Digital Marketing Glossary

A

A/B Testing – A method for comparing performance between two ideas. A/B tests are conducted by creating two versions of something (website, ad campaign, social media post) that are identical except for one variable. For example, Variant A might be the same webpage as Variant B with only a different headline. Whichever webpage earns the best performance after an A/B testing period determines the better headline.

Adwords – The old name for Google’s owned advertising platform. It’s now rebranded as ‘Google Ads.’

Algorithm – The coded, behind-the-scenes rules that make digital marketing platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising operate. Algorithms perform functions like calculating the results of the ad auction to determine where ads will be placed on the search engine results page (SERP), or analyzing website content to determine ad relevance.

The Google search algorithm is what determines the order organic search results are returned based on a website’s domain authority and historical user behavior.

Ad Manager – The platform used to run ads on the Meta Ads Network. This includes Facebook and Instagram.

Analytics (Google Analytics) – A Google-owned platform that collects information about web users and their behavior. This allows digital marketers and webmasters to see how users experience their content so they can identify areas for optimization.

Attribution – Attribution is the credit given to different digital touchpoints along a user’s conversion path. For example, a Last Click attribution model will assign conversion credit only to the final action before conversion. The default attribution model in Google Ads and Google Aanalytics 4 is called Data-Driven attribution, which uses machine learning to assign credit to each touchpoint on the user journey.

Auction – An instantaneous competition that occurs when a user submits a Search Engine query or visits a website with Display ads. The auction determines which advertisements are shown, and which get favorable positioning. Competing in the auction is impacted by 3 factors: Bid, ad quality, and the impact of extensions and other ad formatting. 

Audience (specific to Facebook and Google Ads) – Audiences are segments of users grouped based on analytic characteristics. These can be interest groupings, like people interested in Employment, or behavioral groupings, like people who visited a website within a certain time frame.

Average Position – A number that tells advertisers where in the search engine results page (SERP) their advertisement appeared. The very first result on a SERP is average position 1. Adjusting bids and improving ad quality score can be used to increase average position.

A website organic listing ranking varies based on relevance to the search query, and searcher location. The average position is where your site listing ranks for that keyword for all searche 

B

Backlink – A link to your website coming from another website. The more other websites link to your website, the more “popular” it will be. Backlinks are good to have, particularly from other popular websites with high domain authority.

Bid – The amount you’re willing to pay for each click on your ad, based on the keyword that triggered the ad. Bid amounts can be set manually or automated. Bid adjustments can be applied to many kinds of user segments.

Bid Strategy – Bidding strategies change how Google Ads determines the cost of a click, based on the keyword that triggers an advertisement. Some are manual bidding strategies in which the user must set and change the keyword bids. Others are automated strategies in which the Google Ads algorithm sets and maintains keyword bids based on advertising goals. There are 12 bidding strategies available:

• Target CPA (cost per acquisition) – An automated bidding strategy. Google determines keyword bids based on a user-defined target Cost Per Conversion. Enter a Target CPA and Google does the rest.

• Target ROAS (return on ad spend) – An automated bidding strategy. Google sets keyword bids based on a user-defined Target Return On Ad Spend. This requires conversions to be assigned a specific value for the algorithm to compare against your cost. The user defines Target ROAS in terms of a % return. (For example, $2 in profit generated by $1 of ad spend is a 100% ROAS).

• Maximize Conversions – An automated bidding strategy. Google sets keyword bids trying to deliver the maximum number of conversion results for your daily budget.

• Enhanced Cost Per Click – A hybrid bidding strategy. The user sets keywords bids manually, and Google takes some liberties with increasing and decreasing bids contextually.

• Maximize Clicks – An automated bidding strategy. Google sets keywords to drive the maximum number of clicks possible for your daily budget.

• Manual CPC Bidding – A manual bidding strategy. The user is responsible for setting and adjusting keyword bids. This gives the user the most control, but requires the most work in upkeep.

• CPM Bidding – A manual bidding strategy where the user bids on 1,000 impressions instead of clicks. This bidding strategy is only available for ads on the display network and Youtube. 

