Glossary of AI ad tool terms

Metrics

Cost per output (also: cost per video)

What one finished video, clip or image costs on a plan: the monthly price divided by the outputs its credits buy, if every credit is used.

It is the figure our price tracker puts beside each plan, so tools that bill in credits, minutes or seconds can be set side by side.

Related: Credits, Keep rate

CPA (also: cost per purchase and cost per result)

Cost per acquisition, usually cost per purchase: ad spend divided by the conversions it brought.

CPA = spend / conversions

It is the number a creative test judges on, and the creative testing budget calculator starts from yours.

Related: ROAS, Creative test (Meta)

CPM (also: cost per mille)

Cost per thousand impressions: what an advertiser pays for 1,000 showings of an ad.

CPM = spend / impressions x 1,000

AI-made ads do not get a different CPM by being AI-made; the auction prices the placement and the audience.

Related: CTR

Credits (also: credit)

The units an AI tool sells and spends per output. A plan buys a monthly allowance, and each generation spends part of it. Creatify charges 5 credits per 15 seconds of avatar video, rounded up; Arcads charges 800 credits a minute per actor and rounds length up without stating the step.

Rounding sets the real rate: at Creatify a 20-second ad bills 10 credits, the same as 30 seconds. In a creative test every hook variant spends credits, so the rounding rule sets how many variants a plan pays for. Our AI UGC cost guide shows it for the tools it covers.

Related: Rollover, Cost per output

CTR (also: click-through rate)

Click-through rate: the share of impressions that end in a click.

CTR = clicks / impressions

In AI UGC comparisons it is the most reported metric, and our AI UGC vs human UGC register sets those reports side by side.

Related: CPM, Hook rate

Hook rate (also: 3-second view rate)

The share of impressions in which a video ad is watched for at least 3 seconds, a convention creative analytics tools such as Motion use (“3-second view/impressions”). Thumbstop rate, in Motion’s wording, counts 1-second views instead.

Hook rate = 3-second video plays / impressions

Meta reports 3-second video plays; hook rate is the ratio teams build from it.

Related: CTR, Hook

Keep rate

The share of generated takes good enough to use in an ad.

Cost per usable ad = cost per take / keep rate

At a 50 per cent keep rate every usable ad costs two generations. The AI ad cost calculator takes it as an input.

Related: Cost per output

ROAS (also: return on ad spend)

Return on ad spend: the conversion value an ad brings for each unit of spend.

ROAS = conversion value / spend

A ROAS of 3 means three dollars of sales for every dollar of media, before production costs, which is where the cost of an AI tool or a creator sits.

Related: CPA

Rollover (also: credit expiry)

Whether unused credits carry into the next billing period. On Runway, Standard and Pro credits reset each cycle while Max and Team roll over up to one month; Creatify credits stay valid for two months.

Credits that lapse raise the real cost of each output above the list figure.

Related: Credits

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Formats and placements

AI actor (also: stock avatar)

A stock avatar in an AI UGC tool: a ready-made face and voice you pick from a library. Many are built from real people who licensed their likeness. That consent can end: Arcads may require actor videos to be deleted if an actor’s creator withdraws consent.

Read the tool’s terms before an actor fronts a paid ad.

Related: Custom avatar, Likeness rights

AI UGC (also: AI UGC ads)

Ad video made or edited with AI to look like a customer or creator filmed it. The term has two meanings: an AI avatar delivering a script, and AI tools applied to footage a person shot. A product-in-hand video, where the avatar holds the product, is the hardest form.

Our what is AI UGC guide covers both meanings.

Related: UGC, AIGC, AI actor

AIGC (also: AI-generated content)

AI-generated content: any text, image, audio or video a generative model makes. TikTok uses the term for its AIGC label on significantly AI-made content.

All AI UGC is AIGC; most AIGC is not UGC-styled. The what is AI UGC guide sets the three terms apart.

