Facebook and Instagram advertising glossary

An A/B test compares two versions of an ad, audience or setting to see which performs better. Meta offers a built-in A/B testing tool.

ABO means each ad set has its own fixed budget. It gives advertisers precise control over how much each test receives.

An ad angle is the core reason to buy that an ad emphasises. The same product can be sold with many different angles.

Ad fatigue happens when the same people see an ad so often that it stops working. Results decline and costs rise.

An ad library is a searchable database of ads. The Meta Ad Library shows ads running across Facebook, Instagram and other Meta platforms.

Ad review is Meta's process of checking ads against its advertising standards before and during delivery. Ads can be approved, limited or rejected.

Ad scheduling shows ads only at chosen times of day or days of the week. On Meta it requires a lifetime budget.

An ad set is the level of a Meta campaign where budget (with ABO), schedule, audience, placements and optimisation are defined. Each ad set contains one or more ads.

An ad spy tool helps marketers find and analyse competitor ads at scale. It adds search, filters, saving and tracking on top of public ad data.

Add to cart rate is the share of visitors who add a product to their cart. It is an early signal of purchase intent.

Advantage+ is Meta's family of automated advertising features. It uses machine learning to handle targeting, placements, creative variations and budget.

Advantage+ catalog ads, formerly dynamic product ads, automatically show products from your catalog to people likely to buy them. They are popular for retargeting.

Advantage+ placements lets Meta show your ads wherever results are likely to be cheapest across its apps. It replaced the older automatic placements setting.

An Advantage+ shopping campaign is an automated Meta campaign type built for online sales. It combines automated targeting, placements and budget allocation in one campaign.

Aggregated event measurement is Meta's protocol for measuring web events from iOS users who opt out of tracking. It limits and delays some reporting.

AOV is the average amount a customer spends per order. Raising it is one of the easiest ways to make advertising more profitable.

Aspect ratio is the shape of an image or video, written as width to height. Meta placements favour 9:16, 4:5 and 1:1.

The attribution window is the period after someone sees or clicks an ad during which a conversion is credited to that ad. Meta's common default is 7-day click and 1-day view.

A bid cap sets the maximum amount Meta can bid in any single auction. It gives the most control but can limit delivery.

A boosted post is an existing organic post promoted with ad spend directly from a page or profile. It is simpler but less flexible than Ads Manager campaigns.

Break-even ROAS is the return on ad spend where ad revenue exactly covers product costs and ad spend. Below it you lose money.

Broad targeting uses minimal audience restrictions, often only location, age and gender. It lets Meta's algorithm find buyers based on creative and signals.

CAC is the total cost to acquire one new customer. Unlike CPA, it often includes all marketing and sales costs, not only ad spend.

The call to action is the button on an ad, such as Shop now, Learn more or Sign up. It tells people what to do next.

Campaign budget optimisation sets the budget at campaign level and lets Meta distribute it across ad sets. Meta now calls it Advantage campaign budget.

The campaign objective tells Meta what outcome you want, such as sales, leads or awareness. It shapes who Meta shows your ads to.

A carousel ad shows two to ten swipeable images or videos in one ad. Each card can have its own headline and link.

A collection ad combines a cover image or video with product images below, opening into an instant shopping experience. It is designed for mobile browsing.

A conversion lift test compares people who saw your ads with a holdout group who did not. It estimates incremental results.

Conversion rate is the share of visitors or clicks that complete a desired action, such as a purchase. It links ad performance to business results.

The Conversions API sends conversion events from your server directly to Meta. It makes tracking more reliable than the browser pixel alone.

A cost cap is a bid strategy that tells Meta to keep your average cost per result near a target. It trades some volume for cost control.

Cost per ThruPlay is the average cost for each video view of at least 15 seconds or to completion. It is used for video view campaigns.

CPA is what you pay in ad spend to get one conversion, such as a purchase or lead. It is the core efficiency metric for performance campaigns.

CPC is the average amount you pay for each click on your ad. For ecommerce the most useful version is cost per link click.

CPL is the average cost to generate one lead, such as a form submission or sign-up. It is the main metric for lead generation campaigns.

CPM is the cost of showing an ad one thousand times. It reflects how competitive and expensive it is to reach your audience.

A creative brief is a short document telling creators what to make and why. It turns strategy into a clear production plan.

Creative testing is the structured process of launching ad variations to learn which concepts, formats and hooks perform best. It is the main growth lever in modern Meta advertising.

