THE LIST OF MARKETING TERMS INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS REGULARLY USE IS EXTENSIVE
Whether we’re discussing a campaign idea, creative approach, or reporting metrics, we sometimes speak another language without realizing it.
Keeping up with the latest jargon for all things marketing and advertising is something that requires weekly (if not daily) devotion to continued education. Our team spends time attending workshops and studying online materials to ensure we’re utilizing the latest tools for our clients. However, if you’re just starting off in the industry, or you’re a small business owner looking to increase your brand’s presence, it can be daunting to try and get up to speed.
HERE’S A LIST OF MARKETING TERMS AND MEANINGS OUR TEAM USES ON A DAILY BASIS
While we won’t claim that this guide to be 100% extensive and cover every single thing you need to know to be a marketing superstar, it’s good to keep this on hand in case you come across an unfamiliar term in your social and digital marketing ventures.
GENERAL ADVERTISING AND MARKETING KPIs
- Reach: The total number of individuals who saw your brand’s messaging.
- Impressions: The total number of times your brand’s messaging was seen.
These two terms can be easily confused, so it can be best explained with the following example: Impressions is the number of times your content entered the screen of all of the users in your audience. If 5 people each saw your ad twice, you have a reach of 5 with 10 total impressions.
- CPM: The cost to attain 1,000 impressions with your content.
This is perhaps one of the most commonly used terms, so go ahead and highlight and add some asterisks to this one.
- CPC: The cost to garner a website click on your content.
- CPV: The cost to gain a view on your video content.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, anything with “CP” is an acronym for Cost Per (result). These KPIs are important to help establish the efficiency of your ad spend with the creative you’re promoting.
- Conversions: A campaign objective that results in the completion of a goal.
Think: purchase made or contact information submitted.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of website visitors who navigate away from the site after viewing just one page.
- Click Through Rate: The number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad was displayed.
FACEBOOK CONTENT AND AD LINGO
- Organic: Content that does not have any ad spend behind it for amplification.
- Paid: Content that is distributed because of an ad placed to promote the post.
- Viral: Content that appears in users’ news feeds because a friend shared the content.
- Total: The summation of results from all 3 of the above classifications.
Now that you know the distinction between these descriptions, you can easily define an array of metrics. Viral reach? The number of users reached because content was shared by a friend. Paid impressions? The number of times your content entered users’ screens due to an ad placement. You’ve got this.
- Post Engagements: Any action that a user takes on your content.
Think: click, like, share, comment.
- Video Views: According to Facebook’s reporting metrics, this is counted when a user watches at least 3 seconds of a video.
- % Video Watched: Ok, you probably think this one is self-explanatory, but there’s a very important reason why we included this here. Analyzing the percentage of time a user watches your video content is much more telling than counting the number of views.
- Clicks: Defined as when a user clicks anywhere on your content. Do not confuse this with link clicks, for Facebook registers this metric as a click on the post – even the negative space within the post block.
- Leads: Prospective customers of a product or services; created when a user shows interest and provides their contact information.
- Frequency: The average number of times a user sees your ad.
- Placements: The various platform locations Facebook offers advertisers to display ad content. This includes: News Feed, Right Column, In-Stream, Instagram Feed, Instagram Stories, Audience Network, Instant Articles, and Messenger.
- A/B Test: The experimentation of creating two (or more) iterations of the same ad and amplifying both pieces of content to determine which post resonates better with an audience.
- Relevance Score: Facebook’s tool to estimate how well an ad resonates with an audience.
This is calculated based on how the platform believes this targeted audience will engage with the content. The higher the relevance score, the more positive feedback the content is expected to have, thus yielding lower cost per results as well. As users actually engage with the post, this score will reflect their interactions with the content.
- Ad Recall Lift: Facebook’s tool to estimate if users remember seeing a brand’s ad after being delivered 2 days prior.
This is measured by two methods: the user behavior and engagement with the ad, as well as random polling within the newsfeed.
See a term not listed here that should be included? Want to chat one-on-one about terminology you’re struggling with? Let us know!
