If you’re just getting started in marketing, here is your go-to cheat sheet to give you a leg up and show the boss you know your stuff. If you’ve been in the industry for a while, I bet there are a few terms or acronyms on here you didn’t know!
Download the PDF version here so you can save a copy to your computer or print it out and have it a moment’s notice!
- 301 redirect – When a url redirects to a different page, the 301 tells the web it’s a permanent redirect. Search engines like these better than 302 redirects, which are temporary.
- 404 page – An error page that shows up when a page on a domain doesn’t exist. Great opportunity to optimize that page!
- A/B test – Testing one variation against another to see which performs the best.
- Above the fold – What is visible on a site without having to scroll down.
- AdSense – Google’s program to allow you to put ads on your website and make money on clicks and impressions.
- AdWords – Google’s paid ad platform for search, youtube, display ads, etc.
- Affiliate marketing – Someone advertises someone else’s product using a unique referral url. When anyone clicks that links and makes a purchase, the person who sent them there gets a piece of the sale.
- Alt text – Alternative text, describes an image to make it searchable by text. It is also is what shows up if an image is broken.
- Analytics – Reports that show how things are doing, web traffic, ad campaigns, social posts, etc.
- API – Application programming interface, what your developer uses to get different applications to talk to each other.
- Automation – The process of setting up tasks to be carried out automatically with the help of programs.
- B2B – business to business.
- B2C – business to consumers.
- Backlinks – links from other websites pointing to any page on your site. Helps with SEO and credibility if good sites link to you.
- Black Hat SEO – Tactics to attempt to trick search engines to get better rankings. You don’t want to do this.
- Blog – Originated from web log, a web page with frequently updated posts, usually in reverse chronological order.
- Bounce rate – The percentage of people who visit a web page and automatically leave without engaging with the page.
- Brand keyword – Keywords including your brand name. Competitors will often bid on your brand keywords so it’s important you do too to make sure your links don’t get shown up by others.
- Browser – The program used to access the internet such as Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.
- Canvas – A Facebook ad type that opens directly in the Facebook platform that you can build with rich media.
- Captcha – stands for completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart. The system where you enter in a series letters and numbers from an image, often used in forms.
- ccTLD – Country-code top level domain. For example “com.au” or “co.uk”.
- Click baiting – The process of using sensationalist headlines to get more people to click.
- Cold audiences – People who are not familiar with your brand. They aren’t on your email list, following your social media, or have visited your website.
- Content management system – A system such as WordPress that allows text and image changes to websites without having to utilize code.
- Content network – Advertising on other sites based on content of the site or by specific site. Google calls theirs Google Display Network.
- Conversion – When someone completes the desired action, usually a sale.
- Conversion rate – conversion rate = desired actions / total visitors.
- Cookie – A file that is stored in your web browser to remember information like what pages you visited and your password for convenience.
- CPA – Cost per acquisition.
- CPC – Cost per click.
- CPM – Cost per 1,000 impressions.
- CPP – Cost per pixel. How much it costs for a person to visit your page and subsequently be “pixeled” so you can remarket to them later.
- Crawling – When search engines visit your site and follow your links.
- CRM – Customer relationship management.
- CSS – Cascading style sheet. Defines how HTML elements will be displayed like layout, color, and font.
- CTA – Call to action, what you want the user to do.
- CTR – Click through rate = clicks / impressions.
- Dedicated hosting – An option where the provider dedicates an entire server to the client’s website.
- Dedicated IP – An IP address dedicated to a single website.
- Deep link – A link to a specific page on a site other than the homepage.
- DM – Direct message. Twitter’s term for messaging another user privately.
- Domain name – A website’s main address. Brief Marketer’s is briefmarketer.com
- Dynamic content – What a person sees changes based on user data. For example, showing their first name in an email or items that they may be interested in based on past purchases.
- Earned media – Word-of-mouth or press.
- Ecommerce – The ability to buy online.
- Enhanced bidding – An AdWords feature that allows them to go up to 30% over your bid in order to increase conversions.
