A field guideto marketing jargon

Showing two versions of something, like an email subject line or a web page, to similar groups to see which performs better.

Why you care Change one thing at a time and wait for enough data. A winner after fifty visitors is usually luck.

See also Statistical Significance CRO Incrementality

The ad itself. The image, video, headline, and copy people see.

Why you care With platforms automating more of the targeting, the creative does more of the work. Testing new creative is often the best lever you have.

See also Ad Fatigue A/B Testing Hook

When the same audience has seen your ad so many times that results drop.

Why you care Plan new creative before the old one dies. A rising CPA with the same targeting is often the first sign.

See also Frequency Ad Creative

Shaping content so it gets picked as the direct answer by search features, voice assistants, and AI tools. It overlaps a lot with GEO.

Why you care Write the question as a heading, then answer it plainly in the first two sentences. That helps humans too.

See also GEO Zero-Click Search

Partners, like bloggers, creators, or deal sites, earn a commission for each sale they send you.

Why you care You only pay for results, which sounds perfect. Watch for affiliates who grab credit for customers who were already buying, like coupon sites at checkout.

See also Influencer Marketing Attribution

Also called AOR

The main agency a brand has officially hired for a type of work, like creative or media buying.

Why you care Being an agency's biggest client and being their favorite client are different things. Ask who will actually work on your account.

See also Brief RFP

Also called GenAI

Software that does things that used to need human thinking, like writing, summarizing, and spotting patterns. Generative AI is the kind that creates new text, images, video, or code.

Why you care It's a tool, not a strategy. The teams getting the most out of it pick a few real tasks and build them into their daily work.

See also LLM Prompt AI Agent

An AI tool that can take actions toward a goal, not just answer questions. It might research, fill in a spreadsheet, or draft and schedule posts.

Why you care Start with small, low-risk tasks and keep a human approving anything that goes public or spends money.

See also AI Marketing Automation

Google's AI-written answers that appear at the top of many search results, built from several sources with links.

Why you care They push regular results further down. Clear, well-structured pages that answer questions directly have a better chance of being cited.

See also Zero-Click Search GEO SERP

The rules a platform uses to decide what each person sees in their feed.

Why you care Nobody outside the platform knows exactly how it works, and it changes often. Content people stop for, watch, save, and share tends to win.

See also Engagement Rate Reach

The average amount spent per order. Total revenue divided by number of orders.

Why you care Raising AOV is often easier than finding new customers. Bundles, free shipping thresholds, and good recommendations all help.

See also Upsell Free Shipping Threshold LTV

Deciding which marketing touchpoints get credit for a sale.

Why you care Every platform tends to give itself credit. Add up what each ad platform claims and you'll often get more sales than you actually made.

See also Last-Click Attribution MMM Incrementality

Selling to other companies, not individual consumers.

Why you care Longer sales cycles, more people involved in each decision, and a lot more spreadsheets. But the buyers are still humans who respond to a good story.

See also B2C Lead ICP

Selling directly to individual people.

Why you care Decisions are faster and more emotional. Brand, convenience, and how the experience feels matter a lot.

See also B2B DTC

A link from another website to yours.

Why you care Search engines treat good backlinks as votes of trust. One link from a respected site beats a hundred from junk directories.

See also SEO Domain Authority

A reference number to compare your results against. Your own past results, a competitor, or an industry average.

Why you care Your own trend line is usually the most useful benchmark. Industry averages lump together businesses that have little in common.

See also KPI

Payment options that let customers split a purchase into installments or pay later, like Klarna or Afterpay.

Why you care It can raise conversion and order value. In some markets, like Sweden, customers simply expect it at checkout.

See also Checkout AOV

The share of visits where someone leaves without doing anything else. In GA4, it's the share of sessions that weren't engaged.

Why you care A high bounce rate isn't always bad. If someone finds your opening hours and leaves, the page did its job.

See also Session Landing Page Core Web Vitals

What people think and feel when they hear your name. Your logo is part of it. Your reputation, your customer service, and the last thing someone said about you at dinner are the rest.

Why you care You don't fully control your brand. You influence it with everything you do, every day. That's why a new logo alone rarely fixes anything.

See also Brand Equity Brand Identity Brand Positioning

How a company organizes its brands and sub-brands. One master brand for everything, separate brands for separate products, or something in between.

Why you care It matters most when you launch something new. Should it carry your name or stand on its own? Getting this wrong confuses customers and splits your budget.

See also Rebrand Co-branding

How many people in your target audience know you exist.

Why you care Awareness is the start, not the goal. Lots of brands everyone has heard of still struggle to sell. Pair it with what people actually think of you.

See also Brand Recall Reach Brand Lift

The extra value your name adds. It's why people pay more for Nike than for a plain sneaker that does the same job.

Why you care Every experience adds to it or chips away at it. A great product with a rude returns process is still a withdrawal.

See also Brand Brand Awareness Pricing Power

The rulebook for using your brand. Logo use, colors, fonts, photography, tone of voice, and the do's and don'ts.

Why you care Good guidelines make it easy for freelancers, agencies, and new hires to get it right without asking you. If nobody opens yours, it's too long.

See also Brand Identity Tone of Voice

The visible and audible parts of your brand. Logo, colors, fonts, photography style, and tone of voice.

Why you care Identity is how people recognize you. It's not the same as what you stand for. Plenty of beautiful logos sit on top of muddled businesses.

See also Brand Guidelines Distinctive Brand Assets Tone of Voice

A measured increase in awareness, recall, or how people feel about a brand after a campaign, usually from surveys of people who saw it versus people who didn't.

Why you care It's how you show that brand campaigns did something, even when sales take longer to move.

See also Brand Awareness Incrementality

The specific spot you want to own in your customer's head, compared to the alternatives. It answers one question. Why us and not them?

Why you care If you can't say it in one sentence, your customers can't either. Positioning is a choice, which means deciding what you won't be.

See also Positioning Statement Value Proposition USP

Why the company exists beyond making money.

