Digital Marketing Terms and Definitions

The marketing industry has its own lingo.

The jargon can appear in various forms. Sometimes, full fabrications or words ending in “- ability.” Other times, they are jumbled English jargon and strange acronyms.

Whatever form jargon takes, one thing is certain: it does not make marketing easier.

One of the greatest issues with marketing jargon is that marketing gurus expect you to know it and frequently use it as casually as “the.”

This becomes perplexing (and a little frustrating) for novices (or even intermediates for that matter).

This is why we’ve produced a list of some of the most frequent internet marketing terminology you’re likely to hear (and others you might not) to make your introduction to marketing a little bit easier!

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1st Party Cookie:: A cookie set by the owner of the domain a user is currently viewing. This cookie is used to collect first-party data.

301 redirect (permanent):An HTTP status code which signifies that the web page a user is trying to reach has been permanently changed to another page.

302 redirect (temporary):: An HTTP status code which indicates that the web page a user is trying to reach has been temporarily moved.

3rd Party Cookie:: A cookie set by a third party used to submit information to a company other than the owner of the domain a user is viewing. 3rd party cookie use is being deprecated from most internet browsers in 2023

404 page:: A URL that tells the visitor that the webpage does not exist

A/B testing:: A method of testing where two versions of content with a single differing variable are compared to determine which yields better results

Abandoned cart email:: A follow-up email sent to customers who added an item to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase

Abandoned cart:: When a potential customer adds an item to their cart, but doesn’t complete the purchase

Above the fold:: All of the information that is viewable on a web page prior to scrolling.

Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP):: A framework for building web pages that is used to provide an easier, faster mobile experience. Learn more about AMPs.

Accessibility:: Considering the needs of people with disabilities when products, services, and facilities are built or modified, making them usable by people of all abilities

Acquisition email:: An email sent to acquire new customers

Ad Network:: A group of websites that have ad inventory for advertisers to purchase. In the digital space, popular ad networks include Google Display Network, Google Search Partners, and Facebook Audience Network.

Ad PlatformA place for advertisers to create advertising campaigns and select where to show their ads from the available inventory. Google & Facebook are two of the largest ad platforms.

Ad Rank:: The rank of an ad in a given auction compared to other ads in that auction used to determine the ad’s position. Ad rank may be different in each auction.

Ad auction:: A process that determines the best ad to show to a person at a given point in time

Ad extension:: A Google Ads feature that shows additional information about the business, such as website links, a phone number, or address

Ad formats:: Elements such as text, videos, images, digital content ads, and more that make up a Google Ad

Ad group:: A group of ads that is organized by a group of keywords

Ad spend:: How much a company spends directly on advertisements

Adaptive Web Design:: A style of website design that creates web pages of different sizes in order to appear appropriately on devices with different screen sizes. It differs from Responsive Web Design in that it is actually multiple websites of different sizes rather than a single website which is coded to adapt to different screen sizes. Today, Responsive Web Design is now the recommended style, and Adaptive Web Design is no longer the recommended style for creating responsive websites.

Agency:: An outside partner that fulfills a company’s digital marketing and advertising needs

Alt text:: A brief, written description of an image with the primary purpose of assisting individuals who are visually impaired

Anchor text:: The visible text in a hyperlink

App Store Optimization (ASO):: A branch of digital marketing focused on strategies and techniques designed to improve visibility of apps in the app store. This can include optimizing the apps meta data with targeted keywords, enhancing app creatives, and more.

Applause rate:: The number of approval actions—such as likes, mentions, Retweets, or favorites—that a post receives relative to the total number of followers

Area chart:: Represents data in the same way as a line chart, but with the space under the line filled in to form a visual area

Artificial intelligence (AI):: A field developing intelligent machines and software that simulate human thought or work

Attribution project:: Organization for macro and micro conversions in Google Analytics

Attribution:: Assigns credit for conversions from ads, last clicks, or other touch points along a user’s path to conversion completion

Automated bidding strategy:: A Google Ads feature that automatically sets a bid for an ad based on an ad’s likelihood to result in a click or conversion that helps achieve a specific goal

Autonomous marketing:: Uses real-time analytics to automate marketing activities

Average Cost Per Click (CPC: The average price an advertiser pays when a user clicks on their ad.

Average Cost Per Thousand Impressions or Cost Per Mille (CPM):: The average cost for every 1000 impressions that are received. This is measured by dividing the total cost of advertising by the number of impressions then multiplying by 1000.

Average Cost per: (also known as Cost per Acquisition or CPA): The average amount of money spent to generate each conversion. This is calculated by dividing the total cost of advertising during a period of time by the total number of conversions over the same period of time.

Average Position:: A metric used to define the order of appearance of listings and ads on search engines.

Average daily budget:: The average amount set for each ad campaign on a per-day basis

Average order value (AOV):: The sum of individual order amounts divided by the number of orders

Average session duration:: Reported in seconds, a calculation that divides the total duration of all sessions by the number of sessions

Awareness stage:: The first stage of the marketing funnel, when a potential customer first becomes aware of the product or service

BOPIS:: An acronym for “buy online, pick up in store”

Backlink:: A link that points to a website from another site

Banner Ad:: A type of display advertising which appears alongside regular content on a website or app. Most often this ad type includes an image or graphic. Although the dimensions of banner ads range in size, common dimensions include 720×90, 300×250, and 160×600.

Behavioral data:: Refers to information about the actions a customer takes—or doesn’t take—when it comes to shopping on a website

Best sellers report:: A report in Google Merchant Center that provides information about the most popular brands and products used in Shopping ads and free listings

Bid modification:: Bidding a percentage more or less than a starting bid

Bid:: The amount a marketer is willing to spend each time a potential customer clicks their ad or calls their business

Bidding strategy:: Tells an advertiser how much to pay for each user action related to an ad

Big data:: A field in analytics that systematically mines and extracts information from very large datasets for insights

BigQuery:: Google’s cloud-based data warehouse solution

Bing Webmaster Tools:: A free tool with reports used to monitor how a website is being crawled, indexed, appearing, and performing in search results on Bing.

Black Hat SEO:Using malicious or mischievous SEO techniques that are against search engine best practices and use policies. It is often used to try to exploit or take advantage of loopholes in search engine algorithms in order to improve search rankings quickly.

Blog:: A discussion or informational website published on the internet consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries

Blogging:: Refers to self-published writing that lives online

Body (also known as HTML Body Element):: The area of HTML code containing all of the page information, such as images, tables, text, and hyperlinks.