• vCPM Bidding – A manual bidding strategy where the user bids on 1,000 viewable impressions instead of clicks. A viewable impression is counted if at least 50% of the ad is on screen for more than 1 second. This bidding strategy is only available for ads on the display network and Youtube. 

• CPV Bidding – A manual bidding strategy. The user sets a bid for maximum cost per video view. This bidding strategy is only available for video ads.

• Target Impression Share – An automated bidding strategy. Google sets keyword bids in order to make your ads reach as many users as possible.

Bing Ads (Microsoft Ads) – The old name for the Microsoft-owned advertising platform that advertisers use to place ads on the Microsoft network. Microsoft recently rebranded the platform as Microsoft Ads.

Black Hat/White Hat SEO – Black Hat SEO includes tactics and strategies that focus only on the search engine and not the end user. Many of these often nefarious tactics are outdated as Google has gotten better at recognizing and penalizing their use. Examples include: keyword stuffing, hidden text, buying links or link farms, sneaky redirects, and other spammy or malicious behavior.

White Hat Seo is the opposite of black hat and focuses firstly on the end user (human readers). It is using tactics and practices that follow the rules and maintain the integrity of your website to achieve higher search rankings. Examples include: high-quality and unique content, mobile friendly site, fast load speeds, keyword-rich (not stuffed) language, site structure and navigability, and legitimate high-authority backlinks. Both of these terms are outdated and rarely used.

Bounce Rate – the percentage of users who come to your website and leave after viewing only one page, and taking no action. Regardless of the page the user lands on (home, service, blog, etc.), the user will leave (“bounce”) rather than continue on to other pages, or take actions on the page. A good bounce rate depends on the industry and if the traffic is organic or paid, but 40-60% is common. Blogs tend to have much higher bounce rates than service pages.

Buyer Persona – A representation of your target customer based on market research and existing customer data. Buyer Personas consider demographics, behavior, motivations, pain points, goals and purchasing habits.

C

Campaign – The highest level of your ad account’s structure. Campaigns typically contain multiple Ad Groups that share theme, budget, and settings like location or demographic targeting.

Citations – Online references to your business’s main information, often in directories. Citations usually contain at least your business name, address, and phone number (NAP), but can also include hours of operations, business descriptions and categories, logos or images, email addresses, and social media links. Local citations are especially important for local businesses to ensure their potential customers get accurate information. They are also important from an SEO perspective because Google tracks them. Having a lot of accurate citations from high-quality sources can positively influence your search rankings.

Click-Through Rate – The percentage of users who saw your ad or organic listing and clicked it. For example, if ten users saw an advertisement and one of those users clicked it, the Click-Through Rate would be 10%. This metric is a good indicator of your ad’s effectiveness at driving traffic.

Conversion – This metric tells you how many times your users completed a goal. Conversions can take many forms: Phone calls, emails, purchases, and contact form submissions are all examples of Conversion behavior.

Conversion Rate Optimization for PPC – Tailoring your advertising strategy to maximize the number of conversions relative to traffic.

On-Site Conversion Rate Optimization: Making on-site changes to content, design, and other elements in an effort to increase website conversions.

Copywriting – Writing in a way that prompts people to take action. Often persuasive in nature, copywriting is used in sales promotions, advertisements, product pages, web pages, or other marketing materials. For websites, it refers to the writing of pages, blogs, product listings, online advertisements, or other online content. Often used interchangeably with “content” writing, the “copy” is the text within the publication.

Cost Per Click – A type of advertising strategy where you pay only when your advertisement is clicked. The CPC for an ad tells you how much money you spent per click- this can be altered by adjusting bids.

Cost Per Conversion/Acquisition – This metric divides the amount of money spent on PPC ads by the number of conversion results, informing you how much each result cost on average. Commonly abbreviated as CPA or Cost Per Acquisition, because the acronym CPC is taken by Cost Per Click.

Cost Per Impression (CPM) – The price to the marketer every time an ad is served to a user. This pricing structure is more common for traditional media, because advertisers pay based on the size of the audience the ads are being served to rather than actions like Clicks. 

CSS – is a language that is used to apply styling to HTML content. It can be used to set colors and sizes for fonts, change background colors and even structure content into multiple columns.

