Everything you wanted to know about of Digital Marketing Glossary in one place
A common language is a key part of any professional field and digital marketing Glossary is no different in this context. Countless terms, acronyms, definitions, and different names create a unique language. The unique language here – the digital language, with a large and rich vocabulary.
Whether you are a marketing and advertising person, or a business owner who consumes such services, the better you master the language and meanings of each and every term, the easier it will be for you to communicate, understand, and most importantly know not to be smeared when you are promised such and such results.
In order to put things in order, we have written an article with the ultimate Digital Marketing Glossary. With short and simple explanations of all the professional words and terms that need to be known and recognized.
We have divided it into categories so that it will be easier to navigate between the terms and find what is important and essential to you right now.
- Everything you wanted to know about of Digital Marketing Glossary in one place
- Important Key Terms in Digital Marketing Glossary
- SEM – Search Engine Marketing
- Email Marketing
- SEO – Search Engine Optimization
- A/B Testing
- CRO – Conversion Rate Optimizationn
- Landing Page
- Sales page
- The Customer Journey
- Funnel
- Remarketing / Retargeting
- Targeting
- Conversion
- Micro Conversions
- Lead
- Qualified Lead
- PPC – Pay Per Click
- CPM – Cost Per Mille
- PPV – Pay Per View
- ROI – Return On Investment
- Optimization
- CTA – Call to Action
- Google Analytics
- UTM
- REF / Traffic Sources Labeling
- Heat Maps
- Performance metrics
- Impressions
- Reach / Unique Impressios
- Clicks
- Bid
- CTR – Click Through Rate
- CPL – Cost Per Lead
- Cost Per Aquisition / CPA / Cost Per Action
- Conversion Rate
- Unique terms in Google Google AdWords
Important Key Terms in Digital Marketing Glossary
SEM – Search Engine Marketing
The term SEM comes to describe the whole range of marketing channels that revolve around search engines (yes, search engines, in the plural).
When we talk about SEM we mean promoting the business by increasing its presence on the search engine results page, whether in the organic results or in the sponsored ads.
We are not just talking about Google, even though it is the largest search engine in the world, but alongside it, there are other search engines, some of which have broad global significance and some local that control a large market share like Bing (from Microsoft). ) In the US market, Yandex in the Russian market and Baidu The Chinese.
Email Marketing
Literally, email marketing is the act of promoting and marketing a business through email communication with target audiences.
Unlike mass advertising through advertising systems such as Google, Facebook, and others, email marketing is based on the business mailing list.
Email marketing is most often done through a mass mailing system, such as Active Trail, VIPlus, Multi-Message, MailChimp, and others, the variety in the market is wide.
This is because a mailing system allows you to send large amounts of emails simultaneously to a large number of recipients, view statistics and reports on mailing performance, efficiently manage mail removal requests and block users who have requested no communication, and design and maintain visibility of our mailers.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Organic search engine optimization is an ongoing activity aimed at improving the organic presence of a website in non-sponsored search results.
The results of organic promotion are measured both in the location where the site appears on desired search queries, along with an increase in the total organic traffic the site receives and an increase in the amount of sales opportunities (leads) or actual sales volume on the site as a result of incoming organic traffic.
Organic promotion activities include a wide range of activities, including continuous improvement of the site’s base code and adapting it to the requirements of search engines for website owners, creating new and high-quality content frequently, and creating digital collaborations in the form of inbound or outbound links.
You can find more information regarding Content Writing SEO in my article.
A/B Testing
A research approach that aims to compare two different configurations of different objects in order to determine which of them achieves its better purpose. Comparative tests can be performed between ads in a campaign, between campaigns, between different targets, and of course between different variations of our site or landing page, in order to improve performance and achieve better results.
The basis for a / b testing is that we have a certain benchmark about the performance, for which we test the improvement, and we build the hypotheses we have, whether it is about a change in the creative ad or a change in the site – in relation to a control group that has known and stable results.
