The terms you meet when you run Meta ads, set up tracking and work out store economics. Each entry starts with a one-sentence definition, then how it is used at work and how to plug in your own numbers, and ends with the official source we read and built it from, and the day we checked it.
69 terms · last checked 2026-10-23 · interface names follow Meta Ads Manager in English
The numbers in an Ads Manager report: how each is worked out and what it tells you.
Impressions
Impressions are the number of times an ad appeared on screen; one person seeing it twice counts twice.
How it is used
Impressions are where every ratio starts: CPM, CTR and frequency are all worked out from them. Many impressions and few clicks points at the creative or the audience, not the page.
Reach is the number of Meta accounts that saw an ad at least once; it is an estimate from sampled data, not an exact count.
How it is used
When reach stops growing while impressions keep rising, the ad is being shown to the same people again and again. Small audiences on long-running ad sets are where this shows up first.
Not to be confused with
Impressions include repeat views by the same account; reach does not.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 6: Reading ad data: the four formulas behind the report
Frequency is the average number of times each Meta account saw an ad: impressions divided by reach.
How it is used
Meta’s guidance is that results falling as frequency rises can mean the audience is tiring of the ad. Frequency is not a target on its own; read it next to cost per result.
CPM is the average cost of 1,000 ad impressions: amount spent divided by impressions, times 1,000.
Also called
Cost per mille, cost per thousand impressions
How it is used
CPM is what it costs to be seen, and it moves most with competition, audience size and season. If CPM rises while CTR and conversion rate hold, the change is in the market, not on your page.
Formula: plug in your numbers
CPM = amount spent ÷ impressions × 1,000
Plug inNT$12,000 ÷ 80,000 × 1,000 = NT$150
Not to be confused with
“Cost per 1,000 Meta Accounts reached”: the divisor is reach, not impressions, so it comes out higher than CPM.
Link clicks count the clicks, swipes and other gestures on an ad that lead to the destination the advertiser set, such as a website, an app or Messenger.
How it is used
For traffic-driving ads, read link clicks, not clicks (all): the latter includes likes, comments and opening the image, and makes CTR look better than it is.
Not to be confused with
Landing page views: a click is not a loaded page, and the gap between the two is people who left before it loaded.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 6: Reading ad data: the four formulas behind the report
CTR (link click-through rate) is link clicks as a percentage of impressions: link clicks divided by impressions.
Also called
Click-through rate
How it is used
CTR measures whether the creative and the audience fit: the opening seconds, the headline, the main image. It stops at the click; whether people buy after that is conversion rate.
Formula: plug in your numbers
CTR = link clicks ÷ impressions
Plug in1,200 ÷ 80,000 = 1.5%
Not to be confused with
CTR (all): the numerator is clicks (all), which includes likes, comments and expanding the text, so it usually runs well above link CTR.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 6: Reading ad data: the four formulas behind the report · Advanced, chapter 6: A creative testing system
Landing page views count the times someone clicked an ad and waited for the page to finish loading; they need the Meta Pixel on the site to be measured.
How it is used
Compare it with link clicks: a wide gap means the page is slow, redirects too often, or breaks in the in-app browser. It is the most overlooked step in the funnel.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Arrival rate = landing page views ÷ link clicks
Plug in960 ÷ 1,200 = 80%: 240 clicks never saw the page
Not to be confused with
“Arrival rate” is our name for the ratio; Ads Manager has no such column, so you divide it yourself.
Results are the number of times an ad achieved the outcome set by its objective and performance goal, counted under the ad set’s attribution setting.
How it is used
In one report, “results” can mean different things for different ad sets (purchases for one, link clicks for another). Check what the results column is counting before comparing.
Not to be confused with
Results are not necessarily what you are charged for: results can count purchases while Meta charges by impression.
CPA is the average amount spent to get one result (a purchase, a lead or whatever conversion you chose): amount spent divided by results. Meta Ads Manager calls it “cost per result”.