Bounce rate:: The percentage of website visitors who view one page and then leave the site

Brand advocacy:: Measures the number of customers who promote a brand through word-of-mouth marketing or other methods

Brand awareness:: How familiar people are with a particular business or product

Brand equity:: The value consumers attribute to one brand’s offerings when compared with similar products from another brand

Brand evangelists:: Customers who are so passionate about a product or service that they enthusiastically promote it to others

Brand identity:: The combination of elements that inform how people perceive a brand

Brand position statement:: Outlines exactly what a company does and for whom, and what makes it different from competitors

Brand safety:: Keeping a brand’s reputation safe when they advertise online

Brand voice guidelines:: Describes the way a brand should be presented in writing

Brand voice:: The distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications

Brand:: How a business or organization is perceived by the public

Branded content:: Any post that features a third-party product, brand, or sponsor

Branding:: To promote a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand

Breadcrumbs:: A row of internal links at the top or bottom of the page that allows visitors to quickly navigate back to a previous section or the homepage

Brick-and-mortar: A traditional retail store with a specific location where customers can come to shop

Broad match:: A keyword match type in Google Ads that shows ads when someone searches for a term related to a keyword

Broken link:: A link that leads to a webpage that no longer exists

Bucket testing:: (refer to A/B testing)

Budget spend:: How much is allocated to or spent on a campaign

Business Listing:: Information about a business (see NAP+W) that is listed on websites and platforms such as Yelp, Google My Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other similar sites.

Business goal:: A desired aim, achievement, or outcome for a business

Business-to-business (B2B):: In e-commerce, when businesses buy products or services from other businesses

Business-to-consumer (B2C):: In e-commerce, when consumers buy items from an online store

CRM (Customer Relationship Management):: A software or technology used to collect and store information about a business’s customers and potential customers that is designed to help improve customer relationships and communication. Common CRM examples include SalesForce, Hubspot, Zoho & Pipedrive.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets):: Code used to style a web document.

Call Ads (formerly call-only ads):: A type of advertisement used on mobile devices that allows the user to click on the advertisement to directly call the business rather than have to first visit the business website or dial the business phone number themselves.

Call Tracking Number (CTN):: A phone number on a website that is used for tracking purposes, such as to determine how consumers found the business or their reason for calling.

Call to action:: An instruction that tells the customer what to do next

Campaign:: A plan of action for how a set of one or more ad groups that share a budget, location targeting, and other settings will be distributed online

Canonical (also known as a canonical link element or canonical tag):: An HTML element that is used to avoid duplicate content problems by telling search engines which page of content is the preferred version.

Cart abandonment rate:: The percentage of customers who add a product to their shopping cart and leave the site without completing their purchase

Cart abandonment:: When a customer adds an item to their cart, but doesn’t complete the purchase

Cell:: A position in a spreadsheet with a column and row designation; for example, cell A2 is the unique position in column A and row 2

Change management:: Methods, practices, approaches, and processes that organizations take to ensure changes are implemented smoothly

Channel: In Google Analytics, the Channel refers to the general group of sources that directed a user to a website. There are both default channels built into Google Analytics, such as social, organic, and direct, as well as the option to create custom channels.

Chatbot:: A programmed system that responds to common customer questions

Chronological feed:: A social media stream that displays the latest published content first

Citation:: Any mention of a business online.

Click Share:: A Google Ads metric which notes the percentage of clicks your ads received out of the estimated total number of clicks your ads were eligible to receive.

Click Through Rate (CTR):: The number of clicks received divided by the number of impressions received expressed as a percentage. This can also be thought of as the average likelihood that a user will click on your ad or listing after seeing it. It can be helpful in determining the quality of a listing or ad.

Click-and-mortar:: A type of retail store that sells online as well as in a brick-and-mortar store

Click-to-open rate:: The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links in an email

Click:: An interaction with an ad and online user

Cloaking:: A type of Black Hat SEO in which a website delivers different content to the search engine than it delivers to users.

Closed captions:: Subtitles that are overlaid on video and can be turned on and off by users

Color contrast ratios:: Measures the luminescence (or brightness) of a lighter color against the luminescence of a darker color

Comma-separated values (CSV):: A file format in which a comma is placed between each data value in the file

Competition:: The other sellers that exist already in the market

Complaint rate:: The percentage of complaints recipients send to mailbox providers about receiving an email

Confidence interval:: The range of possible values after accounting for the margin of error

Confidence level:: How likely an experiment’s range of results would contain all results if the test ran longer; most researchers select a 95% confidence level

Consideration stage:: The second stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer provides customer with more detailed information

Consumer-to-business (C2B):: In e-commerce, when businesses buy products or services from individuals (consumers)

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C):: In e-commerce, when consumers buy items from each other

Contact page:: A common webpage on websites that provides information for visitors to contact the organization or individual hosting the website

Container Tag:: A single code snippet placed on a website, which holds other tracking codes or pixels and information on when to “fire” those other tags and pixels. The container tag code should be placed on every page of a website and allows for a single tracking code to be used, rather than placing many individual tracking codes on a website. Using a container tag, the individual tags are added via a separate user interface (UI) instead of editing the website’s code. A popular example of a container tag is Google Tag Manager.

Content Management System (CMS):: A software or system used to organize the creation and management of digital content. Common examples include WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix.

Content buckets:: Categories to group marketing content

Content marketing:: A marketing technique that focuses on creating and distributing valuable content to a specific audience

Continuous metrics:: Metrics that are measured and change over time

Conversion paths:: A feature in Google Analytics that enables a marketer to view the first and last touchpoints before conversion and touchpoints in between

Conversion rate optimization:: The process of increasing the percentage of users or website visitors who complete a desired action

Conversion rate:: The percentage of users or website visitors who completed a desired action, such as clicking on a link in an email or purchasing a product

Conversion stage:: The third stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer capitalizes on the interest people have already shown

Conversion:: The completion of an activity that contributes to the success of a business

Cookie:: A small file stored on devices that tracks user behavior and analyzes traffic

Cookieless Browsing:: A term used to describe web browsers that do not support the use of third-party cookies.

Copy:: Any written material that encourages a customer to buy a product or service

Core Web Vitals:: A set of page experience signals which are being incorporated into Google’s search ranking algorithm as a known ranking factor. Core Web Vitals include measurements of a website’s Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).

Cost Per Conversion:: The price an advertiser pays for a conversion action. Most often abbreviated as CPA, meaning cost per (conversation) action.

Cost per acquisition (CPA):: The average cost of acquiring a potential customer

Cost per action (CPA):: The amount a marketer pays when someone completes a desired action

Cost per click (CPC):: The amount a marketer pays when someone clicks on their ad

Cost per thousand impressions (CPM):: The amount a marketer pays for every 1,000 impressions an ad receives

Cost per view (CPV):: The amount a marketer pays when a viewer watches a video ad for a minimum amount of time or interacts with it, such as when they click a link embedded in the video

Crawlers:: Automated software that crawls (fetches) pages from the web and indexes them

Crawling:: The process of finding new or updated webpages

Creatives:: Any content that can be promoted in a campaign, such as text, images, GIFs, or videos

Cross-channel attribution:: A model in Google Analytics that attributes a percentage of a conversion to all advertising channels with touchpoints

Cross-selling:: A sales technique used to encourage customers to spend more by purchasing a product that’s related to what they’re already buying

Curriculum vitae (CV):: A document that presents a full history of an applicant’s full academic credentials and professional experience

Custom audiences:: A platform feature that allows a marketer to create relevant remarketing campaigns to reach highly-specific groups of people by uploading email lists of existing customers and followers