Why you care It only works if it's true and you act on it. Customers spot a purpose statement that lives on a slide and nowhere else.

See also Cause Marketing Brand Story

Whether people come up with your name on their own when they think of your category.

Why you care Being remembered at the moment someone is ready to buy beats being recognized when they see your logo. That's the gap between "oh, I've heard of them" and "I'll check them first."

See also Brand Awareness Distinctive Brand Assets

The narrative that explains who you are, why you exist, and why it matters to the customer.

Why you care The best brand stories make the customer the hero, not the founder. Your origin story is interesting. Their problem is more interesting to them.

See also Brand Purpose Content Marketing

A short document that tells a team or agency what you need. The goal, the audience, the message, the deliverables, the budget, and the deadline.

Why you care Bad briefs cost more than bad agencies. If you can't fit it on one page, you haven't decided yet.

See also Agency of Record Target Audience

Several products sold together, usually for a little less than buying them separately.

Why you care Bundles raise order value and make choosing easier. Build them around how people actually use your products.

See also AOV Upsell

What you spend to win one new customer. Add up ad spend, agency fees, tools, and the hours, then divide by the number of new customers.

Why you care If it costs you $80 to get a customer who spends $60 once, you don't have a marketing problem. You have a math problem.

See also LTV LTV to CAC Ratio CPA

A tag that tells search engines which version of a page is the main one when several URLs show the same content.

Why you care Without it, search engines can split your ranking power between duplicates. It's a quiet technical fix that matters for online stores.

See also SEO Sitemap

The US law for commercial email. It requires honest subject lines, a real address, and an easy way to unsubscribe.

Why you care It's looser than GDPR, but if you sell in both places, follow the stricter rule and you're covered.

See also GDPR Email Marketing

A way to send conversion data from your server straight to an ad platform, like Meta, instead of only through a browser pixel.

Why you care It recovers some of the data that ad blockers and privacy settings lose. If you spend real money on Meta ads and haven't set it up, ask why.

See also Pixel First-Party Data Attribution

When someone adds items to their cart but leaves without buying.

Why you care It's common, and some of it is just people saving for later. Surprise shipping costs and forced account creation are classic causes. A reminder email wins back a share of them.

See also Checkout Marketing Automation Retargeting

A brand partnering with a charity or social cause, often giving part of the sales to it.

Why you care It works when the cause fits the brand and the money is real and visible. If it feels bolted on, it can hurt more than help.

See also Brand Purpose Co-branding

Software that pulls customer data from many places, like your website, app, store, and email, into one profile per customer.

Why you care Powerful for bigger brands with lots of data sources. Smaller teams can often get most of the value from a good email platform and a clean CRM.

See also CRM First-Party Data Personalization

The steps from cart to completed order. Address, delivery, payment, and confirmation.

Why you care Every extra field costs sales. Offer guest checkout and the payment methods your market expects.

See also Cart Abandonment BNPL

The share of customers who stop buying or cancel over a period.

Why you care For subscriptions, churn is the number to watch. A leaky bucket never fills, no matter how much you pour in.

See also Retention Win-Back LTV

The share of delivered emails where someone clicked a link. Some tools also report clicks as a share of opens, called click-to-open rate.

Why you care It's a better sign of interest than opens. One clear link usually beats ten.

See also Open Rate CTR CTA

The most senior marketing person in a company, responsible for brand, growth, and the marketing team.

Why you care A good CMO connects marketing to the business numbers. If your marketing lead can't talk about revenue, margin, and retention, something is missing.

See also Fractional CMO KPI

Two brands teaming up on a product, campaign, or experience, so each borrows some of the other's audience and credibility.

Why you care The best collabs feel surprising and obvious at the same time. Pick a partner whose fans you want and whose values won't embarrass you later.

See also Drop Sponsorship Influencer Marketing

A group of customers who share something, usually when they started, like everyone who first bought in January.

Why you care Comparing cohorts shows whether you're getting better at keeping customers over time, which totals and averages hide.

See also Retention Segmentation

Talking with your audience on social and other channels. Answering comments and messages, starting conversations, and handling complaints.

Why you care It's customer service and brand building at the same time, and it's often handed to the most junior person on the team. Don't.

See also Engagement Rate Social Listening

Studying your competitors' products, prices, messages, channels, and customer experience to find where you can win.

Why you care Don't just copy what they do. Look for what they all do the same way. That's usually where the opening is.

See also Differentiation SWOT

A Google setting that adjusts how its tags behave based on whether a visitor accepted cookies, and fills some gaps with modeled data.

Why you care If you advertise on Google in Europe, it's effectively required. Ask whoever runs your ads whether it's set up.

See also Cookie GDPR GA4

Creating useful or entertaining content, like articles, videos, newsletters, or guides, to attract and keep customers, instead of interrupting them with ads.

Why you care It's slow and it compounds. It works best when you pick a few topics you can own and keep showing up.

See also Content Pillars Evergreen Content SEO

Three to five core themes your content always comes back to.

Why you care Pillars stop the daily "what should we post?" panic and keep your brand recognizable.

See also Content Marketing Marketing Calendar

Also called CVR

The share of visitors who do what you want, like buy, sign up, or book a call. Conversions divided by visitors.

Why you care If traffic is high and conversion is low, more traffic won't fix it. Look at the offer, the page, and the trust signals.

See also CRO Funnel Landing Page

A small file a website stores in your browser to remember things, like what's in your cart or that you've visited before.

Why you care In the EU you need clear consent before setting most marketing cookies. That banner is a legal requirement, not decoration.

See also Third-Party Cookies GDPR Consent Mode

Writing words meant to make people act. Headlines, ads, product descriptions, emails, and buttons.

Why you care Good copy is about the reader, not the writer. Write like you talk, cut every word that isn't working, and read it out loud.

See also CTA Tone of Voice Hook

Google's measures of how fast and stable a page feels to use. How quickly it loads, how fast it responds, and whether things jump around.