Also called
Cost per result, cost per action, cost per acquisition
How it is used
CPA only means something against the most you can afford to pay, and that ceiling comes from your margin, not an industry average. Add budget while reported CPA sits under it; above it, find which step got more expensive first.
Formula: plug in your numbers
CPA = amount spent ÷ results
Plug inNT$12,000 ÷ 40 purchases = NT$300
Not to be confused with
“Cost per result goal” is a bid strategy, a target you hand the system to hold; CPA is the result measured afterwards. The two rarely match exactly.
CPL is the average cost of one lead: the cost per result when the result is a lead.
Also called
Cost per lead
How it is used
For a lead business, the CPL ceiling is worked back from a sale: what one sale can afford, times the share of leads that become sales. Pushing CPL down without watching sales tends to buy lots of leads that never close.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Max CPL = affordable cost per sale × lead-to-sale rate
Plug inA sale can afford NT$3,000 and 1 in 10 leads closes → NT$3,000 × 10% = NT$300
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 5: Unit economics: every number you can afford, worked back from margin · Advanced, chapter 4: Leak map: from impression to payment
Working the CPL ceiling back from sales (how the course does it) · our definition, not a platform metric
Conversion rate
Conversion rate is conversions (a purchase, say) as a share of the step before them; the denominator (clicks, page views or sessions) has to be stated, because changing it gives a different number.
Also called
CVR
How it is used
Conversion rate measures what happens after the click: the page, the price, the checkout. High CTR with low conversion rate usually means the page does not match what the ad promised, or checkout is getting stuck.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Conversion rate = conversions ÷ the base (landing page views, clicks or sessions)
Plug inPer landing page view: 40 ÷ 960 = 4.2%; per link click: 40 ÷ 1,200 = 3.3%
Not to be confused with
GA4’s session key event rate: the base is sessions, and a session counts once however many events it has, so it cannot be compared directly with an ad platform’s conversion rate.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 6: Reading ad data: the four formulas behind the report · Advanced, chapter 4: Leak map: from impression to payment · Basic, chapter 4: Landing pages: layout and conversion structure
ROAS (return on ad spend) is the revenue attributed to ads divided by what the ads cost: spend NT$1, get NT$4 of revenue, and ROAS is 4.
Also called
Return on ad spend
How it is used
ROAS counts revenue, not profit. To tell whether you are making money, work out break-even ROAS from your gross margin first; only a reported ROAS above it is profitable. The ROAS in a Meta report is counted under the attribution setting and will differ from what your store actually took.
Formula: plug in your numbers
ROAS = conversion value from ads ÷ ad spend
Plug inNT$48,000 ÷ NT$12,000 = 4.0 (Meta shows 4.00; some write it as 400%)
Not to be confused with
ROI: ROI has profit on top, ROAS has revenue. A ROAS of 4 loses money in a business with a 20% gross margin.
ThruPlay counts video plays of at least 15 seconds (or 6, depending on the setting); for a shorter video, watching 97% of it counts.
How it is used
ThruPlay is both a performance goal and a report column, suited to awareness and engagement objectives. For ads that sell, do not judge on it: watching to the end is not buying.
The numbers outside the ad report that decide how much you can afford to pay for a sale.
Average order valueAOV (average order value)
Average order value is the average amount of one order: revenue divided by the number of orders.
Also called
AOV, average purchase revenue
How it is used
Order value sets how much ad cost each order can carry: at the same margin, double the order value and the CPA ceiling doubles. Raising order value with bundles or add-ons is often easier than pushing CPA down, but it can lower conversion rate, so watch both.
Formula: plug in your numbers
AOV = revenue ÷ orders
Plug inNT$48,000 ÷ 40 orders = NT$1,200
Not to be confused with
GA4’s average purchase revenue per active user divides by active users, including people who bought nothing, so it is not order value. GA4’s “average purchase revenue” is the per-purchase figure.
Gross margin is the share of the selling price left after the cost of the goods: (revenue − cost of goods sold) ÷ revenue.
