Contents
- Types of Marketing
- Marketing Strategy Terms
- Sales-Focused Marketing Terms
- Brand Marketing Terms
- Customer Marketing Terms
- Marketing Measurements
- Marketing Activities
- Marketing Analysis Terms
- Website Marketing Terms
- Types of Content Marketing
- Online Advertising Terms
- SEO Terms
- Email Marketing Terms
- AI Marketing Terms
- Important Marketing Terms You Should Know
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If you’re new to the world of marketing, you might have seen people talking about “A/B testing” or “MOFU, TOFU and BOFU” and been left wondering what on earth they’re talking about.
Marketers are creating new words on a constant basis. Sometimes, there are even multiple acronyms that describe the same thing. It can get confusing, even for experienced marketers!
To help you out, we compiled a list of the most common marketing terms and some uncommon ones you can use to impress your colleagues.
There’s a lot here, so we’ve split it into sections:
- Types of Marketing
- Marketing Strategy Terms
- Sales-Focused Marketing Terms
- Brand Marketing Terms
- Customer Marketing Terms
- Marketing Measurements
- Marketing Activities
- Marketing Analysis Terms
- Website Marketing Terms
- Content Marketing Terms
- Online Advertising Terms
- SEO Terms
- Email Marketing Terms
- AI Marketing Terms
Types of Marketing
There are many types of marketing, ranging from search engine optimisation to event marketing. This section includes some of the most common types of marketing.
Traditional Marketing
Traditional marketing is any marketing that takes place offline, for example, in newspapers, magazines, posters, flyers, billboards, TV, radio and at events.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is any marketing that takes place online — via your website, search engine ranking, social media accounts, online adverts and more.
Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is where you make first contact with consumers. This is when you interrupt a consumer by putting your product, service or business in front of them. Examples include TV and radio adverts, telemarketing, direct mail and online ads.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is where consumers contact you after coming across your business organically. They may find you through a search on a search engine, content marketing, digital PR, email marketing, video marketing, social media marketing and more.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation is any action you take to improve where your website appears in search results on search engines.
Content Marketing
Content marketing consists of any content you create as part of your marketing efforts. It includes the content you share on your website, magazines or brochures you produce, guest posts and digital PR campaigns.
Email Marketing
Email marketing refers to any marketing done via email. It includes newsletters, discount offers, company updates and more.
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Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is any content you share on social media relating to your business. Social media marketing can appear in text, images or videos on platforms such as Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr or Snapchat.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy that uses famous figures to promote a product. The term “influencer” is used to describe people with large social media followings but can also include traditional celebrities.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) describes adverts that are run online. They may be run on search engines, social media or on other websites.
Business to Business (B2B)
Business to Business (B2B) describes businesses that sell products or services to other businesses.
Business to Consumer (B2C)
Business to Consumer (B2C) describes businesses that sell products or services to consumers. They may sell via their website, in stores or through third parties.
Direct to Consumer (D2C or DTC)
Direct to Consumer (D2C or DTC) refers to businesses that sell products directly to customers. D2C businesses are mainly online but may open physical stores. They do not use third parties to sell products initially but may collaborate with them in the future.
Event Marketing
Event marketing is any marketing you do at events hosted by your business or someone else. Examples include sales stands, event sponsorships, online events and conferences.
Product Marketing
Product marketing refers to the parts of your broader marketing activity that focus specifically on your product or service.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where publishers promote a product or service in return for a commission.
Account-Based Marketing
Account-based marketing, also known as key account marketing, is when the sales and marketing team identifies their ideal client and creates a marketing strategy to help win that target client.
Contextual Marketing
Contextual marketing uses online tracking to show adverts to consumers based on their past online activity, such as the websites they visit, searches they make or their interests.
Experience Marketing
Experience, or experiential marketing, focuses on creating an experience for consumers that they can participate in, physically or online.
Marketing Strategy Terms
While creating a marketing strategy, you will come across many different terms that describe all the elements that come together to create your strategy.
Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy is the plan you use to guide all your marketing activities. Your marketing strategy will outline the marketing channels you will use, the types of content you will create and the goals you want to achieve. Your marketing strategy should include short-term and long-term goals.
Marketing Campaign
A marketing campaign is a section of your marketing strategy used to promote a specific part of your business. You may run a marketing campaign for a new product launch, a seasonal service or attracting new employees.
