Digital Marketing

Seasonality

a business cycle driven by calendar-based events during the year.

Brand

a business's brand is the sum total of all its users' and customers' opinion of that business; a business can choose to intentionally shape its brand or allow the market forces to shape its brand.

Google Keyword Planning Tool

a free tool provided by Google within the Google Adwords interface that helps users find and plan which keywords to target with their advertising campaigns

Customer segments

a group of customers based on their demographics, psychographics, lifestyle, geography, and behaviors

Sales qualified leads

leads who have filled out a form

Demographics

market segmentation according to age, race, religion, gender, family size, ethnicity, income, and education; companies use demographics to target its customers more accurately

Paid media

marketing channels controlled by external parties that your company pays. Two common types are Display Advertising and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Loyalty marketing

marketing focused on growing and retaining customers

Goal completion rate

measurement of how effective your campaigns are at prompting your users/visitors to complete a goal

End Action Rate

measures how effective your campaigns are at prompting your audience to complete a goal

Task Completion Rate

measures how effective your campaigns are at prompting your audience to complete a task

Lead to prospect ratio

measures how many prospects move down the sales funnel to become leads; calculated as # of leads/# of prospects

Lead quality score

measures the quality of marketing and sales leads based on predetermined criteria and targets which range from demographics to user activity as evaluated against the current customer base

Cost per mille (CPM)

mille stands for one thousand in Italian; CPM is calculated as (cost per 1,000 impressions) = (amt spent on ad)/(impressions served) x 1,000

Online lead generation

online marketing to drive traffic to a website where visitors are asked to indicate interest in a product service by filling out the form, subscribing to an email list, or another action that collects information about the visitor

Organic traffic

people who find their way to your website on their own; not through paid efforts and is usually related to your SEO strategy

Sales accepted leads

sales team has contacted or deems acceptable

SEM

search engine marketing

Page views

the number of times a web page or set of web pages are viewed during a given time period.

Insertion Order

the order form advertisers fill out to run an ad on a publisher's website

Click through rate (CTR)

the percentage of the targeted audience that is exposed to the marketer's message that click on the link provided in the message and land on the marketer's web property. Calculated as (# of clicks/# of times ad is shown) x 100

Conversion rate

the percentage of unique visitors to a website that are "converted" into customers, users, or leads; For example, on CR is expressed as the number of "conversions" divided by the total number of ad clicks that can be tracked to those conversions.

Facebook Ads

the program operated by Facebook that enables paying customers to use hyper-targeting via Facebook profile tags and traits to reach a certain specific audience via advertisements placed in the users' timeline.

Google Adwords

the program operated by Google that enables paying customers to use hyper-targeting via Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to reach a certain specific audience via advertisements placed at the top and right sides of the search results.

Twitter Ads

the program operated by Twitter that enables paying customers to use hyper-targeting via Twitter users' profile data to reach a certain specific audience via advertisements placed in the users' timeline.

Net promoter score (NPS)

% Promoters minus % Detractors; a tool used to understand the loyalty or satisfaction of a customer; calculated based on responses to the question: How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague? The scoring for this answer is most often based on a 0 to 10 scale. Those who respond with a score of 9 -10 are called Promoters. Those who respond with a score of 0 to 6 are labeled Detractors. Responses of 7 and 8 are labeled Passives. Passives count towards the total number of respondents, but do not directly affect the overall net score.

View through rate (VTR)

(# of view throughs/# of times ad is shown) x 100

Cost per click (CPC)

(amt spent on ad/# of clicks)

Cost per lead (CPL)

(amt spent on ad/# of new leads)

Lifetime value (LTV)

(avg sales rev per cust) x (avg # of times cust buys per yr) x (avg retention time in mos or yrs for avg cust)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Also known as CPA (cost per acquisition). Calculated as (amount spent on ad)/(#of times ad shown x CTR x CR)

KPIs

Key Performance Indicators; metric uses to understand if your marketing effort is helping you reach your marketing objective

OODA loop

Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. A teaching tool originating from military training that promotes the use of a constant cycle of learning; in digital marketing, used to instill the use of hypothesizing, experimentation, data capture and measurement, and then re-stating a new revised hypothesis based on information gathered in previous experiments.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization - the practice of preparing a web property to be quickly, easily, and properly indexed by a search engine, usually Google.

