Digital Advertising Glossary (20 Terms) — Adclick
Plain-English definitions for every advertising metric and concept used on Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and Google Ads — with MENA-specific benchmarks.
CPM (Cost Per Mille)
Cost to deliver 1,000 ad impressions.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
Cost paid for each click on an ad.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
Percentage of impressions that result in a click.
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)
Revenue generated per dollar of ad spend.
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
Average cost to acquire one paying customer.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
Total marketing cost to acquire a customer.
LTV (Lifetime Value)
Total revenue a customer generates over their lifetime.
Pixel (Tracking Pixel)
A small script that reports website events back to ad platforms.
Conversions API (CAPI)
Server-to-server event sending to ad platforms.
Attribution
Assigning credit for a conversion to one or more ad touchpoints.
Lookalike Audience
An audience built to resemble your best customers.
Retargeting
Re-engaging users who already interacted with your brand.
Audience (Targeting)
The group of people your ad is delivered to.
Ad Creative
The image, video, copy and call-to-action that make up an ad.
Frequency
Average number of times each user has seen your ad.
Reach
The number of unique users who saw an ad at least once.
Impression
A single view of an ad by a user.
Bid Strategy
The rule the platform uses to spend your budget against an objective.
A/B Test (Split Test)
Comparing two ad variants to determine which performs better.
Attribution Window
The time period in which a conversion is credited to an ad.