Marketing AnalyticsA math-based discipline that seeks to find patterns in data to increase actionable knowledge. Analytics employs statistics, predictive modeling, and machine learning to reveal insights and answer questions. Weather predictions, batting averages, and life insurance policies are all the result of analytics. In the world of digital marketing, analytics is critical to understanding and predicting user behavior and optimizing the user experience (UX) to drive sales.
Marketing AutomationA process that enables technology to take over repetitive marketing tasks from people, freeing people to focus on strategy. Technology can automate scheduled email sends and social site postings. It can determine clear winners among deployed advertising options and optimize accordingly. Instead of a person (lets call her Joan) having to zig every time a customer zags…Joan can determine the strategy that a marketing automation platform should execute upfront.
Marketing CollateralDigital or print materials that accompany a primary advertising campaign. Before the internet, collateral was practically synonymous with brochures that supported traditional TV commercials, such as a savings account brochure from your local bank branch. Today, collateral can refer to any printed or digital piece that supports and extends a campaign. Common digital collateral includes websites, landing pages, and banner ads.
Marketing MixThe 4 P’s: price, product, promotion, and place (point of sale). Your marketing mix covers these must-have elements when bringing a product to market. The marketing mix is inextricable from the marketing objectives in your business plan. Some companies add that are of high importance to them, such as packaging or positioning. Packaging and positioning arguably overlap with promotion, but calling out the extra P can be useful in focusing your organization.
Marketing ObjectivesWhat you want a marketing initiative such as an advertising campaign to accomplish for the bottom line of your business. Common marketing objectives are customer acquisition, order value, engagement, and contribution to revenue. Objectives usually follow the SMART format: specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound. An example for email marketing is a goal to acquire 5,000 new customers this quarter through the friends and family loyalty discount email campaign.
Marketing ResearchGathering and analyzing information about a market to inform how best to offer a product or service to customers. Marketing research is based on the principles of scientific inquiry and should be objective and systematic. Common methods are focus groups, one-on-one customer interviews, online or telephone customer surveys, and A/B testing different advertising tactics.
Meta DescriptionA brief summary of what a web page is about in the HTML code of the page. Character counts may vary by search engine, but 160 characters with spaces is a good guideline. Search engines consider meta descriptions when ranking your page for relevance to user searches, but its not one of the most important factors.
Meta KeywordsWords and phrases in the HTML meta keywords tag of a web page. Meta keywords help search engines identify what the page is about and rank its relevance to user searches accordingly. The keywords in your tag should reflect the content of your page. Otherwise, search engines will disregard the meta. In other words, you cant add keywords to the meta tag to make up for a lack of relevant keywords in the content itself.
Meta TagsHTML code that helps search engines understand, evaluate, and rank web pages. Meta tags include meta description (a summary of the page), meta keywords (words and phrases used in the content of the page), and a canonical URL (the master version of a page).
NarrowcastingSending a media message to a highly targeted audience. The opposite of broadcasting, narrowcasting is also considered a form of niche marketing. Narrowcasting has been around since the days of radio. In modern practice, it spans traditional direct mail, TV, email marketing, paid search, online video, and in-person event marketing. Trade shows can also be a particularly valuable forum for business-to-business (B2B) marketing.
NofollowA meta tag in the HTML code of a web page that tells search engines to disregard the page. On pages such as blog posts that invite user comments, a nofollow link protects you from search engines ranking your page based on user comments you can’t control. Let’s say some users comment on your blog post to promote their own products and stuff your comments with keywords. You can use a nofollow tag to avoid search penalties.
Nonprofit MarketingMarketing with objectives that advance a nonprofit organizations cause versus driving a business’s profitability. This is also referred to as cause marketing. Common goals for nonprofit marketing initiatives include raising awareness, increasing donations, and growing the number of volunteers.
Omnichannel MarketingOmnichannel marketing creates a cohesive, integrated shopping experience across a brands sales touchpoints including brick-and-mortar locations, events, mobile devices, and online stores. It uses data and analytics to create consistency whenever shoppers encounter the brand. Let’s say you have a business that sells socks. With omnichannel marketing in place, a customer could find socks they love on social media, browse your online store selection, and receive a coupon to buy their(…) Read More
Organic SearchThe natural and unpaid results users receive after making search queries. Search engines, which crawl your web pages and rank your content for relevance to the most common queries, determine these results. You can improve your ranking through search engine optimization (SEO) activities, such as including keywords in headlines. For contrast, see: paid search.
Paid SearchOnline advertising that is triggered when users perform searches using keywords that a company has purchased. Ads look like organic search results, but they appear more prominently on a search engine results page (SERP) than they would have organically.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)Online advertising that is triggered when users perform searches using keywords that a company has purchased. Ads look like organic search results, but they appear more prominently on a search engine results page (SERP) than they would have organically.
