295 Digital Marketing Terms You Need To Know
The evolving digital marketing landscape can be confusing.
As a digital marketing agency that has been around for over 16 years, we have put together a blog explaining some of the most common and commonly misunderstood digital marketing terms every marketer needs to know to stay ahead of the curve.
Keep up with the ever-changing world of digital marketing with our A-Z glossary of 295 digital marketing terms and definitions.
If you know what you’re looking for just click on the letter below to jump to the section you need or browse all the terms.
# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X YZ
200
A status code indicating that a page loads normally and as it should.
301
A status code which flows link value from one page to another as a permanent redirect.
302
A status code which indicates a page has been temporarily moved to point to another page.
404
A status code that indicates a broken URL – oops.
500 (or 5##)
A status code that means there was an issue with the server response, and it was unable to load the page.
A.I (Artificial Intelligence)
Machine learning designed to imitate human response, performance, and intelligence – no longer a thing of the future!
A/B testing
The process of testing 2 variants (A and B) to see which one delivers better results. The variations can be anything from changes in copy, call-to-actions, landing pages etc and gives you a good indication of how to move forward.
Abandonment rate
The percentage of site visitors who began a defined conversion process but abandoned the site before completing it.
Above the fold
This is the section of a web page that is visible before you begin scrolling down. It’s recommended that important information is placed above the fold. Sometimes referred to as ATF.
Ad blocking
Preventing adverts from loading on a webpage.
Ad exchange
A platform that facilitates ad placement bidding. Effectively an online, automated auction house.
Ad extensions
Additional information about your business that can be added to ad copy, such as an address, phone number or links to specific pages on your website.
Ad scheduling
The process of scheduling ads to automatically show at specific times of day or days of the week.
Ad space
The available spaces on a webpage for adverts.
Add URL
(see Search Engine Submission)
Advertising network
A network representing many websites in selling advertising, allowing advertising buyers to reach broad audiences relatively easily through run of category and run of network buys.
Affiliate
Someone (usually an influencer) who is working with another brand to earn a commission from their sales.
Affiliate marketing
This is the process of partnering with another brand or influencer (aka affiliate) who can earn commission by promoting another brand’s products or services. Providing discount codes associated with the affiliate is a common practice.
Affiliate software
Software that provides tracking and reporting of commission based on the results of the affiliate.
Algorithms
A computer-based mathematical formula that follows a set of rules or problem-solving operations. Google and Amazon are key companies that work with complicated algorithms.
ALT text
Standing for ‘alternative text’, this is an HTML attribute that shows when non-textual elements such as images don’t render properly. If not automatically generated, you’ll need to populate this yourself.
Anchor text
When you’re on a webpage and you’re able to click a link through to somewhere else, the text you click on is called the anchor text. It should be written to give a clear indication of the page or file it’s linking to.
Animated GIF
A graphics interchange format (GIF) creates a looped moving animation through rotating static images. These are easily embedded into webpages and blog posts.
API (Application Program Interface)
An API is a way of getting specific information from other applications or websites, which you can use for a variety of different needs. It is similar to a set of tools used for building a software application. The better the tools, the easier it is to make a good product. In the case of an API, the better the API, the easier it is to develop a program.
Audiences
A group or groups of specific people or ‘personas’ who you direct your marketing efforts towards as they are most likely to convert.
Automation
When a process is controlled automatically and requires no human input.
Autoresponder
A program that sends an automatic form response to incoming emails.
B2B (Business to Business)
Businesses that focus on selling their products or services to other businesses and not the end consumer.
B2C (Business to Consumer)
Businesses that focus on selling their products or services to the end consumer and not to other businesses.
Backlinks
When another website links back to your website.
Banner ad
An advertising space on a webpage which is shaped like a banner. Banner ads are typically found towards to the top of a page and can be effective at gaining attention due to the space they command.
Banner blindness
When users consciously or unconsciously ignore banner ads as they are so used to seeing them.
Behavioural targeting
Advertising to audiences by utilising their previous web browsing behaviour
Below the fold
This is content on a webpage that a user needs to scroll down in order to view.
Bid modifiers
Bid modifiers let you make adjustments to bids at an audience, location, schedule, and other levels
Black hat SEO
SEO strategies that are against search engine guidelines including unprofessional techniques such as keyword stuffing. By using these techniques you are attempting to manipulate search engine algorithms to increase a site’s rankings on the SERPs.
Blog
Frequent article-like entries on a website which can explore thoughts and feelings or answer common user queries about a product or service. There are two types of blogs – personal and professional.
Bottom of the funnel
This is the final stage in the buying process when your potential customers are at the conversion stage. You want to entice them to convert using offers, free demos, or other tactics.
Bounce rate
This is where visitors to your website view a single page before leaving, or ‘bouncing’ off your site. This can be found in Google Analytics and is presented as a percentage. The lower the bounce rate the better.
