Glossary · 252 terms
Decoding the Jargon.
Half the difficulty in digital marketing is the vocabulary. Often you understand the idea perfectly well; you just don't recognise the label someone has put on it. Here is what each term means, what it's used to decide, and where even experienced marketers misread it.
Start with the numbers that change decisions
Some terms are labels. These ones change what a business does next. Each has a worked story and a calculator you can run with your own numbers.
Performance marketingCalculator
ROASReturn on Ad SpendROAS tells you how many rupees of sales your ads brought in for every rupee you spent on them. It is a sales ratio, not a profit figure.Read and calculate →Performance marketingCalculator
CACCustomer Acquisition CostThe average cost of winning one new paying customer. It usually includes all marketing and sales costs, not only ad spend.Read and calculate →Performance marketingCalculator
LTVLifetime ValueThe total a customer is expected to bring you over the whole time they keep buying. It can be counted as revenue or, more usefully, as gross profit.Read and calculate →Performance marketingCalculator
Conversion rateThe share of visits, clicks or people who take the action you want, such as buying. In Google Ads it is conversions divided by ad interactions.Read and calculate →Performance marketingCalculator
CTRClick-Through RateThe share of people who clicked your ad after seeing it: clicks divided by impressions. It shows how relevant and appealing the ad was to the people who saw it.Read and calculate →Performance marketingCalculator
CPMCost Per Mille (cost per thousand impressions)What you pay for every 1,000 times your ad is shown. Mille is Latin for thousand. It is the usual price of attention on Meta, YouTube and display.Read and calculate →Social mediaCalculator
Engagement rateThe share of people who interacted with a post, out of a base you choose. The base can be reach, followers, impressions or video views, and the result changes a lot depending on which one you use.Read and calculate →SEOCalculator
Organic CTROrganic Click-Through RateThe share of times your page was shown in Google's unpaid results that ended in a click. Search Console calculates it as clicks divided by impressions.Read and calculate →AutomationCalculator
Open rateThe share of delivered emails that were recorded as opened. Email tools count an open when a tiny tracking image in the email loads, which makes the number less reliable than it looks.Read and calculate →Every term, A to Z
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301 redirectA server response that sends people and search engines from an old URL to a new one permanently. Google uses it as a strong signal that the new URL should be the canonical one.404 errorThe status code a server returns when a page does not exist. If a page that was indexed starts returning 404 (or 410, gone), Google drops it from the index. A few 404s are normal on any site.95:5 ruleThe idea, set out by Professor John Dawes of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for the LinkedIn B2B Institute in 2021, that only about 5% of B2B buyers are in the market in any given quarter, so around 95% are not buying now but will buy later. It argues for reaching future buyers, not just current ones.A
A/B testAn experiment where you show two versions of something, such as a page, ad or email, to randomly split groups and compare which performs better on one measure.Abandoned cart flowAn automated message, or short series, sent to someone who added products to an online cart but left without paying, reminding them of what they left behind.Ad auctionThe process that runs each time an ad could be shown, deciding which ads appear and in what order. On Google and Meta it weighs your bid together with the ad's quality and relevance, not bid alone.Ad creativeThe content of an ad that people actually see or hear: the image or video, the headline, the text and the call to action. Targeting decides who sees an ad; the creative decides whether they care.Ad RankThe set of values Google uses to decide whether your ad is eligible to show and where it appears. It takes in your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, Ad Rank thresholds, the context of the search and the expected impact of assets.Ad scheduleA setting that chooses the days and hours your ads can run, and lets you raise or lower bids for particular times.Ad setThe middle level of a Meta campaign. The campaign holds the objective, the ad set holds the audience, placements, budget and schedule, and the ads inside it are the creatives people see.Advantage+Meta Advantage+Meta's set of automation features for ads, where Meta's system decides on audience, placement, budget or creative choices in place of manual settings. It ranges from single features such as Advantage+ audience to largely automated campaigns.AEOAnswer Engine OptimisationIndustry term for making your content easy to pick up as a direct answer, in AI tools such as ChatGPT or Google's AI Mode, and in answer boxes on search results. It is a label for practices, not a separate Google system.AI agentAI software that pursues a goal by planning steps and taking actions on its own, using tools and other systems, rather than only answering one question at a time.AI OverviewsAI-generated summaries that Google shows at the top of some search results, with links to the sources it drew on. Google says there are no extra requirements or special optimisations to appear in them beyond normal SEO best practice.AI-generated contentText, images, audio or video made wholly or partly by generative AI tools. Platforms and search engines judge it mainly on quality and honesty, and some require AI labels on realistic images or video.AIDAAttention, Interest, Desire, ActionA classic model for structuring persuasive copy: first get attention, then build interest, then create desire, then ask for action. It is credited to the American advertising writer E. St. Elmo Lewis around the start of the twentieth century.Algorithm (feed ranking)The set of ranking systems a platform uses to decide which posts each person sees and in what order. Instagram says it does not have one single algorithm; Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore each rank content using signals such as what you have liked, shared, saved and watched.Alt textA short written description of an image, added in the page code. Screen readers read it aloud, and Google uses it, with the page text, to understand the image.Anchor textThe visible, clickable words of a