Customer Data Platform (CDP):: A technology used to combine data from multiple sources and tools for better organization and analysis of customer interactions and information.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC):: The average cost of acquiring a paying customer

Customer acquisition:: The process of gaining new customers

Customer engagement:: The interactions and emotional connection between a customer and a brand

Customer journey map:: A visualization of the touchpoints a typical customer encounters along their purchase journey

Customer journey:: The path customers take from learning about a product, to getting questions answered, to making a purchase

Customer lifetime value:: The average revenue generated by customers over a certain period of time

Customer persona barrier:: What is preventing the customer from achieve their goal

Customer persona goal:: What the customer wants to achieve

Customer persona:: Represents a group of similar people in a desirable audience

Customer referral:: A word-of-mouth initiative that encourages existing customers to introduce their family, friends, and contacts to become new customers

Customer relationship management (CRM) system:: Software that helps a business manage and monitor its interactions with existing and potential customers

Customer retention rate:: The percentage of customers that a company retains over a certain period of time

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey: A tool that measures how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectations

Customer service:: The advice and support a company provides to its customers before, during, and after a purchase

DR:: DR stands for Domain Rating. It is a links metric created by the marketing platform, ‘Ahrefs’ to define the authority and ranking potential a website holds. A similar metric to this is DA, or Domain Authority which was created by Moz, another marketing platform. The higher the domain rating, the more authority and ranking potential a website has.

Dashboard:: A tool to track, analyze, and display KPIs, metrics, and insights dynamically based on interactive user criteria

Data analysis:: Examining data to draw conclusions, make predictions, and drive informed decision-making

Data analytics:: Monitoring and evaluating data to gain actionable insights

Data anonymization:: Techniques to mask or remove personal information from data to protect the identities of people

Data bias:: Human error that skews data collection or interpretation of data in a certain direction

Data ethics:: The study and evaluation of moral challenges related to data collection and analysis

Data privacy:: Rights of individuals under the law to control how their personal information is collected, processed, shared, archived, and deleted

Data pulling:: Collecting data from analytics tools and putting it in a spreadsheet or database

Data reporting:: Organizing and summarizing data to track performance across marketing and sales efforts

Data storytelling:: Conveying data insights to a specific audience using a clear and compelling narrative

Data visualizations:: Graphical representations of data that convey information

Data-driven attribution:: Measures customer engagement with marketing content across channels to understand what is motivating them to take action

Data-ink ratio:: The proportion of ink (or pixels in digital content) that is used to present actual data compared to the total amount of ink (or pixels) used in an entire visualization

Data:: A collection of facts or information

Dead stock:: Inventory that remains unsold for a long period of time and has little chance of selling in the future

Demand:: How much consumers are willing and able to buy a certain product over a given period of time

Demographic targeting:: Delivering an ad based on user information, like age

Demographics:: Information specific to the customer, such as age, gender identity, income, family size, occupation, education, and location

Digital Advertising Audit:: An inspection or examination of a business’s current digital advertising performance and tactics.

Digital Garage:: Digital Garage is a free online learning platform that helps you to learn more about everything digital and will help you to understand other Google tools.

Digital PR:: Digital PR (public relations) is the act of building links through online campaigns, thought-leadership articles and expert comments. PR teams have strong relationships with journalists, who can work for authoritative websites.

Digital advertising:: Communication made by a company to promote its brand, product, or service using various platforms and online channels

Digital channel:: Any communication method or platform a business can use to reach their target audience online

Digital marketing:: The practice of reaching consumers online through digital channels with the aim of turning them into customers

Digital shopping cart:: The virtual equivalent of a physical shopping cart

Dimensions:: Attributes or characteristics of an event that determine the metrics collected in Google Analytics

Discrete metrics:: Metrics that have specific values, can be counted, or are binary—like on/off or true/false settings

Display Network:: A group of websites where display ads may be shown. For example, the Google Display Network (GDN) is a display network comprised of over 2M websites that can show ads to users when the advertiser uses the Google platform to advertise.

Display ad:: A visual ad format placed on websites or applications

Display campaign:: A Google Ads tool that allows businesses to place image advertisements across various websites

Domain Authority:: A search ranking score from 1 to 100, created by Moz, used to measure the SEO weight a website domain carries in the eyes of a search engine. A higher score indicates a more authoritative domain.

Domain Name:: The portion of a URL which indicates the host or web server. Example: scayvergraphix.com is a domain name.

Domain:: The core part of a website’s URL, or internet address

Dropshipping:: A fulfillment method in which products are shipped from the supplier directly to the customer

Duration:: How long a campaign will run

Dwell Time:: The amount of time between when a user clicks on a result on the search engine results page and when the user returns to the search engine results page.

Dynamic remarketing: A process that allows a company to show previous visitors ads that contain products and services they viewed on the company’s site

E-A-T:: Stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, & Trustworthiness and is used in SEO to describe the quality of a website or content. The term comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

E-commerce platform:: A software application that allows businesses to sell products or services online

E-commerce point-of-sale (POS) system: Software that allows a business to process payment transactions from customers online

E-commerce store:: A store that sells its products online

E-commerce strategy:: A working plan to promote an online store and increase its sales

E-commerce:: The buying and selling of goods or services using the internet

Earned Media:: Any positive digital exposure generated through personal or public recommendations

Elevator pitch:: A short, memorable description that explains a concept in an easy-to-understand way

Email body:: The text in the main content of an email

Email bounce rate:: The percentage of emails sent that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox

Email copy:: The text in a subject line, preview text, and email

Email marketing provider:: A company that offers email marketing or bulk email services

Email marketing report:: A collection of KPIs presented to the team and stakeholders to inform them of a campaign’s progress

Email marketing strategy:: A set of procedures that a marketer identifies and follows to achieve their desired marketing goals with email advertising

Email marketing:: The process of sending messages to a list of existing subscribers to share information, drive sales, or create community

Engagement marketing:: (refer to experiential marketing)

Engagement:: How an audience interacts with a brand on social media

Event:: An activity that causes data collection to occur in Google Analytics

Evergreen content:: Content that will be relevant over a long period of time

Exact match: A keyword match type in Google Ads that shows ads when someone searches for a term that has the same meaning or same intent as a keyword

Exit Page:: The page from which a visitor leaves a website.

Experiential marketing:: The process of encouraging consumers to not only purchase a brand or product, but to experience it

External link:: A link on a website that leads to content on other sites

FFacebook Business Manager:A platform created by Facebook designed to help marketers manage the Facebook ads and pages of multiple businesses from one central account.

Featured snippet:: A special box that displays information about a search in the results page

Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC):: Grouping people together when they have similar browsing characteristics without the use of a unique identifier per browser; may be used for internet-based advertising which is an alternative to using cookies

First click attribution:: Assigns all the credit to the first touchpoint that eventually leads to a conversion

Flight:: (refer to duration)

Follow-up interview: A more in-depth meeting that often includes members of the team that the applicant will be working with

Follower:: Someone who opts in to receive updates from a business or brand on a social media platform

Footer:: A navigation section at the bottom of a website

Forecasting:: The process of predicting the future demand for products

Forward rate:: The percentage of recipients who click on the “share” button to post to social media or who click the “forward” button to send to others

Frequency:: How many times an individual encounters an ad

Frequently asked questions (FAQ):: A section on a website that provides answers to the questions that customers might have regarding a business, their products or services, policies, processes, and more

Fulfillment service:: A third-party company that prepares and ships orders from their fulfillment centers

GIF:: An animated image

Generalist:: Someone who is knowledgeable about many topics and has various interests

Geo-modifier: Appending a location-based term to a keyword, such as “Dentist in Bend.” Here, Bend is the Geo-modifier.