How it is used
Gross margin is where every ad ceiling starts: break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ gross margin. Take out the costs every order incurs (payment fees, shipping, packaging) or the ceiling comes out too high.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Gross margin = (price − cost) ÷ price
Plug in(NT$1,200 − NT$600) ÷ NT$1,200 = 50%
Not to be confused with
Markup: the base is cost, not price. Cost 600 sold at 1,200 is a 100% markup and a 50% gross margin.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 5: Unit economics: every number you can afford, worked back from margin
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
Contribution margin
Contribution margin is what one order leaves after every cost that comes with it (goods, payment fees, shipping, packaging, returns) and it is the most that order can pay for advertising.
How it is used
Work the CPA ceiling from contribution margin rather than gross margin, or you can be losing money while the numbers look profitable.
Intermediate, chapter 5: Unit economics: every number you can afford, worked back from margin · Advanced, chapter 8: E-commerce economics: order value, bundles and repeat purchase
Official sources
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
Break-even ROAS
Break-even ROAS is the ROAS at which the ads exactly pay for themselves: 1 divided by the gross margin (or contribution margin rate).
Also called
BEROAS
How it is used
Above it, the ads make money; below it, every sale loses some. Treat it as a stop line, not a target: the target should sit higher to absorb attribution error and fixed costs.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ gross margin
Plug in1 ÷ 50% = 2.0; on a 33% contribution margin it is 1 ÷ 33% ≈ 3.0
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 5: Unit economics: every number you can afford, worked back from margin
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
Maximum CPAMaximum affordable CPA
Maximum CPA is the most you can pay in ads for one purchase before it loses money; it equals one order’s contribution margin.
Also called
Break-even CPA, affordable CPA
How it is used
From the CPA ceiling you can work up the funnel: multiply by conversion rate for a CPC ceiling, then by CTR and 1,000 for a CPM ceiling, so every step has its own stop line.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Max CPA = AOV × contribution margin rate; max CPC = max CPA × click conversion rate
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
LTVLTV (customer lifetime value)
LTV (customer lifetime value) is the total revenue or margin one customer brings in over a period starting from their first purchase.
Also called
Customer lifetime value, CLV
How it is used
LTV tells you how much a first order can lose: with steady repeat buying, first-order CPA can exceed one order’s contribution margin and be earned back later. Measure the payback by monthly cohorts, not an all-time average.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Simple LTV = AOV × average purchases in the period × contribution margin rate
Plug inNT$1,200 × 1.8 × 33% ≈ NT$713 of margin over 12 months
Not to be confused with
GA4’s lifetime value reports count revenue, and only the purchases GA4 can see.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 8: E-commerce economics: order value, bundles and repeat purchase
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
Repeat purchase rate
Repeat purchase rate is the share of customers in a period who bought more than once.
How it is used
Measure it over a fixed window and by first-purchase month to see whether it is getting better; mixing old and new customers lets the old ones prop it up.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Repeat rate = customers with 2+ orders in the period ÷ customers who ordered in the period
Plug in200 first-time buyers in January, 46 bought again within 90 days → 23%
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 8: E-commerce economics: order value, bundles and repeat purchase
Official sources
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
CACCAC (customer acquisition cost)
CAC is the average cost of winning one new customer: marketing spend in the period divided by new customers.
Also called
Customer acquisition cost
How it is used
All channels’ spend divided by the new customers your store actually recorded is blended CAC. It is immune to platforms double-counting each other, which makes it the one to set against LTV.
Formula: plug in your numbers
CAC = marketing spend ÷ new customers
Plug inNT$12,000 ÷ 30 new customers = NT$400
Not to be confused with
CPA: CPA divides by results, which can include returning customers; CAC counts new customers only.
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
MERMER (marketing efficiency ratio)
MER is the whole store’s revenue divided by all ad spend, ignoring every platform’s attribution.