link. They tell people and Google what the linked page is about.AOVAverage Order ValueThe average amount a customer spends in one order.AssetsThe building blocks of an ad in Google Ads: headlines, descriptions, images, videos and extra details such as sitelinks, call buttons, prices and locations. Google used to call the extra details 'extensions'.AttributionThe method of deciding which ads, clicks or channels get credit for a sale or other conversion.Attribution modelThe rule a platform uses to share credit for a conversion among the ads or channels a customer interacted with. Google Ads now offers data-driven and last-click models; GA4 offers data-driven and last-click options.Attribution windowThe period after someone clicks or views an ad during which a conversion can be credited to that ad. In Google Ads the default click-through conversion window is 30 days.Audience retentionHow well a video holds its viewers over its length. YouTube shows it as a graph of the share of viewers still watching at each moment, and as an average percentage viewed.Average positionIn Search Console, the average of the topmost position your site or page held in Google results, across the searches where it appeared. Position 1 is the top result.Average view durationThe average amount of time viewers spent watching a video. YouTube calculates it from engaged views and their watch time.B
B-rollSupporting footage cut into a video over the main shot (the A-roll), such as close-ups of products, hands at work or the setting. It adds context, hides cuts and keeps the video visually moving.BacklinkA link from another website to yours. Google uses links as one way to discover pages and judge their relevance and importance; links bought to manipulate rankings break its spam policies.BidThe most you tell the platform you are willing to pay for a click, an impression or a result. You are usually charged less than your bid, because the price depends on the auction.Bid strategyThe rule that sets your bids in each auction. You can set bids yourself (Manual CPC) or let Google or Meta set them automatically towards a goal such as clicks, conversions, a target cost per conversion or a target return on ad spend.Boosted postAn existing post on your Facebook Page or Instagram account that you pay to show to more people, set up from the app with a budget, audience and duration. It is a simpler way to advertise than building a campaign in Ads Manager.BounceAn email that could not be delivered and came back. A hard bounce is permanent, such as an address that does not exist. A soft bounce is temporary, such as a full mailbox or a server that is briefly down.Bounce rateIn GA4, the percentage of sessions that were not engaged. An engaged session lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event, or has two or more page or screen views.Brand building vs sales activationTwo jobs marketing does. Brand building creates lasting memories and preference among many people, and pays back slowly. Sales activation prompts people who are ready now to buy, and pays back quickly.Brand liftA measure of how much your ads changed what people think, such as ad recall, awareness or consideration, found by surveying people who saw the ads and a group who did not.Brand voiceThe consistent personality of a brand in words: the kind of language, attitude and values that stay the same everywhere it speaks.Breakeven ROASBreakeven Return on Ad SpendThe ROAS at which your ads stop losing money. The simple version only covers the cost of the products sold; the fuller version also covers your fixed costs.Broadcast listA saved list of contacts to whom you can send the same message at once. Each person receives it as a normal one-to-one chat. Only contacts who have saved your number in their phone receive it.Budget pacingHow the platform spreads your budget across the day and month. In Google Ads, a campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget on a busy day, but over a month it will not charge more than 30.4 times that daily budget.Buyer personaA short, semi-fictional profile of a typical buyer, built from research: who they are, what they need, what worries them and how they decide.C
CACCustomer Acquisition CostThe average cost of winning one new paying customer. It usually includes all marketing and sales costs, not only ad spend.CAC payback periodCustomer Acquisition Cost payback periodHow long it takes for the gross profit a customer brings to cover what it cost to win them.Campaign objectiveThe business result you tell Meta you want from a campaign, chosen when you create it: awareness, traffic, engagement, leads, app promotion or sales. The objective shapes who Meta shows the ads to and how it optimises.Canonical tagA tag that tells Google which URL you prefer as the main version when several URLs show the same or very similar content. Google treats it as a strong hint, not an order, and may pick a different canonical.CarouselA single post that holds several photos or videos which people swipe through. It is used for step-by-step guides, product ranges and before-and-after content.Category entry pointsThe situations, needs and moments that make someone start thinking about buying in a category, such as 'need an outfit for a wedding' or 'it's raining and my shoes are soaked'. Linking your brand to more of them raises mental availability.CDPCustomer Data PlatformSoftware that collects customer data from many sources (website, app, store, email, ads) and joins it into one profile per person, so other tools can use the same picture.ChatbotSoftware that holds a text or voice conversation with people, answering questions or completing simple tasks. Older chatbots follow fixed rules and menus; newer ones use AI to understand free-form questions.Churn rateThe share of customers you had at the start of a period who stopped buying or cancelled during it. For a shop without subscriptions you decide what 'stopped' means, such as no purchase in six months.Citations (local)Any online mention of a business's name, address and phone number, full or partial, such as in local directories, maps apps, review sites or social profiles. A citation does not need a link.Click rateThe share of delivered emails in which the recipient clicked at least one link. Mailchimp calls this click rate; some tools call the same thing click-through rate.Click-to-open rateClicks as a share of the people who opened an email. It shows how well the content persuaded the people who saw it, separate from how well the subject line got it opened.COGSCost of Goods SoldThe direct cost of the