PDFA Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file that looks like a printed document and is compatible across computer systems. Adobe Systems developed the .pdf format, which allows people to view, download, save, share, and print the file regardless of their computers operating systems or software. Business-to-business (B2B) promotions such as white papers and e-briefs are typically provided to prospects and customers in a PDF.
Personalized MarketingThe practice of using analytics to make advertising messages and product experiences feel unique to each customer. Personalized marketing is much more than just inserting the customer name into the same marketing email that goes to all of your customers. It’s about reaching the right person with the right message at the right moment with the right suggestions.
Personalized Product RecommendationsSuggestions to customers for products they may be interested in based on products they’ve already bought or viewed online. For example, if a customer bought the same tank top in 3 colors, there’s a good chance they’ll like the same tank in a new color. Personalized product recommendations, which mathematical calculations called algorithms determine on the back end, are a key feature of websites for cross-selling and upselling.
Product DifferentiationWhat makes your product or service different and more appealing to customers than other options in your category. Product differentiation is what gives you a competitive advantage in your market. Product differentiators can include better quality and service as well as unique features and benefits.
Product LifecycleThe stages a product goes through during its time on the market. There are 4 stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. The stage your product is in helps inform your marketing objectives and promotional mix. For example, raising awareness of a new product may be more important than raising awareness of a mature product.
Product PositioningThe image of your product or service that you want members of your target audience to have in their minds. Because first impressions of your brand count, it can be helpful to craft a positioning statement that communicates how your product or service fulfills customer needs. For example, Mailchimp helps small businesses become the brands they want to be with smarter technology built for big things.
Product RangeA set of versions of one product from the same brand, each tweaked to appeal to a different audience segment. These versions are relatively slight variations on a theme instead of major departures in features and benefits.
Promotional MixThe combination of promotions (advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity) you use to deliver marketing messages to your target audience. A promotional mix should be planned out strategically to support your marketing objectives. Common goals are customer acquisition and engagement.
PromotionsMarketing communications designed to inform target audiences about products or services and persuade them to buy them. There are 4 general types of promotions: advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and publicity. Let’s say your company creates all-natural makeup. Your promotions could include advertising on beauty blogs, sending a discount to an email list, setting up sales calls with owners of local boutiques, or hosting a free makeover event for beauty-site editors.
PsychographicsYour target audiences values, beliefs, and behaviors that are relevant to your product or service. Like demographics, psychographics can help you segment your audience into highly relevant subgroups. That way you can tailor your messaging and get better advertising campaign results. Psychographics give you a peek into the minds of your customers so you can communicate more effectively.
Quality ScoreA Google Ads metric that rates how relevant your pay-per-click (PPC) ads and landing pages are to your chosen keywords. Google doesn’t reveal its exact calculation, but your estimate is based on ad relevance to keywords, expected click-through rate (CTR), and landing page experience. If you want to improve your Quality Score, Google recommends optimizing your ads and landing pages as well as revisiting your keyword strategy.
QuestionnaireA set of questions about a topic that’s used for research purposes. Questionnaires are commonly used in digital marketing to get feedback on user experience (UX). For example, you might send one after a customer makes a purchase to find out if they experienced any confusion during the checkout process. Marketers also commonly use questionnaires after someone unsubscribes from a newsletter or other mailing list.
RedirectSending a user to a different web page than the one they requested with a URL. Redirects send readers to a new page if content has been moved or an older page has been deleted. This helps prevent 404 errors. They can allow people to type in short, easy-to-remember URLs rather than complicated URLs with many slashes and hyphens.
ReferralWhen a website sends traffic to another website. Tracking referrals can help you understand how people find your website without using a search engine. For example, if you put links to your website in your social media posts on Facebook and Twitter, these sites would be listed as a source of referral traffic. Referrals can also come from websites that posts news articles, reviews, and other industry-relevant content.
Responsive Web DesignAn approach to website design that enables a single page to be displayed comfortably whether its on a phone, tablet, or desktop. Sites that use responsive web design first evaluate the type of device and its screen size. Then with the help of CSS, they render the text, images, and other elements in a predefined layout that works for that particular device.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)The ratio of the amount of revenue generated by an ad campaign to its cost. If you generated $10,000 from a campaign that cost $1,000, your return on ad spend (ROAS) would be 10:1. While similar to return on investment (ROI), ROAS is more focused on the hard cost of a campaign rather than on the overall value of running a campaign, which could include brand awareness or other marketing objectives.
Return on Investment (ROI)A calculation of the monetary value of an investment versus its cost. The mathematical formula is: (profit minus cost) / cost. If you made $10,000 from a $1,000 effort, your return on investment (ROI) would be 0.9, or 90%. ROI is often used to evaluate business strategy, including all advertising and marketing efforts. Return on ad spend (ROAS) is a similar metric, but it focuses more on specific tactics, such as an individual ad campaign.
