty of winning. This same pricing dynamic applies for each ad position down the search results page. In this way, your actual cost-per-click is influenced not only by the competitor immediately below you but also by the competitors below them.
Example
- Here’s a simplified example of how Ad Rank and Actual CPC works. It doesn’t account for all of the Ad Rank and pricing factors discussed above, but instead aims to give you a high-level overview of our algorithms:
- Assume five advertisers are competing for a maximum of four ad positions above search results on the Google search results page. The respective Ad Rank of each of the advertisers is, say, 80, 50, 30, 10, and 5.
- If the minimum Ad Rank necessary to show above the search results is, say, 40, only the first two advertisers (with Ad Ranks of 80 and 50) exceed the minimum and show above the search results. The advertiser with the Ad Rank of 80 pays just enough (Ex: rounded up to the nearest billable unit, which in the U.S. is $0.01) to beat the advertiser with the Ad Rank of 50. Since there’s no other eligible competition, the advertiser with the Ad Rank of 50 pays just enough to beat the minimum Ad Rank of 40.
- If the minimum Ad Rank necessary to show below the search results is 8, then two of the three remaining advertisers (with Ad Ranks of 30 and 10) will show beneath the search results. The advertiser with an Ad Rank of 30 will appear in the first position beneath the search results, and will pay just enough to beat the advertiser with an Ad Rank of 10. The advertiser with an Ad Rank of 10 will show beneath that advertiser, and will pay just enough to beat the minimum Ad Rank of 8. The advertiser with an Ad Rank of 5 didn’t meet the minimum Ad Rank and so won’t show at all.
- For certain ads on the Display Network, your actual CPC will be different than described. Learn more about the Display Network ad auction.
A setting that determines how quickly you want Google to use your budget each day: either spread throughout the day (standard) or more quickly (accelerated).
Ad delivery options
- This setting affects when during the day your ads are likely to show.
Since 2019, accelerated delivery has been unavailable for use with Search campaigns, Shopping campaigns, or shared budgets. Starting April 2020, accelerated budget delivery will no longer be available for use with any Google Ads campaign type.
- This setting determines how your average daily budget is allocated throughout the day, which in turn determines how quickly Google will try to show your ads during each day.
- For each ad campaign, you choose one of these delivery options for the ads in that campaign:
- Standard delivery (the default option) tries to show your ads throughout the entire day to make sure that you don’t spend your whole budget in the morning and cause your ads to stop showing for the rest of the day.
- Accelerated delivery tries to show your ads more quickly until your budget is reached. With this option, your ads can stop showing early in the day if your budget is spent.
A feature that shows extra business information with your ad, like an address, phone number, store rating, or more webpage links.
Ad extensions
A feature that shows extra business information with your ad, like an address, phone number, store rating, or more webpage links.
Visual enhancements to search ads that more prominently display information about your business, such as a phone number, or your website’s domain in the headline.
Ad formats
- These enhancements, which often appear in ads above search results, can include additional content from your website or relevant third-party content.
- You can add these enhancements manually or they can be added by our automated formatting systems.
- The most common types of ad formats are ad extensions. Some examples of ad extensions include location extensions (which attach your business address to your ads) and sitelinks (which include additional links to other pieces of relevant content from additional pages within your site).
- Google’s automated formatting systems can display additional information from your website or other relevant third-party content alongside your ads.
- Google’s automated systems can also highlight relevant information in your ads to help people find your business more easily. For example, on some ads above search results, if your first description line is a complete phrase or sentence, we might display part of your description in your headline, resulting in a longer, more noticeable headline that still uses the words you chose for your ad.
- Google Shopping ads are not considered ad formats.
Contains one or more ads that share similar targets.
Ad Group
An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets.
- Each of your campaigns is made up of one or more ad groups.
- Use ad groups to organize your ads by a common theme. For example, try separating ad groups into the different product or service types you offer.
A bid amount that applies to all of the keywords and placements in your ad group that don’t have individual bids.
Ad group default bids
- This bid sets the maximum amount that you’re willing to pay for each click on your ad for any keyword and placement without its own bid.
- Your ad group default bids are used when there aren’t more specific bids that apply. For example, if you set a different bid for one of your keywords, that bid will be used (instead of any ad group default bid) whenever that keyword triggers your ad to appear.
- Your default bids are displayed above the tabs on your ad group page in your account. If the Display Network bid is marked “Off,” it means that you’re opted out of the Display Network.
The order in which your ad appears on a page in relation to other ads.
Ad position
- For example, an ad position of “1” means that your ad has the highest position on the page relative to other ads of the same type. It doesn’t necessarily mean that your ad is above the search results. If there are no ads above the search results, then it means that your ad is the first ad shown beneath search results.
- Ad position is determined by a formula called Ad Rank that gives your ad a score based on your bid, the quality of your ads and landing page, the Ad Rank thresholds, the context of the person’s search, and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats. So even if your competition bids more than you, you can still win a higher position – at a lower price – with highly relevant keywords and ads.
- Your Ad Rank is recalculated each time your ad is eligible to appear, so your ad position can fluctuate each time depending on the context of the person’s search and the competition among other advertisers at the precise moment of the person’s search.
- Ads can appear on the top or bottom of a search results page.
A tool in your account that helps identify why your ad or ad extension might not be appearing.
Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool
- A tool in your account that helps identify why your ad or ad extension might not be appearing. The tool also shows a preview of a Google search result page for a specific term. This helps you see which ads and extensions are appearing for your keyword. Once you enter a search term and other criteria like language and location, the tool will tell you whether your ad is eligible to appear in that situation.
- The Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool suggests search term auto-completions as you type. Suggestions come from keywords with impressions in your account, and are ordered by volume.
- Use this tool to check if your ad extension is showing with an ad for a particular keyword. If any of your extensions aren’t showing, the tool will tell you what might be causing them not to show.
- Use the ‘Share this search’ feature to bookmark specific searches or to send the URL to colleagues or clients so they can view Google search results for this particular search as well. Keep in mind that the search results returned by this tool may change over time. For example, a preview of your ad may no longer appear in the tool when your campaign reaches its average daily budget.
If you want to see how your ad appears in search results, it’s better to use this tool than to do a search on Google. You’ll see the exact same results as a Google search but it won’t affect your performance stats by accumulating ad impressions every time you search for your ad.
To use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool, click the tools icon at the top right of your Google Ads account then click on Ad Preview and Diagnosis under the ‘Planning’ section. You can also go right to google.com/AdPreview.
A value that’s used to determine your ad position (where ads are shown on a page relative to other ads) and whether your ads will show at all.