Geo-targeting:: Showing ads to people based on their physical location. Locations are usually determined by IP address or mobile GPS signals.

Geofencing:: Using a person’s location to trigger a response when a person enters or leaves a virtually fenced area. For example, a person with GPS enabled on their cell phone enters a one-mile radius of a smoothie shop and they are sent a text message with a 10% off coupon for that smoothie shop.

Geographic segmentation: The grouping of customers with regards to their physical location

Goal-based automated bidding:: A bidding strategy where a marketer sets an ROAS or cost per action target to maximize the advertising goal at a certain efficiency

Google Ads:: An online advertising platform where advertisers bid to display brief
advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users Google Algorithm Update – Google regularly updates its algorithm to ensure that users are receiving the most relevant and trustworthy search results. Historic algorithm updates include the Google Penguin update, which penalized websites for buying links, and Google Panda, which targeted spammy and “thin” content. More recent Google Algorithm Updates have focused on mobile friendliness and page speed, as well as broader consideration around E-A-T.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4):: The next generation of Google Analytics which incorporates machine learning to surface user insights. It can be used with both web and app properties and is now the default version of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics:: A web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic

Google Business Profile:: A tool that allows local businesses to tailor how their information appears on Google Search and Google Maps

Google Display Network:: A group of websites, videos, and apps where ads can appear

Google Merchant Center:: A tool advertisers use to upload their store and product data to Google and make it available for Shopping ads and other Google services

Google Search Console:: A tool that helps users better understand how a website is performing on Google Search

Google Tag Manager:: A free tool used to organize website tagging and tracking codes all in one place.

Google Trends:: A free Google tool that lets people explore what citizens around the world are searching for on Google

Google knowledge panels:: Information boxes that appear on Google when someone searches for people, places, organizations, or things that are available in Google’s knowledge database

GoogleBot:: GoogleBot is Google’s specific user-agent that crawls web pages and other assets before sending information to Google’s index to eventually display and rank in their search engine. For a breakdown of other Google-owned user-agents, read Google’s Overview of Google Crawlers.

H1 Tag:: A H1 tag is the main heading tag on a webpage, often the title, and is considered the most important tag. It is followed by a H2 tag for a subheading, a H3 tag for a smaller heading and so on.

HTML:: HTML stands for “Hyper Text Markup Language” and refers to the code which is used to build web pages and to arrange the layout of the page.

HTTP Requests :: ‘Hypertext Transfer Protocol’ is a protocol that allows information to be shared and passed between your browser and the website.

HTTPS:: An internet communication protocol that protects the integrity and confidentiality of data between the user’s computer and the site

Hashing:: A security method which turns the personal information in email lists into randomized code

Hashtag:: A word or phrase preceded by the pound symbol that indicates that a piece of content relates to a specific topic or category

Headers (also known as HTML Headers):: An HTML element that defines the introductory content. This information is displayed on the actual web page often in a larger font to tell users what the next section of text will be about. There are headers of different weights which function as subheaders. This information is important for the user experience as well as telling search engines the information contained on the page and how important it is.

Heat map:: A data visualization tool that demonstrates how visitors interact with a website

Histogram:: Shows individual data points that have been categorized into ranges, with the frequency of each range represented by the height of a unique column

Hits:: An interaction that results in data being sent to a tracking solution (i.e. Google Analytics). One session can include multiple hits such as page views, events, or social interactions.

Home page:: The main page of a website

Horizontal bar chart:: A 90-degree rotation of a vertical column chart

Hreflang:: Code which tells the search engines the written language of the web page being indexed.

IDFA or Idenifier for Advertisers:: A technology formerly used by Apple to allow advertisers to track and target users within iOS14 devices. As of the iOS14.5 update, users of Apple devices need to specifically opt-in to allow the information to be passed to app owners.

Image optimisation :: Ensuring an image is high-quality and compressed enough so it loads quickly on a webpage while not disrupting user experience.

Impression Share:: A measurement of the number of times an ad was shown out of the total number of times it was eligible to show. This can help measure how much of the available audience an ad is reaching.

Impression to Conversion Rate (Imp CVR):: A measurement of how often an impression turns into a conversion, calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of impressions.

Impression:: When a piece of content is displayed to a target audience

In-house:: Within a single company

Inbound links :: Links that appear on other domains that lead to your site.

Inclusive marketing:: The practice of improving representation and belonging within the marketing and advertising materials that an organization creates

Indexing:: The process of Google saving and organizing website information to display in the search engine

Influence:: The degree to which a stakeholder can convince people to take certain actions

Influencer marketing platform:: Software that provides influencer discovery tools such as large searchable databases of potential influencers

Influencer marketing:: The process of enlisting influential people to endorse or mention a brand or product to their followers on social media

Influencer-generated content:: Any post created by an influencer that promotes a brand’s products and services

Influencer:: A person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media

Informative report:: A report used to provide company leadership with a broad understanding of campaign performance, focusing on larger metrics like return on investment (ROI) and other key performance indicators (KPIs)

Insight report:: A report that finds meaning in the data and aims to communicate that meaning at a high-level to stakeholders

Insight:: Information that is discovered through research or data analysis and that can be actioned upon to benefit a marketing strategy

Interest targeting:: Delivering an ad based on user preferences

Interest:: The degree to which a project informs or impacts a stakeholder’s objectives

Internal link:: A link on a website that points to other pages on the site

Internet troll:: A person who intentionally antagonizes others online by posting inflammatory, unnecessary, or offensive comments or other disruptive content

Javascript:: A programming language used to create interactive or dynamic elements on a web page.

Key performance indicator (KPI):: A measurement used to gauge how successful a business is in its effort to reach a business or marketing goal

Keyword Bid:: The maximum amount an advertiser is willing to pay for a click in an ad auction.

Keyword Density:: A measurement of the occurrence of a keyword on a page or website in relation to the total number of words on the same page or website.

Keyword research:: The process of finding terms and phrases that people use in search engines

Keyword stuffing:: The practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in the search results

Keyword:: A search term that people use to find information, products, or services online

Knowledge Graph:: A collection of information about real-world objects and entities that search engines use to create knowledge panels. Introduced by Google in 2012.

Knowledge Panel:: A box of information that appears on the search engine results page and is meant to give the searcher a brief look at the information available on the web about the topic. The knowledge panel is automatically generated by the search engines and is shown for entities that are included in the knowledge graph.