Also called
Marketing efficiency ratio, blended ROAS
How it is used
The ROAS each platform reports often adds up to more revenue than you took, because several platforms claim the same order. MER is the number you reconcile against.
Formula: plug in your numbers
MER = total revenue ÷ total ad spend
Plug inNT$300,000 monthly revenue ÷ NT$100,000 across all channels = 3.0
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 10: Incrementality: how much the ads really added
Official sources
Margin and unit economics (general accounting; no ad platform defines it) · our definition, not a platform metric
Campaign setup
Structure, audiences, budgets and bidding in Meta Ads Manager.
Campaign, ad set and adCampaign, ad set, ad
Meta Ads Manager has three levels: the campaign sets the objective, the ad set sets audience, placements, budget and schedule, and the ad holds the creative, text and identity.
Also called
The three ad levels
How it is used
Before changing something, place it on the right level: a new audience is an ad set change, a new image is a new ad. Changing the wrong level often sends the whole ad set back into learning.
The campaign objective is the overall aim chosen at campaign level; Meta currently offers six: awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion and sales.
Also called
Ad objective
How it is used
The objective decides what kind of person the system looks for. To sell, choose sales; traffic finds people who click, not necessarily people who buy.
Not to be confused with
Performance goal: chosen at ad set level, it decides which result the system bids for; one objective can carry different performance goals.
The performance goal is the result you want the delivery system to bid for in the auction; it is set at ad set level and need not match the campaign objective.
Also called
Optimisation goal, optimisation event
How it is used
The system works only toward what you pick. Landing page views finds people who arrive; conversions on purchase finds people who buy. Some goals need the Meta Pixel installed first.
Every time there is a chance to show someone an ad, Meta runs an auction and the ad with the highest total value wins; total value combines the bid, the estimated action rate and ad quality.
How it is used
Because relevance counts, a better ad can beat a higher bid. A rising CPM is not always a bid that is too low; ad quality or relevance may have slipped.
The learning phase is the period after a new ad set, or a significant edit, while the delivery system is still working out how to deliver it; it usually ends after about 50 results within a week of the last significant edit.
Also called
Learning
How it is used
Meta says results are less stable and CPA is usually higher while learning, so do not judge on learning-phase numbers. A budget too small to reach about 50 results a week leaves the ad set in “learning limited”.
Not to be confused with
“Learning limited” is not a penalty; it is the system saying there are too few results to learn from.
A significant edit is a change that sends an ad set back into learning, such as changing targeting, creative or the optimisation event, adding an ad, pausing for 7 days or more, or changing the bid strategy.
How it is used
Batch your changes rather than nudging something every day. A small budget change (Meta’s example: US$100 to US$101) does not reset learning; a large one (US$100 to US$1,000) may.
Where the course puts it to work
Basic, chapter 7: Budget, bidding and the learning phase
Advantage+ campaign budget sets one budget at campaign level and lets the system share it across the ad sets underneath for the best overall result.
Also called
Campaign budget
How it is used
It does not split evenly: the better ad set takes most of the money. If an ad set must get spend (a new creative test, say) keep testing apart from scaling.
Not to be confused with
Ad set budget: each ad set has its own budget and spends it separately.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 5: Account structure and scaling · Basic, chapter 7: Budget, bidding and the learning phase
The bid strategy tells Meta’s ad system how to bid for you in the auction; there are three kinds: spend-based (highest volume, highest value), goal-based (cost per result goal, ROAS goal) and manual (bid cap).
How it is used
Early on, with little data, highest volume lets the system spend; once results are steady and you know your CPA ceiling, a goal-based strategy can hold the cost. Meta recommends 50 to 100+ conversions a week for goal-based bidding.
Where the course puts it to work
Basic, chapter 7: Budget, bidding and the learning phase · Advanced, chapter 5: Account structure and scaling
Cost per result goal is a goal-based bid strategy: you set a target average cost per result and the system gets as many results as it can while keeping the weekly average near the target.
