Meta Ads glossary

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

Revenue per dollar of ad spend.

If you spent $10K and drove $30K in revenue, ROAS is 3.0. Useful as a headline efficiency metric but directional — it doesn't account for LTV, contribution margin, or cross-channel overlap.

CPA (Cost per Acquisition)

The dollar cost to acquire one conversion.

If you spent $500 to get 10 purchases, CPA is $50. Always benchmark against your CAC ceiling — the maximum CPA you can pay and still run profitably at your current LTV.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

Percentage of impressions that produced a link click.

The primary creative-quality signal. CTR trending down across a creative set is the first sign of fatigue. Evaluate the link CTR, not the outbound — they're different numbers on Meta's platform.

CVR (Conversion Rate)

Percentage of link clicks that converted.

Landing page + offer health signal. If CTR is stable but CVR drops, something broke post-click — LP speed, offer wording, checkout flow, or product availability.

Frequency

Average number of times a unique user saw your ad in the reporting window.

Fatigue signal. Thresholds differ by audience: 2.5–3.5 is typical for cold, 4–6 for warm, and retargeting can tolerate higher. Frequency above your account-specific threshold paired with CTR decay = rotate the creative.

CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions)

Cost to reach 1,000 people with one impression.

Auction-cost signal. CPM fluctuates with competition, audience quality, and relevance score. Rising CPM alone isn't actionable — evaluate it alongside CTR and CVR.

Creative fatigue

Performance decay of an ad over time as the audience becomes saturated.

Detected via the combination of rising frequency, declining CTR, and climbing CPA. Good Morning flags specific creatives with the evidence instead of making you read a heatmap.

Account Health Score

A 0–100 composite that tells you where your Meta account stands.

Good Morning's proprietary score built from ROAS trend (30pts), frequency health (25pts), spend efficiency (25pts), and creative velocity (20pts). See the full methodology on the Account Health Score page.

CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization)

Meta setting where the platform allocates budget across ad sets within a campaign.

Contrast with ABO (Ad set Budget Optimization), where you set the budget per ad set. CBO is Meta's default now; use it unless you need rigid audience-level budget control.

LAL (Lookalike audience)

Audience Meta builds by finding users similar to a source audience you provide.

Quality depends entirely on source quality. A 1% LAL of purchasers is different from a 10% LAL of website visitors — evaluate the source first.

Retargeting

Advertising to users who have already engaged with your brand.

Higher frequency tolerance than cold. Often higher ROAS because audience quality is pre-qualified. Watch for attribution over-counting — retargeting often gets credit for conversions that would have happened anyway.

Incrementality

The conversions that happened because of your ads — vs. would have happened anyway.

The hardest question in Meta measurement. Tools like Northbeam and Triple Whale model it; Good Morning explicitly does not (we focus on operational diagnosis). Incrementality is a strategic measurement question, not a weekly operational one.

Meta Ads terms — in plain language.