LLTV to CAC ratio:The total LTV (total lifetime value) divided by CAC (customer acquisition cost)Landing page:The first page a visitor encounters when they go to a websiteLast click attribution:Assigns all the credit to the last known touchpoint before conversion

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) :: (also known as Latent Semantic Analysis or LSA) is A technique that uses statistical formulas to determine the meaning of a body of text based on the context.

Law of diminishing returns:: An economic principle stating that if investment in a particular area increases, the rate of profit from that investment will eventually decrease if other variables remain constant

Lead generation:: The practice of collecting a potential customer’s email address

Lead:: A potential customer who has interacted with a brand and shared personal information, like an email address

Lifetime ROAS:: The result of multiplying the number of new customers by the total LTV and dividing the result by the ad spend

Lifetime value (LTV):: The average revenue generated by customers over a certain period of time

Line chart:: A chart in which individual data points for a changing variable are connected with a continuous line

Linear attribution:: Assigns equal credit to each touchpoint along the customer journey

Link Building:: Link building is the methodology of influencing external websites to position a hyperlink back to your website. Link building is considered to be one of the most effective ways to grow your organic visibility along with on-site content creation.

Link Juice:: A slang term used in SEO to describe the value of links pointing to another site.

List growth rate:: The rate at which an email subscriber list grows

List-based remarketing:: Uses lists of existing customers or visitors who have provided their email address and shows specific ads to them

Live View:: A feature in Shopify that provides a real-time view of an e-commerce store’s activity as it happens

Live chat:: A customer service technology that allows customers to communicate in real time with a business representative

Local SEO:: Optimizing content so that it displays in Google’s local search algorithms

Local Service Ads:: A Google Ad format that uses a pay-per-lead pricing model and is only available to businesses that are verified by Google. This ad type is only available in certain areas and only to specific types of businesses. Local Service Ads are managed on a separate platform outside of Google Ads.

Local search:: A search query that generates local-based search results

Location targeting:: Delivering an ad based on user location

Long-Tail Keywords:: Long-tail relates specifically to keywords with lower search volume. They’re less popular than other higher volume keywords (i.e. short- and mid-tail keywords) but with that, they also come with a higher intent, more choice with lots of demand at scale, lower competition and a tendency to convert exceptionally well

Lookalike audience:: People with similar demographics and behaviors who haven’t yet been introduced to a brand

Loyalty stage:: The fourth stage of the marketing funnel, when customers become repeat customers and brand advocates

Macro conversion:: A completed purchase transaction

Macro-influencers:: Influencers with between 100,000 and 1 million followers

Manual action:: Google’s way to demote or remove webpages that are not compliant with its webmaster quality guidelines

Manual bidding:: Managing bids based on the criteria the marketer selects

Margin of error:: The statistically-calculated difference between a test result and the theoretical result that could have come from a test with a lot more users

Market research:: The process of gathering information about consumers’ needs and preferences

Market size:: The total number of potential customers within a specific industry

Marketing automation:: The practice of using software, programs, and technology to create and implement applications to automate marketing tasks

Marketing funnel:: A visual representation of the process through which people go from learning about a brand to becoming loyal customers

Marketing goal:: An objective in a marketing plan or strategy that supports a business goal

Marketing mix models:: Statistical models advertisers use to predict the effectiveness and ROI of an advertising spend

Marketing return on investment (ROI):: A metric calculated by subtracting the marketing cost from the total sales growth and dividing the result by the marketing cost

Maximum bid:: The highest amount a marketer is willing to bid on a platform; also known as the ceiling

Media mix models:: (refer to marketing mix models)

Media mix:: A combination of digital channels marketers use to reach their goals and how they divide their budget among them

Media plan:: Contains details about where, when, and how often an ad will appear across all media channels

Medium:: In Google Analytics, the Medium refers to the way a user came to a website. Examples include “organic” meaning they found a website via an organic listing in the search results, “none” meaning they came directly to a website by typing it into the browser, or “referral” meaning they came to a website via a link on another website.

Mega-influencers:: Influencers with 1 million or more followers

Meme:: An amusing or interesting item—such as a captioned picture or video—that is spread widely online

Merge tag:: (refer to personalization tag)

Meta description:: Text that provides search engines a summary of what the page is about

Metadata:: In the context of digital marketing and web development, metadata refers to a page’s “hidden information” that’s typically stored in the <head> of a document. For SEOs, metadata that’s of particular interest is the title tag and meta description as these are the components that appear in a search result. They can give users a concise overview of what they will find on a page while promoting higher rankings when optimized correctly.

Metrics:: Quantifiable measurements that are used to track and assess a business objective

Micro conversion:: A completed response that indicates a user is moving toward a completed purchase transaction

Micro-influencers:: Influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers

Microblogging:: Blogging on a smaller scale; Ideal for distributing short-form content quickly and frequently

Minimum bid:: The lowest amount a marketer is allowed bid on a platform; also known as the floor

Mobile First Indexing:: Indicates that the mobile version of a website is the version that is crawled and indexed by search engines. Any information that does not exist on the mobile version of a website is not indexed.

Mobile Friendliness:: A measure of how easy a website is to use and access on mobile devices.

Mobile-friendly webpage:: A webpage that is designed to load quickly and render well on a phone screen

Monthly active users:: Refers to the number of unique customers who visit a platform over a month-long span

Multi-channel customer service:: Refers to providing customer service across multiple channels

Multivariable testing:: (refer to multivariate testing)

Multivariate testing:: A method of testing where two or more versions of content with several differing variables are compared to determine which combination yields better results

NNAP+W:An acronym for name, address, phone, and website that is often used in relation to citations or business listings as a part of Local SEO.

Nano-influencers:: Influencers with 10,000 followers or fewer

Navigation bar:: A collection of links to other pages within a website

Negative keywords:: Search terms excluded from an ad campaign

Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey:: A single-question survey that asks respondents to rate the likelihood that they would recommend a company, product, or a service to a friend or colleague on a scale from zero to ten

Net Promoter Score (NPS):: A metric that helps predict future customer engagement by asking customers, “How likely is it that you would recommend our product to a friend?”

Net profit margin:: The percentage of revenue left over after expenses are paid

Net profit:: The amount of money left over after expenses are paid

Newsletter:: An email sent to subscribers on a regular basis, containing news and informational content relevant to the company and of interest to subscribers

Nofollow/rel=”nofollow”:: Nofollow is an attribute value used to suggest that search engines should not crawl and therefore shouldn’t pass link equity through any given link. One implied application of this is to prevent any association with intentional bad practice, such as purchasing links.

Noindex:: An HTML tag intended for web crawlers, which requests that the crawler does not index the page.

Off-Page Optimization:: This refers to external measures away from a website which may improve its organic performance. It is mainly used to describe link-building practices through an array of methodologies, including digital PR, but can also refer to engaging with social media, consumer review sites and other platforms that can promote a business’s trust and authority.

Off-season:: The period where customers tend to take more time in making purchases, especially if it’s for a larger ticket item

Omnichannel:: The integration or synchronization of content on multiple channels

On-Page Optimisation:: This refers to the measures which can be taken within a website itself to improve its organic performance. This includes tasks such as improving keyword targeting, writing meta descriptions and creating content.

