There are A LOT of words digital marketing professionals throw around during meetings, projects, and while going over the day to day. Knowing the meanings of these terms can make conversations about your digital marketing more effective. There are many people who can’t really define these terms and it can be embarrassing to ask for definitions all the time. Below, we have included a list of digital marketing buzzwords to help you keep you in the loop so you can talk like a marketing pro!

A/B Test

Simply put, this is when you test two versions of a marketing effort with one single variable changed to experiment with what performs best. In layman’s terms, take 2 challengers at a time when running a test to see which performs best.

Analytics

Analytics is the study of patterns from the data of your efforts. It is taking all the results of your efforts and finding how you can improve or change your approach to be more efficient.

Awareness

A measure of people’s understanding or knowledge about your business, products, or services.

Bandwidth

Aside from its commonly known definition, it can be used in a business setting to refer to the resources available and needed to complete ongoing tasks.

Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors to your site that come and go without interacting with your site at all. This means they didn’t find what they were looking for and did not browse the other pages of your site. This is an analytics term used by Google’s analytics tools.

Brand / Branding

A company’s brand is it’s overarching theme or the qualities that tie all of it’s content and online presence together. This encompasses colors, typography, logos, etc… Basically the whole look and feel of your company.

Buyer Persona / Customer Avatar

Buyer Personas or Customer Avatars are created fictitious profiles to represent certain demographics or a specific set of customers you are going to build a marketing strategy around. These are critical when you are crafting offers, calls-to-action, or creative.

Channels

Any of the different digital marketing avenues or social media platforms can be described as Channels. They are the different mediums through which digital marketing efforts can be done.

Content

Content is a created piece of information or media that was created to be interacted with and shared. Content can consist of blog posts, videos, pictures, and graphics. The more engaging, intriguing, and exciting your content is, the better it will do.

Conversion / Conversion Rate

Conversion is used when referring to the shift from a potential customer to a qualified lead or a paying customer. The Conversion Rate is the percentage of people that interacted with your web page in the way it was intended. This would include any visitor that fills in the information asked for on your landing page.

CPC

CPC stands for Cost-Per-Click. This is a measurement of how much you as a business pay for each click on your posted ad. This term is related to PPC which is talked about further down in the list.

CRM

CRM stands for Customer Service Management. It is a software that is used by businesses to manage their current and potential customers.

Crowdsourcing

The best way to describe Crowdsourcing would be as outsourcing ideas and content online from a group of readers or customers.

CTA

CTA stands for Call To Action. This is the button, text link, or image that entices the visitor to go to your landing page and become a lead. This is an essential part of moving them further down the path to becoming a customer.

CTR

The CTR is short for the Click Through Rate. This is a rate that measures the percentage of ad views that resulted in clicks. The CTR is a big part of determining your CPC. Click-Thru-Rate is your total impressions divided by your total clicks.

Engagement

Engagement is the active part of the user experience online. This is used in social media as a metric to describe how people interact with your posts and pages. Interaction on a person’s social media consists of likes, shares, and comments.

Friction

Friction is a word used to describe aspects of your website that may affect the visitor’s experience in a negative way. If anything is confusing or distracting from the purpose of the page, it can cause the visitors to be stressed or even leave the site. This is a part of the User Experience which is described in more detail further on in this list.

Inbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing is the approach to market with the intent to attract visitors instead of going out of the way to get the potential customer’s attention. High quality content and organic searches are both related to the inbound marketing approach.

Influencer

An Influencer is a popular person that has the ability to influence people and set trends.

Infographic

Infographics are very visual content pieces that are used to share information in a more interesting way. This is a great option when educating about more complex topics or when it is helpful to teach with visuals.

Key Performance Indicators

KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are a marketing term for specific performance measurements that can be used to evaluate your various marketing efforts. There are some KPIs mentioned on this list.

Keywords

Keywords or Keyword Phrases are important words and topics that can affect your site’s chances of showing up on a person’s search results. Search engines such as Google index websites based upon the words that websites have and these words help determine where your website will come up on a person’s search results. Keywords are related to SEO which is described further down in this list.  

Landing Page

Landing Pages are web pages that have a clear means of lead generation. The page often has a sort of form for the potential customer to give information.

Leads

Leads are a business or person that has shown any sort of interest in a product or service you offer.

Lead Generation

Lead Generation is any method by which a business finds and converts people from strangers  into potential leads. These people have been given the chance to show interest in the services or products offered by your business.

Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing is the process of qualifying leads, keeping them engaged, and furthering them along the steps to becoming customers.

Link Building

Link Building is the process of improving your placement on search engine results based upon the tactful use of links to other businesses’ websites on your business’ website. It is related to SEO which is better explained further down on this list.

List Segmentation / Email List Segmentation

List Segmentation is the organizing of contacts into categories based upon similarities. This is helpful as you decide on what approach you wish to take with your different types of customers.

Long-Tail Keywords

Long-Tail Keywords are Keywords that are more specific and targeted. They are usually phrases that consist of 3 words or more.

NPS

The NPS, or Net Promoter Score, is a metric used to measure a customer’s satisfaction with your business’ services or products and their willingness to recommend you to a friend. It is measured on a scale of 0-10.

Organic

Organic is a word used to describe how a potential customer or person online comes across your site or information through search efforts of their own. This method of being seen online also doesn’t cost any extra.

PPC

PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. This is a method of advertising that allows businesses to advertise on channels such as Google or Facebook and they pay for every time visitors click on their ad.

Qualified Leads

In comparison to Leads, Qualified Leads have gotten further through the process of becoming customers. They have chosen to learn more from your business and have even shared contact information.

Retargeting

Retargeting is a method of online marketing that lets marketers display ads to people who have viewed their business’ website or have provided their contact information.

ROAS

ROAS stands for Return on Ad Spend or Return on Advertisement Spending. It is a KPI to measure the performance of your advertising campaign online or offline.  It is basically the ROI for your ad campaign specifically.

ROI

ROI stands for Return On Investment. It is a measurement of performance and it compares how much you earned to how much work or money was invested.

SEM

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It is a combination of digital marketing efforts done using search engines. It includes SEO and PPC.

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is a method of improving your chances of showing up on people’s search results and how high on the list your site appears. It can really increase your site’s unpaid traffic and help people to find your business more organically.   

SERPs

SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. SERPs are the web pages you see when you are using search engines, such as Google. They have a mix of both organic content as well as paid results. This term is helpful when talking about SEO.

SMM

SMM stands for Social Media Marketing. It is any efforts done through social media applications or websites. This includes social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Many people understand what social media is, but not how it can be used effectively as a business tool.

Thought Leader / Thought Leadership

Through the building of trust and a businesses image, they can become thought leaders. They use their brand and reputation to influence customers and convince them of their product or service’s reliability.

User Experience / UX

User Experience is the total take away a customer has from their time spent with your business or an aspect of your business. Visitors will have a User Experience with your website as they visit the site and browse the different pages and information you have.

Viral

This is a descriptive word for digital content that gets shared rapidly online.

Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth can be described as any sort of information sharing from person to person. This would consist of people sharing about their experience with your business or when they refer their friends to you. This is a great method of marketing because of the already established level of trust from friend to friend.

In conclusion…

There are many new terms that come out all the time in the world of digital marketing. We know it can be hard to keep up with all the changes and that is a big part of what we are trying to do with the Forge blog. This list of some of the more popular current terms can be helpful as you use digital marketing to build up your business and try and stay in the loop with the most current trends.

If you have any comments, questions, or marketing needs contact us. We’d love to help!

-The Forge Team