Broad match
Refers to a keyword match type for PPC advertising that offers the broadest reach and widest range of targeting.
Button ad
Small adverts which typically appear as a small square or circle on a webpage – similar to a button.
Caching
The storage of Web files for later re-use at a point more quickly accessed by the end user.
Call to action (CTA)
A call to action, more commonly referred to as a CTA is something on a webpage that is meant to entice a user to complete a certain action. They can be links to other pages, contact info, downloading a guide etc.
Canonical tags
A directive that points crawlers to the preferred version of a webpage. This is to remove duplicate pages which may be produced for the user, but don’t need to be indexed – such as filter and sort pages.
Canonical URL
Prevents duplicate content issues, by specifying the one true “canonical” or “preferred” version of a URL
ccTLD
A country code Top Level Domain (TLD) reserved for a country or state, i.e. .co.uk
Click-through rate (CTR)
The number of clicks obtained from your impressions, expressed as a percentage.
Closed-loop marketing
A form of marketing where sales and marketing work together to evaluate data and insights from marketing in order to learn from specific activity.
Cloud computing
If you do not have space or resources to build your own computing infrastructure, then cloud computing is for you! It allows its users to store, manage, and transfer data using host servers. There are several types of clouds with different purpose and benefits.
CMP (Cloud Management Platform)
CMP is a group of products that can be used to manage and monitor cloud computing resources either in private, public, or multi-cloud models.
CMS (Content Management System)
A content management system is software used to manage all different kinds of web content including pages and imagery. Popular CMS include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal but there are lots of different options available to marketers.
Comment spam
Irrelevant or offensive comments posted to someone’s blog or website. Usually these include links to spammy websites so should be removed or blocked using your CMS.
Content marketing
Content marketing is a technique that involves creating online content which is designed to appeal to a brand’s specific audience. The goals of content marketing are varied and can include writing for SEO purposes and writing to gain backlinks, all of which are meant to increase a brand’s visibility and encourage conversion.
Contextual advertising
A method of serving advertisements based on the content (i.e., overall context or theme) of a web page.
Conversion path
This is defined as a series of actions by which an anonymous website visitor becomes a known lead. Typical steps in your conversion path may be a call-to-action, a lead capturing form, a thank you page, etc.
Conversion rate
How many visitors to a website completed a desired action such as filling in a form or making a purchase? This is displayed as a percentage.
Cookies
A website tracking file that stores data on a user’s computer based on their online activity. Cookies are then used to track users around the internet and serve ads based on the sites they’ve visited.
CPA (Cost Per Action)
A metric that calculates the average cost of an action. Cost divided by action (conversions)
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
The average amount it costs to acquire a conversion through paid activity.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
The cost of a click on an ad
CPL (Cost Per Lead)
A metric which calculates the average cost of a lead. Cost divided by leads.
CPM (Cost Per Mille)
Also called Cost Per Thousand, this is the price that advertisers pay for a thousand impressions or views of an ad.
CVR
Conversion rate. The percentage of users who complete a conversion on your website.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
CRM focuses on managing positive interaction and communication with clients in order to achieve optimal client satisfaction and retention.
CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation)
The systematic process of using test and learn techniques to identify which aspects help to improve website performance by encouraging more users to take a specific, desired action.
CSS
A file that determines the styling of web content. Used as a reference rather than coding each individual styling change.
Customer acquisition cost
The cost to the business of acquiring a new customer.
DAM (Digital Asset Management)
When you’re handling many digital files on a daily basis, DAM may come in handy. This process helps you store and categorize your digital assets easier, so thar you can access them at any time from one place.
Data Studio
A free tool from Google that lets users make custom reports with data from Google’s marketing services and external sources.
Data transfer
The total amount of outbound traffic from a website*, typically measured in gigabytes (Gb).
Data visualisation
Using graphics in order to visualise data points more effectively. Infographics, charts, and maps are effective data visualisation options, but you can be as creative as you like.
DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimism)
A display ad technology that creates personalised ads based on data about the viewer at the moment of ad serving.
Dedicated IP
An IP address dedicated to a single website.
Deep linking
A link to a webpage which is not the site’s homepage. It might instead go to specific related content, such as campaign landing page or blog post.
Deep web
(see invisible Web)
Description tag
An HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.
Disintermediation
Cutting out the middle man in a transaction chain. This means going straight from supplier to consumer.
DMP (Data Management Platform)
A unified technology platform used for collecting, organising, and activating large sets of data from different sources.
DNS
The scheme used to resolve domain names
Dofollow links
A link to another website with a rel=”follow” HTML attribute. This means that these links pass authority and therefore have a positive impact on a website’s search engine rankings.
Domain authority
A score (developed by Moz) between 1 and 100 and given to a website based on how much authority it carries. The higher the better. This score is worked out based on elements such as the number and quality of backlinks.