On-season:: The period where customers are much more likely to buy products due to related weather variables or special events

Online advertising: A form of marketing which uses the internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers

Open captions:: Subtitles that are embedded directly in video and can’t be hidden or turned off by users

Open rate:: The percentage of users or customers who open an email

Open-source:: Software that allows the user to access and edit the original source code

Operational report:: A report that provides real-time updates and information on metrics like audience growth rates, impressions, click-through rates, and more

Optimization score:: An estimate of how well a Google Ads account is set to perform

Order fulfillment:: All the steps that take place between receiving an order and delivering the order to the customer

Organic Listing:: A listing on the SERP that is achieved without directly paying the search engine. The entire field of search engine optimization is dedicated to improving the performance of organic listings on the SERP.

Organic Search Results:: The average organic rank of a website on the search engine results page.

Organic Traffic:: This is the number of people who visit your website through natural search engine listings, i.e. without clicking an advertisement or a referral link. Similarly, you can also receive traffic through Organic Social – again, via users who found you on social media through unpaid means – though this is often tagged simply as “Social” through analytics platforms. Organic Traffic does not include what is called “Direct Traffic” – when a user types your URL directly into the search bar, or clicked on their saved bookmark.

Organic results:: Search results not paid for by advertisers

Organic search:: Unpaid results a search engine produces when a search is performed

Organic social media:: Any social media activity that does not require a paid promotion

Owned media:: All the digital content a brand fully controls

PESTLE analysis:: An audit that identifies political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that may affect a marketing strategy

PPC Advertising:: The average rank of an ad in relation to the other ads. Average Position was sunsetted by Google as of September 2019 due to the confusion it can cause about actual ad position.

PPC (Pay per Click):: A type of digital advertising in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their advertisements.

Page Authority:: Similar to domain authority, page authority is a search ranking score from 1 to 100, created by Moz, used to measure the SEO weight a specific web page carries in the eyes of a search engine.

Page Experience Signals:: A selection of measurements used to better understand the user experience of a website. Page experience signals include Core Web Vitals, mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitials.

Page Head (also known as HTML Head Element):: The information contained in a web page prior to the body, which defines information about the contents of the page. This is commonly where tags, such as Google Analytics tags, and metadata are placed in a web page’s code.

Page Speed:: A metric from 1 to 100 that measures how quickly a website page loads. According to Google, Page Speed is a ranking factor as it has a direct impact on user experience.

Pages per Visit:: The number of web pages an average user views during a session on a website.

Paid Ad:: Any advertising placement earned via a payment. See also Digital Advertising.

Paid media:: Any form of digital promotion a brand pays to put online

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Pain point:

A specific problem faced by current or prospective customers while interacting with a site

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising:: A type of advertising that allows the advertiser to pay only when someone clicks on an ad link

Payment service provider:: A secure way to process transactions online

Penalty (search engine):: A negative action against a website brought by a search engine for ignoring or intentionally violating policies or best practices.

Performance Planner:: A Google tool that allows an advertiser to forecast the impact of different spending scenarios and events during upcoming seasons

Performance goal:: A target that has a measurable, numeric value

Performance marketing:: The process of using concrete information about customer behaviors to plan and refine marketing and sales strategies

Performance reporting:: (refer to data reporting)

Personalization tag:: A code that allows the writer to insert unique user data from their mailing list into emails

Personalization:: The practice of delivering a customized experience for each customer

Personalized advertising:: A type of advertising that relies on user interest or behavior data to determine the right audience for ads

Personally identifiable information (PII):: Information that could be used to directly identify, contact, or locate an individual

Phone-through Rate (PTR):: An advertising metric measuring the number of phone calls received from an ad divided by the total number of times the phone number was shown in an ad.

Phrase match:: A keyword match type in Google Ads that shows ads when someone searches for a term that includes the meaning of a keyword

Pie chart:: A chart that shows data with partial and whole results

Pillars of social media marketing:: The pillars that can help guide an effective social media marketing campaign: strategy, planning and publishing, listening and engagement, analytics and reporting, and paid social media

Pivot table:: A visualization that changes the view of data in a spreadsheet to a different perspective to categorize it or to identify an insight or trend (without changing the data itself)

Pixel-based remarketing:: A process that sends ads automatically to users after placing a cookie into their web browser that tracks the pages and products they view

Pixel:: An invisible image file placed on a website that is used to pass information, such as a cookie, to a server. Pixels can be used to determine touchpoints with a brand across different platforms.

Podcast:: An episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device to listen or read a transcription

Point of diminishing returns:: The point at which revenue-to-ad spend is at its highest

Points model:: A rewards program that offers customers a point equivalent for a determined monetary value spent over the course of several purchases

Portfolio:: An edited collection of an individual’s best projects intended to showcase work experience, style, or methods

Position Zero:: Another name for a featured snippet. So named because it shows up above the first traditional, organic result on the SERP.

Post-purchase communication:: Any direct interaction customers have with a brand after they make a purchase

Potential reach:: A metric that measures how many people have potentially seen a post

Power grid:: (refer to stakeholder map)

Predicted lifetime value (pLTV):: The predicted revenue generated by customers over a period of time that includes the future

Predictive analytics:: Uses historical data to predict what might happen

Preliminary interview:: A fast-paced meeting conducted over a phone call or video chat

class=”hg-item-title” data-role=”hg-item-title”>Preview text:: Text next to an email’s subject line in the inbox that gives extra insight into what’s inside the email

Primary research:: Research obtained first-hand

Privacy policy:: A legal document that discloses some or all of the ways a business gathers, uses, discloses, and manages a customer’s data

Product analytics:: Monitoring and evaluating data to gain insights into how users interact with a product or service

Product conversion rate:: The percentage of customers who purchase a product after viewing it

Product description:: The text on the product detail page of an e-commerce store that provides details and information to customers about the product

Product detail page (PDP):: A page on an e-commerce site that provides information about a specific product

Product recommendation engine: Software that uses artificial intelligence to analyze customers’ data, learn which products might interest them, and display those products to the customer

Product sourcing:: How a business acquires the products they sell to customers

Product viability:: The sales potential for a specific product

Programmatic Advertising:: An automated bidding method used to purchase display ad inventory for a specific audience. Often called real-time bidding (RTB).

Progressive Web Apps:: A type of web page that functions like an app and is designed for a more immersive user experience. Learn more about Progressive Web Apps.

Promoted post:: A social media post that a marketer pays the platform to make more visible

Promotional email:: An email sent out to inform subscribers of new or existing products or services

Property:: A website, mobile application, or web page that is associated with a unique measurement ID in Google Analytics to enable metrics collection

Psychographic data:: Refers to information based on customers’ activities, interests, and opinions

Python:: A programming language used for data analysis and data visualization

Qualified traffic:: Traffic made up of visitors who are likely to become customers

Qualitative data:: Information that describes qualities or characteristics

Quality Score:: A score out of 10 given by Google Ads to indicate how closely related an ad & landing page are to the keywords. Since Quality Score is one of the factors in Ad Rank, it can have an impact on the number of times an ad is shown and the price an advertiser pays for ads.