Ad Rank
A value that’s used to determine your ad position (where ads are shown on a page relative to other ads) and whether your ads will show at all. Ad Rank is calculated using your bid amount, your auction-time ad quality (including expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience), the Ad Rank thresholds, the competitiveness of an auction,the context of the person’s search (for example, the person’s location, device, time of search, the nature of the search terms, the other ads and search results that show on the page, and other user signals and attributes), and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats.
- When estimating the expected impact of extensions and ad formats, we consider such factors as the relevance, clickthrough rates, and the prominence of the extensions or formats on the search results page. So even if your competition has higher bids than yours, you can still win a higher position at a lower price by using highly relevant keywords and ads.
- Your Ad Rank is recalculated each time your ad is eligible to appear and competes in an auction, so your ad position can fluctuate each time depending on your competition, the context of the person’s search, and your quality at that moment.
The reserve price for your ad.
Ad Rank thresholds
The reserve price for your ad. If your bid is lower than the threshold, your ad won’t show. And if none of your competitors are eligible to show, the threshold (reserve price) is the price you pay for the click.
Thresholds are determined dynamically at the time of each auction based on various factors, including:
- Your ad quality: To help maintain a high quality ad experience for consumers, lower quality ads have higher thresholds.
- Ad position: Ads that appear higher on the search results page have higher thresholds than ads that appear lower on the page. That way people are more likely to see higher quality ads higher on the page.
- User signals and attributes such as location and device type: Thresholds can vary based on user attributes, including the location of the user (for example, thresholds can vary country by country) and the device the user is using (for example, mobile versus desktop).
- The topic and nature of the search: Thresholds can vary based on the nature of the user’s search terms. For example, thresholds for wedding-related searches may be different than searches for basket-weaving classes.
- Related Auctions: Thresholds can also depend on the auctions for related queries. For example, Ad Rank thresholds for the search term [car insurance] could be informed by auctions for the search terms [auto insurance] and [collision insurance].
These factors help ensure that when it comes to the ads users see and the price advertisers pay, the right consideration is given to the quality of the user experience, advertiser bids, and the value advertisers place on users’ engagement with their ads.
How Ad Rank thresholds affect your CPC
Your actual CPC is calculated based on your Ad Rank, including the thresholds and competition from other advertisers.
If your ad is the only one that’s eligible to show, (for example, because none of your competitors meet their Ad Rank thresholds), you’ll pay the reserve price (the threshold rounded up to the minimum billable unit in your country, for example to the next penny in the U.S.). This means that depending on your ad quality and Ad Rank thresholds your ad could be relatively expensive, even when no ads show immediately below it.
Measures how closely related your keyword is to your ads.
ad relevance
There are three possible statuses your keywords can have:
- Above average
- Average
- Below average
Having an “average” or “above average” status means that there are no major problems with this keyword’s ad relevance when compared to all other keywords across Google Ads.
A “below average” status means that your ad or keyword may not be specific enough or that your ad group may cover too many topics. Try creating tightly-themed ad groups by making sure that your ads are closely related to a smaller group of keywords.
Use this status to help identify keywords that might not be relevant enough to your ads to perform well.
It’s possible for a keyword to have a high Quality Score and low ad relevance (or vice versa) because Google Ads looks at a number of different quality factors when determining Quality Score. Even if your overall Quality Score is high, looking at the individual factors can help you identify potential areas for improvement.
To see the ad relevance status for your keywords, hover over a keyword’s status in the “Status” column. You’ll be able to see ratings for expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience.
Paused keywords will retain whatever scores they had when they were last active. Therefore, it may not be useful to look at these scores over time. We encourage advertisers to focus on active keywords when looking at their Quality Score sub-metrics, since these scores will be constantly updated.
The way Google deliver your ads on both the Search Network and the Display Network.
ad rotation
If you have multiple ads within an ad group, your ads will rotate because no more than one ad from your account can show at a time. Use the setting to specify how often you’d like the ads in your ad group to be served relative to one another.
This article explains the two settings for ad rotation.
Optimize
This setting optimizes your ads for each individual auction using signals like keyword, search term, device, location, and more.
Powered by Google’s machine learning technology, the “Optimize” setting prioritizes ads that are expected to perform better than other ads within an ad group. All video campaigns are automatically optimized for views.
Tip:
If you’re using Smart Bidding, which prioritizes conversions, Google Ads will automatically use the “Optimize” ad rotation setting.
How it works
As data is accumulated, ad serving will become weighted more heavily in favor of the ads that appear statistically likely to perform better. Ads expected to attract more clicks (and conversions if you’re using a Smart Bidding strategy) are delivered more often into the ad auction than other ads in the ad group. These ads show more often, resulting in higher ad-served percentages. However, it’s possible for ad serving to remain relatively even within this setting, if ads in an ad group have similar performance or if the ad group does not receive a substantial amount of impressions and clicks for some period of time.
Keep in mind
Ad Rank considers landing page experience and ad relevance (among other factors) when determining your ad’s position and whether it will show at all. A more relevant ad with a better landing page experience could lead to overall better performance.
Rotate ads indefinitely
The “Rotate ads indefinitely” setting delivers your ads more evenly into the ad auction, but does so for an indefinite amount of time and does not optimize.
Because this option allows lower-performing ads to run as often as higher-performing ads for an indefinite period of time, this option is not recommended for most advertisers.
Keep in mind
With the “Rotate ads indefinitely” option, the percentage of impressions for ads served in the ad group will be more even than the other ad rotation options. However, because the quality of the ads differ, and quality is used to determine where an ad shows, or if it even shows at all, the percentage of impressions for each ad may not be perfectly even. An ad with high quality may appear on the first page of search results, while an ad with low quality may show on the second page of search results, which reaches a smaller number of users.
Setting a frequency cap for Display and Video campaigns
Frequency capping limits the number of times your Display and Video ads appear to the same user. It doesn’t apply to the Search Network.
Tip: While on the campaign settings tab, you can click Filter to show only campaigns that match specific criteria. This can make it easier to make changes in bulk to certain campaigns.
A description of whether an ad is approved to run, and if so, whether there are any policy restrictions on how or when it can run.
Ad status
A description of whether an ad is approved to run, and if so, whether there are any policy restrictions on how or when it can run.
Eestimates the relevance, quantity, and diversity of your ad content.
Ad strength
Making sure your ad has relevant, unique content can help you show the right ad to your potential customers and improve your ad’s performance.
A Google product that provides a way for website publishers of all sizes to earn money by displaying targeted Google ads on their websites.
AdSense
- If the website publisher is approved to show ads, Google gives them a piece of code to put on their site. The publisher chooses where to place ads and then earns money when visitors click on (or view, in some cases) the ads.
- Your ads may show on AdSense sites when you run a Display Network campaign.
