Marketing Glossary

4Ps of Marketing

The 4Ps of marketing are product, price, place and promotion: the four decisions you control when you take something to market. They only work together.

A/B Testing

A/B testing compares two versions of a page, email or ad to find which performs better. One variable changes at a time; everything else stays identical.

Ad Rank

Ad Rank determines whether your Google ad appears and where. It combines bid with quality and context, so the highest bidder doesn't always win.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

Answer engine optimization structures content to be the direct answer to a question, targeting featured snippets, voice results and AI summaries.

Average Order Value (AOV)

Average order value is the mean revenue per transaction. Raising it is often cheaper than acquiring new customers, and it directly improves ROAS and profit margin.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate measures how many visitors leave a website without interacting. GA4 replaced it with engagement rate, flipping the framing from failure to success.

Brand Archetype

A brand archetype is a personality template drawn from Jungian psychology that gives a brand a consistent character. It guides tone of voice and storytelling.

Brand Architecture

Brand architecture organises a company's brands and products into a coherent hierarchy. It determines which names share equity and which stand alone.

Brand Equity

Brand equity is the commercial value a brand name adds beyond the product itself. It shows up as pricing power, customer loyalty and cheaper acquisition.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is the set of things a business controls to be recognised: name, logo, colours, type, packaging and voice. Its job is to be spotted fast.

Brand Journalism

Brand journalism is newsroom-style reporting published by a company, covering its industry and customers with journalistic rigour rather than promotional intent.

Brand Positioning

Brand positioning is the specific place a brand chooses to hold in a customer's mind compared with rivals, and the one reason it gives people to choose it.

Break-Even ROAS

Break-even ROAS is the minimum return on ad spend needed to avoid losing money. It is calculated from gross margin and changes everything about how you set camp.

Canonical Tag

A canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the original when multiple URLs contain similar content.

Cart Abandonment

Cart abandonment is when a shopper adds items to an online cart and leaves without buying. Recovering abandoners is one of the highest-ROI activities in e-commerce.

Challenger Brand

A challenger brand competes against category leaders not by matching their resources but by being more opinionated and single-minded about a clear position.

Churn Rate

Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop buying or subscribing in a given period. It is the most direct measure of customer loss.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of people who clicked after seeing your ad or listing. It measures whether your message earned the click.

CLV Calculation (CLV)

CLV calculation quantifies the total margin a customer generates over their lifetime, accounting for purchase frequency, retention rates and the time value of money.

Cohort Analysis

Cohort analysis groups users by a shared starting event and tracks their behaviour over time. It reveals whether retention is improving or quietly getting worse.

Community-Led Growth

Community-led growth uses an active customer community to drive acquisition, retention and product development, rather than treating it as a support function.

Content Audit

A content audit is a systematic review of every piece of content on a site to decide what to keep, improve, consolidate or remove based on performance and relevance.

Content Cluster

A content cluster groups interlinked pages around one topic: a pillar page covering it broadly, with cluster pages going deep on each subtopic.

Content marketing wins customers by publishing things your audience genuinely wants to read, watch or use. It builds slowly, then pays back for years.

Content Pillar

A content pillar is a core theme a brand commits to publishing on consistently. It defines what you're known for and organises all related content under it.

Content Repurposing

Content repurposing transforms existing content into new formats for different channels. Done well, it multiplies reach without multiplying production effort.

Contribution Margin

Contribution margin is revenue minus variable costs, showing what each unit sold contributes toward fixed costs and profit before overhead is deducted.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the share of visitors who complete the action you wanted. It is the multiplier that makes every other marketing number better or worse.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization is the practice of increasing the share of visitors who complete a goal through structured testing and evidence-based page changes.

Conversions API (CAPI)

The Conversions API sends conversion data server-to-server, from a business's own infrastructure to an ad platform, bypassing browser tracking limitations entirely.

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are Google's three page experience metrics: speed, interactivity and visual stability. They are a ranking signal and a user experience measure.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition (CPA) is what a campaign or channel spends to produce one tracked conversion, such as a sale, sign-up or lead. It is a channel metric.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

Cost per click (CPC) is what you pay each time someone clicks your ad. It is the price of attention, and it sets the floor on what your traffic costs.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Cost per lead is total marketing spend divided by the number of leads generated, showing how efficiently a campaign converts spend into prospects.

Cost Per Mille (CPM)

Cost per mille is the price per 1,000 ad impressions. It is the standard pricing unit for display, video and social advertising, and the baseline for comparing.