Domain name
The part of a network address that identifies it as belonging to a particular company or organisation. No two websites can have the same domain name. For example, in the web address https://www.koozai.com/case-studies/ the domain name is ‘koozai.com.’
Doorway domain
A domain used specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main domain.
Doorway page
A page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content
Drip nurturing
Is a lead nurturing method that uses automated tailored content & triggers that are ‘dripped’ at a specific time with the goal of driving a desired action (e.g.: a sale). Drip campaigns or drip emails are usually used here.
DSP (Demand-Side Platform)
A system that allows buyers of digital advertising inventory to manage multiple ad exchanges and data exchange accounts through one interface.
Duplicate content
Content which Google sees as the same or very nearly the same appearing on multiple webpages.
Dynamic content
Intelligent web content that changes depending on a user’s actions, including their site behaviour, user data and characteristics.
E-Commerce
An e-commerce website is one that buys and or sell through the internet.
Email lists
Email addresses collated through online forms and opting into email newsletters which can then be used for email marketing.
Email marketing
Direct marketing to a list of email addresses to inform them of products / sales / company news / new content etc.
Engagement rate
This is a valuable metric used to describe the amount of social media interaction a post, ad, or campaign has. This is usually measured based on interactions like Comments, Shares, and Likes.
ESP (Email Service Provider)
Not in this case a sixth sense, but an application that hosts your email, such as Outlook, Yahoo, GMail etc.
Event tracking
If you want to track beyond revenue and conversion metrics, keep an eye on Event Tracking. This is a method for analytics and social (e.g. using Facebook’s pixel) that helps you track your customers’ journey every step of the way by analysing certain behaviours like form fills, cart additions, or newsletter sign-ups.
Evergreen content
Content that doesn’t have a shelf life when it comes to relevancy. For example, content around current trending news topics will stop being relevant once the news has moved on.
Exact match
Refers to a keyword match type for PPC advertising that offers the most specific and precise control over ad targeting. The user’s search query must ‘exactly match’ the keyword in the account (although this is more lenient than it once was)
E-zine
An online magazine, or electronic magazine.
A worldwide social media networking site launched in America in 2004. Now rebranded as Meta.
Favicon
A small icon that appears on the browser tab for websites. These are usually mini brand logos or similar.
Featured snippet
Snippets of information which appear at the top or in highlighted boxes in the search engine results page (SERPs). These address commonly asked questions from users and can appear as short paragraphs, lists or bullet points.
First-party data
Data that you have collected yourself about your customers/audience. This data can range from anything to age, location, spending habits, actions on site etc.
Flash
A mostly deprecated multimedia technology developed by Macromedia to allow much interactivity to fit in a relatively small file size.
Forum
A website where users can post their questions or thoughts on a topic and receive comments and replies from other users. Forums are usually organised into specific themes, but some examples of larger-scale forums are Reddit and Quora.
Freemium
Where users can have access to a basic version of a product or software for free but have to pay for full access.
Frequency cap
restriction on the number of times a specific visitor is shown a particular advertisement.
Friction element
A part of a website that negatively affects users and their opinion of the brand. Common friction elements include slow loading speeds, a cluttered or badly designed website and when parts of the site don’t work properly.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
Using an FTP client, you can transfer files between computers and servers, i.e. from a computer to a web server or vice versa
Funnels
Specific marketing techniques designed to funnel prospective customers through different stages towards conversion. Typically, a marketing funnel follows this process: awareness, interest, desire, action and lastly loyalty.
GDPR
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and was updated in 2018 to ensure that customer data is protected, kept up to date and consent is gained from the individual for their data to be stored. Individuals can also request their data is removed from a database.
Geo-targeting
A targeting method that serves content to site visitors based on their location.
Google Ads
Google’s self-serving advertising platform that lets marketers serve ads across Google and partner networks.
Google AdWords
The old name for Google Ads. Some may still refer to it as Google AdWords or just AdWords
Google Analytics
A free Google tool that measures and reports on website traffic.
Google Data Studio
a free tool from Google that lets users make custom reports with data from Google’s marketing services and external sources.
Google Instant
A feature of Google’s search engine that shows search results as the keyword query is being typed.
Google Search Console
A free web service that allows webmasters to monitor website performance and visibility.
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager is a free tool that allows you to host a variety of tracking codes, pixels, and tags – thus removing the need to rely on developers and hard coding of each tag.
Guerrilla marketing
A direct publicity technique that aims to cause an emotional or surprising reaction to ensure the brand is memorable without spending too much budget.
Guest blogging
Bloggers who contribute to other websites’ or brands blogs.
Hard bounce
This is related to email marketing and is where an email cannot be delivered for a permanent reason, for example the email address is wrong or recipient unknown. Having a high percentage of hard bounces is not what you want – these can be caused by the email address not existing, or the server blocking delivery.