How it is used
Set the goal a little under the CPA ceiling you worked out. When competition is fierce the system may underspend to protect the cost; that is expected behaviour, not a fault.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 5: Account structure and scaling
ROAS goal is a goal-based bid strategy: the system gets the most conversion value it can while keeping the weekly average ROAS near your target; it requires the maximise value of conversions performance goal.
How it is used
Meta writes it as a decimal: to get about 110 back for every 100 spent, set 1.100. Set it above your break-even ROAS, or the system will be holding you at a loss.
Formula: plug in your numbers
ROAS goal = conversion value you want ÷ spend
Plug inBreak-even ROAS is 2.0 and you want 20% headroom → set 2.400
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 7: E-commerce campaigns: catalogs, dynamic retargeting and value bidding
Bid cap is a manual bid strategy that limits the highest bid in each auction; it caps the bid, not the cost per result you end up with.
How it is used
It suits advertisers who know exactly what bid always loses money. If the aim is just to control the average cost, Meta points to cost per result goal instead.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 5: Account structure and scaling
Maximise value of conversions is a performance goal that steers delivery toward people likely to spend more, aiming for the highest total conversion value from the budget rather than the most conversions.
Also called
Value optimisation
How it is used
It only works if every purchase sends the right amount. Meta says value signals must be sent with the Conversions API (required) and the Meta Pixel; a missing or wrong value teaches the system the wrong thing.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 7: E-commerce campaigns: catalogs, dynamic retargeting and value bidding
Advantage+ audience lets Meta’s AI find the audience instead of you defining it; the criteria you add become suggestions rather than limits.
How it is used
It finds people from past conversions, pixel data and ad engagement, so the cleaner your pixel and event data, the better it targets. Conditions that must hold, such as minimum age or location, go in the audience controls.
A custom audience is built from your own data (website visitors, customer lists, app activity, catalogue interactions) or from engagement on Meta, and is mostly used for retargeting and for excluding existing customers.
Also called
Custom audiences
How it is used
Website custom audiences need the Meta Pixel. Using one to exclude people who already bought is often more useful than chasing them again.
A lookalike audience is a new audience the system finds by matching the traits of a source audience, such as existing customers; a smaller percentage is closer to the source, a larger one reaches further.
Also called
Lookalikes
How it is used
The quality of the source matters more than its size: your best customers usually make a better source than all of them. It is restricted for some financial, employment and housing ads.
Retargeting is showing ads to people who have already been in touch with you, such as visitors in the last 30 days who added to cart and did not check out.
Also called
Remarketing
How it is used
Retargeting ROAS usually looks great, but some of those people would have come back anyway. To know what it adds, look at incrementality, not attributed ROAS alone.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 3: Meta Pixel event design · Advanced, chapter 7: E-commerce campaigns: catalogs, dynamic retargeting and value bidding
Advantage+ catalogue ads pick the most relevant items from your product catalogue for each person, based on their interests and actions, using event data from the Meta Pixel or SDK.
Also called
Dynamic ads (former name), DPA
How it is used
For it to match products, pixel events must carry product IDs that match the catalogue’s. A low match rate leaves the ad showing generic items.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 7: E-commerce campaigns: catalogs, dynamic retargeting and value bidding
Meta recommends Advantage+ placements so the system can choose. Different placements need different aspect ratios, so prepare vertical and square versions or Stories and Reels will crop them.
Where the course puts it to work
Basic, chapter 8: Creative and copy specs · Basic, chapter 10: Publishing your first campaign and the first week
An A/B test shows two versions of an ad strategy that differ in one variable to non-overlapping parts of the audience and compares which performs better.
Also called
Split test
How it is used
Change one variable at a time, or a win cannot be traced to anything. Meta advises against informal tests such as switching ad sets on and off by hand, because the audiences and timing differ.
Creative fatigue is when an audience has seen the same creative too often, stops engaging with it, and the cost per result rises.