Why you care Slow sites lose customers before they lose rankings. Test your site on a phone with average mobile data, not the office Wi-Fi.

See also SEO UX Bounce Rate

What you pay, on average, to get one conversion, like a sale or a signup.

Why you care It's one of the most honest ad numbers you'll find. If your CPA is higher than what a customer is worth, scaling up just loses money faster.

See also CAC ROAS Conversion Rate

What you pay, on average, each time someone clicks your ad. Total spend divided by clicks.

Why you care A cheap click that never buys anything is expensive. Judge CPC together with conversion rate.

See also PPC CTR CPA

What you pay, on average, to get one lead, like a form fill or a signup.

Why you care Cheap leads are easy to buy. Check how many of them ever become customers before celebrating.

See also Lead CPA MQL

What you pay for 1,000 ad impressions. Mille is Latin for thousand.

Why you care Useful for comparing the price of attention across channels. Low CPM with no results is still a waste.

See also Impressions CPC

The business of independent people making content and earning money from it through brand deals, subscriptions, products, and platform payouts.

Why you care Creators are media companies now. Treat them like partners with a business, not free billboards.

See also Influencer Marketing Usage Rights

The system, and the habit, of keeping track of every customer and every conversation with them. Also used for the marketing that goes with it.

Why you care A CRM is only as good as what goes into it. If your team doesn't use it daily, you have an expensive address book.

See also CDP Lifecycle Marketing Lead

Testing and improving your website or app so more visitors convert.

Why you care Start by watching real people use your site. You'll see the problems in five minutes that no dashboard shows you.

See also Conversion Rate A/B Testing Heatmap

A quick rating of how satisfied a customer was with something specific, like a purchase or a support chat.

Why you care Ask right after the moment you're measuring. Ask later and you're measuring their memory.

See also NPS CX

The thing you ask people to do next. Buy now, sign up, book a call, or read more.

Why you care One clear CTA beats three competing ones. "Submit" is not a call to action. Say what they get.

See also Copywriting Conversion Rate Landing Page

The percentage of people who click after seeing your ad, email, or search result. Clicks divided by impressions.

Why you care A higher CTR usually means the message or creative fits the audience. Test headlines and images one at a time to raise it.

See also CPC Click Rate A/B Testing

Every step a customer takes with your brand, from first noticing you to buying, using, coming back, and telling others.

Why you care Map it from the customer's side, not your org chart's. Then walk it yourself, on your phone, like a stranger would.

See also Touchpoint CX Funnel

The whole experience a customer has with your brand, across every touchpoint, from first ad to returns.

Why you care CX is marketing whether you call it that or not. A great campaign can't outrun a bad experience.

See also UX Customer Journey NPS

Sharing that happens in private channels, like messaging apps, email, and DMs, where analytics can't see where the visit came from.

Why you care A lot of real word of mouth happens here. It often shows up in your analytics as "direct" traffic.

See also Attribution Word of Mouth

A screen or report that shows your key numbers in one place, usually updated automatically.

Why you care A good dashboard fits on one screen and leads to decisions. If it needs a 20-minute walkthrough, it's a report pretending to be a dashboard.

See also KPI GA4

How often your emails land in the inbox instead of spam or nowhere at all.

Why you care Clean your list, don't buy email lists, make unsubscribing easy, and set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Gmail and Yahoo now require it for bulk senders.

See also Email Marketing Unsubscribe Rate

Anything that makes you meaningfully different from the alternatives. Product, price, service, story, or experience.

Why you care Different only counts if customers care. Being the only brand with a purple box is different. It's rarely the reason anyone buys.

See also USP Brand Positioning

Also called DBA

The things people recognize as yours even without your name on them. A color, a shape, a sound, a character, or a phrase.

Why you care They take years to build and minutes to throw away. Think twice before a redesign drops the thing customers actually remember. (I mean, the pink sunglasses, right?)

See also Brand Identity Brand Recall

Also called DA, DR

A score from SEO tools that estimates how likely a website is to rank, mostly based on backlinks. Moz calls it Domain Authority, Ahrefs calls it Domain Rating.

Why you care It's a third-party estimate, not a Google number. Useful for comparing sites, not worth obsessing over.

See also Backlink SEO

Also called DOI

When someone signs up, you send an email asking them to confirm before they're added to the list.

Why you care Your list grows a bit slower and gets a lot cleaner. It proves consent and keeps fake addresses out.

See also GDPR Deliverability

A limited release of a product at a set time, often announced in advance to build excitement.

Why you care Scarcity is real only if it's real. Fake "limited" drops every week train people to ignore you.

See also Co-branding Launch Waitlist

Software advertisers use to buy programmatic ads across many websites and apps from one place.

Why you care Mostly used by agencies and bigger advertisers. Smaller brands usually get further with the platforms' own ad tools first.

See also Programmatic

A brand selling straight to customers through its own website or stores, not through retailers or marketplaces.

Why you care You keep the margin and the customer data. You also pay for every visitor yourself, which is why so many DTC brands end up back in retail.

See also B2C First-Party Data CAC

Attention you didn't pay for directly. Press coverage, reviews, mentions, and people sharing your stuff.

Why you care It's the most trusted kind of media because you can't fully control it. Give journalists and customers a real story.

See also Paid Media Word of Mouth

Selling products online, through your own store, marketplaces, or social platforms.

Why you care Your website is your best store. Treat it like one. Walk it as a customer would, on a phone.

See also Conversion Rate AOV CRO

The qualities Google says it looks for in good content. Real experience, real expertise, a respected source, and trustworthy information.

Why you care Show who wrote it and why they know. Real names, real examples, and real credentials beat anonymous content.

See also SEO Thought Leadership

Sending emails to people who've agreed to hear from you. Newsletters, offers, updates, and automated messages.

Why you care Still one of the best returns in marketing because you own the list. Send things people actually want to open.

See also Newsletter Marketing Automation Open Rate

Employees sharing and talking about their company on their own social accounts.

