When your business is new to digital marketing, the digital marketing terms you hear can be confusing. Digital marketing has its own vocabulary, which doesn’t always make sense initially.
There is no reason to feel intimidated, however. Once you learn what digital marketing terms and abbreviations mean, digital marketing will make a lot more sense.
Here are 27 digital marketing terms that will help you understand what digital marketers and digital marketing platforms are talking about. That way, you can make smarter advertising decisions. We have divided them into acronyms, Google terms, and General digital marketing terms.
Acronyms as Digital Marketing Terms
CPA – “cost per acquisition” is how much you end up paying for each customer you acquire through advertising.
CPC – “cost per click” is how much you spend each time someone clicks on a digital ad.
CPM – “cost per mille” is how much you spend for every 1000 times an ad platform displays your ad.
CRO – “conversion rate optimization” consists of the things you do to increase the percentage of visitors to your site who perform an action you want (conversions).
CTR – “click-through rate” is how many clicks your ad receives divided by how many times the ad platform shows your ad.
PPC – “pay per click” is a way of paying for Facebook or Google ads in which you bid to be shown in search results or on Facebook. You pay your bid amount each time someone clicks on your ad.
Google Digital Marketing Terms
Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI) – a Google ads action that updates your ad text to include one of your keywords matching a customer search term. In other words, Google will automatically replace a code in your ad with the exact keyword the searcher used. It can improve your click-through rate.
Expanded Text Ad – Google search ads incorporating elements including up to three headlines and up to two descriptions. It is an alternative to responsive search ads.
Google Ads – formerly known as Google AdWords, it is the name of Google’s ad platform. Advertisers pay based on an ad budget or bid in an auction against other advertisers based on which keywords advertisers want to target.
Organic listing – a search result that appears “organically” in the search results without being paid for.
Paid listing – a search result that an advertiser pays for. Typically, three or four paid listings appear at the top of the search results.
Paid search – a type of ad that results in a paid listing. It is a way for a brand to appear at the top of the search results without waiting for it to get there organically.
Responsive display ad – a type of ad where the advertiser gives Google a collection of images, headlines, logos, and descriptions and allows Google to automatically generate ads based on ad size and projected CTR.
Responsive search ad – a type of ad where the advertiser gives Google multiple headlines and descriptions, and Google automatically generates ads using different combinations of these elements. Once Google determines which combination performs best, it uses that combination to get the best CTR.
Other Digital Marketing Terms
Artificial intelligence (AI) – tools that use human-like intelligence to perform tasks and automate processes. It may perform relatively simple tasks like correcting spelling and grammar or complex ones like writing web content or generating images. Devices like Alexa and Siri use artificial intelligence.
Bounce rate – may refer to website bounce rate or email bounce rate. Website bounce rate is when people “bounce” off the site after only visiting one page. Email bounce rate is the rate at which emails “bounce” back to you because they don’t reach the intended recipient. Email bounce rates should stay under 2% for best performance.
Conversion – an action you want a visitor on your website to take, such as giving you their email address, filling out a form, or buying something. You should define what a “conversion” is for each element of your marketing campaign
Conversion rate – the rate at which website visitors perform the action you want, such as making a purchase or completing a form.
Cookies – may be created either by the site owner (first-party cookies) or by a third party (third-party cookies). Most third-party cookies are tracking cookies created by advertisers. They cause web users to see ads for products the advertiser believes will interest the user. Third-party cookies may track you across multiple websites. They can also send you to websites selling products you may like or deliver personalized ads.
Customer Acquisition Cost – is how much you spend to acquire a new customer.
Email marketing – the use of email to inform people on your email list about new products, deals, or other services. It can also be used to educate people on your email list or amplify your brand to them.
Impression – an instance of an ad platform displaying an ad for a user.
Impression share – the number of ad impressions divided by the estimated number of impressions your ads could get depending on your Google-determined ad rank and budget. Higher is better.
Intelligent tracking prevention – a privacy feature that Apple released in 2017. It limits how advertisers and site owners can track users across domains (which advertisers normally do to personalize ad content).
Reach – the total number of people who see your ad.
Remarketing/retargeting – both of which refer to presenting ads on different sites based on third-party cookie tracking. With remarketing or retargeting, the user may view an item on a website, then go to another website and see an ad for the product they viewed.
ROAS – “return on ad spend” is a form of return on investment specifically for ads. Higher is better.
Unique visitor – a single visitor to a website in a specific time period who has not previously visited the tracking platform that counts visitors.
Information Is Power
Don’t be intimidated by digital marketing terms and lingo. Many of the concepts are similar to terms used in other types of marketing.
When you know what a digital marketing company or consultant is talking about, you can take the information in more easily. And better understanding will help you as you strategize about how to spend your marketing dollars.
Our team has many years of experience in digital marketing, and we are happy to explain digital marketing terms and how they can affect your business. If you are ready to boost your brand, set up a call with our team today. We know how to help businesses like yours reach new customers with the right combination of marketing techniques.