products you sold in a period, such as buying or making them. It does not include rent, salaries or advertising.Collab postAn Instagram post or Reel published jointly by two or more accounts. It appears on each account's profile and is shown to the followers of all of them, with shared likes and comments.Community managementThe day-to-day work of replying to comments and messages, handling complaints, welcoming new followers and keeping conversations on your pages healthy. It is the human side of running a social account.ConsentUnder India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, consent to process someone's personal data must be free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous, given by a clear affirmative action, and limited to the data needed for the stated purpose (Section 6(1)).Content auditA structured review of all the content you already have, to decide what to keep, update, merge or remove. It is usually done in a spreadsheet with one row per piece and its performance.Content calendarA schedule showing what content goes out, on which channel, on which date, and who owns it. It turns the content strategy into a weekly to-do list.Content marketing ROIContent Marketing Return on InvestmentWhat your content earns back compared with what it cost to make and distribute. Done properly, it uses profit, not just sales, and counts people's time as a cost.Content pillarOne of a few recurring themes your content is organised around. In SEO writing the term can also mean a long pillar page that links to related cluster articles.Content strategyThe plan for what content you will make, for whom, why, and how you will know it worked. It ties every post, video and article to a business goal and a defined audience.Contribution marginWhat is left from a sale after all the costs that rise and fall with each sale, such as product cost, shipping, packaging and payment fees. It is the money that goes towards fixed costs and profit.Conversational AITechnology that lets software understand what people say or type in everyday language and respond in a natural way. It combines language understanding with machine learning, and powers modern chatbots and voice assistants.ConversionAn action you have decided is valuable and told the ad platform to count, such as a purchase, a sign-up, a call or a WhatsApp click. Platforms use these tracked events to report results and to optimise bids.Conversion rateThe share of visits, clicks or people who take the action you want, such as buying. In Google Ads it is conversions divided by ad interactions.Conversions APIMeta's way of sending conversion events, such as purchases, directly from your server or e-commerce platform to Meta, instead of only from the visitor's browser through the pixel.CookieA small piece of data a website stores in your browser, used to remember things like a login, a cart or that you visited before. Analytics and ad tools use cookies to recognise returning visitors.CopywritingWriting words meant to make a reader do something: read on, enquire, sign up or buy. The 'copy' is the text itself, in an ad, a landing page, a caption or a WhatsApp message.Core Web VitalsThree Google metrics for real-user experience on a page: Largest Contentful Paint (loading, good at 2.5 seconds or less), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness, good below 200 milliseconds) and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability, good below 0.1). They are judged at the 75th percentile of page visits.Cost per engagementHow much you paid, on average, for each engagement on a promoted post. Meta reports it as cost per post engagement.CPACost per AcquisitionWhat you pay in ad spend, on average, for one conversion, such as a purchase or a sign-up. Google Ads shows it as cost per conversion.CPCCost Per ClickThe amount you pay, on average, for each click on your ad. In Google Ads, average CPC is total cost divided by total clicks; the actual charge per click is often below your maximum bid.CPLCost per LeadWhat you pay, on average, for one lead: a person who shares their contact details or makes an enquiry. A lead is not yet a customer.CPMCost Per Mille (cost per thousand impressions)What you pay for every 1,000 times your ad is shown. Mille is Latin for thousand. It is the usual price of attention on Meta, YouTube and display.CPVCost Per ViewWhat you pay for each view of a video ad. On YouTube in-stream ads, Google counts a view when someone watches 30 seconds (or the whole ad if it is shorter) or interacts with the ad, whichever comes first.Crawl budgetThe set of URLs on your site that Google can and wants to crawl in a period, shaped by how much your server can handle and how much Google wants your content. Google says it mainly matters for very large or fast-changing sites.CrawlingThe step where Google's automated programs (Googlebot) discover pages and download them, mostly by following links and reading sitemaps.Creative fatigueWhen an audience has seen the same ad so often that it stops responding, so results fall and costs rise. Meta flags it in Ads Manager when an ad set's creative is being shown too often to the same people.Creative testingRunning different ad creatives against each other in a controlled way to learn which message, format or hook works better. A fair test changes one main thing and gives each version enough budget to reach a reliable result.CreatorSomeone who regularly makes and publishes content for an audience on a platform, often earning from it through brand deals, platform payouts or their own products. Instagram offers a separate creator account type with its own tools.CRMCustomer Relationship ManagementA system that keeps one record per customer or prospect: contact details, what they bought, and every call, email or message with them. Teams use it to see the full history before they reach out.CROConversion Rate OptimisationThe practice of improving the share of visitors who take the action you want, by changing pages, offers, forms and checkout, usually tested with experiments.CTACall to ActionThe specific instruction that tells the reader what to do next, such as 'Book a trial', 'Message us on WhatsApp' or 'Shop now'. It is usually a button or a closing line.CTRClick-Through RateThe share of people who clicked your ad after seeing it: clicks divided by impressions. It shows how relevant and appealing the ad was to the people who saw it.Custom audienceOn Meta, an audience made of people who already know your business, built from sources such as a customer list, website visitors, app users or people who engaged with your content. Google's version for customer lists is called Customer Match.Customer retention rateThe share of customers you had at the start of a period who are still customers at the end, leaving out the new ones you added during it.D