CTA/Call to Action – Any tactic designed to prompt an immediate response by the user. Calls to Action like “Call Now” and “Read More” are used to encourage specific valuable actions.

D

Data-Driven Model – An attribution model that assigns conversion credit based on which touchpoints in a user’s conversion journey were the most influential. This model uses machine learning and requires a lot of data to work. Best for accounts with a minimum of 15,000 clicks over 60 days.

Direct Traffic – When a user goes directly to your website by entering the URL of your website into a search browser or through a bookmark on their browser. Sometimes if Google can’t determine the source of the traffic to your site it will classify it as direct. For example, sometimes if a user visits from social media, a PDF or offline document, email, or is experiencing browser issues, the traffic will be classified as direct. 

Display Advertising – Text, image, animation and video ads that appear on third-party websites, blogs, videos and apps instead of Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS). Display ads focus on visual creative and are often used for Retargeting campaigns.

Domain Authority – (DA) a score given to a website out of 100 that can help determine how well it will rank in organic search results. DA does not affect your search engine rank, but rather is a good tool for approximating how competitive a given site is in the Google search results. It is a tool developed by Moz and gives domains a score between 0-100 based on numerous SEO factors, particularly a website’s link profile (how many backlinks you have). Examples of high DA sites include Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia. DA is a comparative tool and therefore should be used to compare your website’s score with your direct competitor’s score, rather than sites like Google and Facebook.

Domain Name – Purchased from a registrar and contain the unique IP address of a website. Put simply, whatever occurs between the “www.” and “.com”. However, a website doesn’t have to have “www” which is called a subdomain. And “.com” could also be “.org” or “.gov” which is called a top level domain. Sandwiched in between is your domain name. Here are a few examples with domain names in bold: 

http://www.rubberchickens.com https://fuzzywatermelon.co.uk https://www.purplepanda.net 

DNS – Often called the phonebook of the Internet, DNS records or Domain Name System records translate people-friendly domain names to computer friendly IP addresses. DNS records are what allows your website to show up when a user visits your domain.

Duplicate Content – The same, or very similar, content that appears on more than one page. Google describes it as “appreciably similar” content, and it is bad for SEO purposes because it can be difficult for search engines to determine which version is more relevant to search queries, thus hurting both pages chances of ranking. Unfortunately it’s more common than you think, with approximately 29% of the web being duplicate content. SEO best practices means every page of your site should have unique content.

E

Extensions – Ad extensions are used in Google Ads to take up more real estate in the SERP and display supplemental information about your business, like address, phone number, site links, reviews.

• Call Extensions – Allows you to include a phone number underneath the advertisement so users can call directly from the SERP. Important for mobile optimization.
• Callout Extension – Allows you to add small additional details underneath the description text. These can boost ad relevance and include new selling points.
• Location Extensions – Allows you to attach business location details to your ads, like address, a location map, or distance to your location.
• Sitelink Extensions – Allows you to include links to multiple web pages so users can navigate to a variety of pages straight from the SERP. Great for CTR.
• Structured Snippet Extension – Allows you to list additional information underneath your ad within certain categories, like ‘Brands,’ ‘Courses,’ ‘Types.’ There are 13 structured snippet options available.

Email Marketing/Automation – Email Marketing is the process of collecting customers and potential customers emails and reaching out to them with sales, promotions, product information, services offered, or other useful information. Softwares exist to help automate the email marketing process and can integrate with your CRM or website. Examples of emails that can be automated include: receipts post purchase, review requests, sign up welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and scheduled promotional emails for potential customers in your marketing funnel.

F

First-Click Model – An attribution model that assigns conversion credit to the first click in a user’s journey before that user converts. This model is useful when analyzing performance for top-of-funnel advertisements, like campaigns designed for awareness. 

G

Goals/Goal Tracking – Goals are the desired outcomes you wish for a user to take while on your site. This can be a contact form submission, a product purchase, a click to call phone number, or anything else you wish to track in Google Analytics. Goal tracking measures how many users complete your desired goal. When users complete a goal, it is called a conversion.

