Advertising Glossary

CPM stands for cost per mille, the advertising industry's name for cost per 1,000 impressions.

CPC stands for Cost Per Click and measures the average amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.

CPA stands for Cost Per Acquisition and measures how much you spend to acquire one customer or conversion.

CPL stands for Cost Per Lead and measures how much you spend to generate one lead through your advertising.

CTR stands for Click-Through Rate and measures the percentage of people who click on your ad after seeing it.

ROAS stands for Return on Ad Spend and measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.

Conversion rate, commonly abbreviated CVR, measures the share of clicks (or another input action) that turn into the outcome a campaign is actually built around, a purchase, a lead, a sign-up, whichever action matters for that objective.

Impressions count the total number of times your ad is displayed on screen, including repeat views by the same person.

Reach measures the number of unique people who saw your ad at least once during a given period.

Frequency measures the average number of times each person in your audience has seen your ad.

Relevance Score (now called Ad Quality Diagnostics in Meta) measures how well your ad resonates with your target audience compared to competing ads.

A Lookalike Audience is a targeting option in Meta Ads that finds new people who share similar characteristics with your existing customers or audience.

A Custom Audience is a targeting option in Meta Ads that lets you reach people who have already interacted with your business.

Retargeting (also called remarketing) is the practice of showing ads to people who have previously interacted with your business but did not convert.

Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) is a Meta Ads feature that automatically distributes your campaign budget across ad sets to maximize results.

Ad Set Budget Optimization (ABO) is the budget strategy where you set individual budgets for each ad set within a campaign.

Dynamic Creative (also called Dynamic Creative Optimization or DCO) is a Meta Ads feature that automatically tests different combinations of your ad components, images, videos, headlines, descriptions, and CTAs.

Split testing (also known as A/B testing) is a controlled experiment where you compare two or more ad variables to determine which performs better.

Lifetime Value (LTV) estimates the total revenue a customer will generate over their entire relationship with your business.

Average Order Value (AOV) measures the average amount a customer spends per transaction.

Impression Share is the percentage of total available impressions your ads actually received out of all impressions they were eligible for.

Broad Match is a targeting approach where the ad platform uses expanded signals to show your ads to a wider audience beyond your explicitly defined targeting.

Interest Targeting lets you reach people on Meta based on their interests, activities, pages they have liked, and related topics.

The Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel) is a piece of JavaScript code you install on your website that tracks visitor actions and sends that data back to Meta.

Cost Per View (CPV) measures how much you pay each time someone watches your video ad.

An attribution window is the time period after someone clicks or views your ad during which a conversion is credited to that ad.

Ad Placement refers to where your ad appears across Meta platforms and partner networks.

Engagement Rate measures the percentage of people who interacted with your ad after seeing it.

Meta Audience Network is an advertising placement that extends your Facebook and Instagram ads to third-party mobile apps and websites.

Bid Strategy determines how Meta bids in the ad auction on your behalf.

Ad fatigue occurs when your target audience sees the same ad too many times, causing engagement and conversion rates to decline while costs increase.

Social proof in advertising refers to the visible engagement signals on your ads (likes, comments, shares, and reactions) that demonstrate other people have interacted with and validated your content.

Video views in Meta advertising are a family of playback metrics, not one universal count.

Landing Page Views count the number of times a person clicked your ad link and successfully loaded the destination webpage.

Cost Per Result is a universal efficiency metric in Meta Ads that measures the average cost for each action aligned with your campaign objective.

A daily budget is the average amount you are willing to spend per day on an ad set or campaign.

A lifetime budget is the total amount you are willing to spend over the entire duration of your ad set or campaign.

Ad Recall Lift is a Meta-estimated metric that predicts the number of people who would remember seeing your ad if surveyed within 2 days.

Post Engagement is a Meta Ads metric that counts all actions people take on your ad post, including reactions (likes, love, wow, etc.

Link Clicks count the number of clicks on links within your ad that lead to destinations on or off Meta.

Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) are Meta highly automated campaign type designed for e-commerce advertisers.

Catalog Sales (formerly Dynamic Product Ads or DPA) is a Meta campaign objective that automatically shows the most relevant products from your catalog to each user.

Lead Forms (also called Instant Forms) are native Meta forms that let users submit their contact information without leaving Facebook or Instagram.