Dark socialSharing that happens in private channels such as WhatsApp, DMs, email and text messages, which analytics tools cannot trace. Visits from these shares usually show up as direct traffic. The term was coined by Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic in 2012.Data-driven attributionAn attribution model that shares credit among the ads a customer interacted with, based on how those interactions relate to conversions in your account's own past data. It is the default for most conversion actions in Google Ads.DeliverabilityWhether your emails actually reach the inbox, rather than the spam folder or being blocked. It depends on authentication, sender reputation, complaints and how people engage with your mail.Display adsImage and responsive ads that appear on websites, apps and Google properties such as YouTube and Gmail while people browse. Google's Display Network is the set of sites and apps where these show.Distinctive brand assetsThe non-name elements that make people recognise your brand instantly, such as a colour, logo, shape, character, sound, jingle or tagline. They are judged on fame (how many people link it to you) and uniqueness (how few link it to anyone else).Domain Authority / Domain RatingScores from SEO tool companies that estimate the strength of a whole website, mostly from its links: Domain Authority from Moz (1 to 100) and Domain Rating from Ahrefs (0 to 100). They are third-party metrics; Google does not use them.Double opt-inA sign-up process where the person first submits their address and then must click a link in a confirmation email before they are added to the list.Drip campaignA pre-written series of messages sent automatically on a schedule after someone does something, such as joining a list. Each person moves through the series from their own start date.DSPDemand-Side PlatformSoftware advertisers and agencies use to buy ad impressions across many ad exchanges from one place. Google describes DSPs as helping buyers judge the value of each incoming impression and then bid to win it. Google's own DSP is Display & Video 360.Duplicate contentThe same or very similar content available at more than one URL, on your site or across sites. Google says some duplication is normal and not a spam violation; it picks one version as canonical and shows that one.Dynamic contentParts of an email, page or message that change automatically depending on who is viewing it, based on rules or data, while the rest stays the same.E
E-E-A-TExperience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, TrustworthinessA set of qualities Google's systems try to reward in content: first-hand experience, expertise, being a recognised source and, most of all, trustworthiness. Google says E-E-A-T is not itself a ranking factor, but its systems use a mix of signals that point to it.Earned media valueA rupee figure that estimates what the reach or engagement from organic or influencer content would have cost if you had bought it as ads. It is usually calculated as impressions times a CPM rate, sometimes plus a rupee value assigned to each engagement.Email listThe set of email addresses of people who have agreed to receive your emails, along with details like when and how they signed up.Employee advocacyWhen a company's employees share its content and news on their own social profiles, usually LinkedIn. Companies often run it as a program with ready-to-share posts.EngagementAny action a person takes on your content: likes, comments, shares or sends, saves, replies, poll votes, profile taps or link clicks. Each platform counts a slightly different set.Engagement podA group of accounts that agree to like and comment on each other's posts, usually coordinated in a chat group, to push engagement and try to get the posts ranked higher.Engagement rateThe share of people who interacted with a post, out of a base you choose. The base can be reach, followers, impressions or video views, and the result changes a lot depending on which one you use.EventIn GA4 and ad platforms, a record of something a user did on your site or app, such as viewing a page, adding to cart or buying.Evergreen contentContent that stays useful and relevant for a long time, rather than being tied to a date, offer or trend. It keeps bringing in readers or viewers long after it is published.F
Featured snippetA special result where Google shows a short extract from a page first, above or within the regular results, to answer a question directly. Google decides which page to feature; you cannot mark a page for it.First-party dataInformation you collect directly from your own customers and audience, such as purchase history, email addresses and phone numbers given with consent, and on-site behaviour.Follower growth rateHow fast your follower count is growing over a period, shown as a percentage. It uses net new followers, which is new follows minus unfollows.FrequencyThe average number of times each person saw your ad in a period. Meta describes it as the average number of times each account saw your ad, and it is calculated as impressions divided by reach.Frequency capA limit you set on how many times the same person can see your ads in a given period. Google offers it for Display and Video campaigns, and Meta offers frequency controls on some buying options.FunnelThe series of steps people go through from first hearing about you to buying, drawn as a funnel because fewer people reach each step.G
GA4Google Analytics 4Google's current web and app analytics tool. It measures everything as events and replaced the older Universal Analytics.Gated contentContent that people can access only after they give their details, usually a name, email address or phone number, through a form. Ungated content is free to view.GEOGenerative Engine OptimisationA label some agencies and tool vendors use for getting a brand cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google's AI features. It comes from a 2023 research paper. It is not a separate discipline: Google says the same SEO best practices apply to its AI features, so this is SEO work done with AI answers in view.Google Business ProfileGoogle's free listing for a business, shown in Google Maps and the map results in Search. It holds your name, address, phone, hours, photos, reviews and posts.Google Search ConsoleGoogle's free tool for site owners. It shows which queries bring impressions and clicks from Google Search, which pages are indexed, and problems with crawling, Core Web Vitals and structured data.Gross marginThe share of each sale left after paying for the product itself. It ignores rent, salaries, marketing and other costs.H
