Ads and MCP glossary

Plain-language definitions of the terms you meet while managing your ads through an AI assistant. From Model Context Protocol to Target ROAS.

AEO (answer engine optimization)

AEO is the practice of shaping content so that AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews retrieve it and quote it accurately.

Search terms report

The search terms report shows the real user queries that triggered your ads in Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, together with how each query performed.

Conversion tracking

Conversion tracking records the valuable actions people take after an ad interaction, such as a purchase, form or call, and attributes them to the campaign and keyword that produced them.

login-customer-id

login-customer-id is the HTTP header in Google Ads API requests that names the manager account you are acting through; it is required whenever access comes via an MCC.

Lookalike audience

A lookalike audience is a segment the platform builds by modelling your existing customer or engagement list (the seed) and finding new people whose traits and behaviour resemble it most.

MCC (manager account / My Client Center)

An MCC, officially a Google Ads manager account, is an umbrella account that lets one login reach several Google Ads accounts and consolidates reporting and billing in one place.

MCP connector

An MCP connector is the record inside an AI client such as Claude or ChatGPT that points to a specific MCP server; once added, that server's tools become available inside the conversation.

Write access in MCP

Write access in MCP means the server exposes tools that change state in the connected system, creating, updating, pausing or deleting records, instead of only reading and reporting data.

MCP is the open standard, published by Anthropic in November 2024, that defines how AI assistants connect to external tools and data through one shared interface instead of a custom integration per system.

Negative keywords

Negative keywords are terms added to search campaigns to stop ads from showing on queries that contain them, cutting the budget that goes to irrelevant searches.

Approval gate (dry run)

An approval gate makes an AI system show a proposed change exactly as it would happen, without applying it, and execute it only after the user explicitly confirms.

Performance Max (PMax)

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that serves one campaign across all Google inventory, including Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps, automating bids and targeting toward your conversion goal.

Remote MCP server

A remote MCP server runs on the provider's infrastructure and is reached over HTTPS; the client connects with just an address and an OAuth sign-in, with nothing installed locally.

ROAS (return on ad spend)

ROAS divides the revenue attributed to advertising by what that advertising cost; $4 of revenue from $1 of spend is a 4x ROAS.

Target CPA (tCPA)

Target CPA is a smart bidding strategy in which the platform sets each auction bid automatically to win as many conversions as possible at an average cost per acquisition close to the target you set.

Target ROAS (tROAS)

Target ROAS is an automated bidding strategy in which the platform predicts each auction's likely conversion value and bids to reach an average return on ad spend close to the percentage you set.

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