Hashtag (#)
A hashtag symbol is used on social media indicating a post’s theme, topic, or related topics. A post including a dress might have hashtags such as #fashion #outfit #outfitoftheday. Initially made popular on Twitter but are now used across most social media channels.
Header Response Code
The code a URL returns that indicates whether the page is live or specifies the type of issue if not. E.G: 200, 404, 500
Heatmap
A data visualisation of a webpage or email which indicates users’ behaviour through ‘hot spots’ and ‘cold spots’. IE where people have interacted with a page, or not.
Hostname
A label attached to a host on the Internet, allowing an individual server to be identified. For example, www.koozai.com is a hostname, whereas koozai.com by itself is a domain name.
House ad
Self-promotional ad a company runs on their own site/network to use unsold inventory.
HREF lang
Set across multiple TLDs to indicate to search engines that each is a foreign language and/or internationally targeted version of the same site.
HTML
Stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is the standard language for websites.
HTML banner
a banner ad using HTML elements, often including interactive forms instead of (or in addition to) standard graphical elements.
HTML email
An email which can include graphics, colours, buttons, and fancier formatting. Most of the newsletter-type emails you see from brands are HTML emails.
HTML5
the latest version of HTML markup used across the World Wide Web. This covers more updated multimedia support and increases readability for users and bots from previous versions.
HTTP
The main protocol for the web
HTTP Status Code
The code a URL returns that indicates whether the page is live or specifies the type of issue if not.
HTTPS
Secure version of the HTTP protocol
Impression
When an ad is displayed to a user, this is called an impression – as the ad has been seen. Whether or not the ad is clicked isn’t taken into account.
Impression share
The actual number of impressions your ads receive vs the number of impressions they could have potentially received. Impression share is influenced by many factors such as budget, quality score and keyword bids.
Inbound link
A link that directs to your website from another website.
Inbound marketing
Where you create valuable content that is tailored for your audience in order to attract customers.
Incentivised traffic
Traffic, which is generated by means of a reward system, for example if a visitor clicks on a certain page or site, they receive a discount on their order.
Index
Google’s list of websites. If a site has been ‘indexed,’ it is included in Google’s list of the web.
Interactive content
Interactive content is a fun way for your audience to get involved in some way with your content as opposed to simply scanning/reading it. Things like quizzes, games, interactive landing pages and infographics are classed as interactive content and usually receive more engagement from your audience.
Interstitial
An advertisement that loads between two content pages.
Invisible web
Also known as the ‘deep web’ or ‘hidden web’, this is online content that’s not indexed by Google and therefore not as accessible to users. Password-protected websites and non-linked sites come under this definition.
IP address
ID unique to a computer or network
ISP
An internet service provider or ISP is a company that provides internet access for its customers for example Sky, BT, Virgin Media etc.
JavaScript
A programming language that is commonly used for building website features that require user interaction.
JS
Programming language used to create web elements not achievable with standard HTML
Keyword
Words or phrases people enter into search engines to find what they’re looking for. It’s important that website copy includes keywords as this is what helps your audience find your website. There are both long-tail (longer phrases) and short-tail keywords (shorted phrases) which will be related to your products and industry, both types are important to optimise your site.
Keyword density
How often a keyword features on a specific page of indexable content. Ideally you want to use a keyword often enough that Google deems the webpage relevant for that search term, however overuse (or keyword stuffing) can have negative effects. It’s important to make sure the content makes sense and flows throughout.
Keyword research
When you research words which are relevant to your specific business and industry in order to identify themes, content gaps and areas of optimisation based on what people are searching for.
Keyword stuffing
An old SEO technique where keywords were ‘stuffed’ into a page’s content, footer, meta titles etc to try and gain an advantage in the SERPs. This can now harm your ranking so isn’t recommended.
Keywords tag
META tag used to help define the primary keywords of a Web page. Now mostly deprecated from search engines.
KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
A business will define its own KPIs based on the goals it wants to achieve. KPIs should be measurable, for example you may want to focus on increasing organic traffic or conversions over a certain time period.
Landing page
A landing page the page that a user will ‘land’ on after clicking on an advert or an entry in the SERPs. A landing page can be classed a specific category page of some sort, but it can also be a temporary page which is linked to a specific marketing campaign. You want to use landing pages to entice potential customers to learn more about your brand or your offer and convert them.
Lead
We like leads as they’re people who have shown interest in your product and can be targeted in order to convert.
Lead generation
Lead generation is where your marketing techniques aim to attract the attention of brand new potential customers. You want to grab their attention and then get them interested in your product, so your goal could be to get them to sign up for your newsletter or fill out a form to enquire about a free demo. You want to generate new customer interest, so they become new leads for your business.
Lead magnet
A lead magnet is something that is given away to prospective customers in return for information. For example, exchanging an email address for a free marketing guide would be classed as a lead magnet.
Lead nurturing
This is where you want your customers to feel informed and confident in your products, so they convert to make a purchase. It’s making sure you have suitable content and information at every stage of the marketing funnel, in turn ‘nurturing’ them through each stage.