HashtagA word or phrase after the # symbol that groups posts on the same topic, so people can find them by tapping or searching the tag.Heading tagsHTML tags from H1 to H6 that mark the headings and sub-headings on a page, so readers and search engines can see its structure.HeadlineThe first, most prominent line of a piece of content or an ad. Its job is to make the right person stop and read the rest.Helpful contentGoogle's guidance that content should be made mainly to help people, not to attract search visits. Google asks site owners to check whether content shows first-hand expertise, satisfies the reader and would exist even without search engines.Hold rateThe share of people who got past the opening of your video and kept watching. A common version divides ThruPlays by 3-second video plays. Teams define it differently, so check which version is in use.HookThe first one to three seconds of a video, or the opening line of a post, designed to stop someone scrolling past. If the hook fails, nothing else in the content gets seen.Hook rateThe share of people shown your video ad who watched at least the first three seconds. It tells you whether the opening stopped the scroll. It is a practitioner metric, not a standard Meta column, so teams define it slightly differently; the most common version is below.I
ICPIdeal Customer ProfileA description of the type of customer, usually a company in B2B, that gets the most value from you and is most valuable to you. It is used to decide whom to target and whom to ignore.Impression shareThe percentage of impressions your ads actually got out of the total they were eligible to get. Google also reports why you missed the rest: lost impression share due to budget, and lost impression share due to Ad Rank.ImpressionsThe number of times your ad was shown. One person seeing your ad three times counts as three impressions.IncrementalityThe sales your marketing actually caused, beyond what would have happened without it. It is measured by comparing people who saw the ads with a similar group who did not.IndexingThe step where Google processes a crawled page, works out what it is about and stores it in its index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results, and Google does not index every page it crawls.Influencer tiersA way of grouping influencers by follower count. A common split is nano (1,000 to 10,000 followers), micro (10,000 to 1,00,000), macro (1,00,000 to 10,00,000) and mega (over 10,00,000). Agencies draw the lines a little differently.Internal linkA link from one page on your site to another page on the same site. Internal links help visitors move around and help Google find pages and understand which ones matter.K
Key eventIn GA4, an event you mark as especially important to your business, such as a purchase or a lead form submission. GA4 previously called these conversions.KeywordA word or phrase people type into a search engine that you want your page to appear for. Strictly, the query is what the person typed; the keyword is the phrase you chose to target.Keyword cannibalisationWhen two or more pages on your own site target the same keyword and intent, so they compete with each other and neither performs as well as one strong page would.Keyword difficultyA score from an SEO tool that estimates how hard it will be to reach the top 10 results for a keyword, mostly based on the links pointing to the pages already ranking. It is a third-party estimate; Google publishes no such score.L
Last-click attributionAn attribution model that gives all the credit for a conversion to the last ad or channel clicked before it.LeadA person or company that has shown interest and shared a way to contact them, such as filling a form or sending a message. They have not bought yet.Lead magnetSomething of real value offered in exchange for a person's contact details, such as a guide, checklist, template, calculator or free consultation. It is the reason someone joins your list.Lead nurturingStaying in useful contact with leads who are not ready to buy yet, by sending relevant content over time, so they remember you and move closer to a decision.Lead scoringA points system that ranks leads by how likely they are to buy. Points come from who they are (fit) and what they have done (engagement), and the total decides when sales should get involved.Learning phaseThe period after you launch or significantly edit a Meta ad set, while the delivery system explores how best to deliver it. Meta says ad sets usually exit learning after about 50 results in the week after the last significant edit; performance is less stable until then.Lift test / holdoutAn experiment that splits an audience into a group that can see your ads and a control group that does not, then compares their conversions to measure what the ads caused.Link in bioThe website link (or links) you add to your profile. On Instagram it is the main place to send people to a site, because links in normal post captions are not clickable.List growth rateHow fast your email list is growing after subtracting the people who left. It tells you whether sign-ups are keeping ahead of unsubscribes and complaints.List hygieneRegularly removing or suppressing addresses that hurt your sending: hard bounces, people who complained, and people who have not engaged for a long time.llms.txtA proposed file, placed at a site's root, that gives AI tools a short markdown summary of the site and links to its key pages. It was proposed in 2024 and is not an official web standard. Google's documentation says you do not need new machine-readable files or AI text files to appear in its AI features.Local packThe block of map-based business listings, usually three, that Google shows for searches with local intent, such as 'saree shop near me'. Google ranks them mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and says you cannot pay for a better local ranking.LocalisationAdapting content for a specific language, region or culture: language, examples, references, prices, dates and visuals. In India, vernacular content means content in Indian languages such as Marathi, Hindi or Tamil.Long-tail keywordA specific, usually longer search phrase with fewer searches each, but often clearer intent and less competition. Together, many long-tail searches can add up to a large share of traffic.Lookalike audienceA Meta audience of new people who share characteristics with a source audience you provide, such as your customers or website visitors. You choose how closely they should resemble the source.LTVLifetime ValueThe total a customer is expected to bring you over the whole time they keep buying. It can be counted as revenue or, more usefully, as gross profit.LTV:CAC ratioLifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost ratioHow many times over a customer repays what it cost to win them. It compares lifetime value with acquisition cost.M