Ads should respect user preferences and comply with legal regulations, so we don’t allow certain kinds of ____ content in ads and destinations.
Adult content
Some kinds of adult-oriented ads and destinations are allowed if they comply with the policies below and don’t target minors, but they will only show in limited scenarios based on user search queries, user age, and local laws where the ad is being served.
https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6023699
Guidelines for your ads, keywords, and website.
Advertising policies
- Ads that violate our policies won’t be able to run.
- Visit the Google Ads Policy Center to review the guidelines that can apply to you.
- Google’s advertising policies are designed to promote a good experience for people viewing our ads, to help you be successful with your ads, and to help make sure that ads follow applicable laws in the countries where they appear.
- All ads go through an approval process to ensure the ads are safe and appropriate for users. Every time you create a new ad or make changes to an existing ad, it will automatically be submitted for review to ensure that it follows our advertising policies.
- Ads that we find in violation of these policies will be marked as Disapproved or Suspended and will not be able to run while in that status.
A sequence of computational steps that transform the input into the output.
Algorithm
A calculation of all the conversions that Google Ads drives for your business.
All conversions
- “All conversions” includes the data in your “Conversions” column plus conversion actions you’ve chosen not to include in your “Conversions” column. It also includes cross-device conversions, store visits, certain phone calls, and more.
- Once you’ve set up conversion tracking, you’ll see the “All conversions” column in your reports.
- Compare “All conversions” to your regular “Conversions” column to see the full range of conversions driven by your ads, including cross-device conversions and those that you chose not to include in “Conversions.” This can give you a more accurate understanding of how users interact with your business and help you better calculate the effectiveness of your advertising.
An additional email address that you can use to sign in to your Google Account.
Alternate email address
See how to allow another email address to access your Google Ads account.
- If you add an alternate email address to your account, you can sign in to your Google Accounts not only with the email address you used to set up the account, but also with the alternate email address. You’ll use the same password to sign in with either email address.
- With some Google products, people will be able to see both your primary email address and your alternate email address.
- You can add, remove and change alternate email addresses at any time on your Google Accounts settings page at accounts.google.com.
A free Google product that provides in-depth reporting on how people use your website.
Analytics
You can use Google Analytics to learn what people do after clicking your ads.
- Google Analytics shows you how people found your site and how they explored it. From this information, you can get ideas for how to enhance your website.
- If you use Google Analytics and Google Ads together, you can learn about what customers do on your site after clicking your ad. Use this information to help improve your customers’ experience on your website, which in turn can help you increase conversions (like sales and sign-ups) and your overall return on ad spend (ROAS).
- To start using Analytics through your Google Ads account, click the tools icon , then click Google Analytics. You can also use Analytics separately at google.com/analytics.
A status given to ads that have been reviewed and are able to run
Approved
To be approved, ads must comply with the Google Ads policies. Find an ad’s status by looking at the “Status” column.
A status given to ads that comply with our policies but can’t run in your targeted locations because of policy restrictions and targeting settings.
Approved (limited all locations)
- The ad can run, however, to people interested in your targeted locations.
- An ad will be marked “Approved (limited all locations)” when Google Ads policies (common examples include Alcohol, Copyrights, Gambling, Healthcare, and Trademarks) prevent certain types of ads from showing in your targeted locations.
What you can do
Here are some steps you can take:
- If you want the ad to run in your targeted locations, fix the ad so it complies with the policy requirements for your targeted location.
- Adjust your campaign’s location settings to target allowed locations.
- Try comparing your location targeting options to find the one that works for you. For example, if you don’t want your ads to show to people outside your targeted locations, make sure to target People in your targeted locations under your campaign’s “Locations” settings.
You can always choose to pause the ad while you take the steps necessary to fix your ad.
A status given to ads that comply with our policies but are limited in where and when they can show.
Approved (limited)
An ad will be marked “Approved (limited)” when Google Ads policies (common examples include Alcohol, Copyrights, Gambling, Healthcare, and Trademarks) prevent certain types of ads from showing in certain regions, to certain ages, or on certain devices. Ads won’t show on mobile devices if the destination performs poorly on mobile devices.
One of two ways to view your extensions data within the extensions page.
Associations view
Keep in mind that any time you create an extension, such as a callout or structured snippet extension, you can associate it to any of your ad groups or campaigns, or to your entire account. This means that a single extension can have multiple associations.
In the associations view, each row contains data that is specific to a single association of an extension, including the ad group, campaign, or account to which it has been associated. If an extension has been associated to multiple ad groups or campaigns, it will be listed multiple times. Use the associations view to compare how a single extension is performing from one association to the next. You can also add or remove associations by ticking the boxes next to the associations you want to change, and then using the Add to and Edit drop-down menus.
To see your extensions data without associations details, switch to the extensions view.
The process that happens with each Google search to decide which ads will appear for that specific search and in which order those ads will show on the page (or whether or not any ads will show at all).
Auction
- Each time an ad is eligible to appear for a search, it goes through the ad auction. The auction determines whether or not the ad actually shows and in which ad position it will show on the page.
- Here’s how the auction works:
- When someone searches, the Google Ads system finds all ads whose keywords match that search.
- From those ads, the system ignores any that aren’t eligible, like ads that target a different country or are disapproved based on a policy violation.
- Of the remaining ads, only those with a sufficiently high Ad Rank may show. Ad Rank is a combination of your bid, ad quality, the Ad Rank thresholds, the context of the person’s search, and the expected impact of extensions and other ad formats.
- The most important thing to remember is that even if your competition bids higher than you, you can still win a higher position – at a lower price – with highly relevant keywords and ads.
- Since the auction process is repeated for every search on Google, each auction can have potentially different results depending on the competition at that moment. Therefore it’s normal for you to see some fluctuation in your ad’s position on the page and in whether or not your ad shows at all.
A feature that automatically adds a parameter to your URLs to help you track offline conversions and report on your ad performance using website tracking programs like Google Analytics.
Auto-tagging
- Auto-tagging will attach the “Google Click Identifier” (GCLID) parameter to the URL your customers click, and that will help you tell which ad was clicked for each visit to your site.
- Google Analytics and similar programs can use the information from auto-tagged URLs to tell you which Google Ads keywords brought a visitor to your site, which campaign that keyword was from, and how much that click cost. You can also use this information to import complex conversions into Google Ads, whether online or offline.
Tip
If you use an API, the GCLID parameter can also send more information from each click to the Click Performance report of the Google Ads API.
How to check if auto-tagging is turned on
Auto-tagging is turned off by default. You can check whether auto-tagging is on, as well as turn it on or off, by going to your account settings.
- Click Settings on the left page menu.
- Click “Account settings” along the top of the page.
