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Digital Marketing decoded: 30 essential terms

Are you a marketing enthusiast or simply looking to decode the jargon your marketing agency uses? You’re in the right place. This article aims to demystify essential terms used in digital marketing, empowering you to understand the subject more deeply and communicate more effectively.
 
Digital marketing is a vast and dynamic field within marketing. Despite its digital focus, it encompasses many areas, including email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and more. This glossary, featuring 30 keywords, will provide you with a clearer understanding of digital marketing. Are you ready to dive in? Let’s get started:

Alt text (Alternative text): A concise description of an image for two main purposes: to provide context when the image cannot be viewed, especially for individuals with sensory processing disorders, learning disabilities, visual impairments, or blindness; or to enhance search engine understanding.

Benchmarking: The process of studying competition: analysis of the best practices used by companies in the same sector that can be replicated in your enterprise.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who enter your website and leave without engaging with any content or navigating to other pages. A high bounce rate typically indicates poor visitor engagement, suggesting that the content/user experience may not be meeting the user’s expectations.

Brand Awareness: The initial stage of consumer interest in a product, service, or brand.

Chatbots: Automated systems designed to simulate human interaction via online chat, enabling users to ask questions or receive immediate assistance at any time.

Click Rate: The percentage of recipients who click at least one link within an email, landing page, or ad. Click rate (%) = (Number of clicks / Number of impressions) x 100.

Conversion Rate: A metric that determines the success of a campaign by showing how many people completed a desired action. Conversion Rate = (Total conversions / total visitors).

Copywriting: The process of creating persuasive content designed to motivate people to take a specific action, as defined by the brand’s goals.

CPC (Cost Per Click): The cost per click that an ad receives. It helps brands understand how much they will have to spend on their ad. Cost per click = total ad cost / total number of clicks.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management): A system used to manage and streamline interactions with customers. It is an essential tool for maintaining detailed records and fostering strong, personalized relationships with clients.

CTR (Click Through Rate): A KPI that measures the effectiveness of a page, email, or ad by comparing the number of clicks to the number of times it is displayed. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. CTR (%) = (clicks / impressions) x 100.

Engagement: Interactions and activities users have with a brand’s content, including likes, comments, shares, and other forms of interaction.

External links: Hyperlinks within a website that direct the user to pages on different websites.

Hard Bounce: In email marketing, a hard bounce occurs when an email fails to be delivered to the recipient due to invalid email addresses, non-existent domains, or other permanent delivery issues.

Impressions: The total number of times your content is displayed. It is important to note that one person can view a single piece of content multiple times. For instance, if one of your followers views your post twice, that would count as 2 impressions.

Internal links: Hyperlinks within a website that connect to other pages on the same website.

Keyword: A term to express a word or group of words that a user employs to conduct a search on a search engine. They must be meticulously developed and selected to help search engines understand the main subject of the website’s page and to appear on the search engine result pages.

KPI (Key Performance Indicators): Specific metrics established to monitor and evaluate the progress of campaigns or activities, providing insights into performance and guiding strategic decisions.

Lead: A potential customer who has expressed interest in your brand or product and provided their contact information.

Marketing automation: An approach that automates different marketing tasks, accelerating results and enhancing efficiency and personalization. The term is commonly associated with email marketing, where automated processes send emails based on user behavior.

Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open an email sent by a brand. Open rate (%) = (Number of opens ÷ total email recipients) x 100.

Organic Traffic: Website visits generated from sources that are not paid.

Paid Traffic: Website visits generated through paid advertising campaigns.

Reach: The total number of people who see your content. (Unfortunately, not all your followers will see every piece of content you publish).

Remarketing: Re-engaging customers who have previously interacted with your channels, such as your website or email list.

Retargeting: Engaging potential customers and leads through advertisements on external platforms that you do not control, aiming to bring them back to your website.

ROI (Return On Investment): A measure of the profitability of an activity, calculated by balancing the value gained or lost against the cost of the investment. ROI = Net Income / Cost of Investment.

Segmentation: The process of defining the target audience of an activity based on criteria such as age, gender, occupation, consumption habits, income level, and more.

SEM (Search Engine Marketing): Paid strategies aimed at improving a website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Organic (non-paid) strategies to enhance a website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Marketing is connected with different areas such as sales and design. That’s why I recommend visiting the article: UX/UI Glossary: 40 Essential Terms for Designers, where Cátia, our Head of Digital Art, presents design terms. It will help you get familiar with terms in common with design, such as A/B testing, CTA (Call To Action), Landing Page, and Persona.
 
Mastering these terms is crucial for making informed decisions and effectively communicating within the dynamic landscape of digital marketing.
If you’d like to learn more about any of these terms or would like to see a part 2 of this glossary, please drop a comment below.
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