Why you care People trust people more than logos, so it can reach further than the brand page. Make it easy and voluntary. Forced posts read as forced.

See also Thought Leadership Organic

How much people interact with your content, like likes, comments, shares, and saves, as a percentage of the people who saw it or follow you.

Why you care Platforms calculate it differently, so compare like with like. Comments and shares usually signal more than likes.

See also Reach Community Management Vanity Metrics

Using live or virtual events, like launches, pop-ups, and workshops, to connect with people in person.

Why you care An event lasts a day. The photos, videos, and contacts can last a year. Plan what you'll capture and how you'll follow up.

See also Sponsorship Co-branding

Content that stays relevant for months or years, like a how-to guide or, well, a field guide.

Why you care It keeps bringing in traffic long after you post it. Mix it with timely content, which gets attention fast but fades fast.

See also Content Marketing SEO

Also called 1P data

Data you collect directly from your own customers and visitors. Purchases, signups, site behavior, and preferences.

Why you care It's the most valuable data you have, because you own it and it's accurate. Every privacy change makes it worth more.

See also Zero-Party Data Third-Party Cookies CAPI

An experienced CMO who works with you part time, often a couple of days a month, instead of as a full-time hire.

Why you care It gives a growing company senior judgment without a senior salary. It works best when there's a team or agency to carry out the plan.

See also CMO Marketing Audit

The order amount a customer must reach to get free delivery.

Why you care Set it a bit above your current average order value and people will add one more thing to get there.

See also AOV Checkout

How many times, on average, one person saw your ad over a period.

Why you care Too low and nobody remembers you. Too high and people get annoyed. Watch for results dropping as frequency climbs.

See also Reach Ad Fatigue

Also called TOFU, MOFU, BOFU

A model of how people move from first hearing about you to buying. Top of funnel is awareness, middle is consideration, bottom is purchase. You'll see these shortened to TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU.

Why you care Real people don't move in a neat line. But the funnel is still useful for spotting where you lose them.

See also Customer Journey Conversion Rate Retargeting

The current version of Google's free website and app analytics tool, which replaced Universal Analytics in 2023.

Why you care It measures events, not just page views. Set up your key events, like purchases and signups, or the reports won't tell you much.

See also UTM Session Consent Mode

The EU's privacy law. It covers how companies collect, store, and use personal data, and gives people rights over theirs.

Why you care It applies to anyone marketing to people in the EU, wherever your company is. Clear consent and clean data habits keep you safe and keep your list better.

See also Cookie Double Opt-In CAN-SPAM

Making your brand and content easy for AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity to find, understand, and mention when people ask them questions.

Why you care Much of it is good SEO done well. Clear facts, consistent information everywhere, structured data, and being mentioned on sites the AI trusts. Ask the tools about your category and see if you come up.

See also AEO LLM llms.txt

Your plan for bringing a product to customers. Who it's for, what you'll say, what it costs, where you'll sell it, and how people will hear about it.

Why you care A GTM plan forces the hard decisions before launch day, not after. If it doesn't name a specific audience, it isn't finished.

See also ICP Launch Marketing Mix

When an AI tool states something false as if it were fact, like a made-up statistic or a quote nobody said.

Why you care It sounds just as confident when it's wrong. Never publish a number, quote, or claim from AI without checking the source.

See also LLM AI

A word or phrase after a # sign that groups posts by topic on social platforms.

Why you care They matter less than they used to on most platforms. A few relevant ones help. A wall of thirty looks like 2014.

See also Organic Algorithm

A visual map of where people click, scroll, and move on a page. Many tools also record individual sessions.

Why you care You'll see where people get stuck, what they ignore, and the thing they keep clicking that isn't a link.

See also CRO UX

The first line or first seconds of a piece of content, built to stop the scroll.

Why you care On social, if the hook doesn't work, nothing after it gets seen. Lead with the most interesting thing, not the logo.

See also Short-Form Video Copywriting

A description of the type of customer, or company in B2B, that gets the most value from you and is worth the most to you.

Why you care Selling to everyone is selling to no one. A sharp ICP makes your ads cheaper, your copy clearer, and your sales team happier.

See also Persona Target Audience Segmentation

The number of times your content or ad was shown, counting repeat views by the same person.

Why you care Impressions are always higher than reach. A big number here looks great in a report and can mean almost nothing on its own.

See also Reach CPM Vanity Metrics

The sales that happened because of your marketing and wouldn't have happened without it.

Why you care This is the question that matters most. Test it by turning something off in one region or for one group and comparing.

See also Attribution A/B Testing Brand Lift

Paying or partnering with people who have an engaged following to talk about your brand.

Why you care Fit beats follower count. A smaller creator whose audience trusts them can sell more than a celebrity who posts once and moves on.

See also Micro-Influencer UGC Usage Rights

A word or phrase people type into search engines. Keyword research is finding which ones your customers use.

Why you care Use their words, not yours. Your team says "mortgage solutions." Your customers type "how much can I borrow."

See also Search Intent SEO

An expert or respected voice in a field whose opinion shapes others. The term is common in Asia and in health, beauty, and B2B.

Why you care KOLs are about credibility more than reach. A dermatologist with 20,000 followers can move more skincare than a lifestyle star.

See also Influencer Marketing Thought Leadership

A number you've chosen to track because it shows whether you're reaching an important goal.

Why you care Pick a few that connect to the business, not twenty that look busy. If a KPI never changes a decision, drop it.

See also OKR North Star Metric Vanity Metrics

A page built for one purpose, usually where people land after clicking an ad or email.

Why you care One page, one goal, one CTA. If your ad promises one thing, the landing page has to deliver that exact thing.

See also CTA Conversion Rate PPC

An attribution model that gives all the credit to the last thing someone clicked before buying.

Why you care It overrates the final step, like branded search or a discount code, and ignores whatever made them want you in the first place.

See also Attribution MMM

Bringing a new product, brand, or service to market, usually with a burst of marketing around a set date.

