Glossary of Digital Marketing

Glossary of Top 200 Digital Marketing Vocabulary Items

A/B Testing: Comparing two versions of a webpage or app to see which one performs better.

Above the Fold: The portion of a webpage that is visible without scrolling.

Ad Extensions: Additional information that expands your ad to make it more useful to users.

Ad Impressions: The number of times an ad is shown on a webpage.

Ad Network: A company that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements.

Ad Rank: A value that determines the position of an ad in search results.

Ad Retargeting: Showing ads to users who have previously visited your site.

Ad Spend: The amount of money spent on advertising.

Affiliate Marketing: Earning a commission by promoting other people's (or company's) products.

Analytics: The analysis of data to understand user behavior.

API: Application Programming Interface; allows different software systems to communicate.

Attribution: Assigning credit to marketing touchpoints in a conversion path.

B2B (Business to Business): Companies selling products or services to other companies.

B2C (Business to Consumer): Companies selling products or services directly to consumers.

Backlink: A link from one website to another.

Banner Ad: A graphical web advertising unit.

Behavioral Targeting: Using information about a user’s behavior to tailor advertisements.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page.

Brand Awareness: The extent to which consumers are familiar with the distinctive qualities of a brand.

Call to Action (CTA): A prompt on a webpage that tells the user to take some specified action.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who click on a link compared to the number who view it.

Content Marketing: Creating and distributing valuable content to attract and engage a target audience.

Conversion: When a user completes a desired action, like making a purchase or filling out a form.

Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on a website.

Cookie: A small piece of data stored on the user's computer by the web browser while browsing.

Cost Per Click (CPC): The amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.

Cost Per Impression (CPI): The amount you pay per thousand impressions of your ad.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The cost of acquiring one customer.

Customer Journey: The complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with your company and brand.

Dashboard: A tool that provides visualizations of key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.

Display Advertising: Advertising on websites through banners, images, and videos.

Domain Authority: A score that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines.

Drip Campaign: A series of marketing emails sent out on a schedule.

Duplicate Content: Content that appears on the internet in more than one place.

Email Marketing: Sending marketing messages through email to a list of subscribers.

Engagement Rate: A metric that measures the level of engagement that a piece of content receives from its audience.

Evergreen Content: Content that remains relevant and valuable over a long period.

Exit Rate: The percentage of people who leave your site from a particular page.

Geotargeting: Delivering content or advertisements to users based on their geographic location.

Google Analytics: A web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

Google My Business: A tool that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google.

Guest Blogging: Writing articles for other websites to gain exposure and backlinks.

Hashtag: A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#) used to identify messages on a specific topic.

Impression: When an ad is fetched and viewed by a user.

Inbound Marketing: Attracting customers through content creation rather than advertising.

Influencer Marketing: Using influential people to promote your product to a larger market.

Infographic: A visual representation of information or data.

Keyword: A word or phrase that signifies the content of a web page and can attract search engine traffic.

Keyword Density: The percentage of times a keyword appears on a webpage compared to the total word count.

Keyword Research: The process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines.

Landing Page: A standalone web page created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign.

Lead: A potential customer who has shown interest in a company's products or services.

Lead Generation: The process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated interest in your company's product or service.

Link Building: The process of getting other websites to link back to your website.

Local SEO: The practice of optimizing a website to be found in local search results.

Lookalike Audiences: A targeting option that allows advertisers to reach new people who are likely to be interested in their business because they are similar to their existing customers.

Long-Tail Keyword: Keyword phrases that are longer and more specific than common keywords.

Marketing Automation: Technology that manages marketing processes and campaigns across multiple channels automatically.

Meta Description: A brief description of a webpage that appears under the URL in search engine results.

Meta Tags: Snippets of text that describe a page's content; they don't appear on the page itself but only in the page's code.

Mobile Marketing: Marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smartphone.

Native Advertising: Advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears.

NoFollow Link: A link that does not pass SEO value from one site to another.

Organic Traffic: Visitors who come to your website through unpaid search results.

Page Speed: The time it takes for a webpage to load.

Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed.

Pay Per Click (PPC): An internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.

Persona: A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

Pixel: A piece of code that tracks visitor activity on a website.

Podcasting: A digital audio file made available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device.

Programmatic Advertising: The automated buying and selling of online advertising.