Also called
Ad fatigue
How it is used
Meta flags it in the delivery column. The fix is to add a clearly different new creative and keep the old one running, rather than switching the old one off.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 6: A creative testing system · Advanced, chapter 11: When results drop: a diagnosis sequence and the weekly report
Incrementality is the conversions that happened because of the ads: how many more the exposed group had than a comparable group that saw none.
Also called
Lift, incremental lift
How it is used
Attribution answers “who gets credit for this order”; incrementality answers “would we have lost it without the ad”. Retargeting and brand-name ads can show high attributed ROAS and little lift.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Cost per conversion lift = spend in the test ÷ incremental conversions
Plug inNT$12,000 spent, 24 more purchases than the control → NT$500 each
Not to be confused with
Attribution: it assigns credit to touchpoints and never asks what would have happened without the ad.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 10: Incrementality: how much the ads really added
Pixel, Conversions API, GA4, GTM and attribution: where the numbers come from.
Meta Pixel
The Meta Pixel is a small piece of code on a website that records what visitors do there (actions called events, such as add to cart or purchase) and sends them to Meta to measure ads, build audiences and optimise delivery.
Also called
Facebook Pixel
How it is used
Without the pixel, Meta knows who clicked an ad but not who bought: purchase-optimised ad sets, website custom audiences and catalogue ads all stop working. After installing it, click through with the Test Events tool to see each event arrive.
Not to be confused with
Dataset: the pixel’s events are organised into a dataset, which can also take Conversions API and app events. Events Manager now mostly shows dataset IDs.
A dataset is the container Meta organises events in, linking events from the pixel, the Conversions API, apps and offline sources.
How it is used
Use one dataset per website. Meta only treats events as duplicates when they reach the same pixel ID within 48 hours with the same event_name and event_id; split across IDs, they cannot be deduplicated.
Standard events are events Meta has predefined by name (ViewContent, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout, Purchase, Lead and so on) used to record conversions, optimise delivery and build audiences.
How it is used
Use a standard event wherever one fits rather than naming your own: the system knows what a standard event means, while a custom name only tells it that something happened. Meta’s reference lists currency and value as required for Purchase.
Not to be confused with
Custom conversion: not a new event but a filter over existing events by URL or parameter rules.
A custom conversion is a rule in Meta Events Manager that filters existing events by URL or event parameters into a conversion you can optimise and report on.
How it is used
It suits cases like counting purchases from one product category only, or only visits to a thank-you URL, without changing site code.
An event is a recorded instance of something a user did on a site or app: a page view, a button click, a purchase; both the Meta Pixel and GA4 are built on events.
How it is used
Before installing any tracking, write an event map: what each action is called in GTM, GA4 and Meta and which parameters it carries. When the three disagree later, you have something to check against.
The Conversions API (CAPI) sends events to Meta directly from your server, site platform or CRM, without going through the visitor’s browser.
Also called
CAPI, server-side events
How it is used
Browser-side pixel events get lost to ad blockers, privacy settings and pages closed too early; CAPI brings those back. Meta recommends running the pixel and CAPI together, and when both send the same event it must be deduplicated.
Not to be confused with
Conversions API Gateway: Meta’s hosted option, for sending server events without writing the server code yourself.
Deduplication lets Meta recognise that the pixel and the Conversions API sent the same event and count it once; both sides send the same event_name and event_id.
Also called
Dedup
How it is used
Without it, purchases count twice, conversion rate and ROAS inflate, and the system optimises on the wrong numbers. Generate the event_id once in the browser and hand the same one to the pixel and to your server.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 1: Meta CAPI server-side events · Intermediate, chapter 3: Meta Pixel event design
Event match quality is Meta’s 0-to-10 score for Conversions API website events, showing how well the customer information sent with each event matches it to a Meta account.
Also called
EMQ
How it is used
The score uses the last 48 hours of data. Meta ranks email and click ID (fbc) as high priority, so send them where you can (email hashed). The more events match, the more complete the reported conversions.
Test Events is a live view in Meta Events Manager that shows whether the events you just triggered on a site, app or server reached Meta, and with which parameters.