- Click the Auto-tagging section. If the box next to “Tag the URL that people click through from my ad” is checked, auto-tagging is on. To turn if off, uncheck the box and click Save.
Note: When you create a new conversion action, auto-tagging will be activated automatically if you’re not already using cross-account conversion tracking. If you are using cross-account conversion tracking, you’ll need to enable auto-tagging in each of your child accounts manually according to the steps above.
A bid strategy that automatically sets bids for your ads based on that ad’s likelihood to result in a click or conversion.
Automated bid strategy
Each type of automated bid strategy is designed to help you achieve a specific goal for your business.
- Automated bidding takes the heavy lifting and guesswork out of setting bids to meet your performance goals. Unlike Manual CPC bidding, there’s no need to manually update bids for specific ad groups or keywords.
- Different types of automated bid strategies can help you increase clicks, visibility in search results, conversions, or conversion value.
- Conversion-based automated bid strategies set unique bids for each auction, based on information available at the time of the auction. This information includes the time of day, the specific ad being shown, or the user’s device, location, browser, and operating system.
- Automated bid strategies learn as they go, using information about a bid’s performance to inform future bids.
- All automated bid strategies are available as portfolio strategies. Some are also available as standard strategies.
Using this setting, you first accrue advertising costs, then have those costs automatically charged to your primary payment method.
Automatic payments
Automatic payments is a payment setting in Google Ads.
If you use automatic payments, you will be charged for your advertising costs 30 days after your last automatic charge, or whenever your account reaches a predetermined amount known as your payment threshold—whichever comes first.
Payment threshold
An amount of costs that, when reached, triggers you to be charged for those costs. This amount starts at a set amount which you can find in your billing Summary page and will be automatically raised if your costs reach this amount before the end of the 30-day billing cycle.
- When your account costs reach the threshold before the next automatic charge date, your threshold is raised. This may happen several times until your account reaches a final threshold. Threshold amounts depend on your account, country, and currency.
- The amount you’re charged may be slightly more than the threshold if your account accrues costs very quickly. You can be charged multiple times a month if your account reaches your billing threshold repeatedly over that time.
- You won’t be emailed or notified when your payment threshold increases, but you can always find your current threshold by going to your billing Summary page. To see what your current threshold is, click the gear icon and choose Billing & payments. You will land on the Summary page which shows how much costs have accrued since your last payment. Look for your threshold amount under the progress bar.
The average amount that you’ve been charged for a click on your ad.
Average cost-per-click (Avg. CPC)
Average cost-per-click (avg. CPC) is calculated by dividing the total cost of your clicks by the total number of clicks.
- Your average CPC is based on your actual cost-per-click (actual CPC), which is the actual amount you’re charged for a click on your ad. Note that your average CPC might be different than your maximum cost-per-click (max. CPC), which is the highest amount that you’re willing to pay for a click.
- Here’s an example of how to calculate your average CPC. Let’s say your ad gets two clicks, one costing $0.20 and one costing $0.40, for a total cost is $0.60. You’d divide $0.60 (your total cost) by 2 (your total number of clicks) to get an average CPC of $0.30.
- You can find your average CPC amounts in the “Avg. CPC” column in Campaigns.
- Just getting started and want to get an idea of the average amount you might be charged for a click? You can use Keyword Planner to get estimated average CPC amounts for your Search Network campaigns.
The average amount you’ve been charged for a conversion from your ad.
Average CPA
Average cost per action (CPA) is calculated by dividing the total cost of conversions by the total number of conversions.
- For example, if your ad receives 2 conversions, one costing $2.00 and one costing $4.00, your average CPA for those conversions is $3.00.
- Average CPA is based on your actual CPA (the actual amount you’re charged for a conversion from your ad), which might be different than your target CPA (the amount you’ve set as your desired average CPA if using Target CPA bidding).
- Use performance targets to set an average CPA target for all campaign in a campaign group.
An amount that you set for each ad campaign to specify how much, on average, you’d like to spend each day
Average daily budget
- You set an average daily budget for each Google Ads campaign. On the days when your ad is more popular, Google Ads will allow up to twice your average daily budget so you won’t miss out on those valuable clicks.
- But, don’t worry, over the course of a month, you won’t be charged more than your average daily budget times the average number of days in a month (30.4). For campaigns that are paused in the middle of the month or that otherwise don’t run for the full month, you may see discrepancies between your average daily budgets and your total charges.
- For campaigns where you pay for conversions, your daily spend may exceed your average daily budget by more than 2 times.
This is the average price of a product when your ad showed or when your ad was competitive in an auction.
Average product price (beta)
This is the average click-weighted price for a product across all merchants who advertise that product using Shopping ads.
Benchmark product price (beta)
This is the percentage difference between your product’s average product price and the associated benchmark product price.
Benchmark product price difference (beta)
For product groups, the price difference is weighted based on your product’s traffic potential. More popular products will be weighted more than less popular products.
A percentage increase or decrease in your bids.
Bid adjustment
A bid adjustment allows you to show your ads more or less frequently based on where, when, and how people search.
You can also adjust your bids based on how your ads perform, helping to improve your return on investment (ROI).
Your spending on individual clicks may vary as your bids increase or decrease according to the adjustments you’ve set, but your overall average daily budget won’t change.
A keyword option that allows your ad to show when someone searches for that keyword, variations of it, as well as other related topics.
Broad match
The broad match keyword “bicycle bell” can cause your ad to show if someone searches for variations and related searches like “cycling accessories,” “blue bicycle helmets,” and “bell reviews for bikes.”
- Broad match lets a keyword trigger your ad to show whenever someone searches for that phrase, similar phrases, close variations of the keyword terms, related searches, and other relevant variations.
- For example, when you add “hats” as a broad match keyword, you tell Google Ads to try to show your ad for searches containing that term or a similar one. Your ad might show for searches on “hat,” “sun hats,” “winter accessories”, and “sombreros.” Broad match keywords help you reach the widest audience.
- Broad match is one of the four keyword matching options that help control how closely the keyword needs to match a person’s search term in order for your ad to appear. You can choose one or more matching options for a keyword, and broad match will be used by default if you don’t specify a particular matching option.
A way to edit more than one thing in your account at the same time.
Bulk edits
Using bulk editing helps you save time by simultaneously updating multiple items in one campaign, or across multiple campaigns.
- Google Ads offers various tools and features to help you make bulk edits to your account. The editing options available depend on which tool or feature you use.
- Generally, you can make bulk edits to your account using:
- Google Ads: Select multiple items in Google Ads and make changes to all of them at once. Learn how to Make changes with bulk edits.
- Bulk uploads: Download a spreadsheet with details on your keywords, ads, ad groups, campaigns, or product groups, or billing details. You can make offline changes and upload the spreadsheet so that the changes can be applied to your Google Ads account. Learn how to Make changes with bulk uploads.