Manual CPCManual Cost Per ClickA Google Ads bid strategy where you set the maximum CPC bid yourself for ad groups or keywords, instead of letting Google set bids automatically.Marketing automationSoftware that sends messages and runs marketing tasks on its own, based on rules you set once. It decides who gets what, and when, without someone pressing send each time.Marketing mix modellingA statistical method that uses past sales and spend data, usually weekly over a year or more, to estimate how much each channel contributed to sales, alongside factors like seasons, prices and festivals.Match typesSettings that decide how closely a search must relate to your keyword for your Google ad to show. Broad match (the default) reaches related searches; phrase match, written in quotes, needs the meaning of the keyword; exact match, written in square brackets, needs the same meaning or intent.Maximise conversionsA Smart Bidding strategy that sets bids to get the most conversions possible within your budget. You can add an optional target CPA to it.Mental availabilityHow likely your brand is to be noticed or come to mind when a buyer is in a buying situation. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute treats it, together with physical availability (being easy to buy), as a main driver of brand growth.MERMarketing Efficiency RatioTotal revenue divided by total marketing spend, across all channels. It ignores which ad gets credit for which sale.Meta descriptionA short summary of the page placed in its HTML. Google may show it as the text snippet under the title in results, or use text from the page instead if that fits the query better.Mobile-first indexingGoogle uses the mobile version of a site, crawled with its smartphone crawler, for indexing and ranking. Content missing from your mobile version may as well not exist for Google.MQLMarketing Qualified LeadA lead that marketing judges ready to be handed to sales, based on agreed rules such as fit and engagement. It is a stage in the funnel, not a sale.MQL-to-SQL rateThe share of marketing qualified leads that sales accepts as real opportunities. Read with the next stage, SQL to customer, it shows whether marketing is sending sales the right people.N
NAP consistencyName, Address, Phone numberKeeping your business name, address and phone number exactly the same across your Business Profile, website and other listings, so people and search engines are sure they all refer to the same business.Negative keywordsWords or phrases you add so your ads do not show for searches that contain them. They stop spend on searches that will not lead to business.NofollowA label on a link (rel="nofollow") asking Google not to associate your site with, or crawl, the linked page. Google also asks for rel="sponsored" on paid or ad links and rel="ugc" on user-generated links such as comments. Google treats these as hints.O
Off-page SEOWork done away from your own site that affects how search engines see it, mostly earning links and mentions from other sites, and reviews and listings for local businesses.On-page SEOEverything you change on the page itself to help it rank and earn clicks: the content, title, headings, images and their alt text, internal links and the URL.Open rateThe share of delivered emails that were recorded as opened. Email tools count an open when a tiny tracking image in the email loads, which makes the number less reliable than it looks.Opt-inThe action a person takes to agree to receive your messages, such as ticking a box or submitting a sign-up form. With single opt-in, they are added as soon as they submit.Organic CTROrganic Click-Through RateThe share of times your page was shown in Google's unpaid results that ended in a click. Search Console calculates it as clicks divided by impressions.Organic reachThe number of people who saw your content without you paying to promote it. It comes from followers, shares, hashtags, search and recommendations.Organic trafficVisits that come to your site from the unpaid results of a search engine, as opposed to visits from ads, social media, email or people typing your address.P
Page speedHow quickly a page loads and becomes usable. It is usually measured with tools such as PageSpeed Insights, which show both lab results and, where available, real-user Core Web Vitals.Paid partnershipA label on Instagram and Facebook that shows a creator's post is sponsored by a named brand. Creators add it with the paid partnership (branded content) tool, and the brand gets access to the post's results.PASProblem, Agitate, SolutionA copywriting formula: name a problem the reader has, make them feel why it matters, then present your offer as the solution.Per-message pricingMeta's WhatsApp Business Platform pricing model, effective 1 July 2025, which charges for each template message delivered. The rate depends on the template category and the country code of the recipient's number.Performance MaxA goal-based Google Ads campaign type that runs from one campaign across all Google Ads inventory: Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. You supply assets, a budget and a conversion goal; Google's automation decides where and to whom to show.PersonalisationChanging a message for each person using what you know about them, from their name in the greeting to the products shown, the offer or the send time.Pillar and cluster pagesA way of organising content: one broad pillar page gives an overview of a topic and links to several cluster pages, each covering a subtopic in depth, which link back to the pillar.PixelA small piece of code on your website that records what visitors do, such as viewing a product or buying, and sends it to an ad platform to measure and improve your ads.PlacementThe places where your ad can appear. On Meta that means spots such as Instagram feed, Stories, Reels, Facebook feed and Audience Network; on Google Display and YouTube it can mean specific websites, apps or channels.PositioningHow you choose to be understood in the market: which customers you serve, what you are better at for them, compared with which alternatives, and in which category. It decides what you say and what you leave out.PPCPay-Per-ClickA way of buying ads where you pay only when someone clicks your ad, not when they merely see it. People also use PPC loosely to mean paid search work in general.ProgrammaticBuying ad space through software that bids automatically, impression by impression, across many websites and apps through ad exchanges, often in real time. It replaces negotiating with each publisher one by one.R