SERP

Search Engine Results Page

Segments

a group of people, their sources, onsite behavior, and outcomes

Inbound links

a hyperlink back to your site from another website; used in SEO marketing - sites with a variety of high quality inbound links rank higher on search engine results pages

Key performance indicator (KPI)

a metric a company uses to determine how well it meets set operational and strategic goals

Retargeting

a targeted form of display advertising, driven by web browser cookies, that enables you to continually put a digital message (an ad) in front of a user who has previously visited your website

Ad Exchange

a technology platform that facilitates the buying and selling of media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks. Prices for the inventory are determined through bidding. The approach is technology-driven as opposed to the historical approach of negotiating price on media inventory.

Bounce rate

a term used in Google Analytics that shows the percentage of users with only one interaction on your website; an interaction is defined as either a ​"page view"​ or an ​"event". Bounce rate ​has nothing to do with how long a visitor spends on your site.

A/B Testing

a testing method used to compare two versions of a website page or advertisement. Typically an A/B test of a webpage tests the original page (A) against the same page with one change (B).

Digital marketing calendar

a tool that provides for time-based structure and discipline for the digital marketer in planning, assigning, creating, and delivering content to the marketer's target audience.

Returning visitors

a visitor with existing Google Analytics cookies from a previous visit

Digital marketing funnel

a visualization of the calculations that starts with the total universe of targeted audiences, then measures those who click on a link from marketing content, the click through rate (CTR), the conversion rate, total conversions, order amount, and revenue.

Attribution

a way of assigning an outcome to a marketing effort

Custom Audiences

a way to target in Facebook, Twitter, or Google AdWords based on previous visits to your site, email addresses, or similarity to an audience you've already reached

Banner ads

also known as "display ads", these advertising units are images that advertisers place on known publishers' websites in order to attract or re-attract their target audience.

Economic Value to Customer (EVC)

also known as True Economic Value (TEV); how much your product or service is worth to a customer

Social sentiment analysis

also known as opinion mining; analysis of the feelings behind words used on social media about your brand

Keyword performance

an analysis of keywords used in SEO or SEM campaigns as measured against goal completions, click through rate, and other metrics

Behavioral email

an email generated when a known user performs a certain action - such as completing a video - on a website, and the owner of the website then contacts the known user regarding that video as a follow up to the user's behavior.

Business model

an entity's business model defines how the business creates its product or service, delivers the product or service to the intended audience, and then collects payment for the service or product from the intended audience.

Baseline

an established level of normalcy; in digital marketing, for example, the normal or regular number of unique visitors per day to a website.

Call to action (CTA)

an instruction to a page visitor meant to promote that visitor to take an action, usually a click. For example, a button that says "learn more" or "get started" would be considered a call to action.

API

application programming interface; a set of functions an outside party can run in order to build its own third-party services on top of a company's service; a way computers talk to each other when they are owned by different companies; developers build these to talk with ad systems to create and manage ads

Transactional email

automated email driven by a certain type of transaction on a web property; for example, an order or email subscription.

Owned media

channels that are controlled by your company; examples include SEO, content marketing, email marketing, social media

Psychographics

classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria

Earned media

content about your brand that is created by customers. Examples include word of mouth, industry buzz, viral content, reviews.

Social media marketing

content and communication via social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

Owned content

content created or curated by the marketer in order to promote the marketer's message to the target audience; owned content typically consists of blog posts and social media posts and images, but should also be applied to any message that proceeds out of the marketer's company and into the target audience, such as email signatures.

Earned content

content not created by the marketer, but rather created and shared by fans of the marketer's message to the fan's social and other digital connections.

Paid content

content pushed out by the marketer via any paid means such as Facebook ads, Google Adwords, Twitter Ads, or banner (display) ads.