Quality control:: The process through which a business seeks to ensure that product quality is maintained or improved

Quantitative data:: Information that can be counted or compared on a numeric scale

Quarter:: A three-month time period based on a company’s financial calendar

Query:: The words typed into a Google Search bar

Rank:: A webpage’s position in the search engine results pages (SERPs), which is determined by an algorithm

RankBrain:: A component of the Google algorithm that uses machine learning to determine the most relevant results for search queries, especially queries that are entered for the first time.

Ranking Factors:: These are items that are used in search algorithms and impact how and where a webpage appears on search engine result pages.

Reach:: The total number of unique individuals who encounter an ad across their different devices

Real-time analytics:: Monitors immediate data for insights to respond to events more quickly

Real-time marketing:: A marketing approach that involves responding to current events, trends, or feedback in real or near-real time, almost always on social media

Redirect testing:: A method of testing where two ads or webpages with different URLs are tested against each other to determine which yields better results

Referral:: Refers to how someone was guided to a website

Remarketing ad:: An advertisement delivered to previous purchasers, subscribers, or visitors to a brand’s website or social media

Remarketing:: A strategy in which a marketer uses paid ads to target customers who have visited a website, app, or social media profile

Replenishment emails:: Emails used to prompt customers to make a repeat purchase when the items they previously bought are about to run out

Repurposing content:: Repurposing content: The process of recreating and republishing content in different formats

Responsive display ad:: A display ad that automatically adjusts its size, appearance, and format to fit available ad spaces

Responsive website:: A website that is designed to work on all types of devices, including computers, mobile phones, and tablets

Resume:: A document created and used by a person to present their background, skills, and accomplishments

Retention email:: An email sent to a current customer with the intent of keeping them as a customer

Return on ad spend (ROAS):: How much revenue is gained versus how much was spent

Return on investment (ROI):: A ratio of net income (money made) to investment (money spent)

Return policy:: A document that describes, in detail, a business’s process and requirements for accepting returns

Return rate:: The percentage of products sold that are returned by customers

Revenue-per-click:: The average revenue for each individual click on all of a company’s pay-per-click keywords and ads

Rewards program:: A marketing strategy designed to build customer loyalty by providing incentives for customers to continue shopping with the brand

Rich results:: Enhanced results in Google Search with extra visual or interactive features

Robots.txt:: A file used by webmasters that give search engine robots [like Googlebot] directives on how to crawl a website.

Rule of seven:: A marketing concept that states a potential customer must see a message at least seven times before they’re ready to take action

SSMART:A goal-setting method that can help define and measure the success of the goals of a campaign; Stands for “specific,” “measurable,” “attainable,” “realistic,” and “time-bound”SSL Certificate:A small data file that enables encrypted connections between a web server and a browser to ensure site security.

STAR method:: A strategy for answering interview questions that focuses on a specific situation, task, action, and result

SWOT analysis: An audit that identifies a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

Schema Markup:: A website markup language created in cooperation by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex to help search engines better understand specific parts of a website. Learn more at Schema.org.

Schema:: The type of code used for structured data markups

Screen enlargement application:: Technology that helps users see content more easily by magnifying text and images on a computer or digital device screen

Screen reader:: An application that converts text, buttons, images, and other screen elements into speech or Braille

Search Intent:: The goal or meaning of a user’s search query.

Search Query:: The word or phrase that is typed into a search engine to signal the information the user would like to find.

Search algorithm:: An automated process that helps locate information to answer a user’s query

Search campaign:: Text ads that appear on search results when people search on Google for related products and services

Search engine marketing (SEM):: Increasing a website’s visibility on a search engine results page through paid advertising

Search engine optimization (SEO):: The process of increasing the visibility of website pages on search engines to attract more relevant traffic

Search engine results pages (SERPs):: The results pages that appear when someone performs a search query

Search engine:: Software that provides information on a search query

Seasonality:: The regular and predictable fluctuation of e-commerce traffic around special holidays, events, and weather on a quarterly or yearly basis

Second Price Auction:: One type of auction that advertising networks employ to place advertisements where the winner of the auction pays only $0.01 more for their ad placement than the second place ad placement.

Secondary research:: Research done by others

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate:: A digital certificate that authenticates a website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection

Segment:: A subset of analytics data that features a common characteristic; examples are a user segment, an event segment, or a session segment

Segmentation:: The practice of dividing an email subscriber list into smaller groups based on criteria like interests, location, or purchase history

Session recording:: A rendering that captures a visitor’s actions as they navigate a website, including mouse movement, clicks, taps, and scrolling

Shopping Ads (also known as Product Ads):: A digital ad format designed specifically for products that are sold online.

Shopping campaign:: Product listings that appear on search results and the Google Shopping tab

Similar To Audiences:: A Google Ads audience type comprised of a group of users defined by their similarity to another group of users. In order to create a Similar To Audience, there must be a seed audience to act as a base or seed list.

Site Navigation: The movement from one web page to another web page via internal links within the same domain.

Site Structure:: The organization of a website including it’s page hierarchy and internal link structure. A well organized site structure can have a positive impact on both user experience and SEO.

Sitelink (or Sitelink Extension):: A type of rich result that shows links to various pages on a website, resulting in a larger listing for the website on the SERP. Sitelinks are sometimes automatically generated by search engines if deemed relevant to the user’s search query.

Sitemap:: A file that provides information about the pages, videos, and other files on a site, and the relationships between them

Slug:: The portion of a URL which defines a specific webpage. For example, in “scayvergraphix.com/digital-advertising” the “digital-advertising” portion is the slug.

Smart Shopping campaign:: An advanced Shopping campaign that uses technology to optimize for more sales and reach Google shoppers across Google’s sites and networks

Smart bidding:Automated bidding strategies that use machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value with each auctionSmart campaign:An automated campaign management tool within Google Ads that helps promote a businessSocial Media Optimization (SMO):A branch of digital marketing focused on strategies and techniques used to effectively market a business on social media platforms. Social Media Optimization can include enhancing profile information, planning and posting organic content, engagement, and more.

Social ads:: Paid advertisements on social media platforms targeted to social media users

Social listening tool:: Software that helps track mentions of a brand, relevant keywords, and direct feedback from multiple social media platforms in one place

Social listening:: Refers to tracking and analyzing conversations and trends related to a brand

Social media algorithm:: A way of sorting posts in a user’s feed based on relevancy rather than the order in which they are published

Social media analytics:: The process of collecting data from social media platforms and analyzing that data to make business decisions

Social media calendar:: A calendar of all social media posts

Social media engagement:: Refers to the actions people take on social media, such as likes, favorites, comments, shares, Retweets, saves, clicks, hashtags, and mentions

Social media marketing:: The process of creating content for different social media platforms in order to drive engagement and promote a business or product

Social media report:: A document that presents relevant data and analysis about a brand’s social media activities

Social media sentiment:: The attitude and feelings people have about a brand on social media

Social media target audience:: The specific group of people a company wants to reach on social media platforms

Social media:: Any digital tool that enables users to create and share content publicly

Social share:: When a customer shares a product or service with their social media followers

Social testing:: A process that provides data-driven insights about a brand’s social media performance and audience preferences

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS):: Web-based software available on a subscription basis

Source:: In Google Analytics, the Source is the origin of the user prior to visiting a website for any type of traffic, whether it is organic, paid, social, referral, or direct. Examples include “google”, a visit originating from the search engine, “yelp.com”, a visit originating from a certain web page, or “direct” a user typing in the URL of the visited website directly into the browser.

