digital marketing terms a to z

Digital marketing terms from A to Z

As a group of twenty- and thirty-somethings, the majority of us at globalHMA have grown up immersed in technology in both our personal and professional lives. Though this has helped us easily adapt to the digital age, technology doesn’t come as easy to those who aren’t constantly engrossed in it. We’ve compiled a list of digital marketing terminology to help you understand some of terms we deal with on a daily basis. Without further ado, here are some of the basic and most important pieces of digital marketing lingo and acronyms you may encounter.

A/B testing – Comparing two versions of something in test groups to see which performs better, A/B testing can refer to an email, email subject, web page, ad, etc.

Analytics – Quantifiable data provided as the result of running a campaign, helps in determining the success or failure of marketing initiative, provides actionable data to help with the adjustment of current campaigns

API – An acronym for application programming interface, allows sites to connect each other

Below the fold – Refers to “hidden” content that is not immediately visible to a user and requires scrolling

CMS – An acronym for content management system, used to organize data in an easy to use interface and powers a website, includes WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, DotNetNuke, Squarespace etc.

Cookies – Data sent to and from web servers to track a user’s movement and behavior

Content marketing – Marketing strategy for generating and disseminating relevant and valuable content (blogs, articles, white papers, infographics, video, case studies, etc.) to attract a desired target audience

Cost-per-click (CPC) – The actual cost paid for each click received in a paid digital advertising campaign, most common form of pricing for ads with a goal of lead generation

Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) – The specific cost paid for every 1,000 impressions or views of an ad, most common form of pricing for ads with a goal of brand awareness

Click-through rate (CTR) – The number of users who click a specific ad or link divided by the number of users who view the ad, typically helps define the effectiveness of a digital campaign

DNS – An acronym for domain name system or domain name server, allows letters (and numbers) that constitute domain names to be used to identify computers instead of numerical IP addresses

Email marketing – Sending an email or series of emails to a unique group of users by segmentation (e.g. market, job title, etc.), can be generic or personalized

FTP – An acronym for file transfer protocol, commonly used software to transfer files from a computer to a web server

GA – Short for Google Analytics, tool that allows users to create custom reports and gives insight into your web visitors, measures things like time on site, number of pageviews, traffic sources and more

Hashtag – Hashtags are utilized by a variety of social media sites, typically identify and tag a specific topic through the use of a hash or pound sign (#)

Impression – An ad view or instance of an ad being shown on a user’s screen

JavaScript – A scripting language used on many websites that integrates with HTML, commonly used by Google Analytics to track website visitors

Keyword – Important words or phrases relevant to your product or service utilized on websites and/or in PPC campaigns to determine visibility in a search engine

KPI  An acronym for key performance indicator, a measurement commonly used to measure success

Link juice – The power or equity passed to a site via links either external or internal

Marketing automation – Use of a software platform to automate processes, such as email marketing, social media scheduling, list/contact segmentation and management, and analytics integration and tracking

Native app – An application created and coded for a specific hardware/software platform, typically downloaded directly to a device from a central point of distribution, such as Google Play, the App Store or BlackBerry World

Organic traffic – Unpaid search traffic or natural results that appear in a search engine after a user enters a keyword search

PPC – An acronym for pay-per-click, refers to a form of paid advertising, sometimes used interchangeably with cost-per-click (CPC)

QR code – Short for quick response code, used in places where mobile devices are utilized rather than a computer, such as flyers, business cards, advertisements, when scanned with mobil device it directs users to a web page

RSS – An acronym for rich site summary or really simple syndication, a summary of multiple websites’ updated content in a single feed, eliminating the need to visit individual sites

Real-time media (RTM) – Real-time communication, marketing, engagement and planning through social media platforms

Referral traffic – Traffic to a website that is referred from other websites as opposed to being referred by a search engine

Responsive design – Flexible layouts and designs created to adapt to whatever size and shape a user views the content on

SDK – The acronym for software developer kit, a collection of tools that allow developers to create apps for specific platforms

Search engine optimization (SEO) – The art of obtaining favorable positioning for a website in a search engine’s unpaid results, ideally on the first page for better visibility

Search engine marketing (SEM) – The practice of marketing for greatest website visibility in search engine results, including both paid and unpaid traffic

Search engine results page (SERP) – The list of web link results returned by a search engine after a user performs a keyword search/query

TL;DR – An acronym on the internet for “too long; didn’t read,” hopefully not how people are referring to your content

User interface (UI)/user experience (UX) – The interface of an app, website or program that allows a user to view content and interact, user experience is the overall ease of use a user experiences when utilizing a specific interface

Vlog – Same as a blog but instead of writing about a topic you are videoing yourself or others talking about a topic, often performs better than a blog as it keeps viewers interested and entertained

Web app – Applications developed and hosted on the web as opposed to downloaded directly to a user’s device, typically coded in HTML and are task-oriented in nature

WYSIWYG  An acronym for “what you see is what you get,”, pronounced as “wiz-ee-wig,” refers to the ability to see what something will be formatted as on your screen for others or even in print, i.e. bold, underline, color, and line spacing

XML  An acronym for extensible markup language, a markup language (like HTML) designed to carry data that can be read by both people and machines

YouTube – Video sharing social networking profile, now a search engine of its own worthy of dedicated optimization

Do you have any other digital marketing terminology to add to our list?

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