Creator Economy

The creator economy is the ecosystem of independent creators who build audiences and monetise them directly, bypassing traditional media intermediaries.

Cross-sell

A cross-sell is an offer of a related product alongside what a customer is already buying. It raises order value by solving an adjacent need in the same moment.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total spend required to win one new customer. It is the number that decides whether growth is sustainable.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is the total profit a customer generates across their whole relationship with you, not just their first purchase.

Dark Social

Dark social is web traffic that arrives with no referrer data, typically from links shared in private channels like WhatsApp, SMS, email or direct messaging apps.

Direct to Consumer (D2C)

Direct to consumer (D2C) means a brand sells straight to its customers through its own website, app or stores, with no retailer or distributor in between.

Distinctive Brand Assets

Distinctive brand assets are sensory cues, colours, shapes, sounds or characters that reliably trigger a brand in memory without the brand name being present.

Double Opt-In

Double opt-in requires subscribers to confirm their address before joining your list. It filters out bad addresses and produces a more engaged, cleaner list.

Drip Campaign

A drip campaign is a series of pre-written messages sent automatically on a schedule or triggered by behaviour. Each message serves the stage the recipient is in.

Dynamic Product Ads (DPA)

Dynamic product ads automatically show each viewer the products they browsed or added to cart, using a product catalogue to personalise the creative in real time.

E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness: the qualities Google's raters use to judge whether content deserves trust.

Email Authentication

Email authentication is a set of technical protocols, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, that verify a sender's identity and tell mail servers whether a message is legitimate.

Email Deliverability

Email deliverability is whether your emails reach the inbox or land in spam. It is shaped by sender reputation, technical authentication and list hygiene.

Email marketing is sending messages to people who asked to hear from you. It is the one major channel you own outright, with no algorithm deciding reach.

Email Segmentation

Email segmentation divides your list into groups and sends each group more relevant content. It consistently improves open rates, click rates and revenue per email.

Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is the share of people who interact with your content through likes, comments, shares or saves. It shows whether a post earned a response.

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content stays useful long after you publish it, because the question it answers doesn't expire. It earns traffic and links month after month.

First-Click Attribution

First-click attribution assigns all conversion credit to the first channel a customer encountered, treating every subsequent touchpoint as irrelevant to the sale.

First-Party Data

First-party data is information collected directly from your own customers. It is the most reliable data available to marketers as third-party cookies disappear.

Frequency Capping

Frequency capping limits how many times a single user sees the same ad within a set time window, protecting both budget and audience goodwill from overexposure.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Generative engine optimization (GEO) means getting your content cited as a source inside answers written by AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Go-to-Market Strategy

A go-to-market strategy is the plan for how a product reaches its first customers. It defines the target audience, positioning, channels and pricing before launch.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google Analytics 4 is Google's current analytics platform, built on an event-based model. It replaced Universal Analytics in 2023 and tracks users across devices.

Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a process of rapid, low-cost experimentation across marketing and product channels to find the fastest route to user or revenue growth.

Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing uses unconventional, low-cost tactics in unexpected places to generate outsized attention. It trades media budget for surprise and shareability.

Hreflang

Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and region a page targets, so the right version appears in the right country's results.

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

An ideal customer profile (ICP) defines the type of company most likely to succeed with your product and stay long-term. It is a B2B targeting framework.

Impression Share

Impression share is the percentage of times your ad appeared out of all times it was eligible to appear. It shows how much of the available auction you are winning.

Incremental Lift

Incremental lift is the share of sales or sign-ups your marketing actually caused, measured against a control group that never saw the campaign at all.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing uses people with established audiences to promote a brand. It works because the creator's credibility transfers to the recommendation.

Keyword Match Type

A keyword match type is the setting that decides how closely a search must match your keyword before your ad can show. It controls both reach and waste.

Last-Click Attribution

Last-click attribution assigns all conversion credit to the final channel a customer touched before purchasing, treating every earlier interaction as irrelevant.

Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of building a relationship with a prospect over time until they are ready to buy. It moves leads from awareness to decision.

Lookalike Audience

A lookalike audience is a targeting group that an ad platform creates by finding users who share traits with your existing best customers.

Marketing Attribution

Marketing attribution assigns credit to the touchpoints that contributed to a conversion. It shows which channels and activities are actually driving revenue.

Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER)

MER is total revenue divided by total marketing spend, giving a single blended number for how efficiently the entire marketing portfolio converts spend to revenue.

Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel maps the stages people pass through from first hearing about you to buying. Useful for planning, misleading if you take it literally.

Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)

Marketing mix modeling uses historical sales and spend data to estimate each channel's contribution to revenue. It works without cookies or user-level tracking.

Mental Availability

Mental availability is how easily a brand comes to mind when a customer is about to buy. It is built through consistent brand associations over time.

Meta Pixel

The Meta Pixel is JavaScript placed on your website that tracks visitor behaviour and sends data to Meta for targeting and conversion measurement.

Multi-Touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution distributes conversion credit across multiple touchpoints in a customer's journey, rather than crediting only the first or last interaction.

Open Rate

Open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that get opened. It has become an unreliable metric since Apple Mail Privacy Protection began inflating counts.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an ad model where you pay only for clicks. It powers search, social and display ads, and rents traffic rather than owning it.

Performance Max (PMax)

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that automates placement across all Google channels using machine learning.

Pillar Page

A pillar page is a comprehensive guide to a broad topic that links to detailed cluster content under it. It is the structural centre of a topic cluster strategy.

Product-Market Fit

Product-market fit is the degree to which a product meets a real market need, shown by strong retention, organic growth and customers who recommend it.

Purpose-Driven Marketing

Purpose-driven marketing connects a brand to a cause or belief beyond profit. It builds loyalty with customers who share those values, but fails when the purpos.

Quality Score

Quality Score is Google Ads' 1–10 diagnostic for how well your ad and landing page match search intent. Higher scores typically mean a lower cost per click.

Rebranding

Rebranding changes a brand's identity, positioning or both to fit a new direction or audience. It ranges from a logo refresh to a complete strategic overhaul.

Repeat Purchase Rate

Repeat purchase rate is the percentage of customers who buy from you more than once. It measures how well you convert one-time buyers into returning customers.

Performance Marketing Full guide

Retargeting

Retargeting shows ads to people who already visited your site or engaged with your brand. Google calls it remarketing. Warm audiences convert at lower cost.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend (ROAS) measures how much revenue you earn for every unit of currency spent on advertising. It is the core efficiency metric in paid media.

Schema Markup

Schema markup is structured data in a page's HTML that tells search engines what the content means. It enables rich results like star ratings and FAQs in search.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the work of getting your pages found, understood and ranked in unpaid search results when people want what you offer.

Search Intent

Search intent is the goal behind a search: what the person actually wants to do. Match it and you can rank. Miss it and the right keyword will not help.

Sender Reputation

Sender reputation is a score mailbox providers assign to your sending IP and domain based on past email behaviour, determining whether messages reach the inbox.

Server-Side Tracking

Server-side tracking sends conversion data directly from your server to ad platforms, bypassing browser limitations that block or degrade client-side tracking.

Short-Form Video Marketing

Short-form video marketing uses vertical videos under 60 seconds on Reels, TikTok and Shorts to reach audiences organically.

Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding is Google's suite of automated bid strategies that use machine learning to optimise for conversions or conversion value at the moment of each auction.

Social Commerce

Social commerce is selling products directly inside a social media platform, from product discovery through to payment, without leaving the app.

Social Listening

Social listening analyses online conversations about your brand, competitors and industry to surface trends, sentiment and opportunities that inform strategy.

Statistical Significance

Statistical significance measures whether a test result reflects a real difference or just random variation. It determines when you can trust a test result.

STP Marketing (STP)

STP marketing is a three-stage framework: segment, target, position. It brings strategic discipline to who you serve and what you want them to believe.

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is content that demonstrates expertise and a distinct point of view, positioning the creator as a trusted authority in their field.

TOFU, MOFU and BOFU

TOFU, MOFU and BOFU stand for top, middle and bottom of funnel: a framework for planning content across the full buying journey.

Topical Authority

Topical authority is the trust a website earns on a subject by covering it deeply and in an organised way, so search engines treat it as a go-to source.

Transactional Email

Transactional emails are automated service messages triggered by a user action, such as a receipt, password reset or shipping notification. Not marketing.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

A unique selling proposition is the specific reason a customer should choose you over any alternative. It fails when it is vague or equally true of competitors.

Upsell

An upsell is an offer to buy a better version of something a customer has already decided to purchase. It raises order value without acquiring a new customer.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content (UGC) is content about your brand made by customers, not by you: reviews, photos, videos and posts that people trust more than ads.

UTM Parameters

UTM parameters are tags added to a link that tell your analytics tool where a visitor came from, which campaign sent them and through which channel.