CTR is the share of impressions that result in a click. It is the clearest signal of whether an ad's hook and creative create interest.

A custom audience is a group of people you already know, such as website visitors, customers or video viewers. It is the basis of retargeting.

Dynamic creative lets you upload several images, videos, headlines and texts that Meta combines automatically. It finds the best performing combinations for each person.

Engagement rate measures likes, comments, shares and saves relative to impressions or reach. It shows how much an ad resonates.

Event match quality is a Meta score showing how well your server events can be matched to Meta accounts. Higher scores help optimisation and measurement.

Frequency is the average number of times each person has seen your ad. It is impressions divided by reach.

The headline is the short bold text near the call to action button. About 40 characters avoids truncation on most placements.

The highest volume strategy, formerly called lowest cost, tells Meta to get as many results as possible for your budget. It is the default bid strategy.

Hold rate measures how many people keep watching a video beyond the hook. It shows whether the story keeps attention.

The hook is the opening line or first three seconds of an ad that grabs attention. It decides whether people keep watching or reading.

Hook rate is the share of video impressions where people watch at least the first three seconds. It measures how well your opening stops the scroll.

Impressions are the number of times your ads were shown on screen. One person can generate many impressions.

Incrementality measures the sales that happened because of advertising and would not have happened otherwise. It is the true impact of ads.

Interest targeting restricts ads to people Meta associates with specific interests or behaviours. It was once the main way to find audiences.

The landing page is where people arrive after clicking an ad. Its speed, relevance and offer strongly affect conversion rate.

The learning phase is the period when Meta explores how best to deliver a new or significantly edited ad set. Performance is often unstable during it.

A lookalike audience is a group of people Meta finds who resemble a source audience, such as your customers. It was a standard prospecting tool for years.

LTV is the total revenue or profit a customer generates over their relationship with your brand. It tells you how much you can afford to pay to acquire a customer.

MER, also called blended ROAS, is total revenue divided by total marketing spend. It measures overall efficiency regardless of attribution.

The Meta Pixel is a piece of code on your website that reports visits and actions to Meta. It lets Meta optimise ads and measure conversions.

The offer is what the customer gets and the terms, such as price, bundle, bonus or guarantee. A strong offer can lift results as much as new creative.

Partnership ads run from a creator's or partner's handle together with the brand's. They were formerly called branded content ads or whitelisting.

Placements are the places your ads appear, such as Facebook Feed, Instagram Reels, Stories, Messenger and the Audience Network.

Primary text is the main body copy that appears above an ad's image or video. Meta shows about the first 125 characters before truncating on many placements.

Prospecting means advertising to people who have not interacted with your brand yet. It is how brands grow their customer base.

Reach is the number of unique people who saw your ad at least once. It differs from impressions, which count every view.

Reels ads are full-screen vertical video ads shown between Reels on Instagram and Facebook. They feel native to short-form video viewing.

Retargeting shows ads to people who have already interacted with your brand. It converts warm interest into purchases.

ROAS measures how much revenue your ads generate for every unit of currency spent. A ROAS of 3 means three dollars of revenue for every dollar of ad spend.

A ROAS goal, or minimum ROAS bid strategy, asks Meta to aim for a target return on ad spend. It requires purchase value tracking.

Scaling means increasing spend on profitable campaigns while keeping results stable. It can be vertical or horizontal.

Scarcity and urgency encourage people to act now, using limited stock or deadlines. They must be genuine to be effective and compliant.

Social proof is evidence that other people use and like a product. It reduces risk for new buyers.

Special ad categories apply to ads about credit, employment, housing, and social issues or politics. They come with targeting restrictions.

Stories ads appear between Stories on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. They are full-screen vertical placements viewed briefly.

A swipe file is a curated collection of ads and copy saved for inspiration. Creative teams use it to brief new ads.

A ThruPlay is counted when a video is watched to completion or for at least 15 seconds. It is Meta's main video view metric.

Thumb-stop ratio describes how often an ad makes people stop scrolling. It is commonly used as another name for hook rate.

UGC ads use content that looks and feels like it was created by real customers. They often outperform polished brand ads on social platforms.

UTM parameters are tags added to a URL that tell analytics tools where a visit came from. They include source, medium, campaign, content and term.

Value optimisation tells Meta to find people likely to spend more, not just people likely to buy. It needs purchase value data.

Video retention shows how many viewers are still watching at each point of a video. It reveals where people drop off.

A winning ad is one that reliably delivers profitable results and keeps running. In public ad libraries, long running time is the clearest sign of a winner.