ReachThe number of different people who saw your ad at least once in a period. Platforms estimate it, because the same person can use several devices.ReelsInstagram's short vertical video format, with music, effects and editing tools built in. Reels can be shown to people who do not follow you, through the Reels tab and Explore.RepurposingTurning one piece of content into several pieces for different channels or formats, for example one video into a Reel, a carousel, a blog post and a WhatsApp message.RetargetingShowing ads to people who have already interacted with your business, such as visiting your website, using your app or engaging with your Instagram. Google now calls these audiences 'your data' segments.Revenue per recipientThe revenue an email campaign or automated flow brought in, divided by the number of people it was delivered to. It ties email activity to money instead of opens or clicks.Rich resultsSearch results with extra visual detail, such as star ratings, prices, stock status, FAQs or event dates. Google may show them for pages with valid structured data, but does not guarantee it.ROASReturn on Ad SpendROAS tells you how many rupees of sales your ads brought in for every rupee you spent on them. It is a sales ratio, not a profit figure.robots.txtA text file at the root of a site that tells crawlers which URLs they may access. Google says it is mainly for managing crawler traffic, and is not a way to keep a page out of Google; use noindex or a password for that.ROIReturn on InvestmentProfit made from an investment, shown as a percentage of what it cost. In marketing it means profit from a campaign compared with what the campaign cost.RTOReturn to OriginAn order that is shipped but cannot be delivered, because the buyer refuses it, is not reachable or gave a wrong address, so the courier sends it back to the seller. The seller usually pays shipping both ways and earns nothing.S
Sample sizeThe number of people, sessions or conversions a test needs before its result can be trusted. Smaller changes and lower conversion rates need larger samples.SavesThe number of times people saved a post to look at later. Instagram lists saves among the activity signals it uses when ranking Feed posts and Reels.Search adsAds that appear on search results pages when someone searches for words related to your keywords. You reach people at the moment they are looking for something.Search intentThe goal behind a search: to learn something (informational), reach a specific site (navigational), compare options before buying (commercial) or buy now (transactional). Google ranks pages that serve that goal.Search volumeAn estimate of how many times a keyword is searched in a month, usually averaged over a year. Google Keyword Planner and SEO tools show it as a rounded or bucketed figure.SegmentationSplitting your contacts into groups that share something, such as location, what they bought or how recently they engaged, so each group gets messages that fit them.Sender reputationHow mailbox providers like Gmail judge whether your mail is wanted, based on your sending history: complaints, bounces, authentication and engagement. A poor reputation sends mail to spam.SentimentWhether what people say about a brand is positive, negative or neutral. Listening tools classify mentions automatically, and the share of each is tracked over time.SEOSearch Engine OptimisationThe work of helping search engines find, understand and show your pages, so that people searching for what you offer land on your site without you paying for the click.SERPSearch Engine Results PageThe page a search engine shows after someone types a query. Today it mixes ads, regular blue-link results and special blocks such as maps, images, People Also Ask and AI Overviews.ShadowbanAn informal term for when an account's posts are limited or hidden from others without a clear notice. Instagram says there is no single definition. It points users to Account Status to see if content has been removed or made ineligible for recommendations to non-followers.Share of voiceHow much of the conversation in your market is about you compared with your competitors. On social media it is usually your mentions (or engagement, or impressions) as a share of the total for you and a chosen set of competitors.Shares (sends)The number of times people shared your post, either to their own Story or privately through direct messages. Instagram calls DM shares sends and treats reshares as a key signal for Reels.ShortsYouTube's short vertical video format, made and watched in the Shorts feed. YouTube allows Shorts of up to three minutes.Smart BiddingGoogle's family of automated bid strategies that use machine learning to set a bid for each auction, aiming at conversions or conversion value. It includes Target CPA, Target ROAS, Maximise conversions and Maximise conversion value.Social commerceSelling products directly through social platforms, where people discover, ask about and buy without leaving the app, or with only a short step out. It includes shoppable posts, in-app shops and selling through chat.Social listeningTracking and analysing what people say online about your brand, competitors, products and topics, including posts that do not tag you. It looks for patterns, not just single mentions to reply to.Spam complaint rateThe share of delivered emails that recipients marked as spam. Mailbox providers treat it as one of the strongest signals that your mail is unwanted.Speed to leadHow long it takes a business to respond to a new enquiry. It is measured from the moment the lead arrives to the first real reply from a person or a useful automated answer.SPF, DKIM and DMARCSender Policy Framework, DomainKeys Identified Mail, Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and ConformanceThree email authentication records you add to your domain's DNS. SPF lists which servers may send for your domain, DKIM adds a signature that proves the email was not altered, and DMARC tells