Marketing Terms 101
In order to have a good understanding of your marketing success, it’s important to know the industry lingo. You may come across a couple key terms or phrases in your analytics or reports that you don’t quite understand, and we’ve compiled a list of some of the top phrases and terms to reference.
A/B Testing: The act of testing different options in order to optimize your marketing materials. This can be through testing different email formats, headlines in advertising, or landing pages.
Acquisition: When looking at website analytics, the Acquisition is where people came from to get to your site, whether Referral (from another site), Direct (by directly typing in your URL), or Social (from a social media platform).
Bounce Rate: The number of people who only visit your landing page and exit after without clicking or interacting with your site. More often than not, having a low bounce rate is the goal, as people will read more about your brand, product, or service.
Call to Action (CTA): The action that you want your audience to do. For example, in an ad, your CTA may be “Click here to learn more”.
Click Thru Rate (CTR): The percentage in which your audience clicks through; on your posts, email campaigns, or advertisements. This is determined by taking the amount of impressions divided by the amount of clicks on a campaign.
Content: A piece of marketing material that is published with the intention to be seen, read shared, and interacted with. Examples of this include an Instagram Post, Blog Post, Video, or Podcast.
Conversion Rate: The rate in which your audience completes your goal; such as filling out a form, or purchasing a product. This can be determined by taking the impressions or visits divided by sales.
Cost per Click (CPC): In an advertising campaign, this si how much you spend per click. This is determined by taking the total amount spent, divided by the amount of clicks on your ads.
- If you spent $500, and have 500 clicks, your CPC is $1.
Cost per Lead (CPL): The amount spent on a sale or lead. This is determined by taking your overall ad spend, and dividing it by how many goals have been achieved.
- If you spent $500 in advertising, and had 250 people fill out a form to be contacted, your cost per lead is $2.
Engagement: The action of engaging with content. This can be in the form of a like, share, comment, or save.
Engagement Rate: The rate in which people engage with your content compared to the amount of impressions your content receives.
- If you received 1,000 impressions, and had 100 engagements, your engagement rate is 1%.
Frequency: When referring to ads, this is how many times your ad was shown to the same people. This is determined by taking the total amount of impressions, divided by the reach.
- If you had 1,000 impressions, and 750 reach, your ad frequency is 1.33, meaning your ad was shown on average 1.33 to each person.
Geo-fence: Limiting the reach of an advertisement based on exact location. This can be as specific down to the postal code, neighbourhood, or city, depending on the platform.
Hashtags: Tags used in social media posts to organically boost visibility within your niche, in the format of a keyword or phrase, with a # in front of it. In social media, people can subscribe to specific hashtags that they’re interested in.
Impressions: How many times material was viewed or shown (ad, social media post, etc).
Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A measurement to monitor success within an employee, campaign or initiative. In marketing, these are used to track the success of a campaign. Examples of KPI’s within marketing could be follower growth, traffic sources, clicks on an ad, or the cost per click.
Keywords: Words or phrases that people use when looking for a specific product or service. With SEM & SEO, keywords are important to ensure that your website is one of the first that your audience sees.
Landing Page: The page that a user visits after clicking on your ad, or the URL that you provide from a Call to Action. A Landing Page can be specifically designed for various advertisements, or your home page or product page can be considered a Landing Page.
Lead: A person or business who has expressed interest in what you offer. A lead can be considered someone who has filled out a form, subscribed to a blog, or reached out directly.
Lead Nurturing: The actions you take to keep leads interested. Sometimes, when a lead fills out a form, they aren’t ready to purchase right away. Keeping leads engaged through Lead Nurturing campaigns is important so your brand stays top of mind.
Organic: Content that is posted without an advertising budget associated with it. Examples of this include a social media post.
Organic Reach: How many people viewed your piece of content without having to advertise it.
Page Views: How many times a page on your website was viewed.
Reach: How many individual people viewed your content or ad.
- For example, an ad may have 1,000 impressions, but 750 reach. This means that some people viewed your ad more than once.
Remarketing: In advertising, remarketing is a strategy used to show ads to people who have already interacted with your brand, but may not have converted yet.
Return On Ad Spend (ROAS): The amount that was made from your advertising initiatives. This is determined by taking the amount of sales generated from your ads directly, and subtracting your overall ad spend and management fees.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Advertising campaigns directly within search engines, often based on keywords. For example, if you sell dog treats, you can advertise your website so when people search dog treats on Google, your site will be at the top of Google’s search.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): How you optimize your website to rank the best on search engines, such as Google. This is a process that includes using keywords, images, links, and video content so your website shows up when your audience searches topics relevant to your brand, product, or service.
Session: When looking at your website analytics, a session is the act of someone visiting your website, and the actions they did while on your site; whether visiting multiple pages, or interacting with content.
Unique Visitor: When looking at web analytics, a Unique Visitor is the individual person who has visited your website. For example, you may have 150 Visits to your page, but 125 Unique Visitors. This means that some people have visited your site more than once.
Have a suggestion or question for a phrase or term? Shoot me an email!