Glossary
Meta ads glossary. In plain English.
The words you meet when you research Facebook and Instagram ads and the products behind them, each with where to see it in SearchTheTrend.
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- A/B test
- Running two versions of an ad, or of a page, to see which one works better.
- Active ads
- The ads of a page, product or store that are running right now in Meta’s Ad Library.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Ad account
- The Meta account that holds your campaigns, ads and billing.
- Ad Library
- Meta’s free, official search of the ads running on Facebook, Instagram and its other apps.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Ad Rank
- An ad’s position among all its brand’s ads and how it moves day by day, so you know which one gets seen the most.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Ad set
- The level of a Meta campaign where you choose the audience, budget, schedule and placements.
- Ad spy tool
- A tool that shows other brands’ ads so you can learn what works in your niche.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Advertiser
- The Facebook page that runs an ad. One brand can advertise from several pages.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- AOV (average order value)
- Revenue divided by the number of orders.
- Audience
- The people an ad is shown to, chosen by location, age, interests or past actions.
- Break-even ROAS
- The ROAS at which your ads pay for themselves and nothing more: price divided by what is left after product cost, shipping and fees.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- CAC (customer acquisition cost)
- Everything you spend to win one new customer, divided by the number of new customers.
- Campaign
- The top level in Meta Ads Manager, where you choose what the ads should achieve.
- Conversion rate
- Purchases divided by clicks or visits: the share of people who buy.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- CPA (cost per acquisition)
- Ad spend divided by the number of purchases, or of the action you count.
- CPM (cost per mille)
- What 1,000 ad views cost. We use each country’s CPM to turn the reach Meta publishes into an estimated spend.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- CTR (click-through rate)
- Clicks divided by impressions: the share of views that end in a click.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Days running
- How long an ad has been live. An ad that keeps running for weeks usually pays for itself.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Dropshipping
- Selling products that a supplier ships straight to the customer, so the store keeps no stock.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- DTC (direct to consumer)
- A brand that sells its own products straight to customers, usually through its own online store.
- Engagement
- Likes, comments, shares and saves on an ad or a post.
- Estimated revenue
- Our monthly revenue range for a product. An estimate, never exact sales.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Frequency
- How many times, on average, each person saw an ad: impressions divided by reach.
- Impressions
- How many times an ad was shown, counting repeat views by the same person.
- Landing page
- The page people reach after they click an ad.
- Markup
- How much the selling price is above the product cost, as a share of that cost.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Meta Pixel
- A piece of code on a website that tells Meta which visitors buy, so it can measure and improve the ads.
- Placement
- Where an ad is shown, such as the Facebook feed, Instagram Stories or Reels.
- Radar
- SearchTheTrend’s tracker: it follows a keyword, a store or a Facebook page and adds the new ads every day.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Reach
- How many people saw an ad at least once. Meta publishes it for ads shown in the EU and UK.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Retargeting
- Showing ads to people who already visited your store or saw your content.
- ROAS (return on ad spend)
- Revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost. A ROAS of 3 means $3 back for each $1 spent.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Scaling
- Raising the budget, or adding new ads, for a product or an ad that already sells.
- Store visits
- Estimated visits to a store in a month, split across the products it advertises.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- Swipe file
- A saved collection of ads to learn from. In SearchTheTrend, these are Boards.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
- UGC (user-generated content)
- Ads that look made by a customer or a creator rather than a studio.
- See it in SearchTheTrend
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