CRO – Conversion Rate Optimizationn
A niche domain whose essence is improving conversion rates of websites and landing pages.
As part of the CRO activity, different aspects of a landing page are examined, whether it is the location of the form, the type of image, the motivation for action, or any other aspect of visibility, structure, copy or creativity, and perform various tests to maximize the conversion rate of the page.
In commerce sites or sites where the conversion process consists of a funnel or several stages, the CRO activity will also examine the sequence of steps leading to the conversion and optimize both the funnel itself and each of the stages separately.
The main tool in the field of CRO is A / B testing – a comparative test that examines the difference in performance between two or more variations in order to arrive at the site configuration that leads to as many conversions as possible.
Landing Page
A single web page, meaning that it is not part of a website, next to achieve a targeted marketing goal in front of visitors who come from different channels.
Unlike a site that has many pages and a variety of distractions, a landing page will usually be targeted and specific to one product or service, or individual at most, and have one targeted purpose, usually to collect “leads” or sell a product, without any access to additional or separate action or distractions. That diverts the surfer from the main goal.
On a good landing page, you should not find links or other things that will take the surfer elsewhere, other than filling in details or any single goal he is meant to achieve.
Sales page
Similar to a landing page, this is also a single web page that aims to sell a product or service.
In contrast to a landing page for collecting leads, which will offer a basic sale offer and encourage the visitor to leave contact information by a salesperson.
A sales page is designed to carry out the entire online sales process, without the involvement of a salesperson.
Hence it contains all the important and relevant information and encompasses the value of the product, both emotional and technical, alongside addressing objections.
The Customer Journey
Customer journey is a marketing term that comes to describe the way a person goes on his way to becoming our customer.
These are various stages that the customer goes through, from a very initial stage of awareness of the need or problem that our product has come to solve, through brand and product awareness as a possible solution to purchase.
It is customary to divide the customer journey into 5 stages:
- Awareness
The initial stage is where the customer is not at all aware of our existence or the existence of our product and we must produce his awareness by various marketing means. - Consideration
When the customer is debating whether he is interested in our solution/product. Most of the time the deliberation is either against competing products or if there are not many alternatives – does he have a principled need for the product. - Purchase
A decision has been made! The customer purchased our product. - Retention
The relationship with the customer does not end with the purchase. Is he satisfied? Does the product bring it value and benefit? Does he need help? The customer retention effort after purchase is extremely important. - Loyalty
The customer is satisfied with the product or service he received. If possible and it is relevant the customer repeats and makes repeat purchases or increases his basket of services. In any case, the customer is happy to recommend the product to his environment and has become a ‘sequential issue’ that produces automated marketing for us.
Each of the integrators requires marketing efforts on its own that are tailored to the stage where the specific customer is located, and therefore the marketing activity of the business should operate at all different levels of the customer journey.
Funnel
A funnel is a marketing process through which we convey the visitor, along the lines parallel to the customer journey we mentioned in the previous section, where the goal is to produce a structured process that moves the customer from a state of complete ignorance to a paying and satisfied customer.
The marketing funnel is executed by various digital means, usually, the initial exposure will be through sponsored advertising on one of the advertising networks, the entrance to the funnel will be through a website or landing page, and the movement inside the funnel, ie the transition between stages, will be through a mailing system and/or sponsored advertising.
The most critical and important thing to understand about a funnel is that it requires the ability to isolate different groups of people who are at different stages in their marketing funnel and customer journey alongside the ability to approach each group with a message appropriate to the stage it is at.
Remarketing / Retargeting
All of these names are equivalent and basically say the same thing. Remarketing, or remarketing, is an act of re-advertising to audiences based on actions they have taken in the past.
The most familiar and simplest form of understanding is to display targeted advertising to people who have visited our site.
The goal in remarketing is basically to strengthen and repeat our marketing message to audiences that have already been exposed to it in the past and to keep the business and our value proposition in their minds.