Qualified Lead: A lead that has been deemed more likely to become a customer compared to other leads.

Reach: The total number of different people who see your content.

Remarketing: Targeting users who have previously visited your website with relevant ads as they browse other websites.

Retargeting: Same as remarketing, showing ads to users who have already visited your site.

Return on Investment (ROI): A measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment.

Sales Funnel: The buying process that companies lead customers through when purchasing products.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): The practice of marketing a business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP): The page displayed by a search engine in response to a query by a searcher.

Sentiment Analysis: The process of determining the emotional tone behind a series of words to gain an understanding of the attitudes, opinions, and emotions expressed.

Share of Voice: The measure of the market your brand owns compared to the total market or to your competitors.

Sitemap: A file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them.

Social Media Marketing (SMM): Using social media platforms to promote a product or service.

Split Testing: Another term for A/B testing.

Subscriber: A user who has signed up to receive updates or communications from your company.

Target Audience: A specific group of people identified as the intended audience for a product or service.

Title Tag: An HTML element that specifies the title of a web page.

Traffic: The amount of users who visit a website.

Unique Visitor: An individual visitor to a website who is counted only once during a specific time period.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator; the address of a web page.

User-Generated Content (UGC): Any content created by users rather than brands.

Value Proposition: A statement that explains how your product solves customers' problems or improves their situation.

Video Marketing: Using video content to promote or market a product or service.

Viral Marketing: A marketing strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others.

Webinar: A seminar conducted over the internet.

White Hat SEO: SEO tactics that comply with search engine guidelines.

XML Sitemap: A file that lists all the pages of a website to help search engines index them.

YMYL (Your Money or Your Life): Pages that could impact the reader's future happiness, health, financial stability, or safety.

Zero Click Searches: Search results that answer the query directly at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), eliminating the need for users to click on a result.

301 Redirect: A permanent redirect from one URL to another.

302 Redirect: A temporary redirect from one URL to another.

404 Error: A message indicating that the webpage was not found.

Ad Copy: The main text of a clickable advertisement.

Ad Frequency: The number of times an ad is shown to the same person.

Ad Inventory: The number of ad spaces available on a website.

Affiliate Link: A URL that contains an affiliate's ID or username.

Anchor Text: The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink.

Attribution Model: A set of rules that determine how credit for sales and conversions is assigned to touchpoints in conversion paths.

B2B Marketing: Marketing activities directed toward businesses.

B2C Marketing: Marketing activities directed toward consumers.

Black Hat SEO: SEO tactics that violate search engine guidelines.

Blogging: Writing and publishing posts on a blog.

Brand Equity: The value a brand adds to a product or service.

Breadcrumb Navigation: A secondary navigation system that shows a user's location in a site or app.

Buyer Persona: A detailed description of a fictional character that represents a segment of a target audience.

Canonical URL: The preferred URL of a webpage.

Churn Rate: The percentage of subscribers who stop subscribing to a service over a given time period.

Click Fraud: The act of repeatedly clicking on an ad hosted on websites to generate fraudulent revenue.

Clickbait: Content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link.

Co-Branding: A marketing partnership between two or more brands.

Content Curation: The process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest.

Content Management System (CMS): A software application used to create, edit, manage, and publish digital content.

Contextual Advertising: Advertising that is targeted to the content on the webpage where it appears.

Conversion Funnel: The path a consumer takes through an internet advertising or search system, navigating an e-commerce website and finally converting to a sale.

Cost Per Mille (CPM): The cost of one thousand ad impressions.

Cross-Channel Marketing: A marketing approach where multiple channels are used to reach customers.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost associated with convincing a customer to buy a product/service.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV): A prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.

Dashboard: A data visualization tool that displays current status metrics and key performance indicators.

Data Mining: The process of analyzing large datasets to find patterns and insights.

Demographic Targeting: Advertising that is tailored to a specific audience based on demographic characteristics.

Direct Traffic: Visitors who type your URL directly into their browser.

Display Network: A group of websites where your ads can appear, including Google sites like YouTube, Blogger, and Google’s partner sites.

Drip Email Campaign: A set of marketing emails sent out automatically on a schedule.

Dynamic Content: Content that changes based on the interests or past behavior of the user.

Editorial Calendar: A schedule of content to be published.

Engagement Rate: A measure of how often people interact with your content.

Evergreen Content: Content that remains relevant over a long period.

Geofencing: Using GPS or RFID technology to create a virtual geographic boundary, enabling software to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular area.

Geotargeting: Delivering content or advertisements to users based on their geographic location.

Guest Post: An article written by one person that appears on someone else's blog.

Heatmap: A data visualization tool that shows how visitors interact with a webpage.

Hyperlocal Marketing: Targeting prospects in a highly specific, geographically restricted area.

Influencer: An individual with the power to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.

Infographic: A visual representation of information or data.

Interstitial Ad: A full-screen ad that covers the interface of the host app or site.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.

Keyword Stuffing: The practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in search results.

Lead Magnet: A free item or service given away for the purpose of gathering contact details.

Lifetime Value (LTV): Another term for Customer Lifetime Value.

Link Building: The process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own.

Lookalike Audience: A way to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they’re similar to your best existing customers.

Market Segmentation: The process of dividing a broad consumer or business market into sub-groups of consumers based on some type of shared characteristics.

Marketing Automation: Technology that manages marketing processes and multifunctional campaigns, across multiple channels, automatically.

Meta Description: A brief description of a webpage that appears under the URL in search engine results.

Mobile First: A design strategy that starts with designing the mobile version of a website and then scales up to larger screens.

Multichannel Marketing: Using multiple channels to reach customers.

Native Advertising: A type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears.

Negative Keywords: Keywords that prevent your ad from being shown to users who search for those terms.

Nofollow Link: A link that does not pass SEO value from one site to another.

Omnichannel Marketing: An approach that provides customers with a fully integrated shopping experience by uniting user experiences across all channels.

Open Rate: The percentage of people who open an email compared to the number who received it.

Organic Search: Results from a search engine that are not paid advertisements.

Paid Search: Advertisements that appear on search engine results pages.

Pay Per Lead (PPL): A pricing model in which advertisers pay for each lead generated.

Pay Per Sale (PPS): A pricing model in which advertisers pay for each sale generated.

Persona: A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.

Pinterest Marketing: Using Pinterest to promote products, services, or content.

Podcast: A digital audio file available for streaming or download.

Predictive Analytics: Using statistical techniques to create models that can predict future outcomes based on historical data.

Programmatic Advertising: The automated buying and selling of digital advertising.

QR Code: A type of barcode that can be scanned with a smartphone to access a webpage.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB): The buying and selling of online ad impressions through real-time auctions that occur in the time it takes a webpage to load.

Referral Traffic: Visitors who come to your site from another site by clicking on a link.

Remarketing: The practice of showing ads to people who have previously visited your website.

Responsive Design: Designing a website so that it adjusts smoothly to various screen sizes.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): A metric that measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.

Retargeting: The practice of serving ads to users who have previously visited your site.

Rich Snippet: A type of structured data markup that site operators can add to their existing HTML, which allows search engines to better understand what information is contained on each web page.

Sales Funnel: The buying process that companies lead customers through when purchasing products.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): The practice of marketing a business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of optimizing your website to get organic, or unpaid, traffic from the search engine results page.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP): The page that search engines display in response to a user's search query.

Sentiment Analysis: The process of analyzing online content to determine the attitude or emotion expressed.

Session: A group of interactions that take place on your website within a given time frame.

Sitemap: A file that provides information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them.

Social Proof: The influence that the actions and attitudes of other people have on one's own behavior.

Split Testing: Another term for A/B testing.

Sponsored Content: Content that is created and published by an advertiser.

Subscriber: Someone who has opted in to receive marketing communications from a company.

Target Audience: A specific group of people identified as the intended audience for a product or service.

Title Tag: An HTML element that specifies the title of a web page.

Touchpoint: Any point of interaction between a business and its customers.

Tracking Pixel: A small piece of code that tracks user behavior on a website.

Traffic: The number of visitors to a website.

Unique Visitor: An individual visitor to a website who is counted only once during a specific time period.

User Experience (UX): How a person feels when interacting with a system, service, or product.

User Interface (UI): The point of human-computer interaction and communication on a device.

Viral Content: Content that becomes popular quickly through online sharing.

This glossary provides a comprehensive overview of essential digital marketing terms, offering clear and concise definitions for each item. It can serve as a valuable reference for anyone involved in digital marketing, from beginners to seasoned professionals.