- Google Ads Editor: This free, downloadable application lets you manage your Google Ads account offline so you can easily make bulk edits to your campaigns, ad groups, keywords, and more, then upload your changes back in to Google Ads when you’re ready. Learn more About Google Ads Editor.
- Google Ads API (Google Ads API (AdWords API)): The Google Ads API (Google Ads API (AdWords API)) (application programming interface) lets developers build applications that interact directly with the Google Ads server. With these applications, advertisers and third parties can more efficiently and creatively manage large or complex Google Ads accounts and interact with external data.
- Google Ads scripts: Scripts let you make automated changes in your Google Ads account. Using JavaScript code, you can change bids, pause ad groups, and add keywords with written scripts directly instead of manually within your Google Ads account. Learn more about scripts with Google Ads automation made easy
A temporary store of data collected by your Internet browser as you surf the web, including elements from webpages that you frequently visit.
Cache
- Cache data can include anything from passwords to responses you entered in online forms.
- You can control the storage of your cache data by choosing to delete it at any time.
- Sometimes a full cache can cause difficulties with loading certain web pages or forms, including some that you might use in your Google Ads account. When this happens, the best way to fix this is to clear your cache to make room for new memory.
A set of ad groups (ads, keywords, and bids) that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings. Often used to organize categories of products or services that you offer.
Campaign
- Your Google Ads account can have one or many ad campaigns running.
- Each campaign consists of one or more ad groups.
- Settings that you can set at the campaign level include budget, language, location, distribution for the Google Network, and more.
- You can create separate ad campaigns to run ads in different locations or using different budgets.
Lets you prepare multiple changes to a Search or Display Network campaign without impacting its performance.
Campaign draft
When you create a draft, you’re mirroring your campaign’s setup.
- You can make updates to your draft just as you would in a normal campaign.
- After you’ve finished your draft, you can apply it to the original campaign or create an experiment from your draft to test how your changes perform against the original campaign.
Lets you test your draft’s performance against the original campaign’s performance.
Campaign experiment
Experiments use a portion of the original campaign’s traffic and budget and run alongside the original campaign for a specified length of time.
- After you’ve created a draft, you can convert your draft to an experiment.
- As your experiment runs, you can monitor and compare its performance against your original campaign and choose to end the experiment. Once you end your experiment, it will stop running by the end of the day.
- For any given campaign, you can only have one experiment running at a time.
- Experiments are only available for Search and Display Network campaigns.
A set of campaigns that share a key performance indicator.
Campaign group
Campaign groups are helpful for tracking the overall performance of multiple campaigns with similar goals.
- Set performance targets to designate numerical goals shared by all campaigns in a campaign group.
- Monitor campaign group performance to see whether you’re on track to meet your performance targets. If not, you may consider adjusting your campaigns’ settings.
- You can create campaign groups with any combination of Search, Shopping, Display, or Video campaigns.
- A campaign can be added to only 1 campaign group at a time. It can’t belong to multiple campaign groups.
- Campaign groups are optional—not every campaign must belong to a campaign group.
- Any campaign using a shared budget cannot be added to a campaign group.
- Removing a campaign from a campaign group will remove its performance data from the campaign group.
- Create, view, and edit campaign groups by clicking Campaign groups in the left navigation panel.
A status for your ad campaign that describes whether or not its ads can run at the moment.
Campaign status
- For each of your ad campaigns, you’ll see information about its current state listed in the “Status” column of your Campaigns page.
- A campaign’s status affects all ad groups and ads within it. For example, when you pause a campaign, all ads within the campaign stop showing.
- Here are the campaign statuses that you might see:
- Eligible. The campaign is running and able to show its ads.
- Paused. The campaign and its ads aren’t running because you have paused it. You can resume the campaign whenever you’d like to run its ads.
- Removed. The campaign and its ads are not running because you’ve permanently deleted it. If you just want to turn off a campaign, do not remove it. Pause the campaign instead.
- Ended. The campaign has passed its end date, so its ads are no longer running. You can change the end date any time.
- Pending. The campaign has a start date in the future, so its ads have not started running yet. You can change the start date any time before it’s reached.
- Limited by budget. The campaign is active and can show ads, but not as often as it could due to budget constraints. You can place your mouse over the bubble next to this status to see your recommended budget.
A three-digit security number that usually appears on the back of your credit or debit card.
Card verification number (CVN)
Sometimes called a card security code or card verification value, it provides extra protection against fraud.
- When asked for your CVN, be sure to enter it properly or your payment might not be successful.
- CVNs can appear in different spots on each card. Often, you can find your CVN on the back of your card, near or next to the area where you can add your signature. Some cards show it on the front, near your account number.
- It’s a good idea to add a backup credit card to your Google Ads account in case there’s ever a problem with your primary payment method.
A tool that lists the changes you’ve made to your account during the past two years.
Change history
See details about changes like when you paused your campaign, who added a keyword, and the amounts of your previous budgets.
- You can view all changes for a particular date range, filter the results by the type of change (such as budget adjustments or keyword edits), or see changes for a particular campaign or ad group.
- The change history tool shows each change within a timeline, mapped to your account data (like impressions, clicks, conversions, clickthrough rate, and cost). Compare your changes with the timeline of performance data to help know which changes may have contributed to changes in your performance.
- If you’ve given other people access to your account using their own login, you can also use the tool to see who made certain changes.
- You can find change history in the “Tools” menu, or go directly to the tool by visiting ads.google.com/ch/ChangeHistory
When someone taps your ad, like on the blue headline of a text ad, Google Ads counts that as a _____.
Click
- A click is counted even if the person doesn’t reach your website, maybe because it’s temporarily unavailable. As a result, you might see a difference between the number of clicks on your ad and the number of visits to your website.
- Clicks can help you understand how well your ad is appealing to people who see it. Relevant, highly-targeted ads are more likely to receive clicks.
- In your account statistics, you’ll see the click-through rate (CTR), which tells you how many people who’ve seen your ad end up clicking on it. This metric can help you gauge how enticing your ad is and how closely it matches your keywords and other targeting settings.
- Note that a good CTR is relative to what you’re advertising and on which networks. To help increase your clicks and CTR, start by creating great ad text and strong keywords to make ads that are highly relevant and very compelling to your customers.
A ratio showing how often people who see your ad end up clicking it.
Clickthrough rate (CTR)
Clickthrough rate (CTR) can be used to gauge how well your keywords and ads are performing.
- CTR is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown: clicks ÷ impressions = CTR. For example, if you had 5 clicks and 100 impressions, then your CTR would be 5%.
- Each of your ads and keywords have their own CTRs that you can see listed in your account.
