Talking The Talk

With the sheer volume of acronyms and abbreviations used in the marketing industry, it can be difficult for a newcomer to feel in the loop to the jargon-y conversations that often take place between marketers and client teams. But with the ever-evolving nature of the industry and a continuously growing list of terms to keep up with, even seasoned marketing veterans can feel out of the loop in conversations relevant to their business. At times, it can feel like there is a new important term or abbreviation cropping up every week as new technologies and solutions emerge.

Below is a list of some important and highly-relevant phrases that can potentially pop up in discussions centered around marketing:

• B2B: Business-To-Business.

  • A business that promotes products or services to other businesses, rather than to individuals.

• B2C: Business-To-Consumer.

  • A business that promotes products or services to individual consumers, rather than to businesses.

• CDP: Customer Data Platform.

  • A system that aggregates customer data from multiple sources to create a single view of the customer. Often used for segmentation, journey personalization, and analytics.

• CPA: Can mean either Cost Per Acquisition or Cost Per Action and are sometimes used interchangeably.

  • CPA can be used to discuss the cost related to acquiring (or converting) a new customer or used to speak to the cost related to driving a user to complete a specific important action, such as completing a form fill, signing up for a newsletter, or completing a sale. It is helpful to clarify a CPA definition used in discussion to avoid miscommunication given the difference in what the abbreviation can mean.

• CPC: Cost Per Click.

  • Most commonly used in paid search advertising and other channels that price on a per-click basis.

• CPM: Cost Per Mille.

  • Generally used to express as the cost per thousand impressions. Please note that “mille” is of Latin origin meaning thousand and is not an abbreviation for “million.”

• CRM: Customer Relationship Management.

  • A system used to organize, analyze, and manage the interaction points with a customer by sales, marketing, and customer service teams.

• CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization.

  • Optimizing the user experience, or website features, to increase the rate at which users convert, or complete a desired action.

• CTA: Call To Action.

  • Messaging or a prompt used to guide users towards completing a desired action. Example: “Join our mailing list!”

• CTR: Click-Through Rate.

  • An engagement metric that calculates the percentage of users that click an ad after seeing it.

• DSP: Demand-Side Platform.

  • A programmatic buying platform that allows users to automate the purchase of ad inventory.

• DTC: Direct To Consumer, also represented as D2C.

  • A B2C business strategy where companies sell and ship their products directly to consumers, rather than leverage intermediaries like retailers.

• KPI: Key Performance Indicator.

  • A measurable value defined to track progress toward the most valuable and impactful goals for a business objective or campaign.

• LTV: Lifetime Value. Sometimes represented as CLTV for Customer Lifetime Value.

  • The amount of revenue a customer is expected to generate over the lifetime of their relationship with a company.

• GA: Google Analytics.

  • A Google-owned analytics service used to track web and app performance and user engagement data.

• GTM: Go-To-Market or Google Tag Manager.

  • Go-To-Market strategy: The roadmap detailing how a company plans to launch a new product or service to customers.

  • Google Tag Manager: A Google-owned tag management service used to deploy and manage tags, enabling the use of analytics tools and data pass-back to marketing platforms. Click HERE for a deeper dive into Google tag Manager.

• KOL: Key Opinion Leader.

  • An individual who is an expert or highly respected in a field or niche, whose insights and opinions are influential among their community.

• ROAS: Return on Ad Spend.

  • A metric evaluating the return generated specifically from advertising spend. Typically represented as Revenue from Ads / Ad Spend.

• ROI: Return on Investment.

  • A metric evaluating the profitability of a campaign or investment. Typically represented as (Net Profit / Cost of Investment) x 100.

• SEM: Search Engine Marketing, also called paid search.

  • Website promotion where a site’s visibility in a search engine results page is improved through paid advertising.

• SEO: Search Engine Optimization.

  • The process of enhancing a website and its content to improve its ranking on organic search engine results pages.

• SERP: Search Engine Results Page.

  • The results displayed to a user for a given search query.

• SQL: Structured Query Language.

  • A programming language used to manage and manipulate databases.

• SSP: Sell-Side Platform.

  • Platforms used by publishers to help manage and sell their available advertising inventory to maximize revenue.

• UI: User Interface.

  • The visual and interactive elements of a product that a user engages with.

• UX: User Experience.

  • The overall user journey and way a user feels when engaging with a product or service, such as a website or app.

This list can go on and on, but these terms can serve as a solid primer to frequently used acronyms and abbreviations in the marketing world. If you have any questions or would like clarity on a specific abbreviation or acronym that you’ve encountered, please leave a comment or reach out.