Master These 39 Facebook Ad Terms [Glossary] – Go from Novice to Expert–2023

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Is a Boost the same as an Ad? Is a CPA better than a CPM? Are your page insights the same as ad account insights?

Now is the time to upgrade your knowledge…before someone tries to pull the will over your eyes and steal your “budget”.

All industries have their jargon. Speak the language and you’re on the inside looking out. It is only on the inside the good stuff happens.

Let’s decode some Facebook Advertising terms.

These are the 39 Facebook Advertising Campaign terms to supercharge your next paid media campaign and make ROI.

The Top Tier Facebook Ad Terms

Check out this 👉 Facebook ads spend calculator and don’t for get to try the interactive ads calculator.

These Facebook ad terms are talked about in the advertising industry and the Ads Manager.

Impressions and CPM

When you purchase ads you ‘buy’ them in blocks of 1000. One impression is one advert seen by one person.

CPM

CPM is short for Cost per Mille. CPM is the media industry unit of measure of ads. CPMs are the second most important Facebook ad terms to understand.

Mille is old English (or Latin) for 1000 of something. For example “a CPM of €3.59” is the cost for your advert to be seen 1000 times.

CPM is Facebook’s Recommended Purchase Price. CPMs fluctuate based on the base economics of supply and demand. RPP is influenced by audience size, competition, time of year, your Business Manager account quality score and more factors.

Reach

The third most important Facebook ad term. Reach is the number of unique people who saw your ad. Reach is reported as whole numbers 10,358 or 1123.

Often the number of impressions delivered is greater than reach. This is because one advert is seen by the same person more than once (see frequency).

Amount Spent

The total money spent on a campaign, e.g. €15.23. €100, €500/day etc.

CPC

CPC stands for cost per click. CPC is the price FB charges when one person clicks on your advert.

CAC

CAC stands for customer acquisition cost. CAC is the cost to acquire a paying user.

CPA

CPA – Stands for cost per acquisition. CPA is used for lead generation. *Acquisition* is a lead, an email address, getting a phone call etc. CPA is the cost of acquiring a non-paying user.

CPA is the ‘trim tab‘ in the customer acquisition matrix. CPA is the only number of importance. If your CPA is inside of your target then, your campaign is winning.

Boost Button

The Facebook Boost button is the blue button on a Facebook post *enticing you* to place an advert.

The blue boost button has its uses. This post discusses the when and the why of the Boost button.

Relevancy Score

The relevancy score was depreciated in March 2019 see the Ad Relevance Diagnostic Metric below.

Ad Relevance Diagnostics Metrics

Ad relevance diagnostics replaces the Relevance score (see above). Think of the relevancy score as your ad ‘check engine light’. The ad relevance diagnostics metrics pinpoint the ‘problem’ as your fuel system, or ignition system or cooling system.

“…similar to the (depreciated) relevancy score, ad relevance diagnostics are not factored into an ad’s performance in the auction. We think this level of granularity will offer to report that’s more actionable for businesses.”

According to Facebook

Ad Relevancy Diagnostic measures three Facebook advertising terms

• Quality Ranking
• Engagement Rate Ranking
• Conversion Rate Ranking

The *Quality Ranking* is how your advert’s perceived quality compares to other ads competing for the same audience using the same campaign objective.

The *Engagement Rate Ranking* is how your ad’s expected engagement compares to other ads competing in the same auction using the same campaign objective.

The Conversion Rate Ranking measures your ad’s expected conversion rate. Your advert gets compared with other ads using the same objective competing for the same audience using the same campaign objective.

CPC (All)

Has someone asked you “What is your cost per click?”

CPC stands for Cost per click. CPC (cost per link click) is the average, cost per each link click. CPC is used in the online advertising industry as a benchmark of ad efficiency and performance.

Ads Frequency

Frequency is a measure of how often one person sees your ad. Frequency is one ad impression divided by reach – displayed as an average, e.g. 2.1, 3.6 etc.

Yes, people can see your ad more than once.

Facebook Pixel

The Facebook pixel is a small amount of (JavaScript) code. It is a blank 1×1 sized pixel image on your website. When someone visits a page on your website the pixel will ping Facebook and record their visit. This allows you to track performance and calculate the ROI of your campaign.

The Facebook Pixel tracks what people do on your website. The tracking allows you for example create custom audiences.

The pixel tracks people and measures their actions on your website, on adverts, on videos and off of Facebook activities. Pageviews, add to carts, conversions, and more. The pixel optimizes adverts for valuable actions. The most powerful aspect of the Facebook pixel is creating custom audiences for remarketing.

Facebook pixel is critical to your business. Why? To track ads performance, and retarget website visitors who left before taking the action you desired.

Retargeting

In Facebook Ads and Facebook parlance retargeting is advertising *again* to a person. Think of retargeting as ‘the second bite at the apple’ and specifically trying to convince a person they should buy from you.

E.g. a person who visits your website to look at your products, services, or blog post. You then advertise, to reengage that person. Use a ‘hey I noticed you visited page X, anything I can help you with’ (not worded exactly like that, because it would freak people out, but, you get the idea).

Funnel

A funnel is a process. A series of steps, a journey if you will, taking people from unaware to aware to ready to purchase.