Email marketing

content sent directly to users via email

DSP

demand side platform; ad buying technology that interfaces with exchanges for ad buyers

Incremental sales

demonstrate how your marketing campaigns are resulting in increased sales revenue

Blogging

from the term "web log", in which a user actively updates a visible section of a website in order to inform or attract users and customer on a regular basis.

Referrals

getting customers or prospects to share your company message with someone else, with the expectation that those people will engage with you

Real-time bidding (RTB) exchanges

how advertisers or their partners bid on ad placement

Media mentions

how many times your brand or company is mentioned in media; used to track effectiveness of social media and public relations (PR) activities

Recency

how recently a potential customer touched your ad or purchased

External website links

hyperlinks that point to any domain other than the domain the link exists on; said another way - if another website links to your website this is considered an external link to your site and also applies if you link out to another website

Frequency

in digital marketing, how often a task is performed; for example, the frequency of a blog post or twitter update or how often a purchase is made

Engagement

in digital marketing, the term for user interaction with a particular piece of shared content: likes, shares, comments on Facebook; RTs, replies, favorites on Twitter, and link clicks on all social media.

Analytics

information resulting from the systematic analysis of data or statistics. In digital marketing, analytics is the information resulting from systematic analysis of data gathered from marketing activity such as email marketing, landing page A/B testing, or Google Adwords purchases.

Customer relationship management (CRM)

practices and technologies companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle, with the goal of improving business relationships with customers, assisting in customer retention and driving additional sales

Lead source

specific methods or sources you use to attract qualified leads to your business

Amplification

term used in social media; means to take a positive action - a purchase, an interaction or review, for example - saving it and then sharing it far and wide - basically extending the lifetime of the positive action

Open rate

the % of list subscribers that open an email message you sent. It measures how well a specific email captures interest. It is calculated as # Opens/# DELIVERED

Average Order Amount or Average Order Value (AOV)

the amount of all orders divided by the total number of orders; used in digital marketing to help calculate the necessary reach, along with CTR and conversion rate.

Pages per visit

the average number of pages viewed by a single visitor during a given time period.

Average lead score

the average quality score for leads; see lead quality score below

Time on site

the average time that a website visitor remains active on a particular website.

Purchase funnel

the customer acquisition process from awareness to purchase; 5 stages include awareness, interest, consideration, preference, purchase.

Channels

the digital areas where marketing gets in front of audiences. For example, email, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter), blogging, advertisements (AdWords), etc. are considered channels.

Persona

the ideal compilation of all the traits of the "perfect" user or customer for a marketer's product or service.

Consistency

the importance of continuing with a course of action, such as blogging, in a regular frequency in order to repeatedly expose the intended audience to the marketer's message.

Distribution

the means by which a product or service is delivered to its end user or customer

List subscribers

the number of people who subscribed to an email list you created

Sales cycle

the time required for a sales conversion to be completed after the prospect initially becomes aware of the marketer's brand or product.

Total reach

the total exposure (measured in web users or "eyeballs") of an advertisement or piece of content.

Lifetime customer value

the total sum of all revenue estimated over the lifetime of a repeat customer; often used as a metric in evaluating the pricing and value of a SaaS business.

Return on investment (ROI)

typically calculated as (sales growth minus marketing investment)/(marketing investment)

Traffic

usually refers to number of visitors to a landing page or website

Unique visitors

visitor to your website within a certain timeframe. For example, if the same 3 people visit your website several times in a month, you would still only have 3 unique visitors; referred to as "users" in Google Analyticss

Rate card

what publishers (websites) charge advertisers to advertise on their site

Content marketing

when brands create and distribute content to achieve business goals; examples include blogs, case studies, videos, industry reports, and webinars

Delivery

when the good or service provided by a business is provided to and accepted by the user or customer; in digital marketing, also the receipt of a message from the marketer to a group or individual in the target audience.

Display advertising

where a marketer pays to display their message in a dedicated space - usually above, below or next to the content on a publisher's page. One of the most common types of display ads are banner ads.