When it comes to digital marketing, doing your research can become a bit of a slog. Wading through the specific terminology and unfamiliar words means you might spend more time researching definitions than reading the article you set out to read, or reaching the goal you want to achieve. Here at Zync we’ve put together a glossary of marketing terms, to help you get a head start.
A/B testing - When two versions of creative are used to test against each other in a campaign to see which performs better, generally only one variable will change between the two ads so marketers can hone in on specific improvements.
Ad fatigue - When users become over-exposed to the same ad, engagement can drop, resulting in fewer clicks and conversions. A good way to avoid ad fatigue is to regularly refresh creative ads to avoid this.
Ad group - Subcategories of a pay-per-click account which contain ads, targeting and keywords, different ad groups can represent the different themes of a campaign.
Algorithm - A complex set of rules that search engines and advertising platforms use to decide which ads a user will see first.
Attribution - Where in the marketing process a lead or conversion has come from, basically which platform/method gets the credit for a conversion, often a user will be advertised to through a number of channels before converting.
Audience - The target demographics that you are trying to advertise to, different marketing channels, products, services and content can dictate what an audience looks like, there can be multiple audiences.
Backlink - An incoming hyperlink from one website to another. These ‘referrals’, particularly if they come from a website that is well regarded can help improve the performance and searchability of a website.
Bid - The price that a marketer will pay to have an ad seen by a customer, used in par-per-click advertising.
Bounce rate - The percentage of users who leave after only viewing one page of the website rather than clicking on links or navigating to another page. This can help a business optimise their website, as a high bounce rate would generally indicate that the website needs improving to retain users attention better, in some cases a high bounce rate could be an indication of a web page performing its purpose well, so its always important to take bounce rate in context.
Buyer personas - A theoretical persona of a prospective customer, constructed using qualified metrics or business insight a buyer persona generally tries to represent specific types of customers and enable a business to become more specific in their marketing.
CTA - Call to action, a button, word or phrase in an ad that is designed to promote the user to action, ‘buy now’, ‘apply now’ and ‘learn more’ are some CTA’s that most people will be familiar with.
CTR - Click through rate, the percentage of ads that are shown to users which they then click on, ads are usually shown to users by the thousand, so if 450 people click on the ad this would make the CTR 45%.
Conversions - a customer that has taken the prospective action that a marketing campaign has driven them towards, this could be making a purchase but could also be inputting personal information, subscribing to a newsletter or whatever goal you’ve set!
CVR - the average number of users that click on an ad and go on to complete a conversion, whilst you might get 50 people clicking on your ad, only 10 might actually sign up for a product, this would make your CVR 20%
Copy - the main text associated with an ad.
CPA - Cost per acquisition, the budget spent divided by the number of acquisitions.
CPC - Cost per click, the budget spent divided by the number of clicks.
CPL - Cost per lead, the budget spent divided by the number of leads generated.
Crawling - the process of searching a website for relevant content and pages, this is done by Googlebot or ‘Spider’ when a user searches for something on a search engine.
Demographics - a demographic is a data-orientated categorisation of consumers, this could be by age, location, gender or something more specific. Demographic targeting is an important part of successful marketing.
Google Adwords - Google’s pay-per-click advertising platform, this is where campaigns are made, managed and optimised.
Google analytics - Google’s tracking platform, this is where you can find out how the adverts you’ve published in Adwords are performing.
Google search console - a service where webmasters can monitor their web presence, making tweaks and optimisations focusing primarily on site indexing, traffic and crawl errors.
Impressions - The number of times an ad has been viewed by potential customers, a user would not need to interact with an ad for it to be considered an impression.
Keyword - A word or set of words that helps inform users and search engines on the content on a web page, helping draw relevant traffic to the site based on what is being searched.
KPI - Key performance indicators are measurable values determined by a business or company as benchmarks for success in their chosen endeavour.
Landing page - A website that is focused on driving the viewer to take an action, which in a PPC campaign would be the destination a user lands on when they click on the link in the advert.
Marketing funnel - A consumer-focused marketing model, depicting a customer’s theoretical journey towards completing an action or purchase with a brand.
Metadata - The descriptions or keywords used to describe the content of a webpage, typically a meta description and meta title, it can also include things like the author, the length of the document or when it was uploaded.
Meta description - A short description of what the page is about in the HTML of a webpage, this is the part of a webpage that can show its relevance to specific search engine searches.
Organic traffic -Users coming to a page without the assistance of paid ads, such as somebody searching for a business name in Google.
PPC - Pay-per-click advertising, where ads are only paid for after somebody has engaged with them, an efficient way to maximise your budget.
Pixel - A form of code, embedded in your website that allows you to track different goals, it could be a purchase, calculate revenue or place a cookie on a user’s computer for remarketing.
Reach - The total number of views content receives during a given period of time, this can be organic or paid.
ROI - Return on investment, the benefit to the business in terms of financial remuneration or other quantified metrics dictated by the goal of the campaign. The calculation for ROI is (Profit-cost)÷cost, but the monetary value of certain goals is not always immediately apparent, which is why it’s good to have an understanding of the value of non-monetary interactions with your brand.
Segmentation - division of consumer groups, generally based on similarities within specific sub-groups.
SEM - Search engine marketing, using PPC to target specific search terms and keywords on search engines.
SEO - Search engine optimisation, using good copy, backlinking and keywords to increase traffic and visibility on your website, increasing its relevance to specific search queries and the likelihood that your website will appear in relevant searches.
At Zync we help Credit Unions and Social Enterprises take their digital marketing to the next level, from paid search and social, organic content to website builds, email marketing or photoshoots, it’s not just that we can help - we want to help positive businesses make positive change, so get in touch!
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