How it is used
After every tracking change, walk through it (view, add to cart, check out) and watch each event appear, whether it came from the browser or the server, and whether it was deduplicated. Meta says events should show within about a minute; if not, turn off ad blockers and retry.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 3: Meta Pixel event design · Advanced, chapter 1: Meta CAPI server-side events
fbclid is the click ID appended to the URL when someone clicks a Meta ad; the pixel stores it in the _fbc cookie, while _fbp is the pixel’s ID for that browser, and both can be sent with Conversions API events to help matching.
Also called
ClickID
How it is used
Redirects and multi-page forms often drop fbclid along the way. Before launch, click your own ad and check that the last page still has it in the URL or the cookie.
Conversion value is the amount sent with a conversion event (Purchase’s value plus currency) which Meta uses to calculate ROAS and to optimise for value.
Also called
Purchase conversion value
How it is used
Decide whether value is the full total with tax and shipping or the goods amount, use it everywhere, and write it into the event map. If it changes from place to place, ROAS will never reconcile with your store.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 4: E-commerce tracking after moving to a shop platform · Advanced, chapter 7: E-commerce campaigns: catalogs, dynamic retargeting and value bidding
Attribution is the set of rules that assigns credit for a conversion, such as a purchase, to the ads, clicks and channels a person touched before it.
How it is used
Each tool claims conversions by its own rules: Meta uses its attribution setting (by default 7-day click, 1-day view and 1-day engaged-view), GA4 uses its own models (data-driven, last click) and gives no credit to direct visits. Meta, GA4 and your store will never agree exactly; what matters is whether the gap is stable.
Not to be confused with
Incrementality: attribution shares out credit; incrementality asks whether the sale would have happened without the ad.
The attribution setting is the ad-set-level rule for which conversions count toward an ad, by how long and what kind of contact: 1 or 7 days after a click, 1 day after a view, 1 day after an engagement.
Also called
Attribution window
How it is used
Meta now limits “click” to link clicks; non-link clicks (likes, comments, opening the image) and video plays of 5 seconds go to “engaged-view”. The change is still rolling out and some accounts use the old version. Before comparing reports from different periods, check the attribution settings match.
Not to be confused with
Incremental attribution: a separate mode that models whether a conversion was caused by the ad; its results cannot be compared with standard attribution.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 6: Reading ad data: the four formulas behind the report
UTM parameters are tags added to a URL that tell Google Analytics which source, medium and campaign the traffic came from; utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign are required.
Also called
UTM tags, URL parameters
How it is used
Use one naming scheme for the whole account and keep the case consistent (GA4 treats Facebook and facebook as two sources). In Meta ads, dynamic parameters can fill in the campaign, ad set and ad names so you are not typing each one.
fbclid: the click ID Meta adds automatically for its own matching; GA4 does not use it to label the source.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 7: Reading GA4: traffic, the shopping funnel and three-way reconciliation · Intermediate, chapter 4: E-commerce tracking after moving to a shop platform
GA4 is Google’s analytics tool for websites and apps, collecting data based on events rather than sessions; the old Universal Analytics stopped processing data on 1 July 2023.
Also called
Google Analytics 4, Google Analytics
How it is used
For Meta advertisers, GA4 is a second set of books that belongs to no ad platform: split traffic by UTM, see what happens after arrival (where people leave, which checkout step loses them), and reconcile it with Meta and your store.
Not to be confused with
GTM: GTM is where tags are deployed, GA4 is where data is collected and reported. A common setup installs GA4 through GTM.
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 2: GA4 setup and events · Intermediate, chapter 7: Reading GA4: traffic, the shopping funnel and three-way reconciliation
A key event is a GA4 event you have marked as important to the business, such as purchase or generate_lead; only once marked does it appear in key event reports and rate metrics.
Also called
Conversion (former GA4 name)
How it is used
When the conversions column stays at zero, the usual reason is that the event arrives but was never marked as a key event. Marking needs Marketer access or higher.