Lifecycle (customer lifecycle)
Similar in some ways to a marketing funnel, you want your customers to follow a journey. Once they become aware of your brand you want to acquire their interest through nurturing them. If they convert, be sure that your marketing efforts post-purchase give them every opportunity to want to buy from you again, and by this point, hopefully they’ll love your products so much that they become advocates for your brand and recommend you to others.
Like-gate
A barrier requiring a user to “Like” a brand’s page before they can access certain content from that brand on Facebook.
Link building
Gaining backlinks to your website from other sites to help increase your site’s overall authority. Links from higher domain authority websites are worth more for building your own site’s authority.
Link checker
A tool you can use to check for broken hyperlinks on your website. We recommend using a link checker for the general maintenance of your site.
Link bait
Publishing interesting and insightful content which will naturally gain links without the need to push through outreach.
Local search
The process of utilising a search engine’s database of local business listings in order to target audiences based on their specific geographic locations.
Log file
File that records the activity on a Web server.
Long domain name
Domain names longer than the original 26 characters, up to a theoretical limit of 67 characters (including the extension, such as .com).
Long-tail keyword
Long-tail keywords are keywords which usually contain more words and are more specific in their intent.
Lookalike audience
Used for paid social advertising, a lookalike audience is a pool of prospects who closely resemble an existing audience. Targeting a lookalike audience is a good way to reach new people who are more likely to engage with your ads.
LTV (Lifetime Value)
This is quite an important metric for ecommerce businesses, as it’s essentially how much money a customer will bring to your brand over their lifetime as a paying customer.
Machine learning
When systems are able to learn and self-improve from experience without the need for programming. Machine learning is an application of Artificial Intelligence.
Managed WordPress hosting
Web hosting optimized specifically for WordPress, where the hosting company assumes many of the routine maintenance tasks.
Market research
Gathering information about your business’ target market so you know precisely what audiences to market to.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation software helps marketers work more efficiently and, in some cases, effectively by automating repetitive tasks. Things like social media posting and email marketing can be automated, which can also be set up to offer the customer a more personalised experience.
Martech (Marketing Technology)
Martech is a blend of the words marketing and tech, which is technology that helps with marketing.
Media kit
A media kit is something a blogger or a magazine might send to PRs to provide them with their rates for different posts, articles, adverts etc.
Meta description
A meta description is the sentence you see underneath the main SERP entry. It’s used to describe the page, which is useful for searcher, but also, it’s important to use keywords too for the search engine’s benefit.
Metasearch engine
A search engine which gathers results from a variety of other search engines which is then ranked for the user in a certain order, perhaps price or availability. Sites like Skyscanner and Kayak are examples of metasearch engines.
META tag generator
A tool that will output META tags based on input page information.
META tags
Tags to describe various aspects about a Web page.
Meta titles
This is the name tag for a webpage. Not the H1 or ‘page title’, but it appears in the browser tab and describes what page you’re on. These are read by search engines, so you want to ensure it includes keywords.
Mousetrapping
A way of trying to keep a user ‘trapped’ on a webpage by implementing some sneaky tricks such as stopping the ‘back’ button from working or bombarding the user with pop-ups. We don’t recommend this tactic as users are unlikely to return to the site.
Multivariate testing
a method in marketing research where multiple variables in a control scenario are simultaneously changed and the ensuing alternate strategies tested, in order to improve the effectiveness of the final marketing strategy.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
This is a when a ‘soft product launch’ gives companies an opportunity to release a basic version of a product in order to get customer attention and feedback before the full version is launched.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is a popular type of social media advertising where an ad follows the form, function, and feel of the content of the media where it’s placed. Native ads are currently considered more effective in terms of engagement, as they enable marketers to target audiences with content that closely matches their experience.
Navigation
The process where a user moves from one webpage to another. Navigation is linked to customer journey, so you want to make sure your website is easy to navigate and help the user find what they’re looking for.
Netiquette
Good etiquette when using the internet.
Nofollow links
A link to another website with a rel=”nofollow” HTML attribute. This means that these links pass less authority and therefore have less impact on a website’s search engine rankings.
NoIndex
An identifier tag that tells search engines not to index a specific page.
Omnichannel marketing
This is where your customers receive a completely seamless (and most importantly the same) experience with a brand, whether they’re using a desktop, mobile, app, in-store, or any other touch point.
Open rate
Used in email marketing, this is the percentage of users who have opened your email.
Opt-in
When a user specifically chooses to receive email communication from a brand.
Opt-out
When a user specifically chooses not to receive email communication from a brand.
Organic listing
This is what we aim to achieve in SEO. An organic listing appears on the SERPs without having been paid for – the closer to the top spot the more traffic a site is likely to receive.
Organic search
This is the same as organic listing, relating to the organise results on a search page.
Outbound link
A link from your website to another website. Also known as external links.