- A high CTR is a good indication that users find your ads helpful and relevant. CTR also contributes to your keyword’s expected CTR, which is a component of Ad Rank. Note that a good CTR is relative to what you’re advertising and on which networks.
- You can use CTR to gauge which ads and keywords are successful for you and which need to be improved. The more your keywords and ads relate to each other and to your business, the more likely a user is to click on your ad after searching on your keyword phrase.
A targeting setting that allows you to reach the right audiences by combining various audience attributes, such as detailed demographics and interests, to create “personas” that represent segments of your target audience.
Combined audiences
ou can create a list of combined audiences that can be accessed anytime from the audience picker. Combined audiences can be edited, removed, or reused for multiple campaigns or ad groups.
A billing option that allows you to get a single invoice for your expenses from multiple Google Ads accounts.
Consolidated billing
- Consolidated billing is a popular option for agencies, resellers, and other large advertisers who work with multiple accounts, want to streamline their billing, and use the monthly invoicing payment setting.
- You’ll need to have, or create, a manager account in order to use consolidated billing.
- The Google Ads accounts that you use for this feature need to have the same currency. If they don’t, you can receive one consolidated invoice per currency.
- Accounts that use Manager Defined Spend (MDS) can’t be used with consolidated billing.
The process that matches ads to relevant sites in the Display Network using your keywords or topics, among other factors.
Contextual targeting
- Here’s how it works: Google’s system analyzes the content of each webpage to determine its central theme, which is then matched to your ad using your keywords and topic selections, your language and location targeting, a visitor’s recent browsing history, and other factors.
- Google Ads uses contextual targeting when an ad group has keywords or topics and its campaign is set to show ads on the Display Network.
An action that’s counted when someone interacts with your ad (for example, clicks a text ad or views a video ad) and then takes an action that you’ve defined as valuable to your business, such as an online purchase or a call to your business from a mobile phone.
Conversion
Conversions are measured with conversion tracking. You can use different tracking processes to measure conversions depending on the action someone takes when they interact with your ad. Conversions can be tracked across different surfaces (e.g., mobile, desktop) and may include modeled conversions. Modeled conversions use aggregated and anonymized data to estimate conversions that Google is unable to observe directly. This can offer a more complete report of your conversions.
A specific customer action that you’ve defined as valuable to your business, such as an online purchase or phone call.
Conversion action
Tracking conversion actions lets you see how your ads lead to those valuable actions.
- Conversion actions are available for several conversion sources, including website actions, calls, app downloads, and in-app actions (such as in-app purchases).
- If you want to track more than one of the same kind of conversion action, such as a newsletter signup and a lead form submission on your website, you can create multiple conversion actions.
- Occurrences of conversion actions are reported as conversions.
A page of your website that someone reaches after performing a valuable action, like a purchase confirmation page.
Conversion page
- People should reach this page of your site only after completing a conversion, an action like a purchase or sign-up that you consider to be valuable for your business. Examples of a conversion page can include a confirmation page or a page thanking the customer.
- When you use conversion tracking, the conversion page that you choose will be where you add the conversion tag that Google provides.
- You can track as many conversion pages as you want, but make sure that customers can access each of those pages only after taking the desired action on your site like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
The average number of conversions per ad interaction, shown as a percentage.
Conversion rate
- Conversion rates are calculated by simply taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the number of total ad interactions that can be tracked to a conversion during the same time period. For example, if you had 50 conversions from 1,000 interactions, your conversion rate would be 5%, since 50 ÷ 1,000 = 5%.
- If you’re tracking more than one conversion action, or you choose to count “Every” conversion, your conversion rate might be over 100% because more than one conversion can be counted for each interaction.
- Use conversion tracking in your account to measure your conversion rates and ultimately use them to help guide your advertising decisions.
A free tool in your account that can help measure how clicks on your ads lead to meaningful actions such as sales or leads.
Conversion tracking
- A conversion occurs when an ad click or other interaction with your ad leads directly to a behavior that’s valuable to you, such as a purchase, newsletter sign-up, phone call, or download.
- It’s important to track conversions because they can give you insight into how the performance of your ads relates directly to the success of your business. Conversion tracking can also help identify which ads and keywords are most successful for your business.
Security and privacy for website tracking
Google’s security standards are strict. Google Ads only collects data on pages where you have deployed the associated tags.
Please ensure you’re providing users with clear and comprehensive information about the data you collect on your websites, and getting consent for that collection where legally required.
The number of days after an ad interaction (such as an ad click or video view) during which a conversion will be recorded.
Conversion window
- If you pick 30 days, then conversions that happen within 30 days after an ad interaction are tracked.
- A shorter conversion window will reduce the number of conversions your account records for this conversion action. To set or change your conversion windows, see the article About conversion windows.
A small file saved on people’s computers to help store preferences and other information that’s used on webpages that they visit.
Cookie
- Cookies can save people’s settings on certain websites and can sometimes be used to track how visitors get to and interact with websites.
- Google uses cookies in various ways. For example, remarketing and Google Analytics both use cookies to help do things like run your ads or track your success.
- The conversion tracking feature of Google Ads also uses cookies. To help you track sales and other conversions from your ad, it adds a cookie to a person’s computer when the person clicks an ad.
- Sometimes cookies can cause problems when you’re signing in or moving through your Google Ads account. When this happens, the best way to fix this is to clear the cache and cookies that are saved for your Internet browser.
This type of bidding means that you pay for each click on your ads.
Cost-per-click (CPC)
For CPC bidding campaigns, you set a maximum cost-per-click bid - or simply “max. CPC” - that’s the highest amount that you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad (unless you’re setting bid adjustments, or using Enhanced CPC).
- Your max. CPC is the most you’ll typically be charged for a click, but you’ll often be charged less – sometimes much less. That final amount you’re charged for a click is called your actual CPC.
- If you enter a max. CPC bid and someone clicks your ad, that click won’t cost you more than the maximum CPC bid amount that you set.
- You’ll choose between manual bidding (you choose your bid amounts) and automatic bidding (let Google set bids to try to get the most clicks within your budget).
- CPC pricing is sometimes known as pay-per-click (PPC).
A way to bid where you pay per one thousand views (impressions) on the Google Display Network.
Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM)
Viewable CPM bidding ensures that you only pay when your ads can be seen. Existing CPM bids will be converted to vCPM automatically, but it’s best to update your bids since viewable impressions are potentially more valuable. Learn more about using viewable CPM bids.
A bidding method for video campaigns where you pay for a view.
Cost-per-view (CPV)
A view is counted when a viewer watches 30 seconds of your video ad (or the duration if it’s shorter than 30 seconds) or interacts with the ad, whichever comes first. Video interactions include clicks on the call-to-action overlays (CTAs), cards, and companion banners. You set CPV bids to tell Google the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for each view.
