Google Ads Search flashcards
Google Ads Search · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Ad Rank
- The score that determines whether an ad is eligible to show and its position, calculated from the bid, quality signals, and the expected impact of assets and formats.
- Quality Score
- A 1–10 keyword-level diagnostic built from expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience, used to explain auction performance rather than to set bids directly.
- Actual CPC formula
- Cost per click equals the Ad Rank of the ad below divided by your Quality Score, plus one cent, capped at your own Max CPC.
- Exact match
- A keyword match type written in brackets that allows ads to serve on queries with the same meaning as the keyword, including close variants such as reorderings and misspellings.
- Phrase match
- A keyword match type written in quotation marks that serves on queries containing the keyword's meaning with additional words before or after, including close variants.
- Broad match
- A keyword match type with no punctuation that serves on queries related to the keyword, including synonyms and related topics, giving the widest reach and least control.
- Negative keyword
- A keyword added at campaign, ad group, or shared list level that prevents an ad from serving on queries containing that term or its close variants.
- Daily budget overdelivery
- Google may spend up to twice a campaign's daily budget on a single day, but total monthly spend is capped at 30.4 times the daily budget.
- Presence versus interest
- A location targeting setting: 'presence or interest' reaches people in the area plus those showing interest in it, while 'presence' reaches only people physically there.
- Ad group
- A container inside a campaign holding a set of closely related keywords and the ads written for them, sharing bids, negatives, and creative themes.
- Campaign bid strategy
- The campaign-level setting that determines how bids are set for each auction, ranging from Manual CPC to Smart Bidding strategies such as Target CPA.
- Change history
- An account log recording each edit with the user, timestamp, and previous and new values, used to correlate performance changes with account modifications.
- Campaign draft
- An unpublished copy of a campaign where proposed edits can be prepared and reviewed before being applied to the live campaign.
- Shared negative list
- A reusable list of negative keywords stored in the account's shared library that can be applied to multiple campaigns without re-entering the terms.
- Responsive search ad
- An ad format accepting up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions from which Google assembles combinations per query, learning which assets perform best.
- Headline character limit
- Each headline in a responsive search ad may contain up to 30 characters, including spaces and punctuation, with up to 15 headlines supplied.
- Ad strength
- A rating of Poor, Average, Good, or Excellent reflecting asset quantity, uniqueness, relevance to the ad group's keywords, and how well assets cover likely queries.
- Sitelink asset
- An additional link to a specific page shown with the ad, using up to 25 characters of link text and optional description lines of 35 characters each.
- Callout asset
- A short, non-clickable phrase of up to 25 characters highlighting a business benefit or feature, such as free shipping or 24-hour support.
- Pinning
- Fixing a headline or description to a specific position in a responsive search ad, which guarantees placement but limits the system's ability to test combinations.
- Target CPA
- A Smart Bidding strategy that sets bids per auction to obtain conversions at approximately the specified average cost per acquisition.
- Target ROAS
- A Smart Bidding strategy that sets bids to achieve a specified average return on ad spend, expressed as conversion value divided by cost.
- Maximize conversions
- A Smart Bidding strategy that spends the campaign budget to obtain as many conversions as possible, optionally constrained by a target CPA.
- Target Impression Share
- A bidding strategy aiming for a chosen share of available impressions, measured as absolute top of page, top of page, or anywhere on page.
- Bid adjustment stacking
- Multiple bid adjustments multiply together rather than add, so a +20% device and +10% location adjustment produce 1.32 times the base bid.
- Lost IS budget
- A metric estimating the share of impressions lost because the campaign's budget was exhausted, signaling the campaign is budget constrained rather than rank constrained.
- Conversion window
- The period after a click or view during which a conversion is attributed to the ad, defaulting to 30 days for clicks and 1 day for views.
- Data-driven attribution
- An attribution model that distributes conversion credit across ad interactions using observed data about how each touchpoint contributes to conversions.
- Primary conversion action
- A conversion action flagged for bidding, meaning its count and value feed Smart Bidding strategies and the Conversions column used in reporting.
- Search terms report
- A report listing the actual queries that triggered ads, showing impressions, clicks, and cost so irrelevant queries can be excluded with negative keywords.
- Optimization score
- A 0–100% estimate of how much a recommended set of account changes could improve performance, weighted by the potential impact of each recommendation.
- Conversion value rules
- Settings that adjust the value recorded for conversions based on conditions such as location, device, or audience, changing what Smart Bidding optimizes toward.