Why you care The launch is the starting line, not the finish. Plan what happens in weeks two to twelve, when the buzz fades and the real selling starts.

See also GTM Waitlist

Someone who has shown interest and given you a way to contact them, like an email address or a booked call.

Why you care A lead is a person, not a number. Follow up fast. Interest cools quickly.

See also MQL SQL Lead Magnet

Something useful you give away in exchange for an email address. A guide, checklist, template, or discount.

Why you care Make it something your ideal customer actually wants, not just anyone. A great lead magnet attracts buyers, not freebie hunters.

See also Lead Welcome Series

Staying in touch with leads who aren't ready to buy yet, with helpful emails and content, until they are.

Why you care Most people aren't ready the first time they find you. Nurturing keeps you in mind without pushing.

See also Marketing Automation Lead

Giving leads points based on who they are and what they do, so sales can focus on the most promising ones first.

Why you care Keep it simple and review it every few months against who actually bought.

See also MQL CRM

Marketing that changes based on where someone is in their relationship with you. New subscriber, first-time buyer, regular, or lapsed customer.

Why you care A thank-you to a first-time buyer and a "we miss you" to someone who's gone quiet will beat one weekly blast to everyone.

See also Marketing Automation Retention Win-Back

The kind of AI behind chat tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, trained on huge amounts of text to understand and write language.

Why you care It's great at drafts, summaries, and ideas. It doesn't know your customers or your brand unless you tell it. Always check facts and numbers.

See also AI Prompt Hallucination

A plain text file at the root of a website that sums up the site for AI tools. A newer, informal proposal, not an official standard.

Why you care It's cheap to add and helps keep the facts about you consistent. Don't expect miracles from it alone.

See also GEO Schema Markup

Showing up in searches tied to a place, like "coffee near me" or a map search. Your Google Business Profile is the heart of it.

Why you care Keep your hours, address, and photos up to date and answer your reviews. It's free and it's often how new customers find a local business.

See also SEO Social Proof

An ad audience the platform builds from people who resemble a list you give it, like your best customers.

Why you care The quality of the list in decides the quality of the audience out. Feed it your best buyers, not everyone who ever signed up.

See also First-Party Data Target Audience

A program that rewards customers for buying more or more often. Points, perks, early access, or member prices.

Why you care The best ones make members feel special, not just counted. Early access and real perks often beat points nobody understands.

See also Retention LTV

Also called CLV

How much a customer is worth to you over the whole relationship, usually measured in gross profit, not just revenue.

Why you care It tells you how much you can afford to spend to win a customer. Raise it by getting people to come back.

See also CAC LTV to CAC Ratio Retention

Lifetime value divided by acquisition cost. It shows whether winning customers pays off.

Why you care A common rule of thumb is about 3 to 1. Much lower and you're overpaying for customers. Much higher and you may be growing slower than you could.

See also LTV CAC Payback Period

A full review of how your marketing is working today. Brand, website, channels, content, tools, data, and spend.

Why you care Do one before you hire an agency, change strategy, or raise the budget. It's cheaper to find the leak than to pour in more water.

See also SWOT KPI MarTech

Messages and actions that run on their own when something happens, like an email sent when someone signs up or leaves items in their cart.

Why you care Set up the few that matter most first. Welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase, and win-back. They work while you sleep.

See also Welcome Series Cart Abandonment Lifecycle Marketing

A shared plan showing what goes out when. Campaigns, launches, posts, emails, and key dates.

Why you care It turns good intentions into a schedule. Plan around your customer's calendar, like paydays, holidays, and seasons, not just your own.

See also Content Pillars Launch

Also called 4 Ps

The classic four Ps. Product, price, place, and promotion. The levers you control to win customers.

Why you care It's old, and it still holds. When sales stall, people usually blame promotion first. Often the real problem is one of the other three Ps.

See also GTM Value Proposition

A platform where many sellers sell to shoppers, like Amazon, Zalando, or Etsy.

Why you care Huge reach, but the customer belongs to the marketplace more than to you. Use it for discovery and work to bring buyers to your own channels.

See also DTC Social Commerce

Collecting information about your customers, competitors, and market. Surveys, interviews, data, and plain observation all count.

Why you care Five honest customer interviews often teach you more than a 40-page report. Ask about what they did, not what they would do.

See also Persona Competitive Analysis Social Listening

All the software a marketing team uses. Email, CRM, analytics, ads, social scheduling, design, and now AI tools. Together they're called your stack.

Why you care Most teams pay for more tools than they use. Before buying something new, check whether a tool you already pay for can do it.

See also CRM CDP Marketing Audit

Planning and buying ad space across channels, and negotiating the price.

Why you care Know whether your agency earns a fee or a cut of what you spend. It changes what they might recommend.

See also Agency of Record CPM

How products are chosen, arranged, and presented to make people want to buy. In stores and online.

Why you care What you put first is a decision about what you want to sell. Your homepage and category pages are your shop windows.

See also PLP Customer Journey

A short summary of a page in its code, often shown under the title in search results.

Why you care It doesn't directly help you rank, but it helps people choose to click. Write it like a tiny ad, around 150 characters.

See also Title Tag CTR

A creator with a smaller, often more niche following, roughly 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Under that is often called nano.

Why you care Cheaper per post, often closer to their audience, and easier to work with long term. Ten of them can beat one big name.

See also Influencer Marketing KOL

A statistical method that estimates how much each channel contributes to sales, using your historical spend and sales data instead of tracking individuals.

Why you care It's coming back because privacy rules limit tracking. Free open-source tools, like Google's Meridian and Meta's Robyn, make it more accessible than it used to be.

See also Attribution Incrementality

A lead that marketing thinks is likely to buy, based on who they are and what they've done, like downloading a guide or visiting the pricing page.

Why you care Agree with sales on what counts as an MQL. If sales ignores your MQLs, the definition is wrong.

See also SQL Lead Scoring Lead

Ads made to match the look and feel of the platform they sit on, like a sponsored article on a news site.

Why you care It works when it's actually useful to read. Always label it clearly. Readers feel tricked when they're not told.

See also Content Marketing Paid Media

A regular email your subscribers sign up to get, with news, ideas, or stories.

Why you care Your email list is an audience you own. A social platform can change the rules overnight. Your list stays yours.

See also Email Marketing Owned Media

The one number that best captures the value you deliver to customers, which the whole company focuses on.

Why you care It should track customer value, not just revenue. For a streaming service it might be hours watched. For a store, repeat purchases.

See also KPI OKR

A score based on one question. How likely are you to recommend us, from 0 to 10? Promoters (9 to 10) minus detractors (0 to 6) gives a score from minus 100 to 100.

Why you care The score is less useful than the follow-up question. Why? That's where you learn what to fix.

See also CSAT CX Word of Mouth

A goal-setting method. The objective is what you want to achieve. The key results are two to four measurable signs that you got there.

Why you care Keep them few and ambitious. If you hit every OKR every quarter, you aimed too low.

See also KPI North Star Metric

Giving customers one connected experience across every channel. Store, website, app, social, email, and customer service.

Why you care The test is simple. Can a customer start on their phone and finish in your store without starting over? If not, you're multichannel, not omnichannel.

See also Touchpoint Customer Journey

Also called DOOH

Advertising people see outside their home. Billboards, bus shelters, subway posters, and taxi tops. Digital screens are called DOOH.

Why you care You can't click a billboard, but it builds fame fast in one place. Keep it to a few words and one strong image.

See also Brand Awareness Paid Media

The share of delivered emails that were opened.

Why you care It's less reliable than it used to be. Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens emails automatically, which inflates the number. Look at clicks and sales too.

See also Click Rate Deliverability

Anything you get without paying for placement. Organic social posts, organic search traffic, organic reach.

Why you care Organic isn't free. It costs time, people, and patience. But it builds something you own, not something you rent.

See also Paid Media Reach SEO

Channels you control. Your website, app, email list, blog, and store.

Why you care The more customers you bring into your owned channels, the less you depend on paying platforms to reach them again.

See also Paid Media Earned Media First-Party Data

Any marketing you pay to place. Social ads, search ads, TV, billboards, sponsored posts.

Why you care Paid media rents attention. It works fast and stops the moment you stop paying. Use it to speed up what already works.

See also Owned Media Earned Media PESO

How long it takes for a customer to bring in enough profit to cover what it cost to win them.

Why you care Cash matters. A great LTV doesn't help if you run out of money waiting for it.

See also CAC LTV

The page for a single product, with photos, description, price, sizes, reviews, and the buy button.

Why you care This is where the decision happens. Real photos, honest sizing, reviews, and clear delivery info beat clever copy.

See also PLP Conversion Rate Social Proof

Also called PMax

Google's campaign type where its AI decides where your ads run across Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail, and Maps. Meta's version is called Advantage+.

Why you care You give up control in exchange for automation. It works best with good conversion tracking and strong creative. Watch that it's not just taking credit for sales you'd have made anyway.

See also Incrementality Ad Creative CAPI

A short profile of a typical customer, with their needs, habits, worries, and what they're trying to get done.

Why you care Base personas on real conversations and real data, not guesses in a meeting room. A persona named "Marketing Mary" with no research behind it is fan fiction.

See also ICP Target Audience Customer Journey

Changing content, offers, or experiences for each person based on what you know about them.

Why you care A first name in a subject line isn't personalization. Recommending the right product, at the right time, is.

See also Segmentation First-Party Data CDP

A model that sorts media into four types. Paid (ads), earned (press and mentions), shared (social), and owned (your website and email).

Why you care A healthy plan uses all four and moves people from rented channels into owned ones.

See also Paid Media Owned Media Earned Media

A small piece of code on your website that tells ad platforms what visitors do, like view a product or buy.

Why you care Without it, the platforms can't optimize your ads or measure results. Browser privacy settings now block a lot of pixel data, which is why server-side tracking has grown.

See also CAPI Retargeting Cookie

A page that lists many products, like a category or search results page.

Why you care Good filters and sorting are your digital store layout. If customers can't find it, they can't buy it.

See also PDP Merchandising

An internal sentence that sums up your positioning. A common template is "For [audience], [brand] is the [category] that [unique benefit], because [reason to believe]."

Why you care It's a tool for your team, not a tagline for your website. Use it to judge every campaign, hire, and feature. Does this fit the sentence?

See also Brand Positioning Tagline

Advertising where you pay each time someone clicks your ad. Google search ads are the classic example.

Why you care You only pay for interest, not just views. Start small, test a few versions, and watch what happens after the click, not just the click.

See also CPC SEM Landing Page

Your ability to raise prices without losing many customers.

Why you care It's one of the clearest signs of a strong brand. If every price increase sends people to a competitor, the brand isn't doing enough work.

See also Brand Equity Value Proposition

Also called PMF

When a product clearly meets a real need for a specific market, and customers pull it out of your hands instead of you pushing it.

Why you care Marketing can speed up a product that has it. Marketing can't fake it for long. If retention is poor, look at the product before the ads.

See also Retention ICP

Also called RTB

Buying ad space automatically through software, often in auctions that happen in the split second a page loads.

Why you care It can reach a lot of people cheaply. Check where your ads actually appear. Cheap inventory sometimes means ads on sites you'd never choose.

See also DSP CPM

The instructions you give an AI tool.

Why you care Treat it like briefing a smart freelancer on day one. Give context, the audience, an example of what good looks like, and what to avoid. Vague in, vague out.

See also LLM Brief

A message from an app or website that pops up on someone's phone or computer.

Why you care Useful for timely things like order updates and back-in-stock alerts. Too many and people turn them off for good.

See also SMS Marketing Lifecycle Marketing

The number of unique people who saw your content or ad.

Why you care Reach tells you how far a message traveled. It doesn't tell you if anyone cared. Pair it with engagement or clicks.

See also Impressions Engagement Rate Frequency

Changing how a brand looks, sounds, or what it stands for. Anything from a new logo to a whole new name.

Why you care Rebrand when the business has changed and the brand hasn't caught up. Don't rebrand because the team is bored of the logo. Customers usually aren't.

See also Brand Identity Brand Positioning

Rewarding customers for bringing in new customers.

Why you care It turns word of mouth into something you can measure. Reward both sides and make sharing take one tap.

See also Word of Mouth CAC

Turning one piece of content into several. A webinar becomes a blog post, five short videos, a newsletter, and a LinkedIn carousel.

Why you care Most people only see a fraction of what you post. Saying a good thing more than once isn't lazy. It's how anything gets remembered.

See also Content Marketing Short-Form Video

Showing ads to people who already visited your site, used your app, or engaged with you.

Why you care It works because they already know you. It gets creepy when the same shoes follow someone for six weeks after they bought them. Cap the frequency and exclude buyers.

See also Frequency Pixel Cart Abandonment

Keeping customers coming back and buying again.

Why you care It's usually far cheaper to keep a customer than to win a new one. Yet most budgets go to winning new ones.

See also Churn LTV Loyalty Program

The share of orders, or items, that customers send back.

Why you care In fashion it can eat a big part of your profit. Better size guides, honest photos, and reviews about fit help more than stricter policies.

See also PDP CX

A formal document a company sends to several agencies or vendors asking them to pitch for a project.

Why you care Long RFPs attract agencies with big new-business teams, not always the best work. Be clear about budget. It saves everyone time.

See also Brief Agency of Record

Revenue from ads divided by what you spent on them. Spend 1,000, make 4,000, and your ROAS is 4.

Why you care ROAS counts revenue, not profit. A ROAS of 4 can still lose money if your margins are thin. Know your break-even ROAS.

See also ROI CPA Attribution

Also called ROMI

Profit from an activity compared to what it cost. (Gain minus cost) divided by cost.

Why you care Look at short-term sales and long-term brand value together. Some of the best marketing pays back slowly.

See also ROAS CAC LTV

Code that labels the information on your page so search engines and AI tools understand it. This is a product, this is a price, this is a review, this is a person.

Why you care It can earn you star ratings, prices, and other extras in search results, and helps AI assistants describe you correctly.

See also SEO GEO llms.txt

What someone actually wants when they search. To learn something, to find a specific site, to compare options, or to buy.

Why you care Match the page to the intent. Someone searching "best running shoes" wants a comparison, not your checkout page.

See also Keyword Landing Page

Splitting your market or customer list into groups that share something, like age, location, behavior, or what they've bought.

Why you care Different groups need different messages. Sending one email to everyone is easy. Sending the right email to each group is what gets results.

See also Target Audience Personalization Cohort

Paying for visibility in search results, mainly through search ads. Some people use it to mean search ads and SEO together.

Why you care Search ads catch people who are already looking, which is why they often convert well. They're also where competitors bid up the price.

See also PPC SEO SERP

Improving your website so it shows up higher in unpaid search results.

Why you care Good SEO starts with useful content that answers real questions, a fast site, and other sites linking to you. It's slow to build and cheap to keep.

See also SERP Keyword GEO

The page you see after you search. Ads, regular results, AI answers, maps, videos, and "People also ask" boxes.

Why you care Search for your own main keywords on your phone. Count how far down the first unpaid result is. That's the real competition.

See also SEO AI Overviews Zero-Click Search

One visit to your website, from arrival until the person leaves or goes quiet for a while, usually 30 minutes.

Why you care Sessions tell you about traffic, not people. One person can create many sessions.

See also GA4 Bounce Rate

Also called SOV

Your share of the conversation or advertising in your category, compared to competitors.

Why you care Over time, brands that hold more share of voice than their share of market tend to grow. It's a useful check on whether you're being heard.

See also Brand Awareness Social Listening

Vertical videos, usually under a minute or two, made for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Why you care It's the main way many platforms decide who sees what. Real people and quick hooks often beat polished ads here.

See also Hook UGC Algorithm

A file that lists the pages on your website so search engines can find and crawl them.

Why you care Submit it in Google Search Console. It won't make you rank, but it helps make sure you're found.

See also SEO Canonical URL

A unique code for each product variant you sell. One shirt in three colors and four sizes is twelve SKUs.

Why you care More SKUs mean more choice and more complexity. Check which ones actually sell before adding more.

See also Merchandising

Sending marketing messages by text to people who've opted in.

Why you care Huge open rates and almost no patience. Send less often than email, and only when it's worth interrupting someone's day.

See also Email Marketing Push Notification

Selling directly inside social platforms, where people can discover and buy without leaving the app.

Why you care It shortens the path from "I want that" to "I bought it." You give up some control and data to the platform in return.

See also E-commerce Marketplace

Tracking what people say about your brand, competitors, and topics across social media and the web.

Why you care It's free market research happening in public. You'll find complaints, product ideas, and the exact words customers use.

See also Market Research Community Management

Evidence that other people use and like you. Reviews, ratings, testimonials, customer logos, and "bestseller" labels.

Why you care Put it where people hesitate, like next to the price or the buy button, not on a separate testimonials page nobody visits.

See also UGC Conversion Rate

Paying to have your brand connected to an event, team, creator, or organization.

Why you care Pick things your customers already love. Then do something with it beyond putting your logo on a banner.

See also Co-branding Event Marketing

A lead that sales has checked and agrees is worth actively pursuing. Not to be confused with SQL the database language.

Why you care The handoff from MQL to SQL is where many B2B companies lose deals. Watch how long it takes.

See also MQL Lead

A way of checking whether a test result is likely real or just chance.

Why you care If your test tool says the result isn't significant, don't roll it out yet. Keep running it, or accept you don't know.

See also A/B Testing

A model where customers pay regularly, monthly or yearly, for a product or service.

Why you care Predictable revenue is great. Make canceling easy anyway. Trapping people creates angry customers and, increasingly, legal trouble.

See also Churn LTV Retention

A simple four-box review of where a business stands. Strengths and weaknesses are internal. Opportunities and threats are external.

Why you care Useful for a workshop, useless if it ends there. Every box should lead to at least one decision.

See also Competitive Analysis Marketing Audit

A short, memorable line that sits with your brand name. Think Nike's "Just Do It."

Why you care A tagline is the tip of your positioning, not a replacement for it. Write the positioning first. The tagline gets easier.

See also Positioning Statement Copywriting

The specific group of people you're trying to reach with a product or campaign.

Why you care The narrower you define it, the easier everything else gets. You can always widen later.

See also ICP Segmentation Persona

Small tracking files set by companies other than the site you're on, mainly used to follow people across websites for ads.

Why you care Safari and Firefox block them already, and Google dropped its plan to remove them from Chrome. Either way, build on your own customer data, not someone else's.

See also Cookie First-Party Data Pixel

Content that shows a person or company has real expertise and a point of view, like articles, talks, and posts.

Why you care The test is whether you'd say something your competitors wouldn't. Restating common wisdom with a nice photo isn't leadership.

See also Content Marketing Employee Advocacy

The title of a web page in its code. It shows as the clickable headline in search results and on the browser tab.

Why you care Put the main topic near the start and keep it to about 60 characters. Every page should have its own.

See also Meta Description SEO

How your brand sounds in writing and speech. Formal or casual, playful or serious, short or chatty.

Why you care Pick three or four words that describe it, then write real examples of what that sounds like and what it doesn't. A tone of voice with no examples is just a list of nice adjectives.

See also Brand Guidelines Copywriting

Any moment a customer comes into contact with your brand. An ad, your website, a package, a support email, or a receipt.

Why you care Customers judge you on the worst touchpoint, not the best. The order confirmation email matters as much as the campaign.

See also Customer Journey CX Omnichannel

Photos, videos, and reviews made by customers, not the brand. The term is also used for content creators make for a fee to look like customer content.

Why you care People trust other people more than ads. If you reuse someone's content, get permission and agree on how you'll use it.

See also Influencer Marketing Usage Rights Social Proof

The screens, buttons, menus, and visual parts of a website or app that people interact with.

Why you care UI is how it looks. UX is how it works. You need both, but a beautiful button nobody can find is still a problem.

See also UX

The moment a customer opens a delivery, and the content people film of it.

Why you care It's the first time they touch your brand in real life. A small detail here gets remembered and shared.

See also CX UGC

The share of recipients who opt out after an email.

Why you care Some unsubscribes are healthy. They clean your list. A sudden spike means something in that email missed.

See also Deliverability Email Marketing

Upselling is offering a better or bigger version of what someone is buying. Cross-selling is offering something that goes with it.

Why you care It works when it genuinely helps the customer. The case for the phone, yes. Five pop-ups before checkout, no.

See also AOV Bundle

The agreement on how a brand may use content someone else made. Which channels, for how long, in ads or not, and for what fee.

Why you care Posting a creator's video on your feed and running it as a paid ad are two different things. Get it in writing before you hit publish.

See also UGC Influencer Marketing

The one thing you offer that competitors don't, or can't, say as well.

Why you care "Great quality" and "excellent service" are not USPs. Everyone says them. Look for something specific a customer would repeat to a friend.

See also Value Proposition Differentiation

Tags you add to the end of a link that tell your analytics where a visitor came from, like which newsletter, ad, or post.

Why you care Agree on a naming system and stick to it. "Facebook," "facebook," and "FB" show up as three different sources.

See also GA4 Attribution

How easy and pleasant it is to use your website, app, or product.

Why you care Good UX is mostly invisible. People notice it when it's bad. Test with real people, not just the team that built it.

See also UI CX CRO

The clear promise of what a customer gets from you, and why it's worth their money and time.

Why you care Look at your homepage headline. If a stranger can't tell what you sell and who it's for in five seconds, start there.

See also USP Brand Positioning Landing Page

Numbers that look impressive but don't tell you much about business results, like follower counts, page views, or impressions on their own.

Why you care They're not useless. They're just not the point. Always ask what happened next.

See also KPI Impressions Engagement Rate

A short, branded web address or profile link, like facebook.com/yourbrand instead of a long string of numbers.

Why you care Easy to remember, easy to say, easy to put on a poster. Grab your name on every platform, even the ones you don't use yet.

See also Brand Identity

Content that spreads fast because people share it with each other.

Why you care You can't plan viral. You can plan to be interesting, consistent, and easy to share, which is how most viral moments actually happen.

See also Reach Word of Mouth

A list of people who sign up to hear when a product is available.

Why you care A waitlist proves demand before you build or buy stock, and gives you a launch-day audience. Keep talking to them, or they'll forget why they signed up.

See also Launch Lead Magnet

The first few emails a new subscriber or customer gets.

Why you care Welcome emails tend to get the highest open rates you'll ever see. Use them to tell your story and set expectations, not just to push a discount.

See also Marketing Automation Lead Magnet

A campaign aimed at customers who have stopped buying or opening, to bring them back.

Why you care Ask why they left before you throw a discount at them. Sometimes the answer is a fix, not a coupon.

See also Churn Lifecycle Marketing

Also called WOM

Customers telling other people about you, in person or online.

Why you care Still the most trusted form of marketing there is. You can't buy it, but you can give people something worth talking about and make it easy to share.

See also Referral Program Dark Social NPS

A search where the person gets their answer on the results page and never clicks through to a website.

Why you care More searches end this way now, especially with AI answers. Being the source that gets named still builds trust, even without the click.

See also AI Overviews SERP GEO

Information customers tell you on purpose, like their size, preferences, or goals in a quiz or profile.

Why you care Ask, and then actually use what they tell you. Nothing kills trust like asking someone's size and then emailing the wrong one.

See also First-Party Data Personalization