A Handy Guide to Key Marketing Terminology
Every industry has their own unique language used by people within the profession to communicate with each other. The world of marketing is no different. If you own a business, work with a marketing team, or you’re a marketing pro looking to brush up on your jargon, it helps to know the current marketing lingo in order to effectively get work done and get your ideas across.
At M:7 Agency, we believe that communication is essential to providing an optimal client experience. The better we can talk to and understand each other, the better the results. We created this handy glossary of commonly used marketing terms to help you communicate better with us or your own marketing team:
A/B Testing
A marketing testing method in which two variations (A & B) of the same digital piece (e.g., a landing page, ad, email, or social post) are created to find out which one the audience prefers. It’s also called split testing because it splits the audience in two, testing a different version with each half. Success hinges on conversion rates through clicks on a link, form submissions, purchases, and other metrics.
Abandoned Cart
When a shopper adds items to their online “shopping cart” but doesn’t complete the purchase. Most brands have an automated mechanism for sending out an email to remind a customer of an abandoned cart in hopes they’ll finish the purchase.
Advertising
A specific component of marketing, and its practices and techniques, focused on promotional activities to achieve marketing goals, including brand or product awareness.
Advertorial
A subtle yet effective combination of editorial and advertising which weaves product pitches into a story-like read.
Aerial Video & Photography
The use of drones or other aircraft to capture unique, high-quality visuals for marketing campaigns, offering a distinct perspective and engaging content for various industries like real estate, tourism, and events.
Affiliate Marketing
A type of marketing where publishers, known as affiliates, earn a commission by promoting a product or service for a retailer or advertiser and providing a specific result for their affiliate partner, such as more customers, website traffic, or sales leads.
Ambient Marketing
An OOH marketing technique that blends advertising into a natural environment, such as on buses or park benches.
Ambush Marketing
A guerilla marketing practice of a business co-opting, or ambushing, another advertiser’s campaign, appearing as a sponsor although they are not, to raise awareness for their own company or brand.
Anchor Text
The visible, clickable words in a hyperlink that usually appears in a different color (typically blue) and underlined, providing context and helping readers and search engines understand where the link goes.
App (Application)
A software program designed to perform specific tasks or functions on a mobile device, computer, television, or other digital platform.
App Icon
A small, square graphic that represents an app on a user’s device and typically contains branding elements of the specific software program.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy. In marketing, artificial intelligence involves the use of AI-powered tools and technologies to enhance marketing strategies, analyze customer behavior, predict trends, and optimize marketing programs, ultimately improving customer engagement and streamlining processes.
AI-Assisted Search
The use of artificial intelligence by search engines to enhance the search experience, offering more-relevant results, personalized recommendations, and direct answers to questions.
Audience Segmentation
The practice of dividing customers into groups based on shared characteristics (e.g., demographics, behaviors, interests) in order to better tailor marketing efforts to them.
Audio Branding
The use of sound to identify and strengthen a company’s brand, including jingles, sound logos, music, and other unique audio elements. Also called sonic branding.
Automation
The use of software to perform repetitive marketing tasks, such as chatting and sending eblasts. It can be used to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and improve ROI.
B2B (Business to Business)
Marketing and selling products or services to other businesses.
B2C (Business to Consumer)
Marketing and selling products or services directly to consumers.
B2E (Business to Employee)
Internal marketing efforts aimed at informing, influencing, and motivating current and potential employees.
Backlink
A link from one website to another, signaling to search engines that the linked website’s content is trustworthy and relevant, increasing that site’s authority and credibility. Also called an inbound link.
Banner Ad
A rectangular online advertisement typically placed at the top, bottom, or side of a webpage, designed to attract attention, earn a click, and drive traffic to a website or landing page. Also known as a display ad.
Behavioral Targeting
The use of data on a customer’s past behavior (e.g., web browsing, purchase history) to target them with relevant ads or content.
Billboard
A large, typically rectangular, outdoor OOH advertising space placed in high traffic areas to capture the attention of motorists and pedestrians and raise brand, event, or product awareness.
Blog
Short for “web log,” an ongoing, online, written stream of insight or commentary around a specific topic or industry.
