Digital Marketing Glossary (Wiki)
The marketing industry is full of terms which may sound complicated to the human ears but in a real sense are quite simple and fairly straightforward.
Here is a list of some of the most important digital marketing terms which I have taken the time to create in this simplified digital marketing glossary/wiki.
A
- A/B Testing
- Comparing two variants of a webpage, email, or advertisement to determine which works better.
- AIDA (Attention Interest Desire Action)
- AIDA is a popularly used term in the marketing & advertising industry to represent the stages of consumer behaviour from the initial moment he/she is aware of a product or brand to the time of purchase
- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
- Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) is actually a lighter HTML version of your existing website that aims to provide a faster load time.
- Algorithm
- The secret sauce powering search engines, influencing what you see online.
B
- BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline)
- It’s a structure commonly used to ascertain how qualified a lead is to work with a business and figure out how leads should be prioritized. Here’s a video which explains BANT in simple terms.
- Backlink
- Also known as an inbound link, is a link of a website referenced on another page of the same website or a different website for purpose of improving the context of the content. It is one of the key factors for improving SEO.
- Bounce Rate
- In simple terms, it means the percentage of visitors who open a website and then exit or leave the website without doing any kind of action such as viewing other pages, clicking on buttons or even scrolling on the page
C
- CPC (Cost Per Click)
- The actual price you pay for each time your ad is clicked. PPC is a marketing model and CPC is the performance metric.
- CPM (Cost per Mille)
- Also known as cost per thousand impressions, is a simple term used to indicate the price you (a user) would pay for every 1,000 impressions on an Ad you published.
- Call to Action (CTA)
- It’s an activity which persuades a user to take the desired action. Mostly referring to the usage of words or terms on any marketing materials. Example: button(s) on a website linked to various actions such as call, email, filling out a form, sign up, subscribe etc.
- Campaign
- In terms of marketing, it is the effort set forward by a marketer to drive traffic, engagement or conversions (leads) which in turn contributes to the revenue of the company.
- Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
- A programming language which is utilised to add style (e.g., fonts, colours, spacing) on a website(s).
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- It is the number of users who click on a link divided by the total number of users who have viewed the page, ad(s) or email. It is one of the metrics to determine the success of a campaign. CTR = Sum of Clicks / Sum of Impressions.
- Content Management System (CMS)
- A Content Management System is an online software which lets you (user) to create a website, edit content and publish it on the web with no coding knowledge or expertise. Using a CMS like WordPress you can create a website just like this one.
- Conversion Rate
- It is basically the percentage of users who visit a website and complete a goal (action considered to be a conversion – example filling a form) divided by the total number of visitors who come to a website.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
- A method for optimizing a website’s landing page experience based on a user(s) behaviour. It helps to improve the possibility of a visitor to take the desired action(s) on a page.
- Copywriting
- Copywriting is the process of composing text (reader-focused information ) for the purpose of advertisement or building awareness.
- Cost Per Action (CPA)
- An online advertisement model which allows an advertiser to charge you (user) only if a specified action is taken on an ad by a customer. Example: Filling out a form, subscribing to a newsletter etc.
- Customer Experience (CX)
- It is a relationship that a business builds with a customer over a period of time. It starts from the time he/she (customer) interacts with your business until the time they continue to use the product or service. This process also includes the interaction with the customer service team which plays an important role to build a good customer experience
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- It is a business proposal which helps companies improve relationships with existing customers and acquire new customers quicker. In order to improve customer relationships, CRM software(s) such as Salesforce CRM, Zendesk and Hubspot has been built to ease CRM processes.
- Content
- The foundation of digital marketing; developing engaging content for your target audience.
D
- Digital Marketing
- Digital Marketing is the method of promoting products or services using different digital channels. A detailed blog is available for your reference
- Domain Authority (Domain Score)
- It is a search engine ranking score created by Moz. It projects the possibility of a website to rank on SERPs (search engine result pages). Domain score of a website ranges from 1 to 100, which states that the higher the score of a website the better its chances to rank on Google.
- Domain Name Server (DNS)
- It is a naming structure that converts a domain name(s) to an IP address(es) so that web browsers can load resources from the Internet. DNS is what connects your hostings IP to a domain(website).
E
- Engagement Rate
- Engagement rate indicates how many people interact with your social media content.
- Email marketing
- Email marketing is the process of sending customised emails to your
intended recipient list.
F
- File Transfer Protocol
- A network protocol that allows a user to transfer a file(s) from a computer(s) to an IP/TCP network, in simple terms the Internet. FTP clients like Filezilla allow users to transfer images, HTML codes etc to a website with a simple drag and drop option.
- Funnel
- The process through which a customer moves on your website from their first visit to purchase.
G
- Geotargeting
- Content delivery to a particular geographic or population.
- Google Analytics
- It is a free web analytics software which can be installed on a website to help you (user) to analyze and track your website stats such as traffic, user behaviour and more.
- Google Tag Manager
- A free tool which allows a website user to manage a variety of tags (such as Analytics from different platforms, optimization & other JavaScript tags) without editing the code of a site.
- Guest Blog/Post
- It is when a user contributes content for a company’s/ website, in the form of a blog post.