Instant Experience (formerly Canvas) is a full-screen, fast-loading mobile ad format on Meta that opens when someone taps your ad.

The Conversions API, commonly abbreviated CAPI, is Meta's own name for its server-to-server tracking connection.

Ad Rank is the score Meta assigns to your ad during the real-time auction that determines whether your ad is shown and in what position.

A frequency cap is a setting that limits the maximum number of times a specific user sees your ad within a given time period.

Cost Per Install (CPI) measures the average amount you spend to acquire a single app installation through your advertising campaigns.

Ad Relevance Diagnostics are three metrics in Meta Ads Manager that help you understand how your ad competes in auctions: Quality Ranking (perceived quality vs.

A campaign objective is the goal you select when creating a Meta Ads campaign that tells the algorithm what outcome you want to optimize for.

The ad auction is the real-time process Meta uses to determine which ad to show each user every time there is an available impression.

Reach and Frequency (R&F) is an alternative buying type in Meta Ads that gives you predictable, guaranteed delivery at a fixed CPM.

A view-through conversion occurs when a user sees your ad (an impression) but does not click on it, and then later completes a conversion action (such as a purchase or sign-up) within a specified attribution window.

A click-through conversion occurs when a user clicks on your ad and then completes a conversion action (purchase, sign-up, lead submission) within a specified attribution window.

Creative Hub is a free tool from Meta that lets advertisers design, preview, and share ad mockups across all Meta placements (Facebook Feed, Instagram Stories, Reels, etc.

Meta Business Manager (now part of Meta Business Suite) is the central platform for managing all of your business assets on Meta, including ad accounts, Facebook Pages, Instagram accounts, Pixels, catalogs, and team member access.

Ads Manager is Meta's primary tool for creating, managing, and analyzing advertising campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network.

Meta Pixel events are browser-side messages that report actions on a website to the Meta dataset connected to the pixel.

Audience insights for advertisers now live inside Meta Business Suite Insights: Meta retired the old standalone Audience Insights research tool and moved this data into Business Suite.

Ad Delivery refers to the process by which Meta distributes your ads to users across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network.

Estimated Action Rate (EAR) is Meta's prediction of how likely a specific user is to take your desired action (click, purchase, lead, install) after seeing your ad.

Ad Set Budget, known in Ads Manager as Ad Set Budget Optimization or ABO, is what you get when you assign a specific daily or lifetime budget to an individual ad set instead of to the campaign that contains it.

A campaign spending limit is Meta's own term for an adjustable limit on the overall amount your ad campaign can spend, set inside the campaign itself.

The Learning Phase is the initial period after creating or significantly editing an ad set during which Meta's delivery system explores different audience segments, placements, and times of day to determine the optimal way to deliver your ads.

A Significant Edit is any change to an ad set that resets Meta's learning phase, forcing the delivery system to restart its optimization process.

Ad Creative is the visual and textual content that users see when your ad is displayed.

Primary Text is the main body copy that appears above the media (image or video) in a Meta ad.

A Call to Action (CTA) is the clickable button on a Meta ad that tells users what action to take next.

Destination URL (also called Website URL) is the web address users are directed to when they click your ad.

A display link is the URL text presented with a link ad to tell a person which advertiser or destination sits behind the click.

A carousel ad is Meta's term for a single ad unit that shows 2 or more images and videos, each with its own headline, description, link and call to action; people swipe on mobile or click arrows on desktop to move between cards.

A Collection Ad is a mobile-only Meta ad format that combines a cover image or video with a grid of 4 product images below it.

An Instant Form (also called a Lead Form) is a native Meta form that opens within the Facebook or Instagram app when a user taps a lead generation ad.

A Custom Conversion is a Meta tracking configuration that defines a conversion event based on URL rules without requiring any additional code on your website.

Standard Events are 17 predefined conversion actions recognized by Meta's Pixel and Conversions API.

Value Optimization is a Meta bid strategy that optimizes ad delivery to maximize the total purchase value (revenue) rather than the number of conversions.

Minimum ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is a Meta bid strategy that sets a floor for the return you want to achieve on your ad spend.

Ad copy is the written text inside an ad, as distinct from the image or video it sits alongside.