Bounce Rate
A metric that measures how engaged visitors are with a webpage, indicating the percentage who leave without taking action such as clicking a link.
Brand
A unique identity, image, or perception of a company, product, service, or individual, created through a combination of elements, including names, logos, design, messaging, values, and customer experiences. It represents the way customers and the public perceive a business and helps differentiate it from competitors.
Brand Awareness
The extent to which customers recognize and remember a brand.
Brand Equity
The value a brand adds to a product, influenced by consumer perceptions and loyalty.
Brand Identity
The intentional representation of a brand by a company, designed to differentiate it from competitors and shaped by consistent visual and verbal branding elements, including logos, colors, fonts, voice, taglines, and more.
Branded Merchandise
Apparel, accessories, and other products, or “swag,” featuring a company’s logo, brand name, or other identifying assets, often used for promotional purposes to increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Brand Image
How people perceive or interpret a brand or product/service based on their interactions and experiences with them.
Branding
The process of creating a recognizable perception and reputation of a product or company in the consumer’s mind using unique visual and verbal elements, including logos, taglines, graphics, fonts, and more.
Brand Journalism
A marketing approach where a company or brand creates and distributes content, such as articles, blog posts, or videos, that mimics the style of news reporting to build trust, establish authority, and connect with audiences by sharing valuable and engaging stories.
Brand Loyalty
The tendency of consumers to repeatedly purchase from a brand due to positive experiences, trust, or emotional connection.
Brand Perception
How a business is perceived by its audience and sets the tone for how it interacts with customers and stakeholders.
Brand Values
Core beliefs and principles of a company that guide its actions, decisions, and interactions with employees, customers, and the community, and ultimately shape its identity and culture.
Brand Voice
The consistent personality of a company’s typically written communications from social media posts to website content designed to differentiate a brand and create a recognizable image.
Broadcast Advertising
A marketing strategy that employs media channels like radio and television to reach target audiences using the transmission paths of air.
Bus Wrap
A form of OOH advertising that involves covering the exterior of a bus with large, full-color vinyl graphics, creating a visually striking and mobile advertisement.
Call to Action (CTA)
A statement or prompt such as “Buy Now,” “Call Today,” or “Learn More” that encourages the audience to take a specific action and step through the sales funnel.
Campaign
A planned, coordinated effort to promote a specific product, service, or idea, using a combination of marketing strategies and tactics to target a specific audience and achieve a defined goal, such as increasing brand awareness or driving sales.
Caption
The text or description that accompanies an image, video, or other media content on social media platforms, used to provide context, add personality, engage followers, or encourage interaction, such as comments, likes, shares, or clicks.
Chatbot
An automated computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet.
Churn Rate
The rate at which customers stop doing business with a company, often used in subscription-based businesses.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The percentage of people who click a specific ad or link after viewing it.
Contact Form
An online form used to gather contact information from prospective customers.
Content Marketing
A strategy to reel in and keep customers with killer content—think blogs, videos, or podcasts. It builds cred, boosts brand buzz, and stays top-of-mind when they’re ready to buy.
Content Strategy
A plan for creating, publishing, and managing content that aligns with business goals and audience needs.
Conversion Rate
A key metric in marketing that reflects the percentage of people who take a desired action out of the total number who had the chance to do so.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
A marketing metric that measures the total cost of a campaign divided by the number of customers who take a specific desired action — like buying, signing up, or donating.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
A metric used to measure the cost an advertiser pays for each click on their ad.
Cost Per Mille (CPM)
A common ad-pricing model where an advertiser pays a specific amount for every 1,000 impressions, or views, of their ad.
Creative
The innovative application of ideas, designs, and storytelling to create engaging and memorable campaigns and experiences that connect with target audiences and stand out from competitors. Also, any designer, writer, or other person involved in producing these creative services.
Creative Asset
Any traditional or digital visual, auditory, or written material designed to communicate a brand’s message, promote its products or services, and engage its audience.
Cross-Selling
The practice of suggesting or offering related or complementary products to customers, typically during the buying process.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses.
Customer Advocacy
When customers promote a brand or product voluntarily, often because of positive experiences, creating organic word-of-mouth marketing.
