Glossary
The words value-based bidding runs on
51 terms, defined for lead generation rather than for ecommerce, which is where most of the confusion starts. Google, Meta and TikTok side by side, because the chain is the same on all three and only the names change. Where there is a number behind a term, the entry gives the number.
The chain
Every term sits at one point on the same line
A click becomes a lead, the lead gets a value, the value moves a bid, and months later something closed or it did not. Most of what goes wrong is a break at one of these joins, so this is ordered the way the thing itself runs rather than from A to Z.
- 018The clickSomebody presses an ad and arrives carrying an identifier, or does not.
- 0210The leadA form fill becomes a CRM record, and the platform has to be able to find it again.
- 0313The valueWhat that lead is worth, worked out on the day it arrives rather than the day it closes.
- 0415The bidWhat the platform does with the number, and what it needs before it can do anything.
- 055The proofTelling a real result from a good quarter, months later.
Newest first
Terms new enough that most readers will not have met them. Held to a higher standard rather than a lower one: dated and sourced, and left out entirely where the detail could not be stated accurately.
01
The click
Somebody presses an ad and arrives carrying an identifier, or does not.
- GCLIDGoogle Adsalso Google Click IdentifierThe identifier Google appends to your landing page URL when someone arrives from an ad and auto-tagging is on.
- gbraid and wbraidGoogle AdsClick identifiers for iOS journeys where a GCLID is not available.
- Auto-taggingGoogle AdsThe Google Ads account setting that appends the click identifier to your landing page URLs.
- Google tag gateway for advertisersGoogle AdsNewServing Google's tag scripts and measurement requests through your own domain and first-party infrastructure, configured through a CDN, load balancer, web server or server-side tagging setup, rather than loading them from Google's domains.
- Consent ModeGoogle's mechanism for adjusting how its tags behave according to the consent a visitor has given, and for modelling some of the conversions that consent refusals make unobservable.
- Signal lossThe umbrella term for measurement getting harder: third-party cookie restrictions, shortened browser storage lifetimes, consent refusals, and platform privacy changes, all reducing the share of activity that can be observed and attributed.
- fbclidMetaalso Facebook Click IdentifierMeta's click identifier, appended to the landing page URL when someone arrives from a Facebook or Instagram ad.
- ttclidTikTokalso TikTok Click IDTikTok's click identifier, carried on the landing page URL from a TikTok ad and used to attribute a later server-side event back to the click.
02
The lead
A form fill becomes a CRM record, and the platform has to be able to find it again.
- Match rateGoogle AdsThe share of your leads carrying something Google can join back to an ad click: a click identifier, or a usable email where enhanced conversions for leads is switched on.
- Enhanced conversions for leadsGoogle AdsMatching an offline conversion to an ad click using hashed first-party data, usually an email address, rather than a click identifier.
- Offline conversion importGoogle Adsalso OCISending a platform a conversion that happened outside the website, keyed on a click identifier or hashed first-party data, so it can be credited back to the original ad click.
- Google Ads Data ManagerGoogle AdsNewGoogle's newer service for bringing first-party data and offline conversions into Ads, and now the route by which a conversion value reaches Google over an API.
- Conversion actionGoogle AdsThe object in Google Ads a conversion is recorded against, with its own counting rules, attribution window and goal category.
- Conversion lagThe time between the click and the outcome.
- Conversion windowHow long after a click a platform will still credit a conversion to it.
- Conversions APIMetaalso CAPIMeta's server-to-server route for sending events, used alongside or instead of the browser pixel.
- Event Match QualityMetaalso EMQMeta's score, from 1 to 10, for how well the customer information attached to your events lets Meta resolve them to a person.
- TikTok Events APITikTokTikTok's server-to-server route for reporting events, including outcomes that happen in a CRM long after the click.
03
The value
What that lead is worth, worked out on the day it arrives rather than the day it closes.
- Day-0 valueThe value sent at the moment the lead is created, estimated from what similar leads have historically been worth rather than from what this one eventually does.
- Expected value per leadalso E[V]A segment's close rate multiplied by its average won deal size.