- Evergreen – An automated system that can run continuously.
- Exit intent – A site tracks your mouse movement and when it believes you are about to close the window or leave, it triggers an occurrence such as a popup to try to get you to stay on the site or take an action.
- Favicon – The small icon that shows up in the browser next to the page title.
- FB – Facebook.
- Freemium – A business strategy where the main product is free and the advanced product or features cost money.
- Frequency – How many times on average a person saw your ad (Frequency = Impressions / Reach).
- Frequency cap – A limit on how many times per day an ad is shown to a single person.
- FTP – File Transfer Protocol. Used to transfer files from one host to another.
- Funnel – The process of a person becoming a customer.
- Gamification – Loyalty programs, point systems, leaderboards, rewards, etc.
- Geo-targeting – Targeting your ad audience by location.
- GTM – Google Tag Manager. A system that lets you manage all your website pixels and tags with only a single snippet of code on your site.
- Heatmaps – Often used in marketing to track where people are scrolling and clicking on pages.
- Hosting – The service of providing the storage and connectivity of a website.
- Hot audiences – Customers.
- HTML – Hypertext markup language, used to make websites.
- Impressions – How many times your ad was viewed (Impressions = Reach x Frequency).
- In-display – YouTube video ad that appears in search results, related videos, as a YouTube overlay, or on partner sites.
- In-stream – YouTube video ad that plays before a video, with the option of skipping the ad after 5 seconds.
- Inbound marketing – Focuses on creating content that draws people to you.
- Indexing – When the search engine crawlers add your pages to search engine databases.
- Instant articles – Articles in your Facebook newsfeed that are pre-loaded and open directly in the Facebook platform rather than clicking over to a website.
- Internal links – Links that point to other pages within the same site. This improves site interaction and engagement, helps users find more content, and helps SEO.
- Interstitial – An ad that appears between two pages. You click a link, and before you get to that intended page, an ad comes up where you often have to click before you can continue to the desired page.
- IP – Internet Protocol.
- Javascript – A computer programming language used to create interactive effects on a website.
- JV – Joint Venture, also referred to as co-marketing. When two companies work together to promote each other that benefits each party.
- Keyword – Topics that webpages are indexed for on search engine results pages.
- Keyword Stuffing – Adding excessive keywords on a page in an attempt to improve rank.
- KPI – Key performance indicators, what you’re using to determine if you’re hitting your goals or not.
- Landing page – A web page that traffic is sent to with the specific goal of getting a lead.
- Lead – Someone who may become a customer.
- Lead magnet – A piece of valuable content that you give potential customers in exchange for their email address.
- Link building – The process of getting other people to link to your site. This is best done through good content and building relationships with influencers.
- Link checker – A tool that will search your site for broken links.
- Long tail keywords – Longer phrases that are usually easier and faster to rank for in search engines rather than the shorter, more common, and more expensive keywords.
- Native ads – Paid ads that are camouflaged into the normal flow of a site where it appears.
- Negative keywords – Keywords that you do not want your ad to show up for in a search engine result page. For example, if you have a 5K race that is only for people 18 or older, you might want to add children related negative keywords. You don’t want to waste money showing your ad to someone who searches “5K races for kids” as they will not be interested in your product.
- Niche – A narrowly defined target market focused area.
- No-follow – A website tells search engines not to follow a link to pass credit to a linked website. It’s used to avoid association with spam on other sites or sites that break rules.
- No-index – A page that is set to no-index will not show up in search engine result pages.
- OP – Original poster. Often used on message boards.
- Opt-in – Someone who opted-in to receive an email from you.
- Opt-out – Someone on your email list decides they no longer want to receive your emails and they unsubscribe. You can no longer email to these people unless they opt-in again on their own.
- Optimize – Improvement that will increase conversion.
- Organic search – The unpaid results that show up in a search.
- Outbound links – Links on a webpage that go to a different webpage.