Page authority
A score (developed by Moz) between 1 and 100 given to a specific webpage based on how much authority carries. The higher the better. This score is worked out based on elements such as the number and quality of backlinks.
Page views
An analytics stat that tells you how many users viewed a particular page on your site within a certain time frame.
Pagejacking
Illegally copying content from one site to another with the aim to hijack traffic from the legitimate site to the new cloned site.
Payment threshold
The minimum amount of commission an affiliate or influencer needs to earn for a brand before their commission kicks in.
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is what it says on the tin. It’s where you require your customers’ permission to send them marketing collateral.
Personas
Used in UX and marketing, personas are detailed descriptions of specific customers, or customer groups. You build out specific people based on sales data or a target market looking at things like their typical hobbies, disposable income, their family situation etc. This helps you to explore the best ways to market to these ‘personas’.
Platform
Digital platform is a very broad term, covering anything online that can exchange information, whether that’s user comments, payments, services or goods online. All social media, ecommerce websites, forums etc come under the term ‘digital platform’.
PMP (Private Marketplace)
A private marketplace is an invite-only, RTB auction wherein a select number of buyers can bid on ad inventory.
Podcast
Pre-recorded digital audio files often hosted on audio streaming services such as Spotify, which talk about topics of interest, sometimes with guest speakers.
Pop-under ad
The opposite to a pop-up ad, this is where an ad displays under an active window. They are less intrusive to users and appear much less often.
Pop-up ad
An ad that pops up over the top of an existing active window, or as a new tab on your browser. Pop up ads should be used sparingly as they can irritate your visitors if they need to repetitively remove pop-up ads.
Portal
A site featuring a suite of commonly used services, serving as a starting point and frequent gateway to the Web (Web portal) or a niche topic (vertical portal).
Position 0
Position 0 is the very first entry that shows after a Google search. Depending on the search query, it’s often presented as a featured snippet as is the most sought-after position on Google.
PPC (Pay Per Click)
PPC is an advertising model where advertisers pay a certain amount whenever a user clicks on their ads shown in search engines.
PPL (Pay Per Lead)
online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying leads.
PPS (Pay Per Sale)
online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying sales.
Premium WordPress theme
Themes in WordPress that require additional payment to use. They’re more advanced, have better functionality and additional features. They may also be more secure in the long run so may be worth considering for your business.
Programmatic advertising
Programmatic advertising is programming software to automatically buy digital advertising or ‘ad space’. If it’s something you’re interested in, it’s efficient, allows for better planning and optimisation.
QR code
A Quick Response (QR) Code is a square barcode invented in the early 90s as a way of transferring much more information than a traditional barcode. You scan it with your smartphone, which then opens up a browser tab where the information inside that QR code can be accessed.
Qualified lead
A qualified lead is a customer that qualifies as a good potential fit for your product or service. For example, someone who’s car insurance is up in a month would be a qualified lead, but someone who has recently renewed would not be, and therefore not worth pursuing at this moment in time. Qualifying leads are much more likely to convert.
Quality score
A metric used by Google to determine the quality and relevancy of a keyword based on the ads and landing page associated with it. The higher the relevancy, the higher the quality score and usually the cheaper our CPCs.
Ranking(s)
Ranking in digital marketing is what position your website appears in the SERPs. You’re doing great if you appear on page 1, you’re smashing it if you’re in the top 3.
Reciprocal links
We all know that backlinks are valuable, so reciprocal links can be a good tactic. It’s an agreement between two websites – if you link to me, I’ll link back to you.
Redirect
A redirect is set up when you want a certain page to go to a different page either permanently or temporarily. There are two different types of redirects, see 301 and 302.
Referral Marketing
Usually done via word of mouth, referral marketing is where a brand or product is recommended to friends and family. There’s also sometimes an incentive too for if someone converts who you have referred. Maybe a discount on a next order for one or both customers.
Remarketing
Also known as retargeting, this form of advertising shows ads to users who have already engaged with your website or your brand. Remarketing can be done using website visitor lists or your CRM database.
Return days
The maximum number of days in an affiliate programme that a customer can convert after clicking an ad from that affiliate/influencer.
Rich media
In digital marketing, rich media is content that encourages viewers to interact with it. Videos, audio, and animations are examples of rich media.
Rich snippet
Refers to structured data markup that can be added into existing HTML to allow search engines and users to better understand the information a page contains.
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)
This metric calculates the return you get on every £1 of advertising spend. For example, if you make £500 of revenue from £100 of ad spend, your ROAS will be 5 or 500%.
Robots.txt
A file created by webmasters that tells search engine bots not to visit certain pages of a site.
ROI (Return On Investment)
ROI explores how worthwhile a marketing activity was based on how much investment was spent vs how much profit was made. The higher the ROI the better!
RTB (Real-Time Bidding)
Allows advertisers to bid for the ability to serve ads on a webpage that’s being opened at any given time by any given person.
