List of Marketing Terms and What do they Mean?
Marketing is comprised of numerous concepts and terms that can be very similar, making it difficult to differentiate at times. In an industry that’s constantly growing, it may be hard to keep track of all the marketing terminology. So, to help you cut back on spending time to look up definitions, here is a list of key marketing terms and concepts.
Advertising
Promoting a product, service, or business through various media outlets including print, digital, and broadcasting.
A/B Testing (Split testing)
A tactic used to compare two variants of a variable (webpage, creative, call-to-action, etc.) to determine which one performs better.
Analytics
The measurement and analyzing of marketing campaigns to optimize and maximize their performance.
Business-to-Business (B2B)
The term used to describe businesses who strive to sell their products or service to other businesses.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
The term used to describe businesses who strive to sell their products or service to consumers.
Bounce Rate
A digital analytics and web traffic term that refers to the percentage of users who leave the website after only viewing one webpage. Usually calculated by dividing single-page session with all sessions. A low bounce rate means that users are staying on your website and looking at your content.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
A statement or content that is designed to encourage prospects and customers to perform a qualified action and become a lead. CTAs come in many different forms including text link, button, and image. Typical CTA phrases consists of: call, sign up, register, click here, subscribe, buy now, and more.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
A metric that is commonly used to measure the effectiveness of an online marketing campaign by looking at how many users clicked on the ad or link. It is calculated by dividing the number of users who clicked on the link by the total number of users who saw the ad.
Conversion
An action that signifies when a user interacts with your ads and takes an action that is deemed valuable to a business (purchase, leaving their contact info, etc.)
Conversion Rate
Percentage of users who were converted to the overall users who saw/interacted with ad. Generally, high conversion rates are good for business while low conversion rates mean that you need improvement.
Engagement Rate
A social media metric that measures how much interactions (likes, shares, comments) a piece of content garners. It’s a good indicator of how well your content resonates with users.
Inbound Marketing
A strategy that emphasizes on attracting and driving users down the funnel with relevant content. It’s known for being cost-efficient and effective in garnering prospects and converting them into customers.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A value that is used as a benchmark to measure out performance. Marketers generally use KPIs to understand how effective their campaigns are and if they’re reaching their goals.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
An advertising model used to drive traffic to websites where advertisers will only pay when users click on their ad.
Qualified Lead
A term used to describe users who converted into leads that have shown a lot of interest in your business.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Also, known as the profitability ration, this term is generally used to describe the financial benefit or return received from an investment. It’s calculated by dividing the net profit by the cost of investment and multiplying the quotient by 100.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A marketing concept that focuses on top web search results and maximizing the number of users to a certain webpage. Typically used in search engine platforms such as Google and Bing.
Unique Visitor
A term used to describe a user who visits a website once in a certain time period.
Knowledge about almost any subject begins with an understanding of key terms and their accompanying definitions. Marketing is a wide ranging and emerging industry which requires continuous learning if you are to remain ahead in the game.
