SEA lexicon: Google Ads vocabulary

SEA (Search Engine Advertising) refers to advertising on search engines, mainly Google Ads. This SEA lexicon brings together its terms as they appear in Google Ads in 2026. The definitions follow the vocabulary of the official help center, which has changed several times: “extensions” became “assets”, and responsive search ads replaced expanded text ads. The terms are grouped by family, from the general principle to measurement. Terms related to organic search and AI engines are defined in the SEO and GEO lexicon. The two lexicons are brought together in the digital marketing glossary.

SEA lexicon: principles and players

SEA (Search Engine Advertising): advertising on search engines, also called paid search or sponsored links. Ads appear in response to searches and are most often paid per click. The lever is presented in detail in our SEA guide.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing): marketing on search engines, which most often groups SEO and SEA together. How they fit together is covered in SEO and SEA.

Google Ads: Google’s advertising platform, formerly Google AdWords. It serves ads on Google Search, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, Maps and partner sites.

Microsoft Advertising: Microsoft’s advertising platform, which serves ads on Bing and related services. It works in a way close to Google Ads.

Advertiser: a company or organization that buys advertising space in Google Ads.

Search Network: all of Google’s results pages and partner search sites on which text ads can appear.

Search partners: third-party search sites that show Google Ads ads. Their inclusion is set at campaign level.

Display Network: websites, apps and Google properties (including YouTube) that show image ads. Display beyond Google is covered on our page about display and programmatic advertising.

Bids, costs and budget

Bid: the maximum amount you agree to pay for a click, a conversion or a thousand impressions, depending on the strategy chosen. The mechanism is explained in how Google Ads works.

Ad Rank: a value calculated at each auction that determines whether an ad can show and in which position. It combines the bid, the quality of the ad and of the page, and the minimum thresholds. Added to these are the competitiveness of the auction, the context of the search and the expected impact of assets (Google Ads Help, Ad Rank).

Ad Rank thresholds: the rank level an ad must reach to be shown in a given position. They are higher for positions above the results.

CPC (cost per click): the amount paid for a click on an ad. It is the most common billing model on the Search Network.

Maximum CPC: a cost-per-click bid: the highest amount you can be charged for a click.

Actual CPC: the final amount charged for a click, often lower than the maximum CPC. You pay the minimum needed to reach the thresholds and beat the ad ranked just below yours (Google Ads Help, actual CPC).

Reserve price: the amount paid when no competing ad is ranked just below yours.

CPM (cost per thousand impressions): the price paid for a thousand displays of an ad, used mainly for visibility goals in video and display.

CPA (cost per acquisition): the average cost of a conversion: spend divided by the number of conversions.

ROAS (return on ad spend): conversion value divided by spend. A ROAS of 4 means €4 of conversion value for €1 spent.

Average daily budget: the average amount you agree to spend per day on a campaign. On a given day, spend can reach twice that amount. Over the month, it does not exceed 30.4 times this budget (Google Ads Help, average daily budget).

Smart Bidding: automated bid strategies that optimize for conversions or conversion value in each auction. Details on our Smart Bidding page.

Target CPA: a bid strategy that seeks as many conversions as possible at the targeted cost per acquisition.

Target ROAS: a bid strategy that seeks as much conversion value as possible at the targeted return on ad spend.

Maximize conversions: a bid strategy that seeks as many conversions as possible within the available budget.

Learning period: the phase that follows the creation or a major change of an automated bid strategy, during which performance can fluctuate.

Account and campaigns

Manager account: a Google Ads account that manages several advertiser accounts from a single interface. Agencies and groups use it (formerly MCC).

Campaign: a set of ad groups that share a budget, a campaign type, locations, networks and a bid strategy. Types and settings in Google Ads campaigns.

Ad group: the intermediate level of a campaign: closely related keywords and the ads that answer them, around a theme.

Campaign objective: the result targeted when the campaign is created (sales, leads, traffic, awareness, etc.). It determines the campaign types offered.

Performance Max: a campaign type that accesses all Google Ads inventory from a single campaign, based on your conversion goals. Analysis on our Performance Max page.

