Welcome to the ultimate guide of marketing ‘slang’. Step one to successful marketing is understanding the acronyms, what they mean and the importance. We can guarantee that these words will be around, so save this guide to your favorite places!  

AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

Four-Step process consumers go through before making a purchase.

Why it’s important: AIDA leads customers through a logical process – critical to the buyer’s journey with emotional interest and closing deals. 

• What is it? 
• I like it. 
• I want it. 
• I’m getting it.

B2B: Business to Business

Advertising as a business to another business or a commercial transaction between businesses.

Why it’s important: Digital B2B advertising helps increase lead generation, thought leadership, marketing education and customer acquisition.

B2C: Business to Consumer

Advertising as a business to end consumers or a transaction between a business and customer.

Why it’s important: Increases conversion and brand awareness – enables businesses to connect with audiences to increase conversion rates and sales.

BANT: Budget, Authority, Needs, Timeline

4-step process sales representatives use to quickly decide if a buyer has the budget, authority, need, and timeline for their product.

Why it’s important: Allows salespeople to quickly evaluate and spend time selling to customers who are further along in the path-to-purchase.

BR: Bounce Rate

Percentage of people who land on your website and leave without clicking anything. A high bounce rate can lead to low conversion rates.

Why it’s important: Allows you to see if your website is effective or not. If you have a high bounce rate that is a sign that your website may be hard to navigate or unhelpful to most people.

CMS: Content Management System

Software used to create and edit a website.

Why it’s important: A CMS helps a business create, manage and optimize a digital experience for customers. Non-technically minded people can use a CMS without having to outsource to web developers.

CPA: Cost per Action

Metric to measure how much your business is paying in order to attain an action, or conversion – click, view, purchase, etc.

Why it’s important: Understanding CPA is essential for brands to measure the profit from paid advertising. The ideal CPA is different for every business, there is no set value.

CPC: Cost per Click

Actual price advertisers pay for each click in pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns.

Why it’s important: CPC is how advertisers decide how financially successful their advertisement campaign is. If your company were to run an advertisement on a website you would only pay when your advertisement is clicked on.

CPL: Cost per Lead

An online pricing model for advertising where the advertiser pays a pre-established price for each lead generated.

Why it’s important: CPL allows brands to optimize campaigns based on what they are willing to pay for a lead – this typically includes the contact information for the lead.

CPM: Cost per Mile

A metric used to measure the price of an advertisement per one thousand impressions or clicks.

Why it’s important: This is a way to compare all mediums of advertising. It compares how much it is costing you to get one thousand impressions for each- i.e. magazine ad vs tv ad. The lowest CPM is the most effective.

CR: Conversion Rate

Used to describe when a customer takes a desired action such as signing up for an email list or making a purchase.

Why it’s important: A way for you, as a business, to measure the success of a campaign.

High CR = Success

Low CR = Consider changing your current strategy to see if something else might work better.

CRM: Customer Relationship Software

A way to track your relationship with your customers.

Why it’s important: This allows your business to create a stronger relationship with your clients. Once this relationship is created there is a sense of loyalty therefore the customers continue to come back creating more revenue for you.

CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization

The process of converting your website using design to increase your conversion rates.

Why it’s important: Creating a visually appealing website will increase the number of consumers who take a desired action on your website, i.e. adding to their cart, making a purchase or visiting your website again.

CTA: Call to Action

A graphic, pop up icon, or button encouraging a customer to engage with your website.

Why it’s important: This is a way for you as the business to communicate with your customer about what to do next. A pop up icon saying “signup now for 15% off your next purchase” gives your customer encouragement to take the next steps creating a higher conversion rate.

CTR: Click through Rate

The ratio of people who click a link to the number of total users who view an ad, page or email.

Why it’s important: CTR allows you to understand your customer better. You are able to find what works and what doesn’t by seeing what your customers clicked on. 

DM: Direct Message or Direct Mail

A private message sent to one person or a group of people on social media or by mail. 

Why it’s important: DMs help you to create a better relationship with your customers. This allows you to quickly and casually engage with your clients.

GA: Google Analytics

A software provided by Google that generates statistics about your website traffic.

Why it’s important: You can monitor your website and its effectiveness by understanding your customer’s behavior.

IBL: Inbound Links

A link from a third party website that sends customers to your website.

Why it’s important: When inbound links come from high-quality and relevant sites, they can provide credibility and authority for your potential customer. 

KW: Keyword

What customers type into the search engine to find what they are looking for.

Why it’s important: Keywords tell the search engine what you as the customer are looking for and an idea of who you are. Together these will provide high-quality search results.

KPI: Key Performance Indicator

Performance measurement to demonstrate how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.

Why it’s important: KPIs allow you to:

• Monitor company/campaign health
• Measure progress
• Analyze patterns over time
• Optimize
• Solve problems

LP: Landing Page

A standalone web page created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign.

Why it’s important: Landing pages lead customers to a specific page designed to encourage them to take action. 

MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead

A customer who has been qualified by the marketing team and passed to the sales team.

Why it’s important: MQLs have been nurtured and have a higher chance of converting to customers.

PR: Public Relations

The practice of managing and guiding perceptions.

Why it’s important: Public relations builds relationships with media, investors, community and potential and current customers.

PV: Pageview

An instance of a page being loaded in a browser – a metric defined as the total number of pages viewed.

Why it’s important: Helps determine what content is viewed and how valuable it is. Allows brands to determine effectiveness and optimization opportunities.

ROI: Return on Investment

A performance measure used to evaluate the success or profitability of an investment.

Why it’s important: Understanding your ROI will help determine which areas need improvement to achieve your goals.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing

Divided into two categories SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PS (Paid Search).

• SEO: The process of creating more traffic with keywords, tags and inbound links.
• PS: A tactic where the advertisers pay search engines for ad placements.

SM: Social Media

Websites and applications for users to share and create content and  participate in social networking – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc.

Why it’s important: Allows brands to have conversations with customers from anywhere – not only creating awareness but also creating leads, sales and revenue.

UX: User Experience

The overall experience your customer has with your business.

Why it’s important: User experience is important because this will determine whether or not your customers will come back creating more revenue for you. If the customer has a good experience it can create positive reviews for you spread through word of mouth.

WOM: Word of Mouth

Communication between two people about a business or product.

Why it’s important: Word of mouth carries more weight than any other advertisement you could do for your company. People trust people.