You landed a new job in a big marketing firm and you are excited. On day one, it seems like your co-workers are speaking a different language. Someone asks about the SERP. Another employee is talking about the new SEO company on the 3rd floor. The CMO walks by and asks for the latest ROI report. You realize that you’ve got a lot to learn. Like it or not, acronyms are part of the marketing world. These abbreviations are often convenient and helpful in a fast-paced work environment. It’s important to understand them in order to operate in business and communicate effectively with your fellow employees and to understand what is expected of you. While some acronyms are specific to certain businesses, there have become acronyms that are used as marketing terms industry-wide.
The first, and most important acronym in the digital marketing field is SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to your website by helping your website appear higher on search engines. There have been entire businesses created for the sole purpose of search engine optimization, as this is extremely important in our digital world. The SERP is the Search Engine Results Page, which is the page that contains all of the results of your search, and that is self-explanatory. Bounce Rate, or BR, is a term used to describe a person who goes to your website and leaves without engaging. B2B refers to interactions that take place between two businesses (business to business), and B2C is the same idea, but refers to interactions between businesses and customers (business to customers).
Pay per click, or PPC, is when a person clicks on an ad and because of the click, the advertiser gets paid. The cost per click, or CPC, refers to the price the advertiser pays the publisher for each click their ad receives. These are both measurement terms and are important to measure when evaluating your on-line marketing dollars. Conversion Rate (CR) refers to the number of people who completed the desired action on a website. CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is the process of optimizing your website in an effort to get more conversion rates. This would include changing things like design, layout and colors of your website. These are important things to consider.
An ROI, or return on investment, represents the return you get on your marketing investment or the results of your advertising budget. A CTR, or click through rate, is a way to measure the number of clicks a link gets per number of impressions. CTA, or call to action, is a marketing term that is a word or phrase that encourages immediate action. For example, “download our free app” or “click to buy now to take advantage of our sale price.” A key performance indicator, or KPI, is a term used to describe the success of a specific project and its effectiveness. This also helps to measure the performance of your marketing and helps to evaluate the result of your marketing dollars spent.
Google analytics, or GA, refers to the service offered by Google that provides tools to digital marketers. This is made available to anyone with a Google account. UX stands for User Experience. This is the experience the user has with a website. There are jobs in the field that solely concentrate on UX, and creating the best on-line experience for people. When a positive experience is created, people tend to return to the website and spend money. Content Management System (CMS) is a program used to edit and publish content for websites. Again, it is critical to create a good experience for the user. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a term used to measure the number of visitors who convert on an action you as the marketer have defined. An example of that would be “click here” or “enter your email” or “learn more.” Cost per mille (CPM) is a term used to understand how much cost there is for your ad to be viewed by 1,000 users.
SM (Social media) and SMM (Social Media Marketing) are simple acronyms used to talk about social media and the job of promoting a product or service. UI (User Interface) refers to users interacting with a website. This could include placement of buttons, going to a different page on the website and layout. BP (Buyer Persona) refers to the ideal buyer for your product or service. There is a lot of data used to determine this. QS (Quality Score) is Google’s rating of relevance for both your keywords and pay-per-click ads. CPL (cost per lead) is the cost for your business to get leads. These leads can come from different places.
PV (Page Views) refers to the number of impressions and or page views your website has received. PR (Public Relations) refers to the positive public image or positive relationships developed by your company. CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) stands for the executive at your company that is over the marketing department, and the one who is responsible for the marketing decisions. AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) refers to a 4 step purchase funnel. ARPA (Average revenue per account) or the average revenue generated by a specific customer account. CLTV (Customer Life-Time Value) refers to the prediction of the net profit of the future relationship with one customer.
There are even more acronyms in marketing than those listed above. The 30 that are defined above are some of the most important to understand when you begin working in the industry. So don’t panic if you feel like you don’t understand this crazy language. The longer you work in the industry, the more you will understand and be able to communicate with your co-workers. More acronyms are sure to come in this digital age. With new technologies and measurement tools being created for marketing professionals there will always be more to grasp, but that’s all part of the fun. This ever changing, ever expanding business of digital marketing is a great adventure that comes with it’s own language in acronyms.