Spam:: Unsolicited and unwanted junk email sent out in bulk to a broad recipient list

Specialist:: An expert in a specific field

Spend-based automated bidding:: A bidding strategy where a marketer sets a daily budget to maximize their advertising goal

Spend-based model:: A rewards program that offers customers incentives based on an amount spent during a single purchase

Split testing:: (refer to A/B testing)

Stakeholder map:: A grid with four quadrants and two variables—interest and influence—that can be used to keep track of the influence and needs of stakeholders and the level of communication required to work with them

Stakeholder:: Someone with an interest in or a concern for a project and its results

Statistical significance:: A determination of whether a test result could be due to random chance or not

Stock keeping unit (SKU):: A unique code that retailers use to identify a product

Strategy:: A plan to achieve a marketing goal

Structured data:: Code used to describe a webpage’s content better to search engines

Structured query language (SQL):: The standard language used to communicate with databases developed by different vendors and hosted on multiple platforms

Subdomain:: The subset of a larger domain used to organize an existing website into a different page URL

Subject line:: The first text recipients see after the sender’s name when an email reaches their inbox

Subpage:: A lower-level page that appears below the homepage of a website

Subscription model:: A rewards program that requires customers to make a recurring payment in order to receive an exclusive incentive

Suggested bid:: A recommended bid range

Supply chain:: The flow of goods from the beginning stage of sourcing raw materials all the way to the finished product that is delivered to the customer

Tactic:: An action a marketer takes to make a marketing goal happen

Tag management system (TMS):: Enables the deployment and management of many tags for multiple advertising platforms and systems in a simple and centralized way

Target audience:: The group of people most likely to purchase a company’s products

Targeted location:: The towns, cities, or countries in which an ad will appear

Technical SEO: Activities that improve how your website is crawled, indexed and rendered for organic search.

Terms of service:: Legal agreements between a business and customers

Theme:: A pre-built website template that creates the design and layout of an e-commerce store

Third-party cookies:: Cookies that aren’t developed and distributed by a website’s owner but are distributed through third-party tools

Tier-based model:: A rewards program that allows customers to graduate to new customer status levels based on the amount of money they spend with a company over time

Title Tags:: An HTML element that defines the title of a web page. This is displayed in search engine results, but not on the actual page.

Tone:: How a brand’s voice is applied

Total LTV:: The average revenue generated by customers over a period of time that includes the past to the present

Touchpoint:: Any interaction a customer has with a brand during their purchase journey

Tracking Code (or Tracking Snippet):: A piece of code that monitors how a user is interacting with a website. The code is stored on each page of a website and sends data to an analytics tool to be used by businesses for marketing purposes and other business purposes.

Traditional advertising:: Non-digital ad placements, like newspapers, radio, TV, or billboards

Traffic:: The number of visits that a website receives

Transferable skills:: Skills from other areas that can help someone progress in a career in marketing

Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate:: (refer to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate)

TruView:: A measurement used by Google to indicate the number of times users choose to watch a video ad.

Tweet:: Any message posted to Twitter; May contain elements like text, photos, videos, links, and audio

UR: UR stands for URL Rating. It is a links metric created by the marketing platform, ‘Ahrefs’ to define the authority and ranking potential an individual URL. A similar metric to this is PA, or Page Authority which was created by Moz, another marketing platform. The higher the URL rating, the more authority and ranking potential a page has. UR is a counterpart to Ahrefs’ other link metric, ‘DR’.

URL Parameter:: A code appended to a URL that can change the functionality of a website or be used as a tracking dimension. A parameter often starts with a question mark and is followed by the items that define the parameter after an equal sign.

URL:: The address of a webpage or file on the internet

UTM:: A text tag added to a URL to help monitor that content

Unique selling proposition (USP):: An explanation of why a product or service is better than the competition

Universal Resource Locator (URL: The online address of a resource, website, or page.

Unsubscribe rate:: The percentage of email recipients who unsubscribe from a send list after opening an email

Upselling:: A sales technique used to encourage customers to spend more by upgrading to a more expensive product

Usability survey:: A survey that assesses the customer’s satisfaction with a company’s website and identifies any problems the customer may experience along their shopping journey

User Engagement :: An assessment of a website visitors’ response to a product or service page, or articles and blogs, on a website.

User Interface (UI):: The conduit on a display that allows a human to interact with a computer more easily.

User experience:: How a person—the user—feels about interacting with or experiencing a product

User-generated content (UGC):: Any content created by people, rather than brands

Users:: People using a website. The same person may be counted as multiple users if that person uses multiple unlinked devices to access a website.

Variables:: Refers to the segments, dimensions, and metrics configured in a Google Analytics account

Vertical column chart:: A chart in which individual measurements are each shown as a vertical column

Video campaign:: A Google Ads tool that allows businesses to place video advertisements before, during, or after YouTube videos and in the search results

View-through Conversion Window:: A conversion setting in Google Ads which defines the maximum length of time that a view-through action will still be attributed as a view-through conversion. As an example, if the view-through conversion window is set to 30 days, any conversion action completed by a user who saw an ad but did not click on the ad within 30 days of seeing that ad will be counted as a view-through conversion.

View-through Conversion:: A type of conversion in which a user views an ad, but does not click on the ad and later completes a conversion action.

Visitors:: The total number of times people have been to a website or app as a result of clicking an ad

Visual hierarchy:: A structured organization of visual components that groups elements together, places elements in a natural or predictable pattern (such as reading from left to right), or leads to the most important elements to click on

Voice Search:: Refers to any search query conducted using voice technology. This can be a search on a mobile device or on a smart speaker such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home.

Web accessibility:: The practice of designing and developing a website or mobile app so that people with disabilities can use it

Webinar:: A presentation, typically educational, that is provided online

Webpage title element:: Text that provides both the users and search engines with a page’s topic

Webpage title:: An element that provides both users and search engines with a page’s topic

Website prompt:: A digital banner that calls on a website visitor to act in some way

Welcome email:: An email sent out to brand new customers or subscribers

White Hat SEO:: Using approved SEO techniques and best practices to improve search rankings over time.

Wireframe:A wireframe is a visual guide which represents the contents of a webpage. It is used during the web design process to decide upon the best arrangement of the contents for usability.

XML Sitemap: An XML sitemap is an XML file that should detail the indexable pages on a website. Search engines use this information to understand which web pages are available to crawl to store in their index.

YMYL:: An acronym used in SEO to describe topics that could have an impact on a person’s future health, finances, safety, or happiness. YMYL stands for “Your Money or Your Life”. These topics include news and current events, government, finance, e-commerce/shopping, and others. The acronym comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines.