There is a lot of jargon in every industry and there are of course unique marketing terms that are used in explaining concepts, practices, and proper names for things; whether that be a specific platform or a technical name for something connected to a marketing tool.

With this list of marketing terms that we’ll continue to update as time passes, we invite you to learn, develop a better understanding of what we do to help your business or product, and maybe even contact us to suggest a few additions of your own.

A

A/B Testing

A/B Testing is the process of comparing two different two variations of a single variable to determine which is the best performing to support marketing efforts. Typically this is done with email marketing (testing different subject lines or calls to action) and landing pages (different content). You can also do this in your daily life; like when testing what you put in a sandwich. Not quite sure how to conduct an A/B test? Here’s a handy guide.

Analytics

How you “see” your inbound marketing. When reviewing analytics you’re looking for patterns or trends in data. For marketing analytics is typically a measurement of the data of marketing initiatives. This means reviewing website visitor data, social data, PPC performance, and etc. Analytics is necessary for identifying trends and gaining insight to allow better informed marketing decisions for the future.

Application Programming Interface

This is the term for a series rules in computer programming that allows an application to extract and use data from another service. You likely use APIs every day and might not realize it. APIs allow two applications to “call” each other and communicate to facilitate a data transfer and solve a problem.

It’s important to know how APIs can support your marketing objectives.

B

B2B (Business-to-Business)

A term used to describe a company that sells its products or services to another business. 3 Cats Labs is a B2B company. Other companies who are primarily B2B business include Google and Oracle.

B2C (Business-to-Consumer)

A term used to describe a company that sells its products or services directly to consumers.Apple, Nike, and Amazon are primarily B2C companies.

Blogging

Short for web log or weblog. An individual or group of people usually maintain a blog. Both personal or business blogs will include regular entries of commentary, event descriptions, or other content types such as photos and video.

Blogging is a core component of inbound marketing because a blog can simultaneously accomplish several initiatives. It can grow website traffic, demonstrate thought leadership, and generate leads. However, blogs won’t write themselves.

Bottom of the Funnel

A referral to the stage of a process when a sales lead is about to close as a new customer. This is when a lead has identified a problem, searched for possible solutions, and are very close to buying.

Typically the next steps to be taken could be a call from a sales representative, a demo, or a free consultation. Which one of these happens, of course, depends on the business.

Bounce Rate

A website bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page of your website and then leave without clicking on anything or navigating to any other page of your website. A high bounce rate can lead to low conversion rates because it means visitors aren’t viewing your content.

Email bounce rate is measurement of the rate in which an email was undeliverable to an email address. A high bounce rate means your lists are either out of date or you’re using a purchased email list. Not all bounces are bad, so it’s important to know the difference between a hard bounce and soft bounce for email.

Buyer Persona

A fictional representation of your ideal customer based upon market research and real data about existing customers. A buyer persona can help marketers define a target audience it can also help sales representatives qualify leads. (Learn how to create a buyer persona.)

C

Call to Action (CTA)

A text link, button, image or some type of link that encourages or directs a website visitor or email recipient to visit a landing page and become a lead. A classic CTA is “Subscribe Now”. CTAs are important in marketing because they are the “bait” to entice a website visitor or email recipient to become a lead.

CAN-SPAM

CAN-SPAM is the reason business are required to have an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email. CAN SPAM stands for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing”. It’s a U.S. law that was passed in 2003 to establish rules for corporate email communications, gives recipients the right to stop receiving messages, and outlines the penalties if a company refuses to stop communications.

Churn Rate

A metric that measures how many customers you retain and at what value. To calculate your churn rate, take the numbers of customers you lost during a determined time frame, and divide that by the number of customers you had at the beginning of that same time frame. Be sure to not include any new sales during the time frame.

Example: If a company had 1000 customers at the beginning of July and only 900 at the end of July(discounting any new sales during July). The customer churn rate would be (1000-900)/1000 = 100/1000 = 10%.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

The percentage of your audience that clicks through from one part of your website tot he next step in your marketing campaign. Mathematically it is calculated by the total number of clicks your page received divided by the number of opportunities that people had to click (page views, emails, etc.).

Closed-Loop Marketing

The practice of being able to execute, track, and show how marketing efforts have impacted bottom-line business growth. For example, tracking a website visitor as they become a lead all the way up until the final touch point and they become a customer.

Conversion Path

A series of website-based events that facilitate a lead capture.

Content

Content is information that exists for the purpose of being “digested”, engaged with, or shared. Typically it is in the form of a blog, video, photo, social media post, podcast, or slideshow. Content plays an indispensable role.

Content Management System (CMS)

A web application that is designed to make it easy for users to create, edit, and manage a website.

Content Optimization System (COS)

A COS is similar to a CMS but instead it is designed to provide customers the most personalized experience possible.

Context

You always here the phrase “content is king”, but you don’t hear context talked about as the “queen”.You can have great content, but it’s also necessary for that content to be suitable for your audience. As more content is published every day, you want to be sure your content is relevant to your audience. You wouldn’t send an offer on discounted steak to a vegan, would you?

Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who take a desired action. Pages with high conversion rates are doing well. Pages with low conversion rates are doing poorly.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The process of using design techniques, optimization principles, and testing. CRO is usually applied to web or landing pages. However it can also be used in social media and other areas of marketing.

Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

CPA is the calculation of the average cost for one person to take an action, usually the completion of a form or to become a lead. The calculation is expressed as Ad Spend / Conversions = CPA.

To bring meaning to your marketing analysis, there needs to be payoff, which means a notable return on investment (ROI). Low quality leads can be expensive in both terms of money spent and time spent qualifying leads.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

This is the price you pay for each click on your ad. Cost per click is calculated by dividing your ad spend by the number of clicks your ad receives (Ad Spend / Clicks).

Focusing solely on CPC measurement can provide a false sense of ROI because you’re only measuring what happens to your advertisement. A successful CPC means you’re getting a high number of clicks at a low cost.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

The amount it costs your marketing to acquire a lead. A measurement that a close eye should be kept on. To find the cost per lead divide the ad spend by the number of leads generated (Ad Spend / Leads).

As with CPC and CTR, the CPL cannot be looked in isolation and other factors need . to be considered. Look at the value per lead and the percentage of leads that convert into sales. Be wary of falling into the trap of quantity over quality.

Cost Per Opportunity (CPO)

This is the measurement of the cost of leads that your sales team decides are worth following. The leads included in this calculation should be the leads that show the intent of making a purchase.

Crowdsourced Content

The practice of allowing others to create your content. Usually people such as subject matter experts, customers, or freelancers. This allows for the possibility of great content with little personal time investment.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Total sales & marketing cost. To calculate your CAC after determining a time period to measure is as follows:

1. Add up total program or advertising spend + salaries + commissions + bonuses + overhead.
2. Divide by the number of new customers during the same period.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

A software suite or set of programs that help companies keep track of what they do with current and potential customers.

CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, and is what gives your website it’s color, fonts, and background images. It also allows for websites to adapt to different screen sizes. CSS is a powerful tool because it sets the mood and tone of your website.

D

Dynamic Content

Different messages displayed on your website based upon what you already know about the visitor. For example first time visitors might see a personalized call to action. On the same page a repeat visitor would receive a more informative message or additional content that changes for each visitor as to be more relevant for the individual.

E

Ebook

A content type that is often used to generate leads. Typically a long form type of content that goes into detail on a subject.

Editorial Calendar

A “roadmap” for content creation. An editorial calendar shows you what type of content to create, topics to cover, personas to target, and when to publish. Editorial calendars help you stay organized and make it easier to identify gaps in your content library.

Email

Electronic mail and a core component of modern marketing. Don’t abuse your direct access to a potential customer’s inbox. it’s very easy to click unsubscribe after your hard work.

Engagement Rate

A social media metric that’s used to measure the number of likes, comments, and shares received by a piece of content. This will tell you if your message is resonating with your audience.

Evergreen Content

Content that provides value for an audience no matter when they see it. A piece of evergreen content is timeless, valuable, high quality, and definitive. Evergreen content is a marketer’s best friend because if its high SEO value. Learn more about evergreen content and why it’s valuable.

F

Facebook

A social media platform that you’re likely already familiar with by now. You can utilize its powerful targeting options for advertising to gain followers and attract them to your website. Face book should be a component of almost any marketing strategy, but it shouldn’t be the only component.

Form

The place where your website visitors will supply information. The best practice for forms is to only request information that you need to effectively communicate or follow-up with to qualify them.

Friction

Any confusing, distracting, or stress causing elements of your website. Examples include dissonant colors, too much text, distracting menus, or too many fields in a form or landing page.

H

Hashtag

Hashtags are a way for readers to interact with each other and have conversations on social media. Hashtags are simply a keyword phrase without spaces preceded by a pound sign(#). A couple examples would be #digitalmarketing or #marketingtips. Hashtags can be placed anywhere in your social media posts.

HTML

Short for HyperText Markup Language, the language used to create web pages. HTML is at the core of every website, no matter how complex or the number of technologies involved to create the user experience. HTML creates the web page basics which are then enhanced by CSS or JavaScript.

I

Inbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing is one of the marketing terms that you should already know by now because it’s the term for marketing activities that draws visitors in, as opposed to marketers going out to get attention. It’s about attracting visitors and making the company easy to find online. By aligning your content with your visitors’ interests you naturally attract inbound marketing traffic that you can then convert and delight over time.

Inbound Link

An inbound link is a link that is coming into your website from a different website. Here’s an example for an inbound link to our Founder & Director, Shane’s personal blog. Shane could say, “I received an inbound link from 3 Cats Labs.”

Websites with many inbound links can be more likely to rank higher in search results.

Infographic

A visual piece of content that relays complex concepts in simple and visual way. Infographics are popular marketing tools.

Instagram

Instagram has grown into a premier social media network and a great opportunity for content marketing. Many brands are taking advantage of the platform to post pictures and videos their target audience would like and share.

J

Javascript

A programming language that lets developers create interactive websites. Uses for JavaScript includes pop-ups, slide in CTA’s, check forms, interactive games, and it’s also used to build mobile apps and server based applications.

K

Keyword

A keyword or sometimes referred to as keyword phrases, keywords are subjects web pages get indexed for in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Picking keywords to optimize a webpage for is a two part process. You’ll want to ensure the keyword has significant search volume and that it isn’t too difficult to rank for. It also needs to align with your target audience.

After deciding your keywords you’ll need to optimize using both on and off page tactics. What are those tactics? Skip to O.

L

Landing Page

A landing page is a page of a website that contains a form used for lead generation. The page revolves around an offer in exchange for data.

Lead

An individual, group, or company that has shown an interest in a product or service in any shape or form. Generating leads is vital to prospects becoming customers.

Lead Nurturing

Synonymous with “drip marketing”, lead nurturing is the practice of developing a series of communications that first seek to qualify a lead, keep the lead engaged, and push the lead down the sales funnel. Inbound marketing’s goal is to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time. Lead nurturing supports this by delivering different messages of relevant information during different stages of the buying lifecycle.

Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)

An indicator of how quickly a lead moves through the sales pipeline. The faster a lead moves through your sales pipeline the better it is for your company.

To calculate your Lead Velocity Rate, timestamps are required to note when a lead enters each stage of your sales process. This requires cooperation between both the sales and marketing teams. Understanding your LVR will help you adapt and modify your processes to deliver revenue more efficiently.

LinkedIn

A business oriented social networking website that is used primarily for professional purposes. Started in 2003 it’s now one of the leading social networking sites with 414 million users.

Lifecycle Stages

Divisions that serve as a way to describe the your relationship with your audience. It’s generally broken down into three stages: Awareness, Evaluation, and Purchase.

Long-Tail Keyword

A very targeted search phrase that has three or more words. Often it contains a head term, which is a general term, and then one or two additional terms that refine the search. An example would be:

Head: bigfoot

Long-tail keywords: bigfoot costumes for kids, bigfoot on TB, bigfoot real or fake

Long-tail keywords are more specific so this means that visitors who visit your site form a long-tail keyword search are more qualified than other more generic searches.

M

Microsite

Half landing page and half “regular” website. Microsites are used when marketers want to create a different online experience separate form the main website. A great example is ElfYourself.com.

Middle of the Funnel

The stage a lead enters after identifying a problem. At this stage the lead is looking for more information and conducting research to find a solution.

Mobile Marketing

Optimizing marketing efforts for mobile devices. Providing website visitors with time and location-sensitive, personalized information when promoting goods, services, or even ideas.

Mobile Optimization

Designing and formatting your website so it’s easy to read and navigate on a mobile device. This can be done though the incorporation of responsive design or through a second separate website. Google’s search algorithm rewards mobile friendly websites.

N

Native Advertising

An advertising type that takes on the form and function of the platform. The purpose is to make ads feel less like ads and more like a part of the conversation. There are a variety of forms but some examples could be radio personalities talking favorably about a product, or an article showing up in your news feed that looks like any other article.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A measurement of customer satisfaction that measures the degree on which a customer will recommend your business to others measured on a scale of 0-10.

To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of respondents who wouldn’t recommend you (scored 0-6) from the percent of customers who would (scored 9-10).

News Feed

An online feed full of news sources. On Facebook it’s the homepage where users can see all the updates from their friends. On Twitter the equivalent is the Timeline.

No-Follow Link

This is a type of link that is used when a website doesn’t want to pass search engine authority to another website. it tells webcrawlers to not pass credit to linked websites. Usually the reason is because the content might be spammy or inadvertently violating webmaster guidelines.The no-follow attribute is recognized by Google, Yahoo, and Bing to varying degrees.

O

Offer

Content assets that exist behind a landing page. The primary purpose of an offer is to generate leads for a business. Offer varieties include ebooks, checklists, cheat sheets, demos, templates, and many other types of assets.

On-Page Optimization

This SEO type is primarily on the webpage and elements within the HTML. This optimization ensures that key pieces of the page include the desired keyword to help the page rank in search engines.

Off-Page Optimization

This type of SEP refers to incoming links and other external factors that affect how a webpage is indexed. Factors like linking and social media have roles in off-page optimization. It’s powerful but mostly out of the control of an inbound marketer.

P

Page View

Request load a single web page.Marketers use page views to analyze if a page receives more or less after a change.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

The amount of money spent to get a digital advertisement clicked. It’s also the term for when advertisers pay a publisher (search engine, social media site, or website owner) an amount of money every time their ad is clicked.

PPC ads are used ti direct traffic to an advertiser’s website. PPC is used to measure the cost effectiveness of paid advertising campaigns.

Rates are of two types:

Flat rates: Advertiser and publisher agree on a foxed amount to be paid for each click.

Bid-based: An advertiser competes against other advertisers in an advertising network. Members set a maximum spend amount for placement.

Pinterest

A visual social network typically used by ecommerce marketers. Businesses and consumers alike use the website to post images so other users can repin (share) the content.

Q

Qualified Lead

A contact that has opted in to receive marketing communications, became educated in your product or service, and wants to learn more. There can be differences between sales and marketing in what makes a lead qualified, so be sure that there is communication and understanding between the two teams.

QR Code

A QR Code (Quick Response Code) is a specific matrix barcode that is readable by dedicated readers phone cameras. The code consists of black square patterns arranged on a white background. The encoded information may be a URL or other data.

R

Responsive Design

The practice of developing a website that adapts to the device a person is using to view it. This means that instead of building separate websites, the website instead determines the device that is being used and generates content to be viewed for that device. This makes the display optimized for any device it’s being viewed on.

Return On Investment (ROI)

It’s essential to understand the impact of your marketing. You can use this measurement to calculate your overall ROI across all of your marketing activities or to measure individual marketing activities.

The simple formula to determine your ROI is (Revenue – Ad Spend).

Retweet

A reposting of a tweet from another user on Twitter. There are three ways to retweet:

1. You can retweet the entire tweet by clicking the retweet button.
2. Post a new tweet that includes your commentary that features the original tweet. To retweet in this manner click the rotating arrow icon and then add your own thoughts before posting.
3. Your own commentary in addition to the tweet your retweeting. How to do this is: Your own commentary + RT + original tweeter’s handle + colon + exact text from original tweet.

If you see “Please RT” in a tweet, it means they’re requesting for their followers to retweet in an effort to spread awareness.

Revenue Per Lead (RPL)

One of the most telling metrics you can look at for your revenue. Typically, this is calculated within a specified timeframe. The formula to calculate your RPL is (Revenue Generated / Number of Leads).

S

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The practice of enhancing a page’s placement in search results. This is done by adjusting on page SEO elements and influencing off page factors. The result can be an improvement of placement in search engine rankings.

There are many elements in SEO and some of the items search engines look for include: title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links. There are many more items that haven’t been listed here. Search engines also look at design, visitor behavior, and other off-site factors to determine where your site should appear in results.

Sender Score

A term used for email marketing that refers to a reputation rating on a scale from 0-100 for every outgoing server IP address. Mail servers will check your score before deciding what to do with your emails.

Snapchat

A social app that allows users to send and receive time-sensitive photo and video clips called “snaps”. The snaps are hidden after the time limit expires (images and videos still remain on Snapchat servers). Users can add text and other effects, and also control who can receive their snaps.

A Snapchat story is a series of Snapchats that last for 24 hours. users can create stories to be shared with all Snapchatters or a select group of recipients.

Social Media

Social media is defined as media that is intended to be spread through social interaction. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn are examples of social networks that an individual can join for personal or business interests. Social media is core component of inbound marketing, because it provides multiple channels spread reach, increase growth, and achieve business goals.

Social Proof

A term that refers to a psychological phenomenon in which individuals seek direction from those around them to determine how they should act in a situation. Think of it as seeing a club with a very long line. One would assume the club must be good because of the clearly high demand. Fo social media this applies to likes, shares and comments. If others are sharing or following, then it must be good.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Any software hosted by another company storing your information in the cloud. Some examples are Hubspot, Salesforce, Skype, Zoho, and many other applications.

T

Top of the Funnel

‘TOFU’, the Top of the Funnel is a term reserved for the initial stage of the buying process. Leads at this stage are just identifying a problem and looking for more information. This is where helpful and informative marketing content aids leads and turns them towards the next step in identifying a solution.

Twitter

A tweetable definition of Twitter: Twitter is a social media platform allowing users to share 140 character messages publicly. Users can follow other users and be followed back.

U

Unique Visitor

A person who visits a website more than once within a period of time. Often this term contrasts with overall site visits. For example if only one person visited a site 5o times over the course of a month, for that month there is 1 unique visitor and 50 total site visits.

URL

Short for Uniform Resource Locator. Basically it’s the address of where you can find information on the internet. This includes web pages, photos, documents, or any other piece of data you can think of. URLs are important for SEO because search engines crawl the included text when mining keywords.

User Experience (UX)

The experience that a customer has with a business, from the discovery and awareness of the brand throughout the interaction, purchase, use, and even advocacy of the brand afterwards.

User Interface (UI)

An interface type that allows users to control a software application or hardware device. A good user interface provides a good user experience by letting the user interact in an intuitive way. UI includes menu bars, toolbars, windows, buttons, and other items.

V

Viral Content

This term describes content that has become wildly popular across the internet. Usually it’s unknown if a piece of content will go viral until it actually does.

W

Website

A website is made of a set of interconnected webpages generally located on the same server. Also it’s usually been prepared and presented by a group or individual. The best websites are structured like multi-dimensional entities. Without depth a website is a fancy brochure. For businesses a website should attract visitors, keep them engaged, and then convert them into customers in the end.

Word of Mouth

Simply the passing of information from person to person. Word of mouth marketing is inexpensive but takes time and hard work. It involves leveraging many components of inbound marketing to include content marketing, social media, product marketing, and others.

X

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file of code that is on your server and lists all of the relevant URLs in the structure of your website. XML sitemaps also help help search engine webcrawlers index your site. In fact it even encourages search engines to crawl your site.

Y

Youtube

A video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share videos. YouTube is the largest video-sharing site in the world.

Z

Nothing for Z.. yet!

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