Online marketing glossary
Agency jargon is exhausting. Here we explain the key terms so you can follow them without a marketing degree.
A
A/B test
Two versions (say, two headlines) run side by side — the data decides which performs better. The basis of any serious conversion work.
Ad Rank
Google’s internal score deciding whether and where your ad appears. Made up of your bid, ad quality and expected click-through rate.
B
Bounce rate
The share of visitors who view one page and leave without any further interaction. High values often point to mismatched traffic or a weak page.
Break-even ROAS
The ROAS at which a campaign exactly covers its ad costs: 100 ÷ margin in percent. At a 25 % margin that is 4. Anything below is a loss — even when the revenue looks healthy.
C
Conversion
The action you want from a visitor: a purchase, an enquiry, a call, a newsletter sign-up. You define what counts as a conversion — and that is what gets optimized for.
Conversion rate
The share of visitors who convert. 100 visitors, 3 enquiries = 3 %. The most powerful lever for turning the same traffic into more revenue.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s metrics for user experience: load time, interactivity and visual stability. They feed into rankings — and decide whether visitors stay.
CPC (cost per click)
What a single click on your ad costs. More interesting than CPC is almost always CPL — cheap clicks that never enquire are expensive.
CPL (cost per lead)
What one enquiry costs you: ad spend ÷ number of leads. The metric lead campaigns have to be judged on.
CTR (click-through rate)
How often your ad or search result is clicked, measured against how often it was shown. A signal of how relevant your message is to the audience.
F
Funnel
The path from first contact to purchase, pictured as a funnel: many interested people at the top, few buyers at the bottom. Good marketing loses as few as possible at each step.
I
Impressions
How often your ad or page was shown. A reach metric — on its own it says nothing about success.
K
Keyword
The search term someone types into Google. The skill is finding the terms with real buying intent behind them — not just high search volume.
KPI (key performance indicator)
The metric you measure success by. Good KPIs hang off a business goal (enquiries, revenue); bad ones off vanity (followers, impressions).
L
Landing page
A page with exactly one job: answer the visitor’s one question and offer the one action. Sending ads to your homepage is almost always wasted budget.
Lead
Someone who gets in touch or leaves their details — the raw material of any service business.
Local SEO
Visibility in local searches (“hairdresser near me”). The pivot is your Google Business Profile, supported by reviews and a locally anchored website.
O
Organic traffic
Visitors arriving through unpaid search results. It takes time to build, but these visitors cost nothing per click — SEO gets cheaper the longer it runs.
P
Performance Max
Google’s automated campaign format across every channel (Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display). Strong with clean data — risky without control and good tracking.
R
Retargeting
Advertising aimed at people who have already visited your website. Usually the cheapest route to conversions — the interest was already there.
ROAS (return on ad spend)
Revenue ÷ ad spend. A ROAS of 4 means every euro spent brings in €4 of revenue. Work it out with our ROAS calculator.
S
SEA (search engine advertising)
Paid advertising in search engines, mainly Google Ads. Visible immediately, precisely controllable, charged per click.
SEO (search engine optimization)
Everything that improves your unpaid visibility on Google: technical work, content and authority. Slower than SEA, but it lasts.
SERP
Search engine result page — Google’s results page. Today a mix of ads, AI answers, maps and classic results.
T
Target audience
The people you want to reach — the more precisely defined, the cheaper every campaign. “Everyone” is not a target audience.
U
UTM parameters
Additions to a link that let Analytics recognise where a visitor came from. Mandatory for every campaign. Build them with our UTM builder.