Marketing Channels
Marketing channels are the mediums or platforms you use to connect with your target audience. There are many marketing channels, including magazines, online adverts, websites, social media platforms and more.
Marketing Roadmap
A marketing roadmap is a visual representation of your marketing strategy. It helps explain your marketing strategy to others in the business.
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Marketing Stack
A marketing stack is the different software and technology used in your marketing. This could include a customer relationship management system, an email marketing platform, design software and analytics platforms.
Marketing Mix
The marketing mix refers to all the elements that influence your marketing strategy. These elements include your product, its price, the place you sell it, the way you promote it, the people who work in the business, the processes you follow and physical evidence proving your product or service is worth the money.
Growth Loop
A growth loop is a marketing strategy that attracts a consumer’s interest and then keeps them engaged with valuable content. As a result, these consumers help spread your content and business by sharing your valuable content with their peers.
Sales-Focused Marketing Terms
This next section covers terms likely to come up in conversations with the sales team. They will also help you understand the connection between sales and marketing and how the two teams support each other.
Leads
Leads are consumers who may purchase from you or become a client.
Conversion
A conversion is an action a consumer takes that has value to your business. A conversion could be a sale or something else like signing up for a newsletter, leaving a review or visiting a physical store.
Sales-Qualified Lead (SQL)
A sales-qualified lead is a potential customer the sales team has identified as someone likely to become a customer. Once a sales-qualified lead is identified, the sales team can work towards converting them into a customer.
Marketing-Qualified Lead (MQL)
A marketing-qualified lead is a potential customer that the marketing team has reviewed and passed to the sales team. If the sales team decides to take steps to convert this person, they become a sales-qualified lead.
Sales Pipeline
The sales pipeline describes how the sales team organises and tracks potential customers at different stages of the buyer journey. The sales pipeline helps the sales team see when they need to take action to move a lead closer to purchase.
Sales Funnel
The sales funnel is the journey consumers go through before they make a purchase. It is described as a funnel as many consumers at the top may see your marketing, but only a few filter through to the bottom of the funnel and turn into sales.
Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel refers to the journey consumers go through before they reach the stage where they are considering a purchase, all the way through to purchase and beyond.
Conversion Funnel
The conversion funnel is the journey consumers go on before they convert. A conversion in this instance may not always be a sale; it could be signing up for a mailing list, downloading an eBook, following you on social media or something else.
Top, Middle and Bottom of Funnel (TOFU, MOFU AND BOFU)
Top of the funnel, middle of the funnel and bottom of the funnel are terms used to describe the stage of the sales, marketing or conversion funnel a consumer is at. The closer to the bottom of the funnel, the closer they are to a purchase or conversion.
Buyer Journey
The buyer journey is the process consumers go through before becoming a customer. The buyer journey includes the entire process from awareness of a product or service all the way through to purchase.
AIDA Model
The AIDA model (awareness, interest, desire and action model) is a marketing model that takes consumers on a journey starting with their awareness of your business, becoming interested in your product or service, desiring your product or service — all the way to them taking action and becoming a customer.
Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing refers to the different ways you build trust with a lead throughout the entire marketing and sales process. It includes marketing efforts such as blogs, guides, reviews, videos and more, as well as actions the sales team takes to move the lead towards a purchase.
Referral
A referral is when an existing customer directs someone they know towards your business. You may offer an incentive to existing customers to encourage them to recommend you to others.
Brand Marketing Terms
These terms are used to describe different elements of your business’ branding. Branding extends further than how your website looks.
Branding
Branding is anything that identifies your business as your business. Branding includes the name of your business, your logo, the colours, fonts and tone of voice you use, your packaging and more.
Brand Positioning
Brand positioning is the way your brand is different to your competitors and what you want consumers to think about when they think of your brand.
Tone of Voice
Your business’ tone of voice is the way you speak to consumers in all areas of your brand, including website copy, emails, brochures, the words your sales team use and more. For example, a tone of voice could be described as playful, knowledgeable or technical — it all depends on your business.
Unique Selling Point (USP)
Your unique selling point is an element of your business, product or service that sets you apart from competitors.
Value Proposition
Your value proposition is how consumers’ lives will improve if they purchase your product or service.
Share of Voice (SOV)
Share of voice (SOV) is how much of the market your brand owns compared to competitors. The higher your share of voice, the more visible your brand is in your industry. To find your share of voice, you may compare your brand with competitors using metrics such as social media following, website traffic or brand mentions.
