How to Build Your Online Advertising Vocabulary

New to online advertising? Before you start advertising with AdWords, you’ll want to build your online vocabulary. We’ve teased out 6 essential terms for new advertisers like you. Since the terms here build on one another, try to read them in order. When you’re done, you’ll see the terms put into context with a fictional kayak rental company in California.

This illustration gives an example overview of how AdWords works. Match the numbers in the picture to the terms below to learn more about them.

1. Search phrases:

Words or phrases that people use when searching online. The essence of the information, products, or services they want to find. Also referred to as: search terms and search queries.

2. Campaigns:

Your plan to get your ads to the people who are most likely to want your offerings. Campaigns combine the following elements to help your ads show to the right people at the right time:

• Keywords: Search phrases you think your customers may use when searching for something related to your offerings.
• Ads: Your unique messages about your goods, products, or services. It can be text, image, or video so long as you describe your offering, include the key selling points, and tell customers how to respond.
• Targeting methods: Conditions for when to show your ads such as location, language, and so much more.

3. Organic vs ads:

Google splits search results into two types of lists:

• Organic: List of websites that match someone’s search phrase. No one can pay to have their website show up in these results.
• Ads: List of ads that match someone’s search phrase. Advertisers can pay to have their ads show based on the keywords and targeting methods they’ve chosen and the ads they’ve created. Ads are also referred to as: paid results.

4. Impressions:

Number of appearances your ad makes on a website, mobile app, or anywhere else the ad happens to show. It’s a unit of measurement, like magazine advertising has numbers of copies sold. Also referred to as: ad impressions

5. Avg. CPC or average cost-per-click:

The average price you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Avg. CPC is useful when you want to compare the performance of different keywords, campaigns, ads, etc. Also referred to as: pay-per-click.

[ Avg. CPC ] = [ Cost ] / [ Clicks ]

6. Landing pages:

A web page where you send customers after they've clicked on your ads. It should include the same details, selling points, and promotional information as your ads.