A Simple Glossary of Facebook Ad Terms for Beginners
Digital marketing has a language of its own. If you have ever stared at a marketing report and felt like you were reading alien hieroglyphics, you are not alone. CPC, CTR, CPM, ROAS—it is enough to make you want to close your laptop. But don't worry, you don't need to memorize a dictionary. There are really only five or six terms that actually matter for your bank account.
When you first log into Facebook Ads, it looks like alphabet soup. There are three-letter acronyms everywhere. It feels like you need a math degree to understand where your money went.
Don't panic! You really only need to know a handful of these terms to run a successful business.
The Money Terms (Spending & Earning)
These are the metrics that tell you if you are going broke or getting rich.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
This is how much you pay every time someone clicks your ad. If you spend $10 and get 10 clicks, your CPC is $1.
Benchmark: If your CPC is over $3 or $4, your ad might be boring to your audience.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
This is the holy grail. It answers the question: "For every dollar I put in, how many dollars did I get back?"
Example: If you spend $1 on ads and make $4 in sales, your ROAS is 4. Anything above 1 is technically money coming back, but you usually want a ROAS of 3 or higher to cover your product costs.
The Visibility Terms (Who Saw It?)
These terms explain how your ad is being delivered to people.
CPM (Cost Per Mille)
"Mille" is Latin for "Thousand." So this is the cost to show your ad 1,000 times. It measures how expensive the audience is. Targeting CEOs is more expensive (high CPM) than targeting college students (low CPM).
Impressions vs. Reach
This confuses everyone.
Reach is the number of people who saw your ad (e.g., 500 people).
Impressions is the number of times the ad was shown (e.g., 1,000 times).
If your Impressions are higher than your Reach, it means people are seeing your ad more than once.
The Performance Terms (Is It Good?)
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
This is the percentage of people who saw your ad and actually clicked it. If 100 people saw it and 1 clicked, your CTR is 1%.
Tip: A low CTR usually means your image or headline isn't catchy enough.
Make Your "Creative" Count
Now that you know the terms, you'll realize that improving your images (Creative) fixes almost all the bad numbers. Better images lead to a higher CTR and lower CPC.
Use Stirling to fix this. Stirling helps you generate high-quality creative assets in seconds. It ensures your images and text are catchy, which lowers your costs and improves your ROAS.
Start lowering your ad costs with Stirling at TryStirling.com