Related: AI UGC, AIGC label

Custom avatar (also: digital twin)

An avatar built from footage of a specific person, usually you or a consenting presenter, so the tool can make new videos in their likeness. Also sold as a digital twin.

HeyGen’s moderation policy lets a custom-avatar actor have their content removed, so the consent behind it should be in writing.

Related: AI actor, Voice clone

Hook (also: opening line)

The opening of an ad, usually the first line or first two to three seconds, written to stop the scroll. In AI ad work, hooks are the cheapest thing to vary: one body, several openings.

Hook rate measures how many viewers it holds past 3 seconds.

Related: Hook rate

Spark Ads

TikTok’s format for running organic posts as ads: “Spark Ads is a native ad format that allows you to leverage organic TikTok posts” (TikTok Business Help Center). Engagement on the ad counts on the original post.

Spark Ads follow TikTok’s AI-content rules too; the TikTok AI label guide quotes them.

Related: Whitelisting, AIGC label

Static ad (also: image ad)

An image ad with no motion: a product shot, a graphic, or text over a picture.

Image models and ad generators make statics fastest, and the static ads hub compares the tools.

Related: Hook

UGC (also: user-generated content)

User-generated content: photos and videos made by customers or paid creators in a home-made style. In ads, UGC usually means a creator paid to film a product as if recommending it.

A creator’s fee covers the video; paid usage and platform fees are often billed apart (see usage rights).

Related: AI UGC, Usage rights

URL to video (also: link to video)

A feature that reads a product page and drafts a video ad from its images, text and price, with an avatar or voice-over. Creatify sells it on its plans.

The draft is only as good as the page it reads: missing photos or thin copy come through into the ad.

Related: AI UGC

Voice clone (also: cloned voice)

A synthetic copy of a real person’s voice, made from recordings, that reads any new script. Voice tools set their own consent rules for cloning another person’s voice.

California’s SB 1050 extends synthetic performer disclosure to the voice; the AI ad disclosure rules quote it.

Related: Custom avatar, Synthetic performer

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Rights and terms

AI info label (also: Made with AI)

Meta’s label for content made or significantly edited with AI, applied automatically for its own tools and for third-party tools it detects through signals such as C2PA (Meta Business Help Center).

The Meta AI disclosure guide says when it appears on ads.

Related: Content Credentials, AIGC label

AIGC label (also: AI-generated label)

TikTok’s label for content significantly made or modified by AI. Ads with such content need the label or the advertiser’s own disclaimer, or TikTok may reject or restrict them (advertising policy, misleading and false content).

The TikTok AI label guide quotes each case.

Related: AIGC, AI info label

Benchmarking clause (also: benchmarking bar)

A term that bars customers from publishing tests or comparisons of the tool. HeyGen’s terms carry one in section 2.

Our method page lists the tools whose terms carry one, with the clause and its date.

Related: Commercial use

Commercial use (also: commercial licence)

Permission in a tool’s terms to use its outputs for business purposes, such as selling a product or promoting a brand. It is wider than paid ads use and can carry conditions that end it.

Creatify assigns you any copyright it holds in outputs (terms 6.2); Arcads grants a licence (13.3.1). The rights matrix reads each plan.

Related: Paid ads use, Output ownership

Content Credentials (also: C2PA)

Signed metadata, built on the C2PA open standard, that records how a file was made and edited, including by AI. Meta and TikTok read such signals when they label AI-made content.

Metadata can be stripped by a re-export, so its absence proves nothing.

Related: SynthID, AI info label

Likeness rights (also: right of publicity)

A person’s right to control the use of their name, face and voice in advertising. New York’s Civil Rights Law section 50, for example, bars using a living person’s likeness in ads without written consent.

The AI UGC legal guide covers how this reaches AI actors.

Related: AI actor, Synthetic performer

Output ownership (also: ownership of outputs)

Who holds the rights in what a tool generates. Some terms assign them to you, others license them to you, and some leave the question open.

The difference matters when a subscription ends: a licence can carry conditions that an assignment does not.

