AdWords PPC Terminology Explained

Whether you have outsourced your Google AdWords PPC management or not it is important that you understand all of the acronyms, abbreviations and specific terminology used.

Here are some of the regular and PPC specific terminology explained and defined:

CPC

This stands for ‘Cost Per Click’ and is the amount of money you pay for each individual click achieved on your advert.

Search Term

A search term is the phrase a user has typed into Google that has triggered your advert being shown.

Keyword

A keyword is a word or phrase you have selected to be included in a search term that will trigger your advert being shown.

Keyword Match Type

There are different match types you can use to specify their exact involvement in the search term used to trigger your advert. A ‘broad’ match type will mean any affiliated word can activate your advert where as ‘exact’ and ‘phrase’ match require the actual keyword itself to be used. ‘Negative’ and ‘embedded’ match types are used to exclude words being used in the search term.

Impressions

Every time your advert has matched a search term and has been displayed creates something referred to as an ‘impression’.

CTR

This refers to the ‘Click Through Rate’, meaning the number of impressions your advert has achieved divided by the number of clicks it has resulted in. The higher the CTR the better your advert is performing.