Customer Data Platform
A personalization software tool that collects, organizes, and unifies customer data from multiple sources into a single,centralized system to create detailed profiles of individual customers.
Customer Journey
The complete path that a person takes from first hearing about a brand, product, or cause, to taking an action (e.g., buying,signing up, or donating), to the ongoing support and relationship afterward.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The predicted net profit a customer will generate over the course of their relationship with a business.
Customer Pain Points
The problems, frustrations, or unmet needs that customers experience when interacting with a product, service, or company, and which marketers must identify and address in order to improve customer satisfaction.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A strategic approach and its technologies that businesses use to manage and improve interactions with customers, build stronger relationships, and drive business growth.
Customer Retention
Strategies and actions aimed at keeping existing customers and encouraging repeat business.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
A metric used to measure how happy customers are with a product, service, or experience.
Data-Driven Marketing
Using data analytics and insights to guide and optimize marketing decisions, campaigns, and strategies.
Demographics
The statistical characteristics of a population or group, typically focusing on measurable, objective traits, like age, gender, or income, and used in determining target audiences.
Digital Marketing
The promotion of brands, products, and services to consumers using digital channels like the internet, social media, email, streaming, and other connected platforms. Also known as online marketing.
Digital Platform
A software-based online infrastructure that facilitates user interactions and transactions, from social media to ecommerce.
Direct Mail Marketing
A type of traditional print marketing where businesses or organizations send physical promotional materials — like letters, postcards,catalogs, or flyers — directly to a targeted group of people through the mail.
Direct Marketing
A type of marketing that involves personalized communication directly with potential customers to elicit a response and encourage a specific action. Includes email, direct mail, telemarketing, social media marketing, and more.
Display Ads
A type of visual-based online advertisement that appears on websites, apps, or social media platforms to attract attention and promote a product, service, or brand.
Domain
The user-friendly, memorable name, like google.com, M7.agency, or WhiteHouse.gov, that identifies a website on the internet. A single domain name can have multiple URLs.
Drip Campaign
Typically using email, social media, SMS, or similar channel, a type of automated marketing campaign that sends a series of pre-written, targeted messages to leads or customers over a set period of time.
Earned Media
Publicity or exposure that a brand, product, or cause gets through organic, unpaid means, like word of mouth, press coverage, or social media buzz.
E-commerce
The buying and selling of goods and services over the internet, involving transactions between businesses and consumers, or between businesses themselves.
Email Blast
A strategy of sending a single email to a large group of recipients simultaneously, often used for marketing or promotional purposes. Also known as a mass email or bulk email.
Email List
A collection of email addresses gathered by a business to send targeted emails, newsletters, updates, or promotional material to a specific group of people.
Email Marketing
A digital marketing strategy that uses email to message potential and existing customers, promote products or services, and build customer loyalty.
End User
The person who ultimately uses a product or service, distinct from the customer who may purchase it.
Engagement Rate
A metric used to measure how actively involved an audience is with a brand’s content, typically calculated by interactions (e.g., likes, comments, and shares) relative to the number of followers or viewers.
ESG (Environmental, Social, & Governance)
A collective term for a business’s impact on the environment and society as well as how robust and transparent its governance is in terms of company leadership, shareholder rights, and more.
Event Marketing
A marketing strategy promotes a brand’s products, services, or overall identity through live, virtual, or hybrid events, like trade shows, webinars, or sponsorships. Designed to engage a specific target audience, create memorable experiences, and ultimately drive brand awareness, loyalty, and sales.
Font
A specific style, size, and weight of a set of characters (e.g., letters, numbers, symbols, etc.) used to display text. In other words, a text’s design that determines how the characters look when written or printed.
Gamification
The use of game-like elements, such as rewards, points, or challenges, to engage customers and drive certain behaviors.
Geofencing
A type of geotargeting that creates a virtual boundary around a location, triggering actions when users enter or exit that boundary.
Geotargeting
Location-based advertising, or geomarketing, that targets users within a specific geographic area.
Go-to-Market Strategy
A marketing plan that outlines the steps a company will take to introduce and sell its product or service to the target market.