Google Ads – Previously known as Google Adwords, recently rebranded to Google Ads. This is the interface that allows for users to create and monitor Google Search, Youtube, Display and Shopping ad campaigns.

Google Analytics – A tool used to measure visitors to a website. Data is collected by Google about users during each interaction with your website and its pages. This data includes demographic information, how a user arrived at your website, what pages they viewed, and what goals they may have completed while on the site. It is useful for understanding how users interact with your site and can influence decisions to improve the performance of the site. A tracking code needs to be added to your website. 

Google My Business (GMB) – A tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online local presence across Google. GMB is useful for providing detailed and up to date company information to help customers find you and tell them about your business. GMB is an important component of local SEO, particularly for small businesses to manage their local business listings. 

Google Search Console – A service offered by Google to help maintain, monitor, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in the Google Search results. Search Console is used to monitor web traffic to your site, ensure your website gets indexed, and troubleshoot issues with Search features. The most common use of Search Console is to view traffic data to your site such as how often your site appears in the search results, which search queries show your site, and how often searchers click through for those queries.

Google Tag Manager (GTM) – A tool offered from Google that allows you to easily manage and install tags on your website. Tags are snippets of code or tracking pixels, which are small amounts of code that can be inserted into the full program code of a web page. Each tag serves a particular purpose. For example, a Google Analytics (GA) tag inserted into the code of a page will ensure that GA is tracking and collecting data on that particular page. Other tags like Facebook Pixel will track site visitors and allow you to retarget those user with Facebook ads in the future. These and other custom HTML tags can be centrally managed from a GTM account to ensure the code is properly inserted into a website, minimize mistakes, and improve the speed at which tags can be implemented.

H

Heatmap – A tool used in analytics to showcase how a visitor interacts with your webpage. It shows where a user clicked or scrolled on a page. A light-to-dark color scale is used to visually represent this data. For example, when viewing a heatmap you will see a picture of your webpage with red spots indicating where users clicked and darker blue spots where they didn’t.

HTML – is a markup language that is used to structure your web content. For example, it can be used to add headings, paragraphs or links and embed images or videos on a page.

I

Impressions – An impression is counted every time your ad or organic listing is shown. One impression means one view.

Impression Share – The number of impressions an ad received divided by the estimated number of impressions it was eligible to receive. High impression share means that an advertisement is shown more often than competitors’.

Information Architecture – The way information is structured, organized, and labeled on a page with the intention of helping users find what they are looking for.

J

Javascript – Javascript is a programming language that is used alongside HTML, CSS and others to build your website. It can be used to implement dynamic behavior, create animations and control events on your site.

K

Key Performance Indicator – Key Performance Indicators, or KPI’s, are the metrics that best reflect how your ads are performing relative to your goals. Conversions and Cost Per Conversion are common KPIs.

Keyword – An important concept for both PPC and SEO. In PPC, your keyword list tells the search algorithm when to serve your ads. If a search engine recognizes your chosen keyword inside a user’s search term, your ad will appear if your bid for that keyword is high enough.

For SEO purposes, keywords are used to indicate to search engines what a particular page is about. They are what connect a search query to the content on your page. By using specific and relevant keywords on your page, you can match your content with what users are searching for, thus increasing your chances of being found in the search results. 

L

Landing Page/Landing Page Optimization – The destination pages that users are sent to after clicking an advertisement or URL link. Landing page optimization consists of improving elements on the page to increase desired results and refine the user experience.

Last-Click Model – An attribution model that assigns conversion credit to the final click before the user converts. This is the default model. It is straightforward and a good option for more simple campaigns, but does not tell a complete story about the conversion funnel.

Linear Model – An attribution model that assigns conversion credit equally to all channels that contributed to the conversion funnel. Let’s say a customer clicked a paid search ad, then clicked a social network remarketing post, and finally navigated directly to our website and made a purchase. Each of the four digital touchpoints would receive 33% of the credit under a Linear Attribution Model.

Local Listings – An online listing of your business or organizations main information. This includes name, address, phone number (NAP) as well as other information often found in a directory like Google, Yelp, or Bing. There are hundreds of different directories for local listings, many of which are free, but need to be claimed. Claiming local listings and optimizing them can help local customers find you.