Lead Generation Campaign

Lead generation campaign gets leads for your business. With leads you can you can email them, invite to a webinar or send them a nurture email sequence.

CPL

See CPA above.

CTR

Click-through rate – is a measure of the number of people who clicked on your ad and arrived on your landing page – usually on your website.

Power Editor

(deprecated as of fall 2018) The power editor is the tool used to manage your ads in bulk.  Yes, the power editor is the main tool advanced advertisers use. New features are given to the power editor first, and then some of those are rolled out to the ads manager.

Facebook Ads Manager

Ads Manager is the main tool for Facebook advertisers. As of autumn 2018, the Facebook Ads Manager is the main ads interface available to all advertisers.

Lookalike Audiences

A Lookalike Audience is a clone of a seed audience. Lookalikes are a part of the Custom Audience group of audiences.

If you start, seed, with an email list of 100 customers Facebook will find ‘identical’ people to your 100 and match them with at a 1% (or 2, 3, 4…10) closest match to your seed audience in a country or region you choose.

Second Tier Facebook Ad Terms

Ad Auction

Facebook advertising system is an auction. Yep, you are competing with other advertisers to put your ad in front of the same audience.

For each auction, the Facebook ads platform selects the best advert.

The auction winner is not always the highest bidder. This is because Facebook has standards. A winning bid combines the advertisers’ maximum bids, anticipated performance, account history, and many other factors.

All ads on Facebook compete against each other in this process. The platform determines the ad is most likely to succeed and will choose that ad.

Ad Set

The ad set controls budgeting, scheduling, audience, placement, and optimization & delivery of ads.

Ads

The individual ad includes the creative (e.g.: the image, video and text it uses).

Audience (Target)

A group of people who you choose to see your ads.

Bid

A bid is the amount of money you offer to pay to get your ad seen by your audience. Choose automatic or manual bidding depending on how you want to pay for your ad. See ‘Ad Auction’ above.

Set and modified the bid in the Ad Set.

Budget

The most amount you’re willing to spend on each campaign.

Campaign

The campaign is at the top of the pyramid👆. The structure is Campaigns > Ad Sets > Ads.

Ad sets and Ads exist within one campaign.

The campaign determines how each subsequent level functions.

Cost per 10-sec Video View

The average cost per 10-second video view. It is calculated as the amount spent divided by the 10-second video views.

Cost Per Action

This is the average amount you pay for each action people take on your ad.

The amount depends on the target audience and the number of competitors. Well-designed ads encourage people to take action. The more actions, the lower your cost per action.

Cost per Lead (Conversion)

CPL – The average cost for each lead you get. Either action on your website or lead form completed.

Cost per Offer Claim

The average cost for each offer claim as a result of your ad.

Cost per Page Engagement

The average cost per action related to the Page and your Page’s posts as a result of your ad.

Cost per Page Like

The average cost for each Page as a result of your ad.

CPC (All)

Cost per click for all clicks on your ad. The amount you’re charged each time someone interacts with your ad. It’s the total number of clicks on your advert divided by the number of impressions.

CPC (Link)

Cost per click to link. The amount charged each time someone clicks on the link in your ad.

CTR (All)

CTR is the click-through rate for all clicks.

Defined as the total number of clicks you received (ex: offsite clicks, likes, event responses) divided by the number of impressions.

Device

The device on which the conversion event you’re tracking occurred. For example, “Desktop” if someone converted on a desktop computer.

Lead Generation

Lead generation is a process of creating campaigns encouraging people to exchange their contact details in exchange for something valuable.

Lifetime Budget

A lifetime budget is an amount for a campaign. Budgets are set at the ad set level. Except for CBO, campaign budget optimization, is set at the campaign level.

Facebook “…our system will automatically try to evenly spread the amount you spend across the period of time that you’ve selected.“

Link Clicks

The number of clicks on links and ads directing people off Facebook.

E.g. clicks to install an app, view an offsite video, click to a website, call-to-action etc.

Offer Claims

The number of claims on your offers as a result of your advert.

oCPM

Optimized CPM is a bid type that shows your ad to people more likely to take the action you want. With this bid type, you pay for impressions (CPM).

Optimized CPM bids will be shown in your advert to people who are more likely to take action on your campaign objective. Your bid will automatically adjust to help your ads reach the people you care about.

Page Likes

The number of likes on your Page as a result of your ad.

POEM

POEM if a Facebook ad term. The Paid media terms refer to paid, owned and earned media. All content marketing falls into one of these three media buckets.

People Taking Action

One of many Facebook advertising terms is people taking action. This is the number of unique people who took an action such as on an advert. Such as liking your page or installing your app. For example, if the same person likes and comments on a post, they will be counted as one unique person.

Potential Reach

Is a vague and not reliable indicator of your actual reach. Use with extreme caution.

Found at the ad set level, under budget and optimization

Reports

Access reports in Ads Manager. Modify to run them as needed to view the metrics of your campaign.

Conversion Campaign

Get sales. Website conversion objective is you asking Facebook to find people in the audience most likely to convert to your website. Convert = signup, buy, etc.

Website Conversion Value

The total value returned from conversions on your website as a result of your ad.

Did I leave any out?

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