Google Ads
Google’s online advertising platform that allows businesses to create and run ads to reach potential customers when they are searching for products or services related to their business.
Google Analytics
A free web analytics service provided by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and user behavior, helping businesses understand their website’s performance and optimize their online presence.
Guerilla Advertising
A marketing tactic in which a company uses surprise or unconventional methods and interactions, such as drones, street performances, or installations, to promote a product or service.
Grassroots Marketing
A low-cost marketing strategy, utilizing everything from flyers to social media, that focuses on building relationships and generating interest in a product or brand by targeting a specific, niche audience and encouraging them to promote the message organically.
Hard Bounce
A permanent email delivery failure, typically because the recipient’s email address is invalid, doesn’t exist, or the domain is no longer active.
Hashtag
A word or phrase preceded by the “#” symbol used to categorize content and make it easier for users to search, find, and follow social media conversations and posts related to a specific topic.
Homepage
The main or starting page of a company’s website, serving as the primary entry point and often providing visitors with an overview of the site’s content and navigation.
Hyperlink
A clickable element in digital content — usually text, an image, or a button — that takes someone to another location, whether inside or outside a website’s domain.
Impressions
The number of times an ad or piece of content is viewed, regardless of whether the viewer interacts with it.
Inbound Marketing
A strategy that focuses on attracting potential customers to a business by providing valuable, typically organic content and experiences, rather than through aggressive advertising. Also known as pull marketing.
Incentive Marketing
Offering discounts, rewards, or other incentives to drive customer action, such as making a purchase or signing up.
Influencer Marketing
A strategy where a brand partners with an individual or individuals who have a loyal, engaged following — usually on social platforms — to promote products, services, or messages.
Integrated Marketing
An overarching strategy that aligns all marketing efforts, channels, capabilities, and tactics to deliver a consistent and unified brand message and seamless experience to the target audience.
Interactive Marketing
A type of marketing that encourages customer interaction, often through quizzes, polls, or personalized experiences.
Internal Link
A link from one page to another on the same website, rather than to another website. Important for SEO and improving the user experience.
Keyword
A specific word or phrase that users enter into search engines when looking for information, products, services, or content. It’s one of the key factors search engines employ to match users’ queries with relevant content on the internet.
Keyword Density
The percentage of times a specific keyword or phrase appears in a piece of content (e.g., a webpage, blog post, or article) compared to the total number of words on that page.
Keyword Stuffing
the practice of overloading a web page or content with an excessive number of keywords or phrases in an attempt to manipulate search engine rankings. Can result in a negative user experience and penalties from search engine ranking.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Critical measurable values used to evaluate the progress and effectiveness of a specific marketing campaign or strategy in achieving specific business objectives.
Landing Page
A standalone webpage that visitors “land” on after clicking through from an email or ad, designed to encourage a specific action, such as signing up for emails or making a purchase,
Lead
A potential customer or prospect who has shown interest in a product, service, or brand, typically by providing their contact information or engaging with their marketing efforts.
Lead Generation
The process of attracting and converting potential customers into leads.
Lead Magnet
A marketing tool that offers a long-form, typically free resource — like a guide, webinar, or discount trial — in exchange for a prospect’s email address, phone number, and/or other contact information.
Lead Scoring
A method for ranking leads based on their likelihood to convert into customers, helping prioritize follow-up efforts.
Logo
A visual symbol or graphic used to identify and represent a company, organization, brand, or product, often combining text, imagery, and color to create an instantly recognizable identity.
Long-Tail Keywords
Specific, multi-word phrases that people use in search queries when they’re closer to making a purchase or seeking highly specific information.
Marketing
The activity, institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value, according to the American Marketing Association. Marketing is the broader process of understanding customer needs and developing strategies to meet them, while advertising is a specific component of marketing that focuses on paid promotional activities to achieve those marketing goals.
Marketing Audit
An assessment that is performed to analyze a current marketing strategy from top to bottom, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of marketing efforts and helping devise a plan to improve effectiveness and performance.
Market Share
The percentage of total sales in an industry generated by a particular company, calculated by dividing the company’s sales over a certain period by the industry’s total sales during the same period.
