Digital Marketing Terminology

 

Note: These terms are from the Google Digital Marketing & E-commerce course module 3: From Likes to Leads: Interact with Customers Online

A

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

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

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

Ad spend: How much a company spends directly on advertisements

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

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

Awareness stage: The first stage of the marketing funnel, when a marketer captures an audience’s attention

B

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

Bidding strategy: The approach that tells how much a marketer will pay for each user action related to an ad

Blogging: Refers to self-published writing that lives online

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

Brand awareness metrics: Metrics that measure the attention a brand received across all social media platforms during a reporting period

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

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

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

C

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

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

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

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

Content buckets: Categories to group marketing content

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

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

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

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

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

D

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

E

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

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

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

F

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

G

GIF: An animated image

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

 

H

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

I

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

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

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

Influencer marketing: Involves a brand collaborating with an online influencer to market one of its products or services

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

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

Interest targeting: Delivering an ad based on user preferences

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

K

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

L

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

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

Location targeting: Delivering an ad based on user location

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

M

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

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

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

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

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

Metric: A quantifiable measurement that is used to track and assess a business objective

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

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

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

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

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

N

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

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

O

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

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

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

Owned media: All the digital content a brand fully controls

P

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

Paid social media: Displaying paid advertisements or sponsored marketing messages on social media platforms to target a specific audience

Pay-per-click advertising: A type of advertising where the marketer pays each time someone clicks on their ad

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

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

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

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

Q

Qualitative data: Information that describes qualities or characteristics

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

R

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

Referral: Refers to how someone was guided to a website

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

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

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

S

SMART: A goal-setting method that can help define and measure the success of the goals of a campaign; Stands for “specific,” “measurable,” “attainable,” “relevant,” and “time-bound”

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

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

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

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

Suggested bid: A recommended bid range

T

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

Tone: How a brand’s voice is applied

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

U

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

V

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

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