Customer Marketing Terms
These marketing terms are often used to talk about customers or the people you want to become customers.
Target Audience
Your target audience refers to the consumers you want to reach with your product or service. Examples of what may be included in your target audience are age, location, income, personal values, hobbies and family status.
Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a document that describes your ideal customer based on your target audience, market research and existing customers. Many marketers get creative here too, and give their buyer persona a name and add a stock photo to represent their ideal customer.
Marketing Demographics
Demographics are statistics that describe individuals as part of the wider population. Examples of demographics include age, gender, location, income and family size. In marketing, demographics help us direct our product or service and marketing efforts towards the people most likely to buy.
Marketing Psychographics
Psychographics are psychological traits people have that may identify them as part of a group, similar to demographics. Psychographics may include a person’s lifestyle, interests, beliefs, values and personality. Demographics may help you choose where to market your business, and psychographics will influence how you do that marketing in terms of branding, tone of voice, imagery and more.
Customer Journey
The customer journey is a consumer’s entire journey with your brand, before and after purchase. This will begin when a consumer becomes aware of your business, through to them making a purchase and becoming a customer, until they stop being a customer.
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Customer Decision Journey
The customer decision journey focuses on how a consumer arrives at a purchase through their decisions. Some consumers may have a more impulsive customer decision journey where they convert fairly quickly after coming across your brand. In contrast, others may take longer and factor research into their purchasing decisions.
Customer Needs
Customer needs are any needs in a consumer’s life that drive them towards a purchase. Customer needs can vary — one person may need to get inside their home but can’t due to a broken lock and hire a locksmith. Another customer may need the best tech on the market but want to help the environment. Customer needs vary by industry, demographic and psychographics.
Customer Research
Customer research is where you learn more about your ideal or existing customer’s needs, motivations, preferences and behaviours. It may also be used to segment your customers into different groups, for example, “customers who only shop online”, “customers who only shop in-store” and “customers who shop in-store and online”.
Customer Retention
Customer retention focuses on keeping customers returning once they’ve made an initial purchase.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measurement of customer experience and loyalty. It is measured by asking customers, “How likely are you to recommend (business/product/service) to a friend or colleague?”.
Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM)
Customer relationship management software (CRM) is the software you use to manage and store customer details. It can be used to automatically send out content at different times, for example, sending a confirmation email to a customer who has just made a purchase or sending a review request email to a customer who recently made a purchase.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European privacy and security law. It protects the data of people in the EU. This data includes personal data like names and email addresses. To collect data from anyone, you must have specific, unambiguous content, for example, a visitor to your website opting in to receive emails from you.
Marketing Measurements
These terms are used to measure the results of your marketing activity and are used to track the performance of your marketing campaigns.
Objectives and Key Results (OKR)
Objectives and key results (OKR) are a way of goal setting that can be used for teams and individuals to set goals that align with other related teams. For example, the sales and marketing teams may work on OKRs together.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a way to measure the performance of a company, team or individual. An individual KPI could be “increase organic traffic to the website” or “generate £5,000 in revenue through events”.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Cost per acquisition (CPA) calculates how much the company has spent to acquire a new conversion — whether that’s a sale, a click on an advert, a sign-up for a webinar or an RSVP to an event. CPA could include the time spent to design and upload a social post or the physical cost of printing and distributing brochures.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Cost per lead (CPL) calculates how much the company has spent to acquire a new lead for the sales team.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is how much a company spends to acquire new customers. This is very similar to CPA but focuses more on sales than other conversion types.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on investment (ROI) is how much money you get back from your marketing spend. For example, if you make £10 for every £8 you spend on Facebook ads, netting you a £2 profit, your ROI would be 25%. The calculation for ROI is (NET INCOME / MARKETING COST) = ROI
Revenue Performance Management (RPM)
Revenue performance management (RPM) is a process used to evaluate your sales and marketing strategy focusing on revenue. By reviewing the sales and marketing performance with revenue in mind, you can ensure the company has the best people, processes and technology for the job. It can help you see what areas are underperforming; for example, lots of time is spent creating TikTok content despite meagre revenue from that platform.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of consumers who convert after interacting with your marketing efforts. It could be based on website visitors who signed up to an email list or people who clicked on an ad and made a purchase. It all depends on what you are tracking as a conversion event.