Marketing Analytics
The process of gathering, measuring, and analyzing data related to marketing activities and campaigns, helping businesses understand the effectiveness of their marketing strategies, optimize marketing efforts, and drive decision-making to improve overall performance.
Marketing Collateral
Any printed or digital support materials used in a marketing campaign to promote a brand, product, or service. Includes brochures, flyers, presentations, emails, social media posts, website content, and more.
Marketing Content
Any form of content created with the goal of promoting a brand, product, service, or idea by engaging, educating, entertaining, or persuading an audience, ultimately driving customer actions such as conversions, purchases, or brand loyalty.
Marketing Objectives
Specific, measurable goals a company sets to guide its marketing strategy and campaigns, ensuring efforts align with broader business ambitions.
Marketing Research
The systematic process of gathering, recording, and analyzing data about issues related to marketing products and services to understand customer behavior and the impact of marketing strategies. Includes surveys, focus groups, A/B tests, and more.
Marketing Strategy
A long-term plan that a business or organization crafts to achieve specific goals — e.g., increasing revenue, attracting more customers, or enhancing brand awareness — centered around who to target, what to say, and how to reach them.
Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce)
A subset of e-commerce that involves buying and selling goods and services through mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
Media
The channels or tools that brands use to communicate with consumers. There are three types of media: earned, owned and paid.
Mission Statement
A concise declaration that outlines a company’s core purpose, guiding principles, and how it aims to make a difference, serving as a compass for its actions and a reflection of its values.
Native Advertising
Ads that blend seamlessly with the content of the platform they appear on, appearing less like traditional ads and more like regular content.
Neuromarketing
A field of marketing that uses neuroscience and psychology to understand consumer behavior and decision-making processes, often through brain scans and biometric measurements.
Noise
The distractions, irrelevant messages, or competing communications that can prevent a marketing message from reaching its target audience effectively.
Niche Marketing
A strategy of targeting a specific, well-defined segment of the market, often focusing on specialized needs, products, or services.
Nonprofit Marketing
The strategies and tactics used by nonprofit organizations to promote their mission, engage supporters, attract volunteers, and raise funds.
Nurture Campaign
A series of marketing actions designed to build relationships with leads or customers over time, usually through email marketing, content, and personalized communication.
Omnichannel Marketing
A comprehensive strategy that creates a seamless, integrated experience across multiple online and offline channels — e.g. social media, email, website, print, broadcast, in-store, etc.
Organic Marketing
The promotion of a brand, product, or service through unpaid, natural, and authentic means, such as social media, content, and word of mouth marketing.
Organic Search
The process of earning traffic to a website through unpaid, natural search engine results.
Out-Of-Home Advertising (OOH)
Advertising positioned outside of a person’s home, including billboards, bus shelters, and digital displays, to reach consumers in public spaces. Also known as outdoor advertising.
Over-The-Top Advertising (OTT)
Ads delivered through streaming media services, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube — that bypass traditional cable or broadcast TV, going “over the top” of those systems.
Owned Media
The channels and assets a brand controls directly to communicate with its audience, including its website, social media accounts, email lists, apps, blogs, and physical assets such as store signage and product packaging.
Paid Media
Any type of advertising or promotional content, such as display ads, search engine ads, and social media ads, that a business pays for to reach a wider audience, increase visibility, or drive specific actions such as clicks, leads, or conversions.
Paid Search
A broad term for any type of advertising where a business pays to have ads appear on search engine results pages.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
A specific model within paid search where the advertiser pays a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.
Portable Document Format (PDF)
A popular typically unchangeable file format developed by Adobe that preserves the formatting and layout of a document, ensuring it looks the same regardless of the software, hardware, or operating system used to view it.
Personalization
Tailoring content, products, offers, or experiences to individual customers based on their specific characteristics, preferences, behavior, or past interactions.
Pop-Up Ad
An advertisement that appears in a new window or overlay on top of a website, often used for capturing leads or promoting offers.
Product Differentiation
The process of distinguishing a product from other similar products in the market to make it more attractive to a particular target audience.
Product Lifecycle
The stages a product goes through — from its initial development and market introduction to its decline and discontinuation — which guide marketing focus.