There are many and varied ways today to carry out remarketing to our target audiences. Re-posting to visitors on the site or landing page, uploading our mailing lists to Google or Facebook and targeting them, targeting people who have subscribed to our YouTube channel or watching our videos on Facebook, targeting Facebook page fans, all these are different forms of remarketing.
For that matter, Email Marketing is also a certain type of remarketing, since our mailing lists were not created out of anything – they were created through various registration channels we built, which means that this is also advertising to audiences based on previous actions.
Targeting
Targeting is the act of targeting our advertising to a specific audience based on browsing, demographic, or property characteristics.
When we say targeting we are basically saying ‘target advertising to the target audience’, and the whole advertising system has different and varied targeting options.
In the Google search network for example the targeting is done on the basis of search queries. When I target the phrase “cheap hotel in Eilat” I actually want to show my ad to anyone who searches for that phrase on Google.
When I choose to show my ads on the Google Display Network on the ABC news site only, I’m actually targeting everyone who visits that site.
Choosing geographical targeting, choosing gender (men or women), choosing age range, choosing the location of the ad, choosing the interests of the surfers, and of course, remarketing – all, along with many other options, are different types of targeting.
Conversion
A common mistake is to think that a conversion is just leaving a hand or a purchase. In the broadest sense of the word, conversion is basically the state in which a visitor performs an action we wanted him to perform, i.e. he is converted from a passive to an active state.
The definition of a conversion operation is broad and subjective, and in fact, different types of conversions can be measured in any digital asset.
A conversion can be, for example, watching a video on a page, downloading a file, scrolling up to a certain percentage on the page, staying over a certain period of time, visiting a specific page, there is no limit to the possibilities.
The idea is that as long as we “converted” the surfer from a passive state where he was just watching the page to a state where he was performing some action we wanted him to do, a conversion occurred.
Micro Conversions
The basic definition is similar to that of conversion, but when we talk about micro-conversions we mean sub-actions that the visitor does on the way to the main action we are aiming for.
For example, we direct the visitor to the landing page where he is supposed to leave details.
And on the way, he can watch a video, download a file, etc. – before filling out the form.
On eCommerce sites, for example, the final conversion will be a purchase.
On the way there is viewing the product, adding to the shopping cart, beyond the check out – all of these are landmarks on the way to the ultimate goal – purchasing a product, meaning there is a series of micro-conversions or sub-goals we want to be met.
Defining and measuring micro-conversions allows us to know more closely what influences the thought process and clarification of the visitor’s details and helps us give him more information he needs and lead him towards our main goal.
Lead
Is a sales opportunity created as a result of advertising actions, or in other words, an appeal of interest that the business receives.
The lead can be anything from leaving details on a form, a private message on the business page or personal profile, a comment on a post, basically any situation where the surfer asks us to contact him.
Qualified Lead
A qualified lead is a sales opportunity with which initial contact is made and found to be suitable for the needs of the business.
Different businesses have a different definition of near qualified, from a very basic level where near qualified as one that provided a proper phone and email address, to a situation where it meets stricter criteria.
for example, if I promote real estate investments that require a minimum capital of $ 50,000 then near qualified will be interested Who has the necessary capital.
The definition of Qualified Lead helps us to understand, not only the number of leads we receive, but also their quality, or in other words whether the advertising achieves its purpose and creates for us really quality sales opportunities.
PPC – Pay Per Click
An accepted model in digital advertising systems whereby the payment to the advertising system is on the actual clicks on our ads, and not just on exposure.
The term CPC which means Cost Per Click actually indicates the cost per click paid or paid in our campaigns, some people mistakenly use it instead of PPC.
CPM – Cost Per Mille
An index that originated in the old world of advertising in the early days of digital advertising was still present and actually expresses the payment for exposing the ad or advertisement to 1000 visitors.
In the days before the exact measurement that digital marketing now allows, the CPM index made it possible to compare the effectiveness and advertising costs of various media (mainly television, radio, and other offline media).
