Organic and paid social terms explained in plain English

Key takeaways

This glossary explains the organic and paid social terms small businesses meet most often, in plain English. Organic terms cover reach, engagement and algorithms; paid terms cover impressions, CPM, boosting, objectives, learning phase, retargeting and ROAS. Knowing them makes reports, agency proposals and platform settings easier to read.

• Reach is people; impressions are views, including repeats.
• CPM is the cost per 1,000 impressions.
• ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend, not profit.
• The learning phase is when ad results are unstable.

What are the main organic social terms?

These terms appear in organic insights.

• Organic reach: people who saw a post without paid promotion.
• Engagement: likes, comments, shares, saves and clicks.
• Engagement rate: engagement divided by reach or followers.
• Algorithm: the system ranking which posts people see.
• Saves: people bookmarking a post for later.

• Organic social media vs paid advertising: which to choose?
• What is organic social media, and what can it do?
• How social media algorithms work for small businesses

What are the main paid social terms?

These terms appear in ad managers and agency reports.

• Impressions: total times an ad was shown, including repeats.
• CPM: cost per 1,000 impressions.
• CPC: cost per click.
• Objective: what the platform optimises for.
• Boosting: paying to promote an existing post.

• What is paid social advertising, and how does it work?
• CPM explained: comparing the cost of reaching 1,000 people

What are the main targeting terms?

These terms describe who sees ads.

• Custom audience: people you choose, such as engagers or a customer list.
• Retargeting: ads to people who already interacted with you.
• Lookalike audience: new people similar to an existing audience.
• Frequency: average times each person saw an ad.

• Retarget people who engaged with your organic posts

What are the main results terms?

These terms describe whether ads worked. GA4 key events are the actions you mark as important, such as enquiries.

• Conversion: a valuable action, such as an enquiry.
• Cost per result: spend divided by results.
• ROAS: revenue divided by ad spend.
• Attribution: how credit for a sale is shared.

• Organic vs paid social KPIs: measure each on its own terms
• Break-even ROAS: the return your social ads must make

What is the learning phase?

The learning phase is the period after a campaign starts or changes significantly, when the platform is working out who to show ads to. Meta explains that results are less stable during it, so avoid judging or editing campaigns too early.

• Switching ads off too soon: the learning phase mistake

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a business owner compared an agency's 'impressions' with their own page 'reach' and thought the agency was exaggerating. Once the difference was clear, impressions counting repeat views and reach counting people, the reports made sense and the conversation moved on to cost per enquiry.

• See client work
• Social Media Marketing for UK businesses

Glossary checklist

• Know reach vs impressions.
• Know CPM and CPC.
• Know your campaign objective.
• Know what a custom audience is.
• Know ROAS is not profit.
• Know why the learning phase matters.

• Mistakes businesses make choosing organic or paid social
• Questions to ask an agency about organic and paid social

Next step

Open your last social media report and highlight any term you are unsure of. Look it up here, then ask your agency or team to explain anything still unclear.