- CohortA group of leads sharing a trait, priced together because there are enough of them to measure something.
- Multiplieralso Factor, LiftHow much more or less a cohort is worth than the average lead.
- Value capalso Outlier cappingA ceiling on the value sent for any one conversion, so a single enormous deal cannot dominate what the bid strategy learns.
- Value spreadHow much the values you send differ from one another, usually read as the ratio between the top and the bottom of the range.
- Flat feedA conversion feed where nearly every lead carries the same value, usually because no attribute in the data separated them.
- Early gateA pipeline stage that reliably fires soon enough after the lead arrives to still sharpen its value inside the platform's adjustment window.
- Lead scoring vs lead valuationA score ranks leads against each other, usually 0 to 100.
- Predicted lifetime valueNewalso pLTVAn estimate of the total revenue a customer will produce over the whole relationship, rather than on the first deal, used as the value sent back to a platform.
- Conversion value rulesGoogle AdsA Google Ads feature that adjusts the value of a conversion at bid time according to conditions such as location, device or audience, without changing what you send.
- RecalibrationRefitting the model on newer outcomes so tomorrow's leads are priced better.
- Model driftThe gap that opens between a saved model and what the data now says, as the mix of leads and the way they close move on.
04
The bid
What the platform does with the number, and what it needs before it can do anything.
- Value-based biddingalso VBBBidding on what a conversion is worth rather than on how many conversions arrive.
- Smart BiddingGoogle AdsGoogle's automated bid strategies, which set a bid for every individual auction using signals about the user, the query and the context.
- Maximize conversion valueGoogle AdsThe bid strategy that spends the budget to bring back the highest total conversion value rather than the highest count.
- Target ROASGoogle Adsalso tROASMaximize conversion value with a return target attached.
- Learning periodThe stretch after a bid strategy changes while the platform gathers enough outcomes to bid confidently.
- Conversion volume thresholdalso 30 conversions a monthThe rough number of conversions a month a bid strategy needs before it has enough examples to learn from.
- Portfolio bid strategyGoogle AdsOne bid strategy shared across several campaigns, pooling their conversions into a single learning set while the campaigns keep their own budgets and reporting.
- Journey-Aware BiddingGoogle AdsNewA Google beta for Search campaigns on Target CPA, announced in September 2026.
- Lead Intent ScoringGoogle AdsNewA Google pilot announced alongside Journey-Aware Bidding in September 2026, classifying each inbound lead as High, Medium or Low intent from behaviour at submission plus your historical CRM patterns.
- Data-driven attributionalso DDAAttribution that distributes credit across the touchpoints on a path using the platform's own model of what actually made a difference, rather than a fixed rule such as last click.
- Value optimisationMetaMeta's ad set optimisation goal that bids toward the highest total conversion value rather than the highest conversion count.
- Advantage+MetaMeta's family of automated campaign products, which hand targeting, placement and creative selection decisions to Meta's models.
- Value-Based OptimizationTikTokalso VBOTikTok's optimisation goal for bidding toward total conversion value rather than conversion count.
- Smart+TikTokNewTikTok's automated campaign product, handing targeting, bidding and creative selection to TikTok's models from a set of inputs you supply.
- Aggregated Event MeasurementMetaalso AEMMeta's framework for measuring web events from users who opted out of tracking on iOS, which limits each domain to a prioritised set of conversion events.
05
The proof
Telling a real result from a good quarter, months later.
- Control groupIn this context, the leads that never came from the channel you changed.
- Attributable liftThe part of an improvement the change can actually be credited with: the gap between how the affected group moved and how the control moved.
- CounterfactualWhat would have happened without the change.
- Permutation testalso Shuffle testDealing the same deals into before and after at random, over and over, and counting how often chance alone produces a gap as large as the real one.
- Incrementalityalso Conversion liftWhether the conversions credited to a channel would have happened anyway.
Check these against your own account
Most of the numbers above are thresholds something can be measured against. The diagnostic reads a CRM export in your browser and reports your real volume, your match rate and the spread between your leads. Nothing is uploaded and no account is needed.