- Owned media – Your website, storefront, etc. (Does not include social media. You rent that space, but you do not own or control your Facebook page. Zuck can take that away from you at any time without notice.)
- Paid media – Advertising that you spend money on.
- Pinned post – On Facebook and Twitter, you can pin a post to the top of the page so it’s the first thing seen by visitors.
- Pixel – A snippet of code placed on a webpage to track visits to the page.
- PM – Private message.
- Podcast – A digital audio file that people can download to replay on their own devices at anytime. Usually comes in the form of a series with the ability to subscribe.
- PPC – Pay per click.
- Programmatic ad buying – Use of computers and algorithms to buy ad placements on websites.
- QR code – quick response code, a barcode that can be scanned that contains data like a url, image, text, etc.
- Quality score – Google determines this score by ad quality, relevancy, and landing page experience.
- Query – Another term for keyword or search term.
- Rank – The position a site shows up on search engine results.
- Reach – How many unique people saw your ad (Reach = Impressions / Frequency).
- Relevance – Facebook’s version of the quality score that takes in account user feedback on ads.
- Remarketing – Showing ads to people who have already visited your site, tracked by a pixel
- Responsive – a website that adapts based on how it’s being viewed. Could be according to screen size, device, etc.
- Retargeting – Facebook’s word for remarketing.
- RLSA – Remarketing Lists for Search Ads. Ability to deliver customized search ads to people who have previously visited your site.
- ROI – Return on Investment. Used to track if advertising efforts are profitable.
- RT – Retweet. Reposting a tweet that someone else posted.
- RTB – Real time bidding. Purchasing ads through real-time auctions. As a site loads, it is decided in that time what ad will be served to that person by bids.
- SaaS – Software as a service.
- Search retargeting – A type of retargeting ad based on a user’s previous keyword searches.
- SEM – Search engine marketing.
- SEO – Search engine optimization.
- SERP – Search engine results page.
- SLD – second-level domain. In www.briefmarketer.com “breifmarketer” is the second-level domain.
- SMB – Small and medium sized businesses.
- Stickiness – the amount of time spent on a website.
- Sticky post – On WordPress, you can choose a post to be at the top of the page so it’s the first one users see even if it’s not the most recent.
- TLD – Top level domain. For www.briefmarketer.com it’s “.com”
- Tracking code – Code that is included in the end of a URL to track analytics of that campaign or ad.
- Traffic – The amount of people visiting your site.
- Tripwire – A micro-commitment of a small dollar offer that makes it more likely someone will buy a high-priced item.
- URL – Uniform resource locator, the web address of a site.
- Usability – How easy it is for a user to navigate a site and find what is being looked for.
- UTMs – Urchin Traffic Monitor. Google’s traffic tracking system that attaches to the end of urls. For example: www.briefmarketer.com/?utm_source=tbm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=brief&utm_content=issue1
- UX – User experience, what type of experience does your user have when interacting with your product or site?
- Viral – A piece of content that becomes extremely popular through sharing.
- Warm audiences – People who are familiar with your brand. They may be on your email list, following you on social media, or have visited your website.
- Webinar – Originated from web seminar. A great way for information to be shared and learned by people around the world.
- Website custom audience – An audience on Facebook that you can serve ads to based on the pages they’ve visited on your website.
- White hat SEO – The accepted methods of SEO.
- Word-of-mouth marketing – When a customer has a positive experience with a brand and spreads the word and recommends them to other people.
- WordPress – A content management system that is available as wordpress.com (free, hosted version) and wordpress.org (self-hosted version).
- WordPress plugins – Programs that easily integrate into the WordPress framework to perform actions or functions without needing to edit any code. Similar to a widget or an app.
- Workflow – A set of triggers and events that automatically make actions happen. Email example – If someone shows interest in shoes by clicking a certain link in a an email, they are automatically placed in a shoe interest list. Or whenever someone is added to a newsletter list, they automatically receive a welcome email.
- XML Sitemap – a file that can be used to publish lists of links on your site in hopes of a search engine to learn about the entire site.