Performance

CPL (Cost Per Lead) - the cost of one targeted lead: divide the budget by the number of leads. The main indicator of payback in performance campaigns.

CPC (Cost Per Click) - the cost of one click on an ad. The price is determined by the advertising auction on platforms such as VK Ads, Yandex Direct and Telegram Ads.

CPA (Cost Per Action) - the cost of one target action: purchase, registration, subscription. CPL is a special case of CPA where action = lead.

CPM (Cost Per Mille) - the cost of 1000 ad impressions. Used in brand campaigns and media advertising, where the main goal is reach, not clicks.

CTR (Click-Through Rate) is the percentage of people who clicked on an ad compared to those who saw it. The main indicator of creative performance.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) - revenue ÷ advertising budget. ROAS 3× means each invested ruble returned 3 rubles in revenue.

ROI (Return on Investment) - (profit − investment) ÷ investment × 100%. Unlike ROAS, it takes into account cost, not just revenue.

LTV (Lifetime Value) is the total revenue from one client for the entire time. Main metric for subscriptions, e-com with repeat purchases, b2b.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) - the total cost of attracting one client: advertising budget, team, tools ÷ number of clients.

Performance marketing is an advertising model where you pay only for measurable results (click, lead, sale), and not for reach.

Look-alike is an algorithmically found audience similar to your existing clients. The strongest tool in VK Ads, Ya.Direct.

Retargeting is advertising to those who have already touched the brand: been on the site, in the bot, looked at the product. The cheapest CPL is a “warm” audience.

YAN (Yandex Advertising Network) - displaying Direct ads on partner sites and applications, and not in search. Cheap reach, colder traffic.

Creative burnout is a drop in CTR and an increase in CPL due to the fact that the audience has seen the ad too many times. Treated by rotation of creatives.

AOV (Average Order Value) - average order value: revenue ÷ number of orders. AOV growth improves unit economics without increasing the advertising budget.

Programmatic - automatic purchase of advertising through auctions in real time. The algorithm decides who to show and for how much, without manual placement.

Impression frequency - how many times on average one person saw the ad. Low - they won’t remember, high - burnout. The optimum is usually 3–5.

ERID is a unique advertising marking token assigned by ORD. Mandatory for all paid placements in Russia from 2023.

ORD is an advertising data operator, an accredited intermediary between the advertiser and the state registry ERIR.

Negative keywords are a list of queries for which the ad is not shown. They clean traffic in Yandex Direct and reduce CPL.

Quality Score - an assessment of the relevance of an ad from 1 to 10 in Google Ads and an analogue in Direct. Affects the price per click in the auction.

Smart Bidding - automatic bidding strategies based on ML: Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximize Conversions.

Click Fraud is an artificial increase in clicks on an ad by competitors or bots in order to drain the advertiser’s budget.

Pixel is a JavaScript snippet on a website that records the actions of visitors and transmits events to the advertising platform.

Custom Audience is an audience created from your own data: the CRM database, site visitors through the pixel who have seen the advertisement.

Brand Safety is a set of settings and tools that prevent brand advertising from being displayed next to inappropriate content.

Viewability - the proportion of impressions during which the banner was actually visible: ≥50% of the screen area for ≥1 second (MRC standard).

Frequency Cap - limiting the number of impressions to one user per period. Prevents audience burnout and banner blindness.

DSP (Demand-Side Platform) is a platform for automatically purchasing advertising impressions through RTB auctions from a variety of publishers.

SSP (Supply-Side Platform) is a platform for publishers that puts advertising inventory on RTB auctions and maximizes revenue from the site.

PPC (Pay Per Click) is an advertising payment model in which the advertiser pays only for a click on an ad, and not for display.

An auction in advertising is a pricing mechanism in which the winner is determined by the maximum bid adjusted for the quality of the ad.

Bid is the advertiser’s bid in the auction: the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a click, impression or targeted action.

CPS (Cost Per Sale) - the cost of one sale attracted through advertising. It is calculated: advertising budget ÷ number of sales.

Geo-targeting - displaying advertising to users in specified geographic areas: country, city, radius from a point on the map.

Day-parting - managing impressions and advertising rates by hour of day and day of week to increase budget efficiency.

App Install is an advertising campaign with the goal of installing a mobile application. Metrics: CPI, ROAS, retention rate.

Whitelist/Blacklist - lists of allowed or blocked advertising platforms to control the quality of traffic.

Flight - a period of continuous advertising, limited by dates; flighting is a strategy of alternating such periods with pauses.

ROMI - return on marketing investment: profit from marketing divided by marketing costs, as a percentage.

GRP - total placement rating: reach as a percentage of the target audience, multiplied by the average contact frequency.

OTS is the number of possible contacts with advertising over a period: how many times it will theoretically come into people’s field of view.