In fact, on Facebook, although we usually do not see or feel it, in practice we still pay by CPM, or by a thousand exposures, but since the world of digital marketing, today speaks mainly in PPC metrics the system is built to translate the payment method into metrics most advertisers are used to seeing. CPC or CPA.
PPV – Pay Per View
A PPC-like metric that refers to situations where we promote videos and pay per views. The definition of what is defined as actual “viewing” varies from system to system.
Facebook for example sets up viewing after 3 seconds of the video playing.
When promoting a video viewing campaign video, you can choose to charge only for views of at least 10 seconds.
Promoting YouTube videos on the other hand only requires watching for at least 30 seconds.
ROI – Return On Investment
A term that is of course taken from the business world, but what is marketing actually if not a server tool for business promotion? The return on investment index basically indicates the ratio between the money we spent on our advertising and marketing and the money we made as a result.
Just to simplify – a 1: 1 ROI means that we actually did not make a profit or a loss, we put in what we spent. We actually want to maintain as large a positive ROI ratio as possible, and in any case, greater than 1, and the rule of thumb in marketing that should be strived for is to increase as much as possible the marketing channels that generate us a positive positive ROI over time.
Optimization
The dictionary meaning of the term is to bring something to its optimal state, i.e. the best possible state.
When we talk about optimization in digital marketing we mean an ongoing methodical process for improving performance.
The process involves examining different performance metrics and dealing with different problems or low performance depending on the conclusions and insights obtained from those dimensions.
A good optimization process will usually work “from easy to heavy”, meaning when a problem is identified and there are several possible solutions we will start with the quickest and simplest solution to perform (e.g. creative ad refresh) and select campaign handling as performance does not improve.
For example, a low click-through rate on an ad can indicate weak creativity, an unattractive bid, or an incorrect target.
In such a situation the creative will be the simplest thing to switch and explore alternatives.
IIf the result does not improve, we will consider alternative targets. And if the situation does not improve yet we will seriously consider re-examining our value proposition.
Sometimes the situation is a bit more complex, but it is the process that leads to the optimization process.
CTA – Call to Action
Call to action is a key element in creativity, both at the ad level and the landing page or site.
The call to action is basically the bottom line – what we ask the surfer to do.
A call to action will usually be worded in imperative language such as – “Order now” and will be located near where the action should take place. For example on the purchase button, above the form on the landing page, or anywhere else.
Motivation for action
Although many think motivation for action and call to action are two identical things, they are not the same thing.
A call to action is imperative language will actually call on the visitor to perform a particular action.
Motivation for action, together with the call to action, is the motivation for the visitor to realize our marketing proposal.
Motivation for action joins the call to action as part of the final message – so for example the following caption includes both “Fill in details now and a representative will get back to you within 24 hours”.
The promise that they will get back to us soon is the motivation for action.
Google Analytics
One of the leading and best free tools for monitoring and analyzing site visitors from Google’s creator.
With Google Analytics you can know where the surfers come to the site of countless important data. What pages they view, how long they are on the site, see actions, conversion demographics, and more.
UTM
UTM is a tool that allows you to precisely control the traffic data received by Google Analytics, by adding a number of parameters to the URL that indicate data about it.
The URL plus the data will be published where we want and then we can see a segmentation of the results in Google Analytics according to the parameters we have entered.
This is what a tagged URL looks like:
http://www.yoursite.com/?utm_source=Source&utm_medium=Medium&utm_term=Term&utm_content=Content&utm_campaign=Campaign
When the value of each of the parameters is in our full control.
REF / Traffic Sources Labeling
Another way to optimize the data obtained in a campaign, especially when it comes to leads, is to further tag the link address using a parameter indicating the source of the traffic.
