In any business niche, profession, hobby, sport, or pastime there will be terminology, terms, and jargon used which, for the most part, is known only to those who participate within them. That applies as much to digital marketing as it does to anything.
For example, ask a digital marketer what a Panenka penalty kick is, and they will shake their head. Ask a football player what A/B testing means, and you will see an equally puzzled look. Incidentally, a Panenka penalty kick is named after Antonin Panenka, the first player to score a penalty by chipping the ball into the middle of the goal as the goalkeeper dived to the side. Great if it works, hugely embarrassing if the goalkeeper does not move and takes an easy catch.
So, now that we have established that these niche-specific terms exist, here are 10 of them relating to digital marketing that the experts at Slinky Digital put together for us, and anyone who wishes to create a digital marketing campaign for their business should be aware of.
A/B Testing: Just in case anyone reading does not know what A/B testing is, it is setting up two variables and testing them at the same time to see which performs better. Examples are email subject lines, sales page headlines, calls to action. The process can continue so that each A/B test is continually improving the results.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Whether from an email, a Google/Facebook ad, or a sales page, the click-through rate is the percentage of people who clicked the link in them. For example, if 500 people were sent an email and 50 of them clicked on the link within, the CTR would be 10%.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAXC): CAC is what a business calculates it costs it to acquire each paying customer, and also to retain them if they have a recurring product or service. The cost will include all marketing and sales activities.
Customer Lifetime Value (CTV): Many businesses thrive because they have customers who do not make one purchase, they make several over time. A business can use data to determine how much on average is spent by customers over a lifetime.
Site Audit: This is mainly done for SEO. SEO tools can audit a website’s SEO such as its metadata, keywords, and also its internal and external links. The data created allows the site owner to take steps to better optimise their website for rankings.
Bounce Rate: A measure of many visitors to a website clicked away or ‘bounced’, without spending any reasonable amount of time there, nor clicking through to other pages. This is a measure you want to be as low as possible as if too high, Google will lower your rankings.
Segmentation: This can be applied to customers, subscribers lists and leads. It involves assessing the attributes and actions of each one and then applying a label that segments them into various groups. This allows marketing and sales messages sent to be more relevant and more likely to see them take action.
Cost Per Click (CPC) / Cost per Mille (CPM): We have taken these together as they are both are used within paid advertising, such as Google Ads. CPC is what you pay for each click from your ad. CPM, with the ‘M’ meaning 1 thousand, is the cost you pay for every 1,000 impressions your ad receives.
SERPs: This stands for Search Engine Results Page, and is simply the page of results that Google and the other search engines generate for any search term which is entered. Every conceivable keyword or keyword phrase has its own SERP.
Sales Funnel: if you imagine a funnel with the widest part being where leads and prospects begin and the funnel narrowing at each stage towards sales there will be fewer people, however, the value to the business of that customer increases. Sales funnels are also referred to as sales journeys or conversion paths.