Robots.txtA file placed on a web server that gives instructions to search engine crawlers, which are the robots that index web pages for search engines. Robots.txt files tell web crawlers what they should include in their index and what they should ignore. Pages such as form results pages thank you pages that are triggered when users submit a form, for example) can be hidden from search engines.
RSSReally simple syndication (RSS) takes the content of a website and packages it into a feed that can be easily displayed on other websites. Aggregators take multiple RSS feeds and combine them into a single interface, which can help people track updates to multiple websites at once. RSS also allows websites to syndicate content from third parties
Schema MarkupBits of code added to a web page that help search engines understand the content of the page. With better understanding comes the ability to format content when it appears on the search engine results page (SERP). Photos of a recipe appear next to its description, for example, or a list of upcoming events is added to the results blurb of a concert venues website. Schema markup generate featured snippets on Googles SERP.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)Paid advertising on a search engine results page (SERP). This is also called paid search. Search engine marketing (SEM) ads are used to drive traffic to websites but can include other calls to action, such as making a phone call or visiting a local store. Keywords in a search query trigger SEM ads. They usually appear at the top of search results and sometimes to the side. Most SEM is pay-per-click (PPC), so you only get charged if someone clicks on the ad.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Changes made to the content and structure of a website to improve ranking on a search engine results page (SERP). Search engines recommend search engine optimization (SEO) efforts that benefit both the user and page ranking (white hat SEO). These include the use of relevant keywords in headlines (H1) and subheads, friendly URLs with keywords rather than strings of numbers, and schema markup to make results richer and more detailed.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)The page that a search engine returns after a user submits a search query. In addition to organic search results, search engine results pages (SERPs) usually include paid search and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Thanks to search engine optimization (SEO), ranking position on a SERP can be highly competitive since users are more likely to click on results at the top of the page. With the launch of schema markup, SERPs are becoming much more complex to try to anticipate user needs.
Search EnginesSoftware used to find information and websites on the internet. Google, Yahoo, and Bing are the big 3 search engines in the United States, although Google is the clear leader. Search engines crawl across website content and index it into their databases. Then they display results based on the keywords in the search query. Search engines play an important part in inbound marketing through search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).
Search QueryThe string of words users enter into a search engine to receive a result. Search queries are the raw text that people type into the search engine, such as, will it rain today? When you look at search queries that lead to your website, you can determine which keywords to include for search engine optimization (SEO). In this instance, rain forecast may be a more popular query.
SitelinkAn ad extension that places more than 1 link in a paid search ad. For example, beyond your standard ad copy and call to action, you could add a link to your current sales page or your store hours page. Sitelinks are typically free to use. And just like any other pay-per-click (PPC) ad, they don’t incur a charge unless someone clicks on the link.
Sitemap XMLA list of pages on a website that search engines should index. Written in extensible markup language (XML), both humans and computers can understand a sitemap XML. In addition to page URLs, they include modification dates so search engines can tell whether or not a page has been crawled since it was updated. Sitemap XML- and robots.txt-related search engine optimization (SEO) tactics approach indexing from different sides of the same coin.
Social Media MarketingUsing social media to advertise a brand, products, or services. Social media marketing allows a brand to insert itself into ongoing conversations on channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Best practices for social media marketing include creating interesting content that links back to your website as well as publicly replying to questions and comments. Posts can be organic, meaning you don’t pay anything to boost them, or they can be promoted with media dollars.
Soft BounceAn email that is rejected by an email server for a temporary reason. An email may soft bounce if a mailbox is full, the recipient email server is down or offline, or the email message is too large.
SpamThe digital equivalent of junk mail. Spam can be an email, text message, social media direct message, or any other unwanted or unsolicited electronic communication. Marketers can ask people to actively opt into email lists and provide easy ways to unsubscribe to prevent their digital marketing communications from being considered spam.
SSLSecure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a method of encryption that protects data being sent between websites. SSL is closely related to Transport Layer Security (TLS), another encryption method, and the two acronyms are often used interchangeably.
TagsA piece of HTML code that tells a web browser how to render an element on a web page. Tags are the workhorses of HTML and provide structure to this otherwise plain-text programming language. In the early days of the web, tags were used for layout purposes, but modern web design relies on CSS to keep content and layout separate. HTML tags and hashtags are unrelated.
Target AudienceThe people you want to reach with your marketing efforts. These are the consumers who will be most interested in your products or services and most likely to convert from leads into customers. Target audiences can be based on demographics (age, gender identity, location), psychographics (aspirations, concerns, values), or behavior (likely to buy online). Target audiences are often broad and varied, so audience segmentation can help deliver a more personalized and effective message.