For example, if 300 people visited your website and three converted, your conversion rate would be 1%. The formula for calculating this conversion rate would be (EVENTS / VISITORS) X 100.
Retention Rate
Retention rate is the percentage of customers who stay on as repeat customers. It is especially important to offer a repeat service or a product on a subscription. Retention rate is also known as churn rate.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Sometimes known as simply “lifetime value”, or LTV, customer lifetime value (CLV) is the amount of money a customer will spend with you throughout their lifetime.
Marketing Attribution
Marketing attribution is a process where you identify the different parts of your marketing, also known as touch points, which have helped someone become a customer.
Multi-Touch Revenue Attribution
Multi-touch revenue attribution is a marketing measurement that includes all the different marketing channels a customer may have come into contact with before becoming a customer. If someone searches for your product on Google, visits your website and then makes a purchase, you may want to attribute this sale to “organic search”, but it’s also possible that the customer saw a TV advert, then followed your brand on social media, then saw a social media post, then got paid and decided to type your product name into Google to make a purchase.
Impressions
Impressions are the number of times a social media post is displayed to users. It could be shown to some users more than once.
Reach
Reach is the number of individuals who saw a social media post. If someone saw a social media post three times, they’d only count towards reach once.
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Engagement
Engagement is the number of people interacting with your content on social media platforms — liking, commenting, sharing or saving. For video content, views also count as engagement.
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate is the percentage of people who engage with your social media content. You may want to calculate the engagement rate using reach, impressions or follower count on your social media platform.
Let’s say you share a post on Instagram. You have 2000 followers, and the post reaches 230 individuals, gains 300 impressions and has 20 engagements.
If you wanted to see the percentage of your followers engaging with your posts, you’d divide the number of engagements (20) by the number of followers (2000) and then multiply that number by 100 to get a follower engagement rate of 1%. The formula is: (ENGAGEMENTS / NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS) X 100.
Marketing Activities
There are different activities used to create your marketing campaigns, ranging from writing copy to testing the effectiveness of various calls to action.
Content Creation
Content creation is the act of creating any type of marketing content. It could be creating a graphic for social media, writing a product description or putting together a brochure.
Copywriting
Copywriting is the process of writing any type of text for your marketing materials. It includes website content, social media posts, legal documents and more.
Public Relations
Public relations is an area of marketing that focuses on the company’s image and how it is perceived by the public. Public relations may take the form of press releases, interviews with journalists and publications, press conferences or through the brand’s social media presence and website.
Alt Text
Alt text is the text that accompanies an image uploaded to your website or on some social media platforms. The purpose of alt text is to describe the image to those who are visually impaired. It will also appear if the image does not load.
Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a piece of content that a consumer can download in exchange for their email address. Lead magnets can also be used in physical settings, such as collecting email addresses in return for branded products at an event.
Gated Content
Gated content is any content online that can only be accessed once a user fills in a form. Gated content is useful for generating leads. Content created as a lead magnet may also fall into the gated content category.
Call to Action
A call to action is text that invites a reader to take an action. Examples of these actions could be booking a demo, entering an email address to get a discount code or signing up for a webinar.
A/B Split Testing
A/B split testing is a test you can do on different marketing channels to see what works well with your audience. For example, testing two slightly different forms on your website to see which one has the highest completion rate.
Demand Generation
Demand generation involves raising awareness and interest in your product or service. Demand generation isn’t just about bringing in new customers but also keeping existing customers interested enough to become repeat purchasers.
Upselling/Cross-Selling
Upselling is when you suggest a product to a customer that is an upgrade to their existing purchase or will improve their existing purchase.
Cross-selling is when you suggest related products to a customer.
For example, a customer is booking a hotel. On the page where they can select a room type, they are given the option to upgrade to a better room — this is an upsell. When they go to check out, they see options to book a car from a local hire car firm for the same duration they are staying at the hotel. This is a cross-sell.
Community
In marketing, community refers to “fans” of your business or product. You may have different communities — perhaps the people who interact with you on Instagram are different from those who always visit your stand at events. You can cultivate a community through your business’ values and personality.
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) describes changes you make to your website or marketing to increase conversions. If you want to improve the number of people who download an eBook from your website, and change the call to action that results in more downloads, this would be conversion rate optimisation.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation refers to the software you use for routine marketing tasks to be done without human intervention. It includes social media scheduling software and email marketing software.
Marketing Analysis Terms
It’s crucial to analyse not only your marketing but to pay attention to your competitor’s marketing and the industry your business belongs to.
Competitor Analysis
A competitor analysis is when you look at your competitor’s marketing activity and see what is working, or not working, for them. Competitor analysis is useful for seeing where there are gaps in your competitors’ content that you can fill, identifying pain points that your competitor’s customers have with the competitor’s product or service and more.
Marketing Audit
A marketing audit is where you closely examine all aspects of your marketing and review how well it is working for you. You will also look at what is happening externally in your business. You may focus on specific areas, for example, only auditing your website. You can use several different frameworks to audit your marketing, including conducting a SWOT, gap, PESTLE or sentiment analysis.
SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis is an analysis of your business that looks at your business’s strengths and weaknesses, any opportunities you aren’t currently making the most of or any upcoming or existing threats you may face.
Gap Analysis
Gap analysis is when you look at the current status of the business compared to the business goals and what steps should be taken to meet those goals. As a marketer, you would need to look at current marketing activities and the results you are getting to see if there is anything you should be doing to close the gap between where the business is and where you want it to be.
PESTLE Analysis
A PESTLE analysis is an analysis framework that looks at different things happening outside your business that could impact the business and any marketing campaigns you have planned. It focuses on political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors that might affect your business. It’s wise to conduct a PESTLE analysis before launching a new product or service.
Sentiment Analysis
A sentiment analysis is when you research how consumers and customers feel about your brand. You may also consider how consumers feel about your industry or competitors.
Is your marketing underperforming?
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Website Marketing Terms
Your website is your online store-front and needs just as much attention as a physical store does. These common terms will help you understand more about your website’s position in your overall marketing strategy.
Website Traffic
Website traffic refers to all the visitors to your website, no matter how they arrived. Visitors may arrive from a search engine by typing your website’s URL into their browser window, through a link in an email or many other methods.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic describes any website visitors who visited your website through the search engine results page without clicking on an ad. If a person searches “lawyer near me” and clicks on the first result that appears that isn’t an advert, then they count as an organic visitor.
Direct Traffic
Direct traffic is made up of website visitors who type your website’s URL directly into their browser to visit your website. Sometimes, traffic that doesn’t have a defined source may end up in the direct category.
Paid Traffic
Paid traffic refers to visitors arriving on your website after clicking on an ad. This ad could appear on a search engine, a social network, another website or an email platform.
Landing Page
A landing page is any page you send visitors to during a marketing campaign. For some campaigns, you may want to create a whole new landing page just for that campaign.
If you sell cycling products and run online ads promoting your safety gear, your landing page might just be your safety gear product page.
If you want to focus on products and services that keep cyclists safe in winter, you may create a new landing page that includes your safety gear, cleaning products and winter-focused cycling advice.
Web Development
Web development is the process of creating, building and maintaining a website from scratch.
Content Management System (CMS)
A content management system (CMS) is software that helps users create and manage content on their website without needing specialist knowledge or knowing how to code. Popular content management systems include Shopify and WordPress.
Web Hosting
Web hosting describes the space you rent online for your website. Website content must be stored on a server so visitors can view it. It’s like paying for a parking space, but online, and with fewer cars (unless your business sells cars, of course…).
Website Domain
A domain is the name or address of a website. Our domain at Exposure Ninja is www.exposureninja.com. Anyone who wants to visit the Exposure Ninja website can do so by entering www.exposureninja.com into their browser. You need to purchase a domain to use it for your website.
URL
A URL is the text you enter into your browser to be taken to a specific webpage. A URL could be a website’s domain, such as www.exposureninja.com, or it could be a different page, for example, https://exposureninja.com.com/blog.
HTML / CSS
HTML and CSS are two different technologies used to build websites. HTML is the code that creates the structure of a webpage, and CSS is responsible for the layout, colour and fonts. An example of HTML in use is all the links throughout this guide. You, the reader, see nice and tidy text underlined in blue and can click that to be taken to another webpage. The HTML code, hidden from the viewer, looks quite different.
What the user sees: This is a link to the Exposure Ninja homepage.
How the HTML looks behind the scenes: <a href=”https://exposureninja.com/”>This is a link to the Exposure Ninja homepage</a>.
Responsive Web Design
Responsive web design describes websites that are designed to change shape and size depending on the device they are viewed on. Responsive design intends to make websites easily viewable on large PC monitors and small phone screens.
Usability
Usability describes how easy it is for visitors to use your website. Remember that a website with a nice design isn’t always good for usability.
Cookies
Website cookies are small data pieces used to identify website visitors. You must give visitors information about these cookies when they land on your website, which is commonly done in the form of a popup. Visitors must be given choices when it comes to whether or not they want cookies to be used while they are browsing.
Types of Content Marketing
Content marketing consists of any content you create as part of your marketing efforts. It includes the content you share on your website, magazines or brochures you produce, guest posts and digital PR campaigns.
Blogging
Blogging describes the content you publish on your website that is created to advise visitors. Blog content is often created to answer questions people are asking search engines.
Digital PR
Public relations, or PR, is an area of marketing that focuses on the company’s image and how the public perceives it. Digital PR takes traditional public relations and translates it into digital form. Digital PR campaigns take advantage of online platforms and publications and may include audio and video content.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is when you create content for another website, often a publication, to raise awareness of your business. Guest posts are not just long adverts for your company but valuable content that use your expertise to educate the publication’s existing audience.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is a piece of content on another website, often a publication, that you have paid for. Sponsored content must be labelled as sponsored by the publication so readers know a business has paid for the content. Despite this, sponsored content should add value to the publication, using your expertise to share interesting information with readers.
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Content Hub
A content hub is a section of a website that includes a lot of information on one topic. It may also be called a knowledge base. This guide is part of Exposure Ninja’s marketing knowledge base.
Online Advertising Terms
As the internet grows, so do the ways you can promote your business online. Here are some common terms you’ll come across in the online ad space.
Pay-per-click (PPC)
Pay-per-click (PPC) refers to online ads where the advertiser pays each time someone clicks on the ad. That said, “PPC” is often used to refer to all online advertising regardless of whether the advertiser is being charged per click — they could be paying when a certain number of people have seen the ad (impressions) or paying a publication a lump sum up-front to run ads on their site for a certain number of weeks.
Paid Search
Paid search describes any adverts run on search engines. These ads can appear at the top or bottom of the organic (unpaid) search results as text or in a search engine’s “shopping” section.
Paid Social
Paid social describes adverts that are run on social media platforms. These ads are commonly in video or image form, and options depend on the platform itself.
Remarketing/Retargeting
Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is a type of online advertising where you target past visitors to your website with ads on social media platforms or other websites they visit. This is done using a piece of code called a “tracking pixel”.
Tracking Pixel
A tracking pixel is a piece of code that enables you to track users around the web. It doesn’t mean you get all the information about the websites they have visited or their login information for other websites — don’t panic! Tracking pixels allow you to run adverts online to past visitors to your website through remarketing. You must make visitors aware of the tracking pixel on your website and include it in your cookie policy.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who saw your ad (number of impressions) and also clicked on it. If 100 people saw your ad and five clicked, your CTR would be 5%. You can calculate CTR using this formula (NUMBER OF CLICKS / NUMBER OF IMPRESSIONS) X 100.
Cost-per-click (CPC)
Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you are charged each time someone clicks on your ad. If you spent £25 on an ad and 100 people clicked, your CPC would be £0.25. You can calculate CPC using this formula: AD SPEND / NUMBER OF CLICKS.
SEO Terms
Search engine optimisation is any action you take to improve where your website appears in search results on search engines. Search engine algorithms include many different ranking factors that influence where your content ranks. These include the quality of the content, how long users spend reading it, the number of other websites linking back to your page and more.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO describes any changes you make to your website that help your ranking in search engines. It could be creating high-quality blog content answering your target audiences’ commonly searched questions, improving the page titles and headings on your website pages, making your website more user-friendly and much more.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is anything you do away from your website that helps improve its ranking. One of the most essential forms of off-page SEO is backlinking, where other websites link back to your site.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO describes technical changes you can make to your website to increase its rank in search results. It includes optimising your website for mobile and improving website speed.
Local SEO
Local SEO is anything you do to improve your website’s ranking for searches related to your local area. If you have a physical location or offer services in a specific area, then local SEO will help searchers find you more easily. Local SEO includes using a Google Business Profile and adding your location to your website pages.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is a process in which you find keywords, phrases or questions you want your website to rank for on search engines. Keyword research helps you decide what content you need to create or what pages need changes to help them rank for these words.