SaaS (Software as a Service)
Software as a service includes any online software that you pay a subscription to use. Things like Dropbox and HubSpot are examples of SaaS.
SAINT (Site Catalyst Attribute Import Naming Tool)
Classifications (SAINT) are one of the enduring features of Site Catalyst (Adobe Analytics). In general, classifications (both utm_id and SAINT) are making marketers’ lives easier. SAINT allows users (advertisers) to upload customized metadata within the Site Catalyst, analyse, and process them. By classifying the data, you are attributing them specific characteristics and creating a relationship between a variable (campaign’s source, medium, keyword, etc.) and all the metadata related to it. In other words, the campaign link that is classified can be used to measure all the variables through one link because the analytical tool (Site Catalyst) recognizes the classification and knows what is going on. Without classification, you have to create specific campaign links to measure all the variables separately and manually, which takes time and energy.
Schema markup
Code installed on a website that helps search engines return relevant, informative results.
SEA (Search Engine Advertising)
Search Engine Advertising is simply paying the description for paying for ad space in the Google SERPs.
Search engine
A programme that users can enter use to their search queries and the system returns a variety of indexed content relevant to that particular search.
Search engine spam
This is where a website is trying to cheat its way to move up the rankings. This could be through keyword stuffing, and once Google discovers this attempt at manipulation (which it will!), it will penalize that site, so best to do things properly to avoid any issues.
Search engine submission
the act of supplying a URL to a search engine in an attempt to make a search engine aware of a site or page.
Search query
The words or phrase that a user types into a search engine in order to receive relevant content results.
Search retargeting
Showing ads to users who have already visited your website when they return to search for relevant keywords on search engines.
Segmentation
Dividing an audience into different groups. An example is segmenting a database by location in order to market to this group more effectively (in relation to their area).
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
You might see this term used to describe all the efforts of both paid media and SEO. It’s essentially where we try and increase visibility for your brand in the SERPs, through organic and paid efforts.
Semantic search
Semantic search focuses on the meaning of the phrase, as opposed to literal matches to the keywords entered. Google focuses on this type of search as it’s more human-friendly and emulates how people talk to one another.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Search engine optimisation in its broadest form means optimising a website to improve its visibility and ranking results in the SERPs – i.e., trying to get to that sought-after top spot!
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)
When you type a search query into Google or another search engine, the pages of results that you get back in return are known as the SERPs.
Sessions
A reporting statistic on Google Analytics which tells you how many times users visited or interacted with your website over a specific timeframe. You can change this timeframe on Google Analytics to see how sessions may fluctuate across different times/days/seasons.
Shoppable posts
A way that ecommerce businesses can use Instagram to tag specific products and sell them directly through the platform.
.Sig file
A small text file which can be added to the end of a message, for example an email, providing more information about the sender. The most common example of a .Sig file an email signature.
Site catalyst
Formerly known as Omniture, Site Catalyst is an analytical tool that has been part of the Adobe platform since 2009. It allows marketers to measure and analyse data from multiple marketing channels.
Site search
A search function on a website that visitors can use to look for something specific. Usually identified as a magnifying glass or a separate box for a user to enter their search term.
Sitemap
A comprehensive list of all the pages that exist on a website.
Skyscraper ad
an online ad significantly taller than the 120×240 vertical banner.
Social networking
Using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram to create and share content with others on the same platform.
Soft bounce
Soft bounces are linked to email marketing. Emails are marked as soft bounces when they’re unable to get past the mail server to the recipient’s inbox. See hard bounce for the other reason an email may fail to be delivered.
Spider/Crawler/Bot
An automated programme that visits or “crawls” web sites to collect information about them in order to understand their function and relevance.
Splash page
Splash pages are used as an introductory page when visitors come to a website. They can showcase limited time offers, request age verification, promote an event or more.
Sponsorship
A mutually beneficial agreement between a specific brand and another company or event, whereby one provides another with financial support in return for advertising privileges. Sometimes a company or an event will have multiple sponsors or one sole sponsor.
SSL (Secure Site Technology)
Secure site technology that encrypts content and gives the https protocol
Stickiness
Website ‘stickiness’ is where you keep your customers on your website for a longer period of time. By keeping your visitors engaged and moving around your webpages you have more opportunity to impart your marketing messages and increases your chances of conversion.
Structured data markup
HTML code that generates rich snippets.
Subdomain
A subdomain is a domain that is part of a larger domain – for example, go.koozai.com is a subdomain of koozai.com.
Super affiliate
A super affiliate is an affiliate who is acing their influencer techniques, converting lots of customers, and earning great commission.
Surround session
advertising sequence in which a visitor receives ads from one advertiser throughout an entire site visit.
Text ad
An advert, predominantly used on the search network, which contains text only.
Third-party data
Data that’s collected from other reliable sources, such as the ONS (Office for National Statistics), PHE (Public Health England), or Statista.