In GA4, an engaged session lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event, or has 2 or more page views; engagement rate is engaged sessions as a percentage of all sessions.
How it is used
Compare the engagement rate of ad traffic with organic: unusually low engagement from ads usually means the wrong audience, or a page that does not match the ad’s promise.
Formula: plug in your numbers
Engagement rate = engaged sessions ÷ sessions
Plug in620 ÷ 1,000 = 62%
Where the course puts it to work
Intermediate, chapter 7: Reading GA4: traffic, the shopping funnel and three-way reconciliation
In GA4, bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that were not engaged sessions: exactly 1 minus engagement rate.
How it is used
In GA4 a one-page visit longer than 10 seconds is not a bounce. The definition differs from Universal Analytics, so bounce rates from the two cannot be compared.
A custom dimension registers a custom parameter you send with GA4 events so that it can be queried and grouped in reports and explorations.
How it is used
When a parameter is sent but cannot be found in reports, it usually was never registered as a custom dimension. Google says a new one takes 24 to 48 hours to become usable, so register it before launch.
GTM (Google Tag Manager) is a tag management system: install its container code on the site once, then set up and publish tracking tags such as GA4 and the Meta Pixel from the GTM interface without editing the site each time.
Also called
Google Tag Manager
How it is used
GTM is built from three things: tags (the tracking code to run), triggers (when to run it) and variables (the values it needs). Test every change in Preview mode before publishing a new version.
Not to be confused with
GA4: GTM neither collects data nor reports; it only deploys the tags.
A GTM trigger listens for a type of event on the page (a page view, a click, a form submission, a custom event) and fires or blocks the matching tags when it occurs.
How it is used
Prefer a dataLayer custom event as the trigger over “click on some CSS class”: a redesign that renames the class silently breaks the trigger.
A GTM variable is a named value read when a tag or trigger runs, such as the click URL, the page path, or an order value read from the dataLayer.
Also called
Built-in and user-defined variables
How it is used
Click built-in variables (Click URL, Click Text and so on) read the gtm.element keys a click trigger writes into the dataLayer; without a click trigger they are empty.
The data layer (dataLayer) is the JavaScript object GTM and gtag.js use to pass information from the page to tags; you push events and variables into it and triggers act on them.
Also called
dataLayer
How it is used
Have the site push an event and its data at the key moments (a form sent, a purchase made) and let GTM just listen. Tracking then survives redesigns, and GA4 and Meta get the same numbers.
Formula: plug in your numbers
dataLayer.push({ event: 'event_name', parameter: value })
The in-app browser is the browser inside the Facebook and Instagram apps that opens web links; ad links open there by default rather than in the phone’s own browser.
Also called
Embedded browser
How it is used
It is a separate environment from the phone’s default browser; people can switch to the system browser from the menu, but most do not. In our testing, the flows that break most often here are sign-in, third-party log-ins and redirects to external payment pages, so click through from a real ad and complete a checkout before launch.
Where the course puts it to work
Advanced, chapter 4: Leak map: from impression to payment
Every term was checked against the Meta Business Help Center, Google’s help pages or developer docs, with the date we opened the page. Terms no platform defines (break-even ROAS, contribution margin) are marked “our definition, not a platform metric”.
What if the name in my account is different?
Names follow Meta Ads Manager in English; the Chinese name used in Taiwan is listed on the Chinese edition. Meta renames things between releases, so match on the English name and the definition rather than the label.
I know the term. How do I use it in my own account?
Each entry’s “Where the course puts it to work” points at a chapter: Basic covers campaign setup, Intermediate tracking and cost maths, Advanced CAPI, attribution and scaling. The opening chapters of each level are free to read.
How do I work out my ROAS and CPA thresholds?
Use the ad math calculators on this site: enter price, cost, shipping and fees to get break-even ROAS, max CPA and the conversion rate you need. The maths runs in your browser.
Looking a term up is the easy part. Wiring it into your own account is the course.