Marketing Dictionary
Terms related to growth, SEO, and advertising.
A/B Testing
Comparing two versions of a webpage or app against each other to determine which one performs better.
Above the Fold
Content that appears on a webpage before the user scrolls down.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
A strategic approach where marketing and sales teams work together to target specific accounts.
Acquisition Cost
The total cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
Affiliate Marketing
A performance-based marketing strategy where a business rewards affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.
Analytics
The discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data.
Anchor Text
The clickable text in a hyperlink.
Backlink
A link from one website to another.
B2B (Business-to-Business)
Marketing of products or services to other businesses and organizations.
B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
Marketing of products or services directly to consumers.
Banner Blindness
A phenomenon where web visitors consciously or subconsciously ignore banner-like information.
Behavioral Targeting
A technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns by using data on user behavior.
Black Hat SEO
Unethical SEO practices that violate search engine guidelines.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
Brand Advocacy
When customers or employees actively recommend a brand to others.
Brand Awareness
The extent to which consumers are familiar with the distinct qualities or image of a particular brand of goods or services.
Brand Equity
The commercial value that derives from consumer perception of the brand name of a particular product or service, rather than from the product or service itself.
Brand Identity
The visible elements of a brand, such as color, design, and logo, that identify and distinguish the brand in consumers' minds.
Buyer Persona
A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
Call to Action (CTA)
A prompt on a website that tells the user to take some specified action.
Cart Abandonment
When a potential customer starts a check out process for an online order but drops out of the process before completing the purchase.
Churn Rate
The annual percentage rate at which customers stop subscribing to a service or employees leave a job.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement.
Cold Calling
The solicitation of business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson conducting the call.
Content Management System (CMS)
Software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content.
Content Marketing
A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
Conversion Funnel
A phrase used in e-commerce to describe the journey a consumer takes through an Internet advertising or search system, navigating an e-commerce website and finally converting to a sale.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of users who take a desired action.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
The process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
A metric used in online advertising to measure the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
An internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.
Cost Per Impression (CPM)
A term used in online advertising and media related to web traffic. It refers to the cost of internet marketing campaigns where advertisers pay for every 1,000 impressions of their advertisement.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
An online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for an explicit sign-up from a consumer interested in the advertiser's offer.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The cost associated with convincing a customer to buy a product/service.
Customer Journey
The complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with your company and brand.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
A prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Technology for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
Demographics
Statistical data relating to the population and particular groups within it.
Direct Marketing
The business of selling products or services directly to the public, e.g., by mail order or telephone selling, rather than through retailers.
Display Advertising
Advertising on websites or apps or social media through banners or other ad formats made of text, images, flash, video, and audio.
Drip Campaign
A series of automated emails sent to people who take a specific action.
Earned Media
Publicity gained through promotional efforts other than paid media advertising.
Email Marketing
The act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email.
Engagement Rate
A metric that measures the level of engagement that a piece of created content collects from an audience.
Evergreen Content
Search-optimized content that is continually relevant and stays fresh for readers over a long period of time.
Exit Rate
The percentage of visitors to a page on the website from which they exit the website to a different website.
Focus Group
A demographically diverse group of people assembled to participate in a guided discussion about a particular product before it is launched.
Freemium
A pricing strategy by which a product or service is provided free of charge, but money is charged for proprietary features, functionality, or virtual goods.
Friction
Any element of your website that is confusing, distracting, or causes visitors to leave your page.
Gamification
The application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts.
Gatekeeper
A person who controls access to something, for example via a city wall or gate, but in a marketing context, someone who controls information flow.
Geotargeting
The practice of delivering different content to a website visitor based on their geographic location.
Growth Hacking
A process of rapid experimentation across marketing funnel, product development, sales segments, and other areas of the business to identify the most efficient ways to grow a business.
Guerrilla Marketing
An advertisement strategy concept designed for businesses to promote their products or services in an unconventional way with little budget to spend.
Hashtag
A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media websites and applications, especially Twitter, to identify messages on a specific topic.
Heatmap
A graphical representation of data where the individual values contained in a matrix are represented as colors.
Inbound Marketing
A business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them.
Influencer Marketing
A form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field.
Infographic
A visual image such as a chart or diagram used to represent information or data.
Keyword Density
The percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page.
Keyword Stuffing
An SEO technique, considered webspam or black hat SEO, in which keywords are loaded into a web page's meta tags, visible content, or backlink anchor text in an attempt to gain an unfair rank advantage in search engines.
Landing Page
A standalone web page, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign.
Lead Generation
The action or process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
Lead Magnet
A free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details.
Lead Nurturing
The process of developing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel and through every step of the buyer's journey.
Lookalike Audience
A way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they're similar to your best existing customers.
Market Segmentation
The process of dividing a market of potential customers into groups, or segments, based on different characteristics.
Marketing Automation
Software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online and automate repetitive tasks.
Marketing Funnel
A model that illustrates the theoretical customer journey towards the purchase of a good or service.
Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
A lead who has indicated an interest in what a brand has to offer based on marketing efforts or is otherwise more likely to become a customer than other leads.
Metrics
Quantifiable measures that are used to track and assess the status of a specific business process.
Native Advertising
A type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm's customer relationships.
Omnichannel Marketing
A multichannel approach to sales that seeks to provide the customer with a seamless shopping experience.
Organic Reach
The number of people who have seen your content through unpaid distribution.
Organic Search Results
The listings on a search engine results page (SERP) that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to being advertisements.
Outbound Marketing
A traditional method of marketing seeking to introduce a product to a potential customer.
Page Views
The total number of pages viewed.
Paid Search
A form of digital marketing where search engines allow advertisers to show ads on their search engine results pages (SERPs).
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
An internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.
Performance Marketing
A comprehensive term that refers to online marketing and advertising programs in which advertisers pay marketing companies when a specific action is completed.
Personalization
The action of designing or producing something to meet someone's individual requirements.
Psychographics
The study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria.
Qualified Lead
A potential customer who has been vetted by the marketing and sales teams and meets certain criteria.
Reach
The total number of people who see your content.
Referral Marketing
A method of promoting products or services to new customers through referrals, usually word of mouth.
Remarketing
A form of online advertising that enables sites to show targeted ads to users who have already visited their site.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
A marketing metric that measures the efficacy of a digital advertising campaign.
Return on Investment (ROI)
A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.
Sales Funnel
The buying process that companies lead customers through when purchasing products.