- You can select a maximum CPV bid for your video ads when you create your ad group. ”Maximum” means what you’ll pay for a view will be equal to or below your bid, depending on other advertisers’ bids.
- The CPV bidding option is only available when you choose to run TrueView video ads.
A text file that has a specific format which allows data to be saved in a table structured format.
CSV (comma-separated values) file
Customer information that you’ve collected in the first-party context—for example, information you collected from your websites, apps, physical stores, or other situations where customers shared their information directly with you.
Customer data
There are many types of customer data, some of the common data types are email addresses, first names, last names, phone numbers, and country of residence.
Customer data file is the file uploaded into Google Ads that contains data about your customers.
Customer data file
A unique number that’s assigned to each Google Ads account, including Google Ads manager accounts.
Customer ID
Your customer ID is used to identify your Google Ads account. You can use this number when contacting Google Ads customer support and also to link your account with other Google products like Google Analytics or Google My Business.
Created by uploading a CSV customer data file in Google Ads frontend or through the Google Ads API (AdWords API), and is used to target audiences.
Customer list
Customer lists can be edited by removing specific users, adding more users, or removing the entire list.
A nine-digit number that identifies businesses worldwide
D-U-N-S number (Data Universal Numbering System)
- If you apply for the monthly invoicing payment setting, we’ll ask for your D-U-N-S number. It’s not required to apply, but it helps our Billing and Payments team assess your application.
- D-U-N-S is a globally recognized system developed by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) that assigns a unique identification number to businesses.
- You can find this number or apply for one for free by visiting the D&B website at www.dnb.com
A visual and customizable summary of your account’s performance data.
Dashboard
- Dashboards are created by inserting scorecards, charts, tables, or notes on your performance data, into a customizable grid. You can place these cards on any square in the grid.
- Scorecards: Show you the performance of key metrics.
- Charts and tables: Let you insert visual data reports created in the Report Editor. Learn more
- Notes: Give people you’re collaborating with more context on your dashboard.
- Scorecards, charts, tables, or notes can be rearranged and resized to help you customize your dashboard.
- Learn how to Create and edit dashboards.
- You can change the date range for each individual scorecard, table, or chart to see performance over a particular timeframe. You can also change the overall date of your entire dashboard to see how it would have looked on a particular day.
- Dashboards let you collaborate with anyone who has access to your Google Ads account.
- For those with email-only access, you can share your dashboard by email.
- To share with those who don’t have access to your account, download your dashboard as a .pdf.
A type of destination URL in an ad that takes people to a specific page in an app.
Deep link
The following types of deep links are supported by Google Ads:
- Custom schemes: Custom schemes are custom URIs you can create to link to any in-app content. If your ad shows on a mobile device with your app installed and a user clicks the link, it sends people directly to the content in your app.
- App Links and Universal Links: These links use your existing HTTP destination URL, such as www.example.com or www.example.com/product_1234. Tracking parameters are allowed for these links.
- Note: Deep links are not automatically set up when you create your app, and they work differently on iOS and Android.
In ad customizers, these allow you to provide an alternative value for each piece of customized text in your ads. So even if you are not using a data feed, your ads will always show.
Default values
- For example, let’s say you’re running a campaign to advertise your candy store and you have an ad group that promotes your chocolate candy products. The snippet of code that you’ll insert in your ad text might look like the following:
- {=ProductFeed.CandyType:Chocolate} Doing this means Chocolate will show when the candy type can’t be inserted in your ad.
- Default values are optional. However, if an ad contains more than one ad customizer, default values must be provided for each customizer.
The URL address of the page in your website that people reach when they click your ad.
Destination URL
Final URLs are replacing destination URLs as part of the URL upgrade. You can no longer create or edit ads that use a destination URL. Learn more
- The domain of the destination URL needs to match the domain of your display URL.
- The destination URL isn’t displayed on your ads (the URL shown is your display URL).
An ad status that won’t show the ad because it violates the Google Ads policies.
Disapproved
Find out why an ad was disapproved by looking at the “Status” column. If you fix the ad, it will be reviewed again and can be approved if we determine that the ad complies with our policies.
A group of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps where your ads can appear.
Display Network
Display Network sites reach over 90% of Internet users worldwide*. With the Display Network, you can use targeting to show your ads in particular contexts (like “outdoor lifestyles” or “cnn.com”), to particular audiences (like “young moms” or “people shopping for a new sedan”), in particular locations, and more.
Sites in the Display Network that partner with Google to show ads.
Display partners
- Your ads can appear on partners’ websites, mobile phone apps, and other placements that you choose or that relate to your ads and keywords or other targeting methods you’ve added.
- See which display partners have shown your ads by reviewing the automatic and managed placements listed in your campaign.
- You can choose not to show your ads on display partners by opting out of the Display Network.
A Google Ads tool that provides ideas and estimates to help you plan a Display Network campaign that you can add to your account or download.
Display Planner
The Display planner is no longer available in the new Google Ads experience. Its features, however, have been incorporated throughout campaign creation and targeting in the new Google Ads experience. Integrating the benefits of the Display planner directly into the core functionality of the new Google Ads experience simplifies your processes by eliminating the need of a different tool to complete your tasks. Here are a few benefits of using the new Google Ads experience to accomplish the tasks you once used the Display planner for:
- You get information right when you need it, there’s no need to switch between Google Ads and Display Planner.
- You get better forecasts, since more ad formats and targeting options are supported.
Display Planner
- Display Planner generates ideas for all the ways you can target the Display Network. Targeting ideas are based on your customers’ interests or your landing page. They include keywords, placements (websites, videos, mobile apps, mobile app categories), topics, interests (affinities, in-market segments), demographics (age, gender), and remarketing.
- Each idea comes with impression estimates and historical costs. Think of these estimates and statistics as a guide to help you plan your Display Network campaign, rather than to project future performance.
- You can find Display Planner under the Tools tab in your account.
The webpage address that appears with your ad, typically shown in green text.
Display URL
- Display URLs give people an idea of where they’ll arrive after they click an ad. The landing page that you define with a final URL tends to be more specific. For example, if your display URL is www.example.com, your final URL might be example.com/sweaters.
- For expanded text ads, your display URL consists of the domain of your final URL (and the subdomain, if you have one) and your two optional “Path” fields of up to 15 characters each.
- In rare scenarios, your subdomain may not be added to your display URL. For example, if your subdomain uses a trademarked term, your display URL may not include your subdomain. Learn more about Google Ads trademark policy
- Google constantly makes changes to Google Ads. As a result, Google may update the domain component of your display URL.