In this enabling system, you can configure the data submission form so that it knows how to receive the parameter and send it with the rest of the form data
Example of a link tagged using REF:
http://www.yoursite.com?ref=traffic_source
These parameters can also be added in combination with UTM labeling as follows
http://www.yoursite.com/?ref=traffic_source&utm_source=source&utm_medium=medium&utm_term=term&utm_content=content&utm_campaign=campaign
Heat Maps
Heat maps are a tool that allows us to see activity in visitors to our site visually.
Using a heat map we will identify ‘hot’ areas – that is, areas of interest and attention on our site, as opposed to ‘cold’ areas – that is, which receive little attention.
Most heat map tools today allow hot areas to be seen in terms of clicking, scrolling, and mouse movement.
And record entire user browsing sessions in order to analyze the behavior of the surfers on the site.
Prominent tools for producing heat maps: HotJar, CrazyEgg, ClickTale.
Performance metrics
Impressions
The number of times our ads were shown (not to be confused with unique impressions).
Reach / Unique Impressios
This figure actually indicates the number of unique people who viewed our ads. The number of unique performances can be equal to, or less than, the number of performances.
In Facebook’s advertising system unique impressions are called Reach, that is, the distribution of people’s ads and not impressions.
Clicks
The number of times someone clicked on our ads. In most advertising systems the meaning is the same, on Facebook, there is a difference between a click and link clicks.
This is because unlike ads in other advertising systems, a Facebook ad has additional clickable elements. For example, page name, see more button, video watch activation, and more.
This means that the clicks figure embodies all types of clicks on all the clickable elements in the ad, while the link clicks figure refers specifically to the clicks on the link to which we refer.
Bid
The various advertising systems operate in the form of an ongoing auction whenever ads are displayed to users.
Every ad submitted in the advertising system basically competes every time it is displayed at an auction that determines whether it will be displayed, how many times, and of course what the exposure price or the price per click is.
The bid we give in bidding at the auction, in addition to additional quality metrics weighted in its results. Most systems allow us to place manually, or let the system handle for us automatically and algorithmically. And all this is done in order to present us with optimal advertising results for us.
CTR – Click Through Rate
CTR is a measure obtained by dividing the total number of ad clicks by the total number of impressions. That is, out of such times clicked on our ads out of all the times they appeared.
This metric allows us and the advertising systems to understand how relevant and interesting our ads are to their audience.
In the major advertising system, namely Google and Facebook, CTR is an important metric that affects ad performance. The better the click-through rate, the system rewards us by reducing the cost per click on the ad.
Important Information:
That there is no uniform benchmark for the desired click-through rate, varies greatly depending on the promoted product. For example, the advertising channel, the target audience, and of course the promoted creative and more.
So if we want to compare our performance to averages and rituals it is important to make a correct comparison and do it on the same channel as all of us.
A good click-through rate on the Google search network is different from a click-through rate that is considered good on the Display Network, or on Facebook advertising. And also between different types of objectives and types of promotion the click-through rate varies greatly.
CPL – Cost Per Lead
The price costs us to raise new leads from advertising. The price per lead is a division of the budget we spent divided by the total number of leads received. You can of course calculate the price per lead on several levels.
You can also calculate other derivatives of price per lead. For example, the price per lead for a specific target audience (in front of a new audience, men versus women). Another example is a particular ad placement (e.g. mobile vs. desktop) and accordingly makes the right optimization decisions.
Cost Per Aquisition / CPA / Cost Per Action
An index equivalent to the price per lead, only broader, i.e. refers to conversion in the broadest sense. As we explained earlier, conversion is basically an action we want the surfer to perform. The conversion price will then refer to the total amount of money spent on the total conversion operations received. The price per lead can be treated locally as a price for conversion of course.
Conversion Rate
One of the most important metrics in digital marketing, especially when we talk about lead-targeted advertising, is the conversion rate. This ratio indicates the total number of conversions received from the total number of surfers exposed to our offer, with most visitors referring to the site or landing page.