Title TagAn HTML tag that designates the title of a page. Confusingly, the title tag is responsible for the headline that appears on a web page the H1 tag defines that. Text contained in the title tag is usually rendered in the top of the browser window or in a tab label. Title tags are an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) and should contain 1 or more keywords to help with search engine ranking.
Tracking CodeA small piece of JavaScript placed on a website that sends data to Google Analytics. The tracking code is what enables Google Analytics to report information about your audience, including how they got to your website, how long they stayed, and what they did while they were there.
Transactional EmailAutomated emails sent from one sender to one recipient, usually related to account activity or a commercial transaction.
Twitter AdvertisingTwitter advertising platform. Twitter ads are tweets that are promoted to a specific target audience. Since they are tweets, they can include text, images, video, or polls. Character count restrictions also still apply. You can target your ads to people based on their location, interests, or who they follow. When you optimize Twitter, it can help you gain followers and get engagements, such as likes and retweets. It can also drive traffic to your website or increase brand awareness.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)A web address. Uniform resource locators (URLs) can point to a website or any other resource on the web, such as an image or video. They can use letters, numbers, or a combination of both. Certain characters such as brackets and braces are considered unsafe Various web browsers handle them differently, which can lead to errors.
Unique Selling PropositionThe reason people should buy your product or services according to your marketing and advertising. In any ad, your unique selling proposition can be summed up as buy X, and you’ll get For example: Buy these sneakers, and you’ll run faster
Unique VisitorsThe number of individuals who visited your website in a defined amount of time. This is often compared to visits, which is the number of times your website was accessed during a set period. If 2 people went to your website 10 times in a day, you would have 20 visits and 2 unique visitors. Repeat visits are important because they could be a sign of loyalty or a response to an abandoned cart email.
User Experience (UX)How a person feels about using a product or service. The discipline of user experience (UX) makes digital experiences efficient, effective, and sometimes entertaining. In the world of digital marketing, UX is often equated with optimizing the user interface (UI) on the website. For example, e-commerce companies want to know about the browsing and checkout experience on their websites.
User Interface (UI)The visual and audio elements on a website or app presented to a visitor. User interface (UI) elements can include text, images, sound, animation, video, or a combination of them. Keep in mind UI elements may be rendered in different ways depending on user preferences. For example, a person with low vision may use a screen reader to consume content. UI layout and testing is a major focus of user experience (UX) designers.
Vision StatementA short description of a company goals for the future. Vision statements tend to be highly aspirational, serving to motivate employees while guiding day-to-day decision making. Vision statements (future goals) are often paired with mission statements (todays goal) and value statements (how a company goes about reaching all of its goals).
WebhooksWebhooks are a way for one application to provide other applications with real-time information. They allow one application to send a notification to another application when a certain event occurs rather than constantly polling for new data. This can help save on server resources and costs.
Welcome EmailA message to a new subscriber or customer. Welcome emails are a follow-up to a newsletter signup, service subscription, loyalty program, or any initial or next-level interaction with a business. If someone gives you their email, say hello and thank you. Welcome emails give you the opportunity to build relationships, tell brand stories, and, ideally, turn subscribers into customers. They are a great candidate for marketing automation, especially if sent in a series.
White Hat SEOSearch engine optimization (SEO) techniques that benefit both websites and the people who use them. White hat SEO fights for the users. It also improves the accessibility and quality of a websites content, boosting its ranking and relevance. For example, it can examine search queries to identify new target keywords and create original content to support them.
WireframeA blueprint for a websites user interface (UI). Wireframes are simplified sketch often drawn by hand of how content and functionality come together in a layout. They focus on how elements are ordered and placed on a page but rarely include specifics about the final visual design. For example, photographs are represented by a box with an X through them. Wireframes are an essential step in responsive web design, since the same elements need to be reordered for different screen sizes.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOM Marketing)Person-to-person conversation that promotes a product or service. For example: Hey, I loved that movie. You should check it out. Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM marketing) can be organic. A brand can also script and direct it. In social media marketing, influencers are a common type of WOM marketing. A trusted expert or celebrity is paid to talk about their experience with a product or service. Authenticity is essential for WOM marketing to be successful, so its not always as positive as(…)(…) Read More
Yahoo AdvertisingYahoos ad platform. Yahoo offers various formats and placements much like other ad networks. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads on appear on its search engine results page (SERP). Display ads are served on its homepage, content portals, and articles page and can be re-served to viewers much like Google remarketing ads.
YouTube AdvertisingVideo ads that appear across YouTube. Since Google owns YouTube, YouTube advertising shares many of the core features of Google Ads, but with 1 big difference: They’re videos. Ads can play before or after a video a user has selected. They can also be inserted into the middle of a playlist or a video longer than 10 minutes. YouTube ads can be pay-per-click (PPC) or pay per view based on their length and placement.