Demand Gen: a campaign type designed to create demand. It serves image and video ads on YouTube, Discover, Gmail and the Display Network (Google Ads Help, Demand Gen campaigns).

Shopping campaign: a campaign that shows product listings (image, price, merchant) from a Merchant Center feed.

Merchant Center: a Google tool where a merchant uploads its product catalog, used by Shopping and Performance Max campaigns.

AI Max for Search campaigns: a set of campaign options. It broadens search term matching, adapts ad text and can change the final URL.

Location targeting: the areas where your ads can show. The “Presence or interest” option also reaches people interested in the area; “Presence” is limited to people who are in it.

Remarketing: showing ads to people who have already visited your site or used your app. Google Ads now speaks of data segments.

Keywords and ads

Keyword: a word or phrase set by the advertiser to trigger its ads on the Search Network.

Search term: what the user actually typed. A single keyword can trigger many different search terms.

Match types: a setting that defines the accepted gap between a keyword and a search term. There are three: broad match, phrase match, exact match (Google Ads Help, keyword matching options). Practical use in keywords and ads.

Broad match: the default match type: the ad can show on searches related to the keyword, even without its words. Google recommends pairing it with Smart Bidding.

Phrase match: a match type written in quotation marks (“keyword”): the ad shows on searches that include the meaning of the keyword.

Exact match: a match type written in square brackets ([keyword]): the ad shows on searches with the same meaning or the same intent.

Negative keyword: a term that prevents your ads from showing. It covers neither close variants nor synonyms, which must be added separately.

Search terms report: a report that lists the searches that triggered your ads and their performance. Low-volume terms are not shown in it.

Keyword Planner: a free Google Ads tool that suggests keywords and estimates search volumes and bid ranges.

Responsive search ad: the standard text ad format. It accepts up to 15 headlines of 30 characters and 4 descriptions of 90 characters, which Google combines according to the search (Google Ads Help, responsive search ads).

Pinning: an option that forces a headline or a description into a given position of the responsive search ad. It reduces the number of combinations tested.

Ad strength: an indicator that helps you write responsive search ads. It plays no part in Ad Rank or in Quality Score.

Assets: elements added to the ad: sitelinks, callouts, call, location, images, structured snippets. Formerly called extensions, they are free to add; clicks are still charged (Google Ads Help, assets).

Sitelink: an asset that adds links to other pages of your site below the ad.

Final URL: the address of the page where the user lands after clicking the ad.

Landing page: the page the ad points to. Its relevance and ease of use count in the quality assessed by Google.

Quality Score: a score from 1 to 10 given to a keyword. It is based on expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google presents it as a diagnostic tool, not used in the auction (Google Ads Help, Quality Score). Detailed reading on our Quality Score page.

Google Ads lexicon: measurement and metrics

Impression: a display of an ad on a results page or a site.

CTR (click-through rate): the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. It shows whether the ad matches the search.

Conversion: a valuable action completed after an interaction with an ad: purchase, quote request, call, sign-up.

Primary or secondary conversion action: a primary action is used for automated bidding; a secondary action is only observed in reports.

Conversion rate: the number of conversions divided by the number of interactions (most often clicks). Improving it on the site side is the job of CRO.

Conversion value: the amount associated with a conversion: revenue from a sale or estimated value of a lead. It feeds ROAS.

Impression share: the share of impressions obtained out of those your ads were eligible for. The “lost (budget)” and “lost (rank)” columns tell you why the rest is missed (Google Ads Help, impression share data).

Auction insights: a report that compares your performance with that of other advertisers taking part in the same auctions.

Optimization score: an estimate from 0 to 100% of the potential an account is using, according to Google (Google Ads Help, optimization score). It reflects the recommendations handled, not profitability. See audit and optimization.

Enhanced conversions: a feature that supplements conversion tags. It sends hashed first-party data (email address, phone number) to Google to attribute conversions better.

Consent mode: a feature that passes each visitor’s consent choice to Google and adapts tag behavior accordingly.

Auto-tagging (GCLID): automatically adding a click identifier to ad URLs. It links a click to a conversion, including a conversion imported from a CRM.

Attribution: a rule that shares the credit for a conversion among the ad interactions that preceded it. Attribution models are presented in our web analytics guide.