Related: Commercial use

Paid ads use (also: ad use)

Whether a plan’s terms allow its outputs to run as paid ads, the narrowest test in the rights matrix. Free tiers often bar it or add conditions, such as Kling’s rule that non-member outputs carry the Kling brand (terms 4.5).

Check the plan you pay for, since rights change by plan.

Related: Commercial use

Synthetic performer

Under New York’s law, “a digitally created asset” made with generative AI that gives the impression of a human performer “who is not recognizable as any identifiable natural performer” (General Business Law 396-b, 1(c)). Ads showing one must disclose it.

The AI ad disclosure rules quote the New York and California texts.

Related: Likeness rights, Voice clone

SynthID

Google DeepMind’s invisible watermark for AI-generated content, “a tool to watermark and identify content generated through AI”. Google says videos made with Veo carry it.

Related: Content Credentials

Usage rights (also: paid usage)

In creator UGC, the permission to use a creator’s video beyond the creator’s own post: as a paid ad, for a set term, on set channels. Creators usually price paid usage on top of the video fee.

Our UGC creator rates guide sets out what the rate cards list.

Related: UGC, Whitelisting

Whitelisting (also: creator licensing and partnership ads)

Running ads from a creator’s own account or handle, with their permission, so the ad shows their name. Meta calls its version Partnership Ads, and marketplaces such as Insense count the connections by plan.

It is a separate permission from usage rights and often priced apart.

Related: Usage rights, Spark Ads

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Tool types

Ad library (also: swipe file)

A searchable archive of ads, either a platform’s public one, such as the Meta Ad Library, or a tool’s own collection. A swipe file is a saved set of ads kept for reference, as in Foreplay’s Swipe File (“Save & share creative inspiration”).

The creative research hub compares the tools.

Related: Ad spy tool

Ad spy tool (also: ad intelligence tool)

A tool that collects competitors’ running ads across platforms, with filters by brand, format or engagement. Most build on public ad libraries plus their own crawling.

The creative research hub covers the main ones.

Related: Ad library, Creative analytics

Creative analytics

Tools that report ad performance per creative: which hook, format or actor drives results, often with AI tagging. Motion is one; its own metrics include a Hook Score.

They read your ad account data; they do not make ads.

Related: Predicted creative score, Hook rate

MCP server (also: Model Context Protocol)

A connector that lets an AI assistant read or act on another tool’s data through the Model Context Protocol, an open standard. Motion, for example, offers an MCP server for its creative data.

It gives an assistant access to an account, so treat it like any other login.

Related: Creative analytics

Predicted creative score (also: creative score)

A vendor’s forecast of an ad’s results before it runs. AdCreative.ai’s Performance Score “predicts the click-through rate (CTR) of your creatives” from its own model.

It is a prediction from the vendor’s data, never a measurement of your results; only a live test gives those.

Related: Creative analytics, Creative test (Meta)

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Testing

A/B test (also: split test)

A test that splits an audience so nobody sees both versions, then compares results. Meta recommends the same budget for both versions (About A/B testing).

It answers which version won on this audience and budget; a small gap needs many conversions to trust.

Related: Creative test (Meta)

Creative fatigue (also: ad fatigue)

When an ad’s results worsen because its audience has seen it too often. Meta’s fatigue statuses set an ad’s cost per result against your past ads.

The creative testing framework covers when to refresh a creative.

Related: Learning phase

Creative test (Meta)

Meta Ads Manager’s built-in test of up to 7 creative variants. It names “top performing test ads” and states “A confidence level is not included”.

The creative testing framework covers how many conversions each variant needs before a winner means anything.

Related: A/B test, Learning phase

Learning phase

The period after a launch or significant edit while Meta’s delivery system learns an ad set. Meta: “This usually occurs after about 50 results in the week after the ad set’s last significant edit.”

Many AI variants in one ad set split those results between them.

Related: Creative test (Meta), Creative fatigue

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