receivers what to do when a message fails those checks and sends you reports.SQLSales Qualified LeadA lead that the sales team has checked, usually through a call, and accepted as a real opportunity worth active selling. It sits after MQL in the funnel.Statistical significanceA way of judging whether a difference in a test is likely to be real rather than chance. A result is usually called significant when the chance of seeing that difference with no real effect is below 5%.StoriesFull-screen photos or videos that disappear from the main view after 24 hours unless saved to Highlights. They are seen mainly by your followers and support stickers such as polls, questions and links.Story HighlightsCollections of past Stories that you pin to your profile so they stay visible after the 24 hours are over.StorytellingDelivering a message through a story with a person, a situation, a tension and a resolution, instead of a list of features. People remember stories better than claims.Structured dataCode added to a page, usually in JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary, that labels facts such as product name, price, availability, reviews or business hours, so Google can understand them and possibly show them as rich results.T
Target CPATarget Cost Per ActionA Smart Bidding strategy where you tell Google the average amount you want to pay for a conversion, and it sets bids to get as many conversions as it can at or around that average.Target ROASTarget Return On Ad SpendA Smart Bidding strategy where you set the conversion value you want back for each rupee spent, and Google bids to get as much conversion value as it can at that average return.Technical SEOMaking sure search engines can crawl, render and index your site without obstacles: site structure, speed, mobile handling, redirects, status codes, sitemaps, robots.txt and canonical tags.Template messageA pre-approved message format that a business must use to start a WhatsApp conversation or to message someone outside the 24-hour customer service window. Meta sorts templates into marketing, utility and authentication categories.Thought leadershipContent in which a company or person shares original expertise and a clear point of view on their field, to earn trust rather than to sell directly. It works when it says something useful others are not saying.ThumbnailThe still image shown for a video before anyone plays it, on YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. It works like a headline for video: it decides whether someone taps.Title tagThe HTML <title> of a page. Google often uses it as the clickable headline (the 'title link') in results, but may rewrite it if it thinks another text describes the page better.TOFU / MOFU / BOFUTop, Middle and Bottom of the FunnelShorthand for the three broad stages of a funnel: top (people discovering you), middle (people considering you) and bottom (people ready to buy).Tone of voiceHow the brand voice adjusts to a particular moment, audience or channel, for example more cheerful in a festive post and more careful in a reply to a complaint.Topical authorityAn SEO industry term for a site being seen as a strong source on a whole subject, not just one keyword, usually built by covering a topic in depth and linking the pages well. Google has not published a formal definition of it.Transactional emailAn email sent because of a specific action or account event, such as an order confirmation, receipt, password reset or delivery update. Its main job is to inform, not to promote.TranscreationRecreating a marketing message for another language and culture so it has the same effect, even if the words change completely. It combines translation with copywriting.TriggerThe event or condition that starts an automation for a person, such as signing up, placing an order, leaving items in a cart or reaching a date.U
UGCUser-generated contentContent about a brand made by its customers or fans rather than by the brand: photos, videos, reviews and posts. Brands often ask permission to reshare it. The term is also used now for paid creators who make customer-style videos for brands to post.Unit economicsThe revenue and costs of one unit of your business, such as one order or one customer, worked out to see whether each unit makes or loses money.Unsubscribe rateThe share of delivered emails that led the recipient to unsubscribe. It is the clearest direct signal that your emails are too frequent or not relevant to some people.USPUnique Selling PropositionThe single feature or benefit that sets you apart from competitors and that customers care about. If a competitor can say it equally truthfully, it is not a USP.UTM parametersUrchin Tracking Module parametersShort tags added to the end of a link that tell your analytics tool where a visit came from, such as the source, medium and campaign name.V
Value propositionA clear statement of the benefit a customer gets from you, for whom, and why it matters to them. It answers 'why should I buy this?' in the customer's terms.View rateThe share of video ad impressions that turned into paid views. Google describes it as similar to CTR, but counting views instead of clicks.View-through conversionA conversion from someone who saw an ad but did not click it, and then converted later within a set window.W
Watch timeThe total time viewers spent watching your video, added across all views. YouTube reports it in hours.WhatsApp BusinessA free app from WhatsApp for small businesses. It adds a business profile with address and hours, a product catalogue, labels to sort chats, quick replies, greeting and away messages, and a separate business number.WhatsApp Business PlatformMeta's platform that lets businesses send and receive WhatsApp messages at scale through software, usually via a provider, rather than from a phone. It supports templates, automation, chatbots and CRM connections.WhatsApp ChannelA one-way broadcast feature in WhatsApp's Updates tab. The admin posts text, photos, videos and polls to followers. Followers can react and vote but cannot reply, and their phone numbers are not shown to the admin or other followers.WorkflowThe set of steps an automation follows: who enters, what happens next, how long to wait, and which branch to take based on what the person does.No term matches that yet. Try a shorter word, or the full form (for example "cost per click").
Knowing the words is the start. Using them well is the job.
The role-fit test shows how your judgment lines up with the role you hold or the one you want next.
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