Lookalike Audiences – Most commonly used on Facebook, a group of users that has been compiled based on their similarity to another group. For example, Facebook’s algorithm can detect shared characteristics of people who have clicked on an advertisement, and create a new audience for the ad based on those characteristics.

M

Match Types – Match types help determine whether or not your Keywords will trigger an advertisement for a user’s search term. The different match types allow you to more precisely control what type of user should see your ad.

• Broad Match – This keyword match type casts the widest net. Broad match keywords will match with search terms that are misspelled, synonyms and any search that the algorithm determines related enough. 
• Broad Modified Match – This keyword lies in between broad and phrase match. 
• Exact Match – Keyword match type is the most specific, you ad will show only when the search query matches exactly the keyword you’re bidding on.
• Phrase Match – your ad will show only when the search query includes the exact phrase of your keyword (or close variations of it) but can have additional words surrounding the phrase.

Meta Description – An HTML attribute that serves as a short description of what your page is about. It appears underneath your title and URL on the search engine results page and helps searchers understand what your page is about.

Meta Tag – Tags located within the head section that serve to provide structured metadata about a page. This is additional information about your page that is served directly to search engines (not visible on page) so they can better understand what a page is about. For example, a page’s description (See Meta Description), author, language, and date are attributes within the Meta Tag.

N

Nameservers – Nameservers hold the DNS records that connect a domain name to an IP address, or in other words, point your domain name to your website. Nameservers can be located where you registered your domain (your domain registrar), with your website host, or with a 3rd party like Cloudflare. Your web developer will be familiar with nameservers, and will occasionally ask for access to them.

O

Organic – ‘Organic’ refers to web traffic that was earned without paid advertising. Users navigating directly to your site without seeing an ad, or visiting your website through an organic search result are both examples of Organic traffic.

Organic Ranking – When a search is performed in a search engine like Google, two types of results are served: paid and organic. Paid results, simply are the ones that websites are paying for to appear higher up on the page. The organic results are the rest of the results that Google deems most relevant to your search query and serves to you in the order that it sees fit.

P

Paid Search – A marketing method where you pay for your website to appear in the paid advertising sections of relevant search engine results pages. Advertisers compete for higher placement on results pages by setting bids on the keywords they want to serve ads for.

Paid Social Advertising – Using a social media platform like Facebook or Youtube for serving paid advertisements to users.

Placement – Areas on the web that a display ad was shown to users. Placements can be used to target specific locations on the Google Display Network or YouTube. Depending on which network placements could be 

• An entire website 
• A specific page of a site
• A mobile app 
• A YouTube channel 
• A specific video

Position-Based Model – An attribution model that assigns a specific amount of conversion credit to each step in a user’s conversion journey. The first and last clicks get 40% each. Any clicks in between will be assigned an equally divided portion of the remaining 20%.

PPC/Pay Per Click Advertising – An online advertising model wherein advertisers pay a publisher (like Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising) every time a user clicks their ad.

Q

Quality Score – A ranking assigned to your PPC advertisements based on relevance to keywords, landing page quality and Click-Through Rate. High quality scores are favored by search algorithms and will reduce Cost Per Click.

R

Reach – Reach is the measurement of how many unique individuals, households, devices etc. that were exposed to an ad. This term differs from Impressions because one user can count for multiple Impressions.

Relevance – A scoring method in Google Ads that measures how closely related your keyword is to your advertisements. Ads can get a relevance score of Above Average, Average, or Below Average. This is one of three metrics that contributes to your Quality Score.

Retargeting – Digital marketers use retargeting to serve ads to users on the display network who have previously visited their website without taking an action. 

Remarketing – Advertising platforms like Google Ads allow for remarketing audiences to be generated based on a wide variety of characteristics such as email addresses, or demographics and for unique ads to be served to those audiences.

Return On Investment (ROI) – The monetary value derived from an investment. This takes into account all expenditures and is more complicated than the Cost Per Conversion. Digital ads may drive conversions like phone calls, but the Return on Invest often relies on whether the leads translate into a sale or other valuable action. 

