Glossary

Ad Rank is the score Google uses to decide whether your ad shows, in which position, and what you pay - combining your bid, ad quality, and the context of the search.

The attribution window is the period after an ad interaction during which a conversion will still be credited to that ad.

Call tracking assigns a dynamic phone number to each visitor so a phone call can be attributed back to the campaign, keyword or channel that produced it.

A conversion action is the specific event you have told Google Ads to count as a conversion - one particular form, call, or purchase - rather than the tracking system as a whole.

Conversion rate is the share of clicks that became a recorded conversion.

Conversion tracking is the mechanism that records what happened after someone clicked your ad - a form submitted, a call placed, a purchase made - and reports it back to the ad platform.

The Conversions API is Meta's server-to-server method of reporting conversions, sending events from your server instead of relying on the browser pixel alone.

Cost per acquisition is your advertising spend divided by the number of conversions it produced.

Cost per click is what you actually paid for each click, which is set by the auction rather than by your bid.

Cost per lead is what you paid in advertising for each enquiry, regardless of whether that enquiry ever became a customer.

Google Analytics 4 is Google's analytics platform, built around events rather than the sessions-and-pageviews model that preceded it.

Google Tag Manager is a container that loads and controls your tracking tags, letting you change what fires and when without editing the website's code.

Impression share is the percentage of the auctions you were eligible for in which your ad actually appeared.

Local Services Ads are Google's pay-per-lead format for service businesses, appearing above ordinary search ads with a Google Guaranteed badge, where you pay for a lead rather than a click.

Match types control how closely a search must resemble your keyword for your ad to be eligible - broad, phrase, or exact.

The Meta Pixel is the browser-side snippet that reports website activity back to Meta for conversion tracking, audience building and optimisation.

Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing on searches containing particular words or phrases.

A primary conversion is a conversion action included in the "Conversions" column and used for bidding; a secondary one is recorded for observation but does not influence how Google spends.

Quality Score is Google's 1-10 estimate of how relevant your keyword, ad and landing page are to a search, used as an input to ad rank and cost per click.

Return on ad spend is the revenue produced by advertising divided by its cost, usually expressed as a ratio.

The search terms report shows the actual queries people typed before clicking your ad, as distinct from the keywords you chose to bid on.

Server-side tagging routes tracking data through a server you control before it reaches Google or Meta, rather than sending it directly from the visitor's browser.