Title tag
HTML tag used to define the text in the top line of a Web browser, also used by many search engines as the title of search listings.
TLD (Top Level Domain)
The highest level in the domain architecture – i.e. in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com
Top of the Funnel
Top of the funnel, sometimes referred to as TOFU, is the top and widest part of the marketing (or buying) funnel. This where you want to try and gain the attention of as many prospective customers as possible with optimised, relevant, and interesting content.
Top 10
Top 10 in digital marketing refers to being in the top 10 of the Google SERPs – in most cases (depending on how many ads are running), this usually means you’re on the first page.
Tracking pixel
A snippet of HTML code on a website that is used to track data such as user behaviour and conversions.
Traffic
Traffic is a way of measuring how a website is performing – the more traffic a website gets, the more visitors it has.
Trick banner
Also known as deceptive banners, these are banner ads which some sites use to imitate important software or system messages to encourage click through. We don’t recommend using trick banners as they’re spammy and don’t encourage audience trust.
Two-tier affiliate program
The same as an affiliate program, but instead of attempting to get sales for a company, they’re trying to convince other influencers to join the affiliate program and become a brand ambassador themselves.
UI design
User Interface (UI) design refers to every visual element that appears on a webpage. UI designers have the make the decisions on how things look and feel so customers can easily navigate a website’s interface.
Under delivery
When the agreed goals associated with a certain campaign fall short. This could be related to any metrics including page views, conversions, lower goal conversions etc.
Unique visitors
The number of new visitors to a website. Even if they visit more than once, but they will be recorded as one unique user.
URL
The unique address of a website, starting with www.
Usability testing
Ensuring that your website is suitable for users, for example, are the CTAs in the right places, is the site desktop, tablet and mobile friendly etc.
USP (Unique Selling Point)
What makes your product or service stand out? What’s special about it or how does it differ from competitors?
UTM parameters
UTM parameters are simply tags that you add to a URL. When someone clicks on a URL with UTM parameters, those tags are sent back to your Google Analytics for tracking purposes. The most common parameters are medium, source, campaign, term, content. However, parameters are versatile and can be customized according to what you want to track. The biggest disadvantage of UTM parameters is the sensitivity towards an ununified system of definition (aka marketers using their own terms, lower- and upper-case letters, special symbols etc.) that might cause data fragmentation.
utm_id
A utm_id is a classification campaign code used for Google Analytics. Classifications make the lives of marketers easier, as it enables them to track their campaign URLs in their analytics platforms.
UX (User Experience)
UX is an important one when it comes to websites. You can your visitors to be able to navigate your site effectively and easily, so UX focuses on the experience a user has when they visit your site. How efficient is it? How easily can they find the information they want?
Vertical banner
Usually found on the left or right hand sides of a webpage, these banners are smaller than skyscraper banners and measure 120×240.
Viral content
Viral content is anything posted online that gets shared and viewed tonnes over a short period of time. There are lots of different specifications as to what is considered ‘going viral’, across the different social channels, however, with more and more users everyday, the official number of views to be considered going viral will probably only increase over time. Only a very small percentage of content goes viral (we’re talking like 1% small), so don’t worry if you never get there.
Vlog
Merging the words ‘video’ and ‘blog’ to make vlog – a video blog!
Voice Search
Using a voice command to search the internet, for example using Siri on an iPhone.
Web browser
Web browsers are what we use to access or ‘browse’ the internet. For example, Google Chrome, Safari, Bing, FireFox are all examples of web browsers.
Web design
Web design is essentially creating everything needed to build, launch, and run a website. This can encompass a huge variety of skills and requirements, just some of which being graphic design for web, coding and software, user experience and SEO. Web design as a whole will include different expertise across different teams, it’s not a one person job!
Web directory
A list of categorised websites with contact details.
Web hosting
the business of providing the storage, connectivity, and services necessary to serve files for a website.
Website traffic
How many visitors your website receives. This can then be compared year or year, quarter on quarter or seasonally.
Webinar
An online seminar where the host can present to anyone in the world over the internet.
Webmaster
Someone who is responsible for a website. They could be a developer, an admin, the website owner and more.
White hat SEO
Ethical and professional SEO techniques that reflect ‘best practice’ marketing efforts.
Whitepaper
An in-depth guide or report that focuses on educating the reader a specific topic. They can also look to present a problem and offer a solution.
WHOIS
a utility that returns ownership information about second-level domains.
Wireframe
A wireframe is effectively a blueprint of a website. Wireframes are a visual representation of where content elements will sit on specific page of a website.
Word-of-mouth marketing
When a brand relies on people talking to their friends and family about it in a positive manner.
XML
Simple text language used to syndicate information, such as an XML sitemap
There’s nothing in this section at present.
Let us know if there are any other terms you would like us to explain and add to this blog by commenting below or using the contact us form.