Link Building
Link building is the process of getting more links back to your website from other websites. The more links you have from high-quality websites, the more authority your website will have in the eyes of search engines, helping you rank higher in search results. It’s the search engine equivalent of many people recommending a business and leading someone to purchase.
Backlink
A backlink is a link that links from one website to another. When you are link building, your goal is to get more backlinks.
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authority and trust, which are four things search engines look at when deciding where different websites should rank in the search results.
Metadata
Metadata is the collective term for page titles and meta descriptions. Page titles are the titles you use for individual pages on your website that appear as the title in search results and in the tab the page is open in. Meta descriptions are the descriptions that appear alongside page titles in search results.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
A search engine results page, commonly referred to as a “SERP”, is the page of results that appears when someone uses a search engine.
Crawling
Crawling is a word used to describe the process search engines use to collect content from around the internet. When a “crawler” reaches your website, it uses internal links and navigation to crawl your entire website.
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Indexing
Indexing is the process search engines use to store and categorise information and content on websites to add them to search results.
Voice Search
Voice search refers to any searches users make through smart devices using their voice. It includes phone assistants and smart speakers.
Email Marketing Terms
Email marketing refers to any marketing done via email, which could consist of newsletters, discount offers and company updates.
Open Rate
Open rate is the percentage of people who open your email out of everyone who received it. If you send an email to 600 people and 200 open it, your open rate would be 30%. You can calculate the open rate using this formula: (NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO OPENED EMAIL / NUMBER OF RECIPIENTS) X 100.
Single Opt-in
Single opt-in means a user only needs to subscribe to your mailing list to start receiving emails.
Double Opt-in
Double opt-in requires a user to click a link they receive in an email after subscribing to a mailing list to confirm they want to receive emails from you.
Email Automation
Email automation is when you set up emails to be sent to email subscribers automatically. These emails are sent after a certain amount of time, after a purchase is made or after a visitor downloads something from your site in exchange for their email address.
AI Marketing Terms
AI marketing comes with many new terminologies that AI-savvy people use in their everyday language…leaving anyone who isn’t up to date on the lingo confused.
Here are some of the most common AI terms that you will encounter.
Machine Learning
Machine learning refers to how artificial intelligence learns from information. It’s essentially a method of teaching computers to learn from data without being explicitly programmed. It involves using algorithms and statistical models to analyse and make predictions or decisions based on patterns and trends in the data.
Deep Learning
Deep learning is a subcategory of machine learning in AI that imitates how humans learn different types of knowledge. Deep learning has been compared to the way toddlers learn new words.
Generative AI
Generative AI is a type of AI that generates new content or data, such as text, images or even video. It uses algorithms and models to learn from existing data (machine learning) and then creates new content based on that learning.
Prompts
Prompts are short pieces of text or questions given to an AI tool to generate a response. Prompts guide the model in a specific direction or provide context for the generated output.
Large Language Model (LLM)
A large language model is a machine learning model trained on vast amounts of data to generate human-like text or speech. Examples include GPT-4 and BERT.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural language processing is a branch of AI focusing on the interaction between computers and human languages. It involves using algorithms to analyse, understand and generate human language. Examples include ChatGPT, Bing Chat and Google Bard.
Natural Language Generation (NLG)
Natural language generation is a subfield of NLP that focuses on creating natural language output by machines. It involves using algorithms and models to generate human-like text or speech. Examples include your responses from tools like ChatGPT, Bing Chat or Google Bard.
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AI Search
AI search refers to any search engine that integrates an AI element, such as Bing Chat or Google’s AI snapshots.
AI Hallucination
AI hallucination is a term used to describe when a machine learning model generates an output completely unrelated to the input or data it was trained on. This can result in inaccurate stats or information being included in the AI’s responses.
Important Marketing Terms You Should Know
If you’ve read our guide from start to finish and are worrying you won’t remember all these terms — don’t panic!
Over time, you’ll find yourself using these terms more often, and they’ll become a regular part of your marketing conversations. Keep this guide bookmarked so you know exactly where to find out what it means if you encounter a marketing term you don’t recognise.
What’s Next?
Get to grips with the wider marketing world with our ninja introduction to marketing
Learn how to set realistic goals for your digital PR campaign
Dive into the future of marketing by learning how AI will impact your marketing activities.