S

Schema Markup – The language of search engines. Schema is structured data that uses a semantic vocabulary to serve up information directly to search engines. Basically it is code that you put on your website not intended for human-readers, but for Google to read. It gives context to the content on your site and helps Google better deliver your content to users in the search results. 

SEM/Search Engine Marketing – A way of increasing visibility, traffic, engagement, and conversions to a website. Search engine marketing is a broad term for digital marketing and includes both paid (Paid Search) and unpaid (SEO) methods. SEO, PPC, and Social Media Marketing all fall under the category of SEM.

SEO/Search Engine Optimization – A way of increasing the quality and quantity of organic traffic to a website. Optimizing a website means making sure search engines can read and understand the content and users that arrive to your site will find it relevant and useful. Many different factors affect a websites ability to rank highly in the SERPs, and some carry more weight than others.

SERP / Search Engine Results Page – A Search Engine Results Page is the list of information and links that are provided to a user after entering a search term into a search engine. Submitting a search to google will result in a SERP being displayed.

Sessions – Any interaction a user has with your website during a specific amount of time. For example, pages viewed, events/clicks, forms submitted, and purchases are all possible interactions with your site during a session. Sessions by default end after 30 minutes of inactivity on a site.

Snippet – A small description or excerpt from a page. Typically a snippet in SEO is one Google listing which includes the Title, URL, and Meta Description. It can also refer to a small amount of text or source code in a programming language.

SSL certificate – Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate is a digital certificate that says your website is secure. It means your website is able to accept personal and sensitive information and encrypt it in a way that protects the users information. It allows for a secure connection between the server and web browser. Browser now require websites to have an SSL certificate. The “s” in https indicates that a website is secure.

T

Time Decay Model – An attribution model that assigns conversion credit to all steps in a user’s conversion journey, but gives more credit to the steps near the end of the funnel.

Tracking Code – A small script placed in a websites code. The tracking code allows software tools to gather information from the website. Implementing tracking code is a key step to utilizing Google Analytics.

U

UI/User Interface – UI refers to the look and layout of a website. Good User Interface will facilitate a desired path the user should take while on your website. It combines elements like color and fonts, buttons, animations, and other tangible visual elements on the page to focus on the look and function of your website.

Unique Visitors – The number of unique individuals visiting your site, regardless of how many times they visit. For example, a person who visits your website 5 times from the same IP address, in the same browser, without clearing their cookies, and within a given period is considered 1 unique visitor. Unique visitors are tracked by IP address and cookies. If, for example, a person visits your site 3 times on their laptop and 2 times on their phone, it is calculated as 2 unique visitors.

URL – Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the entire website address including the protocol, subdomain, domain name, top-level domain, and path. The website protocol is http or https, “s” for secure. The subdomain is www. The domain name follows after. The top-level domain is .com, .gov, .edu, .net, or similar endings. The path is the particular folder, category, or page within the main domain. An example would be:

Users – A person with a unique IP address engaging with digital content. Digital strategy centers around improving the User experience.

User Flow – The path user’s take on your website to complete a task. This includes the order of pages visited by a user. In Google Analytics it’s a geographical representation of which pages were visited, which goals were completed, and where a user exited your site.

UX/User Experience – User Experience (UX) is the process of creating and providing a meaningful and relevant experience to users. For websites this can include things such as ease-of-use, functionality, navigation, speed, relevance to the searcher’s intent, and responsive design. Good UX design encourages and enhances the user’s interaction with your website, leaves a positive impression with your business, and enables them to complete the goal you wish for them to complete when visiting your site. 

V

Visits – Also referred to a sessions, visits are a metric used to determine how many times a user has visited pages on your website. Visits can be used alongside conversion rate to understand how well your site is performing and where to make improvements.

W

Website Hosting – A server where your website files and information are stored. 

WordPress – is a Content Management System, or CMS that is used to build websites. WordPress is a popular choice amongst Web Developers because it allows them to build highly customizable websites that are easy for non-technical users to add content to.

X

XML Sitemap – An XML sitemap is like a map of your website for search engine crawlers. It can help to tell browsers like Google which pages or content are the most relevant to your site, and give more information about them.

Y

Z