Of course, we want to strive for as high a conversion ratio as possible anyway. Here, too, there is no fixed or uniform benchmark that can be pointed out as our point of aspiration. This varies depending on the volume of traffic, the quality of the marketing offer, the target audience, and other metrics.
The conversion ratio is one of the first places we look at when the results do not meet our expectations. And many conclusions can be drawn from it, as part of the optimization process.
Unique terms in Google Google AdWords
Google Serach
Refers to the ads that appear in Google search results. Sponsored ads appear at the top, above the bottom organic search results.
Google Display Network / GDN
Advertising through text ads and banners on millions of sites around the world. Members of the AdSense program allocate Google ad space.
Advertising on the media network actually allows you to buy advertising space on countless sites. Through one central place, the AdWords advertising system, without addressing each of them individually.
Organic Search
Google’s unsolicited search results, that is, based on the search engine’s site analysis, are also called organic results. The order of appearance of the sites in the organic search results is determined by many parameters.
As part of an ongoing process of organic promotion, SEO actions are performed on the site. These SEO actions help to improve its position in the search results.
Keyword Quality Score
A Quality Score is a numerical rating between 1 and 10 given to each keyword on the Google search network. Quality Score is determined by 3 parameters – clickthrough rate, relevance to the ad and landing page experience.
Quality Score is a measure of the quality of the keywords relevant to the ad shown. It ultimately affects the price we pay per click on the keyword we promote.
Long-Tail / Short Tail
These terms come to express the complexity of keywords, both in organic promotion and sponsored promotion. Short tail refers to short and general queries and phrases, and long tail refers to long queries with multiple keywords.
In general, the longer the ‘tail’, the more accurate the search for the user’s needs.
For example, a short tail, those who are looking for a “hotel in Eilat” are looking for general information.
For example, a long tail, who is looking for a “vacation in Eilat in July with the kids.”
A rule for differentiating between longtail and short-tail is the monthly search volume. Short tail expressions usually have a very large search volume and long-tail expressions smaller search volumes.
It is important to remember – short tails make up about 20% of Google search queries, while the main volume, 80% of searches, are long and focused tails.
That is why it is important not to give them up and target as many long tails as possible.
Types of matches in the Google search network
Keyword matching types in Google help the system understand which phrases to display our ads on. In Google AdWords you can choose from 4 different types of keyword matching:
Exact match – marked in square brackets – [keyword] – The ads will only show on searches of the exact search query defined.
Phrase match – marked with quotation marks – “Keyword” – The ads will only show if phrases are added before or after the search phrase, depending on its exact order.
Broad Match – Unmarked Keywords Target (default) will show ads even when searching for or targeting some of the targeted phrase.
Transformation features for broad match – also known as ‘plus match’ or BMM, but includes adding the + sign before each word. For example “+ apartments + for rent + New York”. The display of the ads requires that every word in the search phrase appears in the search query, even in its original appearance.
Keyword Planner
Google’s tool allows you to plan your campaigns by entering your desired keywords and getting their estimated monthly search volume. In addition using the tool you can also get recommendations and suggestions for additional keywords that may be relevant.
In the past the tool was available for free, today the tool is only available for approved AdWords accounts. The tool is now also free in accounts opened through an agency manager account (MCC).
MCC – My Client Center
A super-account intended for agencies, through which a large number of advertising accounts are managed that are owned by others.
Google Partner
An agency or campaign manager who holds a Google Advertising Partner badge is one that has met several thresholds.
A brief look at threshold conditions:
- Pass at least 2 exams on behalf of Google.
- Advertising spending threshold in the last 3 months and the quality and performance metrics of the campaigns under their management.
You can verify whether or not an agency is a certified affiliate of Google’s affiliate site.
Google Search Console
An important tool for anyone involved in organic promotion, formerly called Webmaster Tools. This tool is the main dashboard on behalf of Google for managing the organic presence. Through the tool you can track the crawl of the site by Google, locate errors in crawling or other problems, track key locations and search queries and many other tools designed to improve the organic presence in the Google search network.