- Your display URL may appear in your ad with a “www.” prefix in lowercase letters (even if you enter it with capitalized letters). If your URL begins with a subdomain, your display URL may include it (for example, the support in support.google.com).
The URL address of the page in your website that people reach when they click your ad.
Final URL
- If you maintain separate landing pages for mobile users (like AMP pages), then enter them in the final URL for mobile field (under the “Ad URL options” section)
- The domain of the final URL needs to match the domain of your display URL.
- The final URL isn’t displayed on your ads (the URL shown is your display URL).
- If you use tracking information, enter it the tracking template field. You may not use cross-domain redirects in your final URL.
- The final URL suffix field allows you to enter parameters that will be attached to the end of your landing page URL in order to track information.
A unique number that’s assigned to every computer or other device that connects to the Internet.
IP address
- Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are assigned to Internet devices by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Sometimes, ISPs assign the same IP address to a large number of computers. As a result, multiple computers may have identical IP addresses.
- IP addresses can often be used to identify the location from which a computer is connecting to the Internet. When you set location targeting for your ad campaign, IP addresses help Google Ads know which customers seem to be using a computer in your targeted region
- You can use IP exclusion to help prevent your ad from showing to a particular IP address.
How IP addresses appear
IP addresses can appear in the following forms: (image)
A bid that you set to determine the highest amount that you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad.
Maximum CPC bid
- If someone clicks your ad, that click won’t cost you more than the maximum cost-per-click bid (or “max. CPC”) that you set. For example, if you set a $2 max. CPC bid, you’ll never pay more than $2 for each click on your ad. The actual amount that you pay is called the actual CPC and is shown in your account’s “Avg. CPC” column.
- A higher bid generally helps your ad show in a higher ad position on the page.
- You’ll choose between manual bidding (you choose your bid amounts) and automatic bidding (you set a target average daily budget and the Google Ads system automatically adjusts your max. CPC bids on your behalf, with the goal of getting you the most clicks possible within that budget). With manual bidding, you’ll set one maximum CPC bid for an entire ad group, but can also set different bids for individual keywords.
When your Max. CPC may be exceeded:
If you use the following features, your actual bid may be higher than the Max. CPC bid you have set:
- Enhanced CPC
- Search Partners
- Bid adjustments
A free listing in Google Search that appears because it’s relevant to someone’s search terms.
Organic search result
- Non-organic search results are paid advertisements.
- The ads above organic results contain an “Ad” box.
- The ads to the right of organic results have an “Ads” box above them.
- Analyzing organic search results can often help to identify new keywords for your Google Ads campaigns.
Type of tracking that helps load your landing page more quickly which can reduce lost visits.
Parallel tracking
- Parallel tracking is mandatory for Search, Shopping, and Display campaigns. For Video campaigns, parallel tracking is optional, but will become mandatory starting June 15, 2020. Parallel tracking isn’t available for Hotel campaigns.
- Parallel tracking helps load your landing page more quickly which can reduce lost visits. That can lead to increased conversions, and improved ad performance. Parallel tracking sends customers directly from your ad to your final URL while click measurement happens in the background (without sending them to the tracking URLs first).
[!] Important
Check with your click measurement provider to make sure their system is compatible with parallel tracking. Compatibility may vary based on the particular features you have enabled. If there is an incompatibility, your click measurement could stop working. If you’re a click measurement solutions provider, you can find more information in our partners guide.
With parallel tracking, customers are delivered directly to your landing page while click measurement happens in the background.
Here’s what parallel tracking looks like:
- Customer clicks your ad.
- Customer sees your landing page.
At the same time, in the background:
- Google Ads click tracker loads.
- Tracking URL loads.
- If you use more than one click tracker, additional redirects may load.
Without parallel tracking, customers go through one or more redirects after clicking your ad before they reach your landing page. This means it takes longer for customers to reach your landing page.
Here’s what tracking looks like without parallel tracking:
- Customer clicks your ad.
- Google Ads click tracker loads.
- Tracking URL loads.
- Possible additional tracking URL loads.
- Customer sees your landing page.
These fields are part of the display URL in expanded text ads, which is typically displayed in green text below the headline and above the description.
Path
- The fields give potential customers an idea of where they will end up on your site once they have clicked your ad, so the text you put in the fields should describe the product or service described in the ad in more detail. Paths are not guaranteed to show. The field is optional, and each path can have up to 15 characters.
- Google Ads uses the domain from your final URL combined with your path text, if any is entered, to create the display URL.
- Your path text doesn’t have to match the exact text of your final URL, but it should help the user understand what to expect from your landing page.
How much profit you’ve made from your ads compared to how much you’ve spent on those ads.
Return on investment (ROI)
- To calculate ROI, take the revenue that resulted from your ads, subtract your overall costs, then divide by your overall costs: ROI = (Revenue - Cost of goods sold) / Cost of goods sold.
- To help measure your Google Ads ROI, you’ll need to track conversions, actions that you want your customers to take on your website after clicking your ad such as a purchase, sign-up, or download. Try conversion tracking or Google Analytics, free tools to help you track conversions in your account.
- ROI is typically the most important measurement for advertisers because it shows the real effect that Google Ads has on your business. While it’s helpful to know the number of clicks and impressions you get, it’s even better to know how your ads are contributing to the success of your business.
A type of ad that features detailed information about specific products that you sell.
Shopping ad
- Shopping ads can refer to Product Shopping ads, which feature just one product, or Showcase Shopping ads, which feature several related products.
- You may create Showcase Shopping ads using Google Ads and the Google Ads API (AdWords API). If you want to advertise individual products, check out Product Shopping ads.
- To create Shopping ads, you’ll set up your product information in Google Merchant Center and create Shopping campaigns in Google Ads.
Showcase Shopping ads are available in these countries: (image)
A type of Shopping ad with information about several related products.
Showcase Shopping ad
- These ads are more likely to show when people search for more general terms rather than for a specific product. So you might use these to advertise a specific brand or to introduce your business with a special selection of products.
- You can create these ads with Shopping campaigns, and the ads can appear on Google Shopping, Google Search, and Google Search Partners.
- You may create Showcase Shopping ads using Google Ads and the Google Ads API (AdWords API). If you want to advertise individual products, check out Product Shopping ads.
Showcase Shopping ads are available in these countries:
A ratio showing the number of paid views of a video ad to the number of impressions.
View rate
- For example, if you had 5 views and 1000 impressions, then your view rate would be 0.5%. Here’s how it’s calculated: (image)
- View rate is similar to click-through rate (CTR), but instead of measuring clicks, it counts people who viewed your video ad after seeing it on YouTube or the Display Network.
- You can use View rate to track the value of your video campaigns on YouTube and the Display Network.
