The Paid Media Cheat Sheet
Your simple guide to the acronyms you see everywhere in Paid Media.
If you’ve ever looked at a performance report and wondered if you’re reading a different language, you’re not alone. Paid media loves an acronym. The goal of this cheat sheet is to make everything clearer, whether you’re running your own ads or working with someone who does.
No jargon. No fluff. Just the essentials.
Core Metrics
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Core Metrics -
Impressions - How many times your ad was shown. Not the same as people, just total views
Clicks - The number of times people tapped or clicked your ad
Click-Through Rate (CTR) - A simple way of understanding how appealing your ad is by calculating Clicks ÷ Impressions. Higher usually means your ad is relevant and clear
Cost Per Click (CPC) - How much you pay every time someone clicks your ad
Cost Per Mille (CPM) - Cost per 1,000 impressions. Used mostly in brand and video campaigns. (Mille is latin for one thousand)
Conversions - Whatever you define as a “meaningful action”, such as a purchase, a signup, a donation, a form fill
Conversion Rate (CVR) - Tells you how well your landing page or offer works by calculating Conversions ÷ Clicks
Cost Per Acquisition - How much it costs to get one conversion
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) - Great for ecommerce, less useful for charities unless tied to donation value, calculated by Revenue ÷ Ad Spend
Cost of Sale (COS) - The reverse of ROAS, calculated with Ad Spend ÷ Revenue
Targeting & Audience
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Targeting & Audience -
Top / Middle / Bottom of Funnel, basically:
TOF: new people
MOF: people warming up
BOF: people ready to act
Lookalike Audience (LAL) - An audience built from your existing supporters or customers. Useful for scale
Custom Audience - An audience made from your own data (email lists, site visitors, video views)
Retargeting / Remarketing - Showing ads to people who have already interacted with you
Search Advertising (Google Ads)
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Search Advertising (Google Ads) -
Quality Score (QS) - Google’s rating of your ads and landing pages. Impacts cost and visibility
Search Terms - What people actually typed, not always the same as the keyword you selected.
Match Types - How closely a search needs to match your keyword:
Broad – loose match
Phrase – closer match
Exact – tight match
Ad Rank - Where your ad shows on the page, influenced by bid + quality
Social Advertising (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn)
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Social Advertising (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn) -
Engagement - Likes, shares, comments, saves. Platforms love it, but it’s not always meaningful.
ThruPlays (YouTube/Meta) - A video view long enough to count as meaningful (varies by platform)
Frequency - How many times, on average, one person has seen your ad. High frequency = ad fatigue.
UTM Parameters - Tags you add to URLs so analytics tools understand where traffic came from.
Measurement & Tracking
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Measurement & Tracking -
UTM - A small piece of text added to a link so Google Analytics knows what campaign the traffic is from.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4 ) - the latest version of Google Analytics.
Attribution - Deciding which ad gets credit for a conversion when people interact with multiple things.
Post-Click vs Post-View - Charities often see more post-view behaviour for things like donations.
Post-click: someone clicked an ad then converted
Post-view: someone saw an ad then converted later
Pixel / Tag - A small piece of code on your website that tracks actions.
Optimisation Terms
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Optimisation Terms -
A/B Test - Comparing two versions of an ad or page to see which performs better
Learning Phase - A short period where the platform settles into the best delivery strategy.
Bid Strategy - How you want the platform to optimise your spend:
Maximise Conversions
Maximise Clicks
Target CPA
Target ROAS