Product Positioning
The strategy of conveying the unique value of a product or service and defining how it is perceived by customers relative to competing products in the market.
Product Range
The variety of different products or services that a company offers to its customers.
Promotional Products
Items branded with a company’s logo, name, or message that are sold or given away to promote a brand, product, or service. Typically used in marketing campaigns to build brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and generate sales. Includes branded apparel, drinkware, office supplies, outdoor items, and more.
Promotions
Strategic messaging and activities designed to boost awareness, interest, or sales of a product, service, or brand.
Print Advertising
Promotional content published in physical, tangible formats, such as newspapers, magazines, flyers, brochures, billboards, or direct mail. One of the oldest forms of advertising.
Psychographics
Psychographics refers to the study and classification of people based on their psychological characteristics, such as attitudes, values, interests, lifestyles, and behaviors.
Push Notifications
Messages sent to a user’s device to encourage engagement, often used for promotions, updates, or reminders.
Referral Marketing
A strategy where businesses encourage existing customers to recommend their products or services to others in exchange for rewards, discounts, or other incentives.
Responsive Web Design
An approach to web design that ensures a website renders well on a variety of devices and screen sizes. The goal is a user-friendly, accessible, and aesthetically appealing experience across all devices, without the need for separate mobile versions.
Retargeting
A digital marketing strategy that re-engages individuals who have previously interacted with a brand but haven’t yet converted, by showing them targeted ads as they browse online.
Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
A metric used by marketers to measure the effectiveness of a digital advertising campaign, calculating the revenue generated per every dollar spent on advertising.
Return On Investment (ROI)
A KPI used to evaluate the profitability and efficiency of an investment, measuring the return generated relative to the cost of the investment.
SaaS Marketing
Marketing strategies and tactics tailored to businesses that offer Software as a Service (SaaS), focusing on customer acquisition, retention, and growth.
Sales Funnel
A model that illustrates the path, or stages, that potential customers take toward making a purchase, typically broken into awareness, consideration, and decision stages. Also called a conversion funnel.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The process of optimizing a website or online content to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) when people search for relevant keywords or phrases.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
The page displayed by a search engine containing a list of results that the search engine considers most relevant to a user’s specific query. Can include a mix of organic listings, paid ads, featured snippets, images, maps, and other elements.
Search Engine
An internet program, such as Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, that collects, ranks, organizes, and provides links to content according to a user’s search query.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
A digital marketing strategy that uses paid, keyword-triggered advertising to increase a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Also known as paid search or pay-per-click (PPC).
Search Intent
The intention, reason, or purpose behind a user’s search query, crucial for SEO as it helps improve search engine rankings and create content that aligns with what users are looking for. Also known as user or query intent.
Search Query
The combination of words or phrases that a user enters into or speaks to a search engine to find information, products, or services.
SEO Audit
A comprehensive analysis of a website’s SEO performance, identifying areas for improvement in rankings, traffic, and optimization.
Signage
The printed and digital visual displays that a business uses to communicate information, promote products or services, or guide customers. Includes storefront signs and in-store displays.
Social Proof
Often done through reviews, testimonials, and user-generated content, the leveraging of consumer positive behaviors, opinions, and experiences of others to influence potential customers’ decisions.
Sponsored Ad
A form of online advertising where businesses pay to have their ads displayed prominently on platforms like SERPs, social media, or other websites. Typically labeled as “Sponsored” or “Ad” to distinguish them from organic content.
Sponsorship
A strategic business partnership where a company or organization provides financial support, resources, or other forms of assistance to an event, team, athlete, or organization in exchange for brand exposure and other benefits.
Social Media Marketing
A strategy of using organic posts and/or paid boosts on social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn, to encourage engagement and promote products, services, and brand awareness.
Soft Bounce
A temporary email delivery issue when the email address is valid but the delivery fails due to problems like a full mailbox, server issues, or temporary unavailability, allowing for retries later.
Spam
Unsolicited, unwanted, or irrelevant messages sent in bulk, whether through email, text, print, or other channel, typically to a large number of recipients who didn’t ask for them.