H
- HTML
- Hypertext Markup Language), which serves as the industry standard for web page
creation
I
- Influencer marketing
- A person with a significant following on the internet who could
promote products and services from your business.
- Impressions
- The number of times a piece of content is displayed, which indicates reach.
K
- Key Performance Indicator
- A KPI is a set of quantifiable measurements which explains how efficiently a business is achieving its key objectives. It helps a business to determine its performance in terms of finance, strategy and operations.
- Keyword(s)
- It means a word or a group of words you (user) would use to execute a search on a search engine.
L
- Landing Page
- The page that visitors get to after clicking an advertisement or link.
- Landing Page
- A conversion-oriented website.
M
- Meta Description
- An overview that shows up in search engine results.
- Metrics
- Data-driven insights measuring the success of your campaigns.
N
- Niche
- A concentrated market segment or demographic.
O
- Organic Search
- Also known as natural search, refers to the results on a search engine for a search term (word) that is based on relevance to that word. It excludes ads.
- Organic Traffic
- A term typically used to describe the users (visits) who come on to a website from a search engine’s organic result. (anything which doesn’t have the word ‘ad’ written on)
- Organic Visibility
- Also known as SEO visibility is a metric that indicates what percentage of all organic clicks (from SERPs) a website gets for a given keyword on a search engine.
- Outbound Link
- It a link on your website referencing to an external website (link). An outbound link for you indicates its an inbound link (backlink) for someone else and vice versa.
- Opt-In
- When users give permission to receive emails or newsletters.
- Optimisation
- Improving the performance of your digital assets.
P
- Page Authority
- It is a score created by Moz that projects the possibility of a specific page to rank on the search engine result pages (SERP).
- PageView(s)
- It is a metric which indicates the total number of times pages on a website are viewed by its visitors.
- Product copy
- The product copy is also known as sales copy is the content written to persuades customers to purchase a product/service.
- Podcast
- A digital audio or video file that can be streamed or downloaded.
Q
- QR Code
- A scannable code that can direct users to a website or information.
- Quality Score
- Google’s rating determines the relevance of your ads.
- Query
- a word or phrase entered into a search engine.
R
- Response Design
- Ensuring your website looks good and works well on all devices.
- Retweet
- When a tweet on twitter is shared or reposted it is referred to as a retweet.
- Responsive Design
- Make sure your website looks good on any type of device.
S
- SEO
- Search Engine Optimization is the method of increasing organic traffic on a website. It also focuses on improving traffic quality for better conversions. For a detailed read, check out my blog.
- SERP
- Also known as Search Engine Results Pages refers to pages of a website which appear on a Search Engine (Google) when a user runs a searches query. Example: Click Here.
- SWOT
- It a method for evaluating four aspects (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat) of a business. It can be even implemented in a digital marketing strategy. Here is an example for your reference.
- Search Console
- Also known as Google Search Console, is a free tool that allows you (a user) to monitor, manage, and troubleshoot a site’s appearance in Google Search results
- Search Engine
- A software that allows you (a user) on the internet to search for content in an online database by usually typing in words. Popular Search Engines: Google, Bing & Baidu.
- Search Engine Marketing
- A marketing activity focused on improving the visibility of a website(s) or a link on a search engine mainly through paid ads. Example: Paid Ads.
- Search Term
- It is a word or a combination of words, a user types out on a search engine such as Google to carry out a search
- Session(s)
- It is a set of interactions (such as page views, events, social share etc.) a user has with a website in a given timeframe. The sum or total of the set of interactions is collectively referred to as sessions.
- Social Media Optimization
- It is the process of using social media networks to create content which builds awareness, creates an online presence, drives traffic to a website and generates leads for a business
- Social Share
- It refers to the sharing of content on social media by its users to their group(s) or connection(s).
T
- Tweet
- A post created on twitter is referred to as a tweet.
- Target Audience
- The specific group of people you aim to reach with your marketing efforts.
U
- URL
- Also known as Uniform Resource Locator is the address of a website (ex: www.itzfizz.com). It is used to access the resources for a website using the internet.
- UTM
- Also known as the Urchin Tracking Module, is a set of URL (domain) parameters used by digital marketers to track the source of traffic and publishing media. It’s easy to build a UTM link using Google’s Campaign Link Builder
- Unique Visitor (Users)
- A term in analytics which is used to refer to a user who visits a website in the selected timeframe. A Visitor is considered unique based on the IP address he uses to access the website.
- User Interface (UI)
- It is a process designer(s) use to design the interface (outline) of a website/product so that it is easy to use and is compatible with devices with different resolutions. Example of a good UI: Medium.com
- User-Generated Content
- As the name indicates, it is when users contribute content in the form of blogs, images, social media posts, and testimonials for a brand/website generally for the purpose of promoting the brand. These type of content creators are generally unpaid contributors.
V
- Viral
- When content spreads rapidly across the internet
- Viral
- Internet content that spreads very quickly.
- Voice Search
- Using voice search optimisation to pose online questions. Take Google
Assistant, for instance
W
- Webinar
- A live, online seminar or workshop.
X
- XML Sitemap
- A file that helps search engines understand your website’s structure.
Didn’t find what you’re looking for? Send me a request and I’ll be sure to add it to this digital marketing glossary/wiki