They say nobody is perfect, and I’m no exception. It’s been a constructive criticism of a number of friends and clients of mine that I use too much marketing jargon when we speak on the phone. This language has become automatic for me over the years that I can go on rants full of acronyms and technical blah blah blah, and fail to notice the crickets chirping on the other end of the phone. Deep breath in….I’m working on it….deep breath out..
For all of the patience my friends and clients have shown me, I’ve decided to write this post defining some of the terms of the trade I tend to use as a way to thank them. It isn’t much of a gift, but it’s free and you get what you pay for ;)
“Digital marketing content tastier than these here dandelions”
An Abridged Glossary of Digital Marketing Terminology
Ad - The lowest unit of measurement in the digital marketing hierarchy. An ad is what is shown to people when your marketing campaign is active.
Ad Extension - A small piece of information used as a modifier to your ad. For example, you may see a search marketing ad that has links to specific pages to the website listed under the ad content. Those are ad extensions.
Ad Group - A way to organize ads with a common goal. In the hierarchy of digital marketing, there are three layers of information: ads are organized into ad groups and ad groups are organized into campaigns.
Attribution - The process of giving specific ads credit for the conversions they generate.
Audience - A group of people that you want to target online that all share one or more characteristic. For example, your audience could be people in Florida, or rock climbers, or rock climbers who live in Florida. You can even choose to target people we are actively searching for a product or service like your own.
Bidding Strategy - The strategy you use for bidding on ads based on the goal you want to achieve. For example, if your main goal is brand exposure, you can ask marketing platforms to charge you per X number of ad impressions instead of paying per click, or if you want to pay X per conversion, then you could use a method called CPA Targeting to tell your marketing platform to bid the right amount of money where it would end up costing X per conversion.
Campaign - A collection of ad groups grouped together for a common goal. For example, if you wanted to sell surf boards you could have one group of search ads in an ad group and one group of display ads in another ad group. The campaign contains all ad groups and organizes them together with their shared purpose: selling surf boards.
Click - When a customer clicks on your ad.
Click Through Rate (CTR) - the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.
Cookies - Small programs that are placed on a website visitor’s browser that are used to track the user for various reasons. For example, there could be a cookie that just says that this person visited your website, or, it could be a cookie that conveys that they are from Europe, so the times on your website should be listed in 24 hour formatting instead of 12.
Conversion - Whenever a someone completes a desired action that is set before the campaign’s launch. For example, a conversion could be filling out a contact form, completing a purchase, or clicking a link to make a phone call to your business.
Conversion Rate - The number of conversions divided by the number of clicks.
This woman is very excited to learn about digital marketing terminology
Conversion Tag - A small piece of code that is activated when the target conversion action is taken on your site. The purpose of this tag is to send a message back to your ad platform so it knows that goal was met.
Conversion Value - The monetary value you give to a specific conversion.
Copy - When used as a noun, copy is the writing that make up an ad. It could be headlines, or even dialog in a video. It if is a part of an ad that needs written, it is considered ad copy.
Cost - The amount spent on an ad.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) - Amount spent divided by the number of conversions.
Cost Per Click (CPC) - Cost divided by the number of clicks generated. So if you spent $50 and had 10 ad clicks, your CPC would be $5.
CPM - Is an acronym for “cost per thousand” (M being the Roman numeral for 1000). It’s typically used when discussing impressions. So if you spent $100 and had 10,000 impressions, your CPM would be $10.
Cross-Device Conversion - A conversion that happens when an ad is clicked on with one device, but a sale is finished with another. For example, you may have clicked on an ad for Widget A while you were reading the news on your tablet. Later that day, you remember the ad and go to Widget A’s website on your desktop computer and make a purchase. This would be a Cross-Device Conversion.
Device - The electronic device that your ad is shown on. On most marketing platforms you can differentiate between wanting to show your ads on desktop computers, smart phones, and tablets.
Display Marketing - The traditional ad banners you see on almost every single site online.
Impression - When your ad is shown. It doesn’t have to be interacted with in any way, just shown.
Impression Share - The number of impressions received divided by the number of impressions available. For example, if 100 people a day search for Widget A and your ad was shown to eighty of them, then your impression share would be 80%.
Keyword - A trigger that tells an ad platform when to show your ad. For example, you may sell latex gloves and not baseball gloves. So in order to tell that platform when to show your ad, you would want to use the keyword “latex gloves.” So now, your ads won’t be shown for baseball gloves anymore.
Landing Page - The destination a customer is directed to after they click on your ad. A good marketing practice is to make special landing pages for your marketing campaign’s goals. For example, if you really want to sell Widget A and you have ads showing that feature Widget A, then you would want the landing page for that ad to be the Widget A landing page, instead of something like the homepage (an exception would be when your site only offers one product or service).
“Excuse me, we’re here to learn about digital marketing terminology, and also ribbit.”
Mobile Ads - Ads that are specifically designed to garner conversions from people using their cell phone or tablet.
Native Marketing - Links to articles or store pages that are specifically made to look like content for the current website you’re on. Think back to when you’ve been reading an online article. You get all the way to the bottom and see a section labeled something like “other news you may be interest in” with a whole lot of stories that take you to other websites. Those are native ads.
Negative Keywords - Pretty much the opposite of keywords, these are used when you don’t want to show up for certain searches. For example, if you are a jewelry maker, you don’t want your ad shown to people who are looking up boxing statistics (because the fight takes place in a “ring”). To combat this, you could use “boxing” as a negative keyword on your campaign.
Optimization - The process of incrementally changing your ad campaigns to help you reach your desired goal more efficiently.
Pixel - Much like a conversion tag, a pixel is a small piece of code that sits on your website with the express purpose of communicating your customer’s onsite behavior back to the marketing platform.
Retargeting - The practice of showing someone ads once they have completed some action on your website. There is big variety in the ways retargeting can be employed. For example, if someone buys Widget A from your site, you can start to show them only ads for Widget B. Or, you can even show more ads to folks who just visited your website.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) - Revenue generated divided by cost, expressed as a percentage. For example, if you sold a $15 product after spending $10 on ads for the product, your ROAS would be 150%.
Search Marketing - Ads that are shown in combination with search engine results. These can be seen on Google, Bing, and Yahoo Search. For example, if you search “I need a plumber”, and see “Joe’s Plumbing” at the top of the results with a little “ad” tag next to their name, that is a search ad.
Search Term Report - A search term report shows you what a customer was looking for when they clicked on your ad. For example, if someone types “I need a lawyer” into a search engine, and that triggers your keyword “lawyer” which is then clicked on, the search term report will let you know the customer searched “I need a lawyer” and activated the keyword “lawyer.”
Shopping Ads - Shopping ads are a type of search ad that displays a product listing with a price as a part of search engine results. Try Googling something simple like “watches.” All those listings near the top of the page are shopping ads.
Target CPA Bidding - A bidding strategy that bids more or less for ads based on the value of conversion being potentially generated. For example, if you knew you had a conversion on 1 out of every 5 clicks and your target CPA was $5, then the bid would be set at $1 per ad click.
View-Through Conversion - When you are served an impression from an ad and then eventually go on to complete a conversion on that site without ever clicking on an ad.
Thank you for stopping by! If you’ve read this article and still feel like this stuff is over your head, feel free to reach out via our contact page or drop me a line below. I’ll be happy to explain anything in greater depth.