The marketing world is filled with jargon. There are an incredible amount of words used that those outside of the industry have no understanding of. This becomes markedly more confusing when a marketer is trying to explain the performance of someone’s account using terms such as Google Ads metrics, and the client doesn’t understand the meaning or purpose of the term.
All of a sudden, conversions become confusing, impressions much less impressive. If you’re lost in the world of weirdly worded Google Ads metrics then this article will shed some light on the strange terms used to understand the performance of your account.
Impressions
Quite simply, impressions refer to the number of times your ad has been seen. If your ad has been placed on a website or search engine results page and a user has seen the ad, then this will count as an impression.
Clicks
An easy one – the total number of times people have actually clicked on your ad.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
This is the ratio of impressions to clicks – those who have seen the ad and clicked through. The percentages you see can all vary – depending on which keywords you use and your ads, the percentage can be very high or quite low.
Even if you see your account has a click-through rate of 0.1%, this might be well above average for your industry and campaign type. To better understand if your click through rate is good, this average CTR infographic will help you.
Average Cost-Per-Click
Another easy one – how much you’re paying on average for your clicks. Despite setting a maximum amount you are happy to pay for a click on each keyword, how much you will actually pay will depend on how you rank within Google Ads.
Conversions
Conversions are quite multi-faceted. They can refer to multiple different actions a user takes on your site after clicking an ad.
If you’re in the B2C industry, these will probably refer to sales. If you’re B2B, these could take the form of leads or also sales. Ultimately, you decide what conversions are by tracking what you want to track.
This is an important Google Ads metric to keep in mind, as it can show whether your business goals are actually being met or not.
Cost-Per-Conversion
Yet another Google Ads Metric that is pretty self explanatory – how much you’re paying for each conversion on average.
View-Through Conversions
This is a little bit trickier – view-through conversions are conversions where a user has not clicked on your ad, but has seen it and then later gone to your site organically and made a conversion.
These can skew your cost per conversion a little bit, so to work out your true cost per conversion, add up your view-through conversions and your actual conversions, and divide by your overall cost.
Other Google Ads Metrics
Where there are hundreds of strange Google Ads metrics, these are the run-of-the-mill everyday metrics that are used by us for all of our clients to better understand the success of the campaigns we are running.
So, if you’re new to Google Ads or just want to be aware of the key metrics, this article should’ve hopefully decoded all you need to know. However if you want to delve deeper into Google Ads metrics – or even discuss your account more generally – don’t hesitate to get in touch for a chat. We’re always up for a chat about PPC and will be happy to help!
