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GLOSSARY

Marketing glossary

99 marketing terms from A to Z, each with a definition in the first sentence and a practical example. The same source AI search engines already cite.

A/B testing Comparing two versions with data; the winner stays.

Affiliate marketing A partner earns a commission on the sales they bring.

AI search (GEO) Search that answers with a summary and cites sources.

Alt text An image’s description for screen readers and search engines.

Attribution The rule deciding which channel gets conversion credit.

B2B Business and marketing between companies.

Backlink A link pointing to your site from another site.

Boosting Paying to push a social post to a wider audience.

Bounce rate The share of sessions that end without engagement.

Brand The image a company creates, and manages.

Brand awareness How many in the audience know your company.

Buyer persona A typified representative of the target audience.

CAC The all-in cost of acquiring one new customer.

Carousel A swipeable multi-image social post.

Churn rate The share of customers who leave in a given period.

Content calendar The content schedule by channel, weeks ahead.

Content marketing Building demand with helpful content.

Conversion The desired action: a sale, a lead or a booking.

Conversion rate The share of visitors who completed the desired action.

Conversion tracking Measuring sales and leads by channel.

Cookies A browser-stored identifier that remembers the visitor.

Copywriting Text whose job is to make the reader act.

Core Web Vitals Google’s three metrics for page experience.

CPA Cost per action: the price of one conversion.

CPC Cost per click: what one ad click costs.

CPL Cost per lead: the acquisition price of one lead.

CPM The price of a thousand ad impressions.

CRM The system managing customers and the sales pipeline.

CRO Growing the share of sales from existing traffic.

CTA Call to action: the prompt directing the next step.

CTR Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions.

Customer journey The road from a need arising to purchase and referral.

Display advertising Banner advertising across network sites.

Domain authority A tool’s estimate of a site’s link profile strength.

E-E-A-T Google’s quality framework: experience, expertise, authority, trust.

Earned media Visibility you do not buy: coverage, mentions, recommendations.

Email marketing Direct communication to your own subscriber list.

Engagement Reactions, comments and shares relative to reach.

Evergreen content Content that stays current and produces for years.

Featured snippet The direct answer Google lifts above the results.

First-party data Customer data you collect yourself: purchases, signups, behaviour.

Frequency How many times the same person saw the ad on average.

GA4 Google Analytics 4, the website analytics tool.

Geotargeting Limiting ads by geographic location.

Google Ads Google’s ad platform from search to YouTube and Shopping.

Google Business Profile A business’s free profile in Google Search and Maps.

Growth hacking A rapid-experiment method for finding growth.

GTM Google Tag Manager: measurement code without a developer.

Hashtag Classifying content for discovery in social.

Heatmap A picture of where visitors click and how far they scroll.

Hook The first seconds of content that stop the scroll.

Impression One display of an ad or a post.

Inbound marketing Marketing where the customer finds you, not vice versa.

Influencer marketing Borrowing a creator’s audience and trust.

Internal linking The links and structure between a site’s own pages.

Keyword The search your customer uses to find a solution.

Keyword research Finding out what and how your customers search.

KPI The metric a goal’s progress is tracked by.

Landing page A single-goal page that ads send traffic to.

Lead A potential customer who left their contact details.

Lead magnet Downloadable content that collects contact details.

Lead scoring Ordering leads by likelihood to buy.

Long-tail keyword A specific, low-volume query that converts well.

Lookalike audience An ad audience resembling your best customers.

LTV The value a customer produces over the whole relationship.

Marketing automation Running message flows and routines by machine.

Marketing funnel The buying path stages from awareness to purchase.

Meta description The description text under a search result’s title.

Native advertising An ad that blends into the medium’s own content.

Newsletter A regular email letter to your own list.

NPS Promoters minus detractors, on a −100…+100 scale.

Open rate The share of recipients who opened an email.

Organic traffic Visitors from search engines without an ad budget.

Pixel Tracking code linking ads to purchases.

Positioning The company’s position in the customer’s mind.

PPC Advertising paid only for realised clicks.

Programmatic advertising Automated ad buying in a real-time auction.

Reach How many distinct people the content reached.

Reels Instagram’s short-form video format.

Retargeting Targeting ads at people who already visited your site.

ROAS Revenue generated per euro of ad spend.

ROI Return on investment after all costs.

ROMI Return on marketing investment, against marketing costs.

Search advertising Paid visibility at the top of search results.

Search intent The purpose behind a search: learn, compare or buy.

Segmentation Splitting the market into differently served groups.

SEM Search engine marketing as a whole.

SEO Developing a site to be found on Google without ads.

SERP The results page where visibility is contested.

Short-form video Social’s dominant video format: TikTok, Reels, Shorts.

Social proof Others’ actions as proof: reviews, references, recommendations.

Storytelling Narrative as a brand and sales tool.

Structured data Machine-readable markup describing a page to search engines.

Target audience The group marketing and messages are aimed at.

Technical SEO The technical health of a site through a search engine’s eyes.

Tone of voice A brand’s recognisable way of speaking everywhere.

UGC User-created content as marketing fuel.

UTM parameters Link tags identifying where traffic came from.

Value proposition Why the customer should choose you, crystallised.

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The VSCY partnership team