Stealth Marketing
A low-cost guerilla marketing strategy that strives to market to a customer without the customer realizing it, such as the subtle integration of a product into a TV show or movie.
Streaming
The delivery of movies, TV shows, music, and other media content directly to users through a device over the internet for immediate playback, rather than downloading the file.
Subject Line
The short, visible text that appears in an email inbox to summarize or preview the content of the email message and entice recipients to open the email.
Target Audience
A specific group of people that a company, brand, or organization aims to reach with its marketing efforts, defined by shared characteristics like age, gender, location, interests, and/or income.
Testimonial
A written or spoken statement or endorsement from a customer, client, or user that describes their positive experience with a brand, product, service, or individual.
Tone
The emotional inflection and style a brand uses in its written or spoken communication, encompassing the attitude and personality conveyed through language, word choice, and overall message delivery.
Touchpoint
Any physical or virtual interaction or points of contact between a person and a brand throughout the customer journey.
Tracking Cookies
Small text files placed by websites on a user’s browser when visiting to collect data about their online activities, allowing websites to remember user preferences, maintain login sessions, and track behavior across different sites. Also known as third-party cookies.
Traditional Marketing
All non-digital types of marketing, including broadcast, print, OTT, OOH, telemarketing, and more.
Traffic
The number of visitors or users entering a store or accessing a brand’s website or specific webpage. A key metric for measuring a marketing campaign’s effectiveness and overall brand visibility.
Transactional Email
Automated emails, like order confirmations and shipping updates, triggered by a specific user action or event, providing relevant information related to that action or event.
Transit Advertising
A type of OOH advertising that utilizes and placed on transit vehicles or structures, including buses, taxis, airports, and subways.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The complete address of a specific webpage or resource on the internet, including the protocol (like http or https), the domain name, and the path to the specific page or file.
Unique Selling Point (USP)
A specific, unique feature or benefit that sets a product or service apart from competitors.
Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
The unique set of overall values or benefits that a product, service, or brand offers consumers, setting it apart from competitors.
Unique Visitors
The number of distinct individuals who visit a website within a specific timeframe, regardless of how many times they return.
Upselling
The practice of encouraging customers to purchase a more expensive item, upgrade, or add-on of a product or service they are considering.
User Experience (UX)
The interactions and overall journey a user has with a product or service, including the ease and enjoyment, or lack thereof.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
Photos, videos, social media posts, and other online content created by consumers that helps promote a brand by conveying real user experiences and opinions.
User Interface (UI)
The point of interaction between a user and a device or application, encompassing all visual and interactive elements that allow users to interact with and control a system, including buttons, icons, and layouts.
Video Marketing
The use of video content to promote or inform audiences about a brand and its products, utilizing various digital channels and formats, like websites, social media, and OTT streaming apps.
Viral Marketing
A deliberate marketing effort that creates shareable content so that it spreads rapidly through social media and word of mouth.
Voice-Enabled Advertising
The use of voice technology, such as smart speakers and virtual assistants, to deliver ads that can be triggered by voice commands, offering a more interactive and personalized advertising experience.
Voice Search Optimization
The process of optimizing content so that it appears in voice searches, such as through interaction with smart speakers or virtual assistants, like Siri or Alexa.
Wallscape
A large-scale outdoor OOH advertisement, typically painted or attached to the exterior of a building like a mural, often in high-traffic urban areas.
White Paper
An authoritative, research-based document that presents information, expert analysis, and an organization or author’s insight into a topic or solution to a problem. Used by companies in B2B marketing models as part of a content marketing strategy.
Wireframe
A basic, visual representation or rough sketch of a website or app interface that acts as a blueprint that outlines the structure, layout, and functionality of the product without focusing on detailed design elements like colors or images.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing
An organic or influencer-led strategy that encourages consumers to share their positive experiences with a product or service with their friends and family, essentially creating a network of brand advocates.
We hope you find this glossary of commonly used marketing terms useful in your communication with us or your own marketing team. However, it just scratches the surface of the marketing know-how you may need to elevate your own marketing. For expert guidance and the tools you need to achieve your business goals, don’t hesitate to reach out to M:7 Agency with your unique marketing needs.