Digital Marketing glossary

The approach of running repeated marketing communications, data flows, and follow-up steps according to defined rules.

It's not the name of a single tool — it only creates value when the right data, consent, content, and sales process work together.

The discipline of sending informational content, offers, or lifecycle communication over email to opted-in recipients.

Before list size, consent status, deliverability, segmentation, and business goal should all be evaluated together.

The set of processes and systems that keep customer and prospect information, conversations, and sales stages organized.

While marketing automation runs communication, CRM usually holds the customer record and the current state of the sales process.

A user record — such as a contact detail or an inquiry form — that could enter the sales process.

Lead count alone is not enough; it should be read together with source, intent, budget, and likelihood of becoming a sale.

The process of preparing a not-yet-decided prospect for sales or the next step through touches suited to their needs.

Instead of running the same message sequence for every lead, progression should follow intent, stage, and behavior.

Dividing an audience into meaningful groups based on shared traits, needs, behavior, or lifecycle stage.

More segments aren't always better — each group needs to produce a distinct decision or message.

A model of the marketing journey a user progresses through, from awareness to consideration, action, and loyalty.

Used to read campaign goals not by a single metric, but by which stage of the journey they serve.

The full set of touches a user goes through, from first contact with a brand to purchase or repeat use.

Helps analyze channels not in isolation, but as touchpoints that feed into one another.

The destination page a user arrives at from an ad, email, search result, or campaign link.

Should be evaluated together with the ad copy in terms of conversion rate, quality signals, and user intent.

Tracking parameters carried in a URL that convey information like campaign source, medium, name, content, and term.

Should be used with a consistent naming standard so channels break out correctly in analytics reports.

A consent record showing that a person has agreed to receive commercial or marketing communication through a specific channel.

The purpose, channel, and opt-out method of consent should be clear, and the record kept in an operationally provable way.

The rate at which customers or users continue using a product or brand over a given period.

Used to see the effect of repeat use and loyalty when evaluating new-customer acquisition performance.

The time it takes for customer acquisition cost to be recovered through gross profit or contribution margin.

Read alongside CAC and LTV to understand cash-flow risk in subscription and repeat-purchase businesses.

The ratio of customer or user loss to the total customer base over a given period.

High acquisition volume may not mean sustainable growth if churn is also high.

The share of collected inquiries that convert into actual customers.

Used in B2B performance to look beyond form cost and measure the quality of the sales pipeline.

The additional effect an ad produces on brand indicators like awareness, recall, consideration, or purchase intent.

In upper-funnel campaigns, read through brand research or experiment design rather than clicks and conversions alone.

The ratio of marketing and sales spend for acquiring a new customer to the number of customers acquired.

Used to expand ad CPA data with sales team, tooling, discount, and operations costs to read the true acquisition cost.

The total value a customer is expected to generate over the course of their relationship with the brand.

Used to evaluate CAC, ROAS, and bid decisions based on customer value rather than the first short-term sale.

The average revenue or basket value per order.

Evaluated together with sales volume when interpreting ROAS, LTV, and campaign profitability.

The ratio expressing a brand's visibility or share of communication within a category relative to competitors.

Used to understand competitive pressure in search, media, social, or PR visibility.

The ratio of net gain from an investment to the cost of that investment.

While ROAS centers on ad revenue, ROI takes a broader business view that includes cost and profit.

The controlled comparison of two or more variations against the same goal.

Used to produce a measurable decision — instead of a one-off judgment call — when changing creative, offer, landing page, or audience.

The marketing stage close to action, such as purchase, lead, quote request, or sign-up.

Read together with efficiency metrics like CPA, ROAS, conversion rate, and lead quality.

The concept describing the additional sales, leads, or behavior that wouldn't have happened without the marketing activity.

Used to test whether a result truly came from the campaign, even if ROAS or conversion count looks high.

The model that determines how conversion value or credit is distributed across touchpoints in the user journey.

When evaluating channel contribution, keep in mind that approaches like last-click, first-click, or data-driven models can change the result.

The approach of improving content so it can be selected as a direct answer to a user's question by search and AI systems.

Considered alongside SEO when evaluating featured snippet, voice assistant, and generative answer visibility.

A channel or touch that contributes to a user's decision in the conversion journey, even without being the last touch.

Used especially when discussing the indirect contribution of search, social, email, and content touches.

An attribution approach that gives conversion credit to the user's first measured touch.

Can be useful for understanding demand-creating touches; may understate touches close to the decision moment.

How well collected inquiries fit the target customer profile, intent, and sales potential.

A low CPA isn't always a good result — if lead quality is low, the real cost of a sale can actually rise.

A test that compares the difference in outcomes between an exposed group and an unexposed group to measure a campaign's incremental impact.

Helps understand whether a brand, conversion, or sales effect is real contribution rather than correlation.

A planned sequence of messages sent one after another based on a defined start, duration, or behavior rule.

Without a defined purpose and exit condition for the series, unnecessary repetition and consent risk can build up.

A lead considered a candidate for handoff to sales based on marketing criteria.

Separated from raw leads using criteria like form completion, content consumption, company profile, or a score.

A scoring approach that prioritizes prospects based on profile, behavior, and intent signals.

For the score to support the sales handoff decision, it needs to be based on measurable criteria and regular feedback.

A lead the sales team finds worth following up on, with clearer need and potential.

In B2B campaigns, real performance is usually assessed by SQL rate and sales conversion rather than raw lead count.

An attribution approach that gives most of the conversion credit to the last click right before the conversion.

Can overstate lower-funnel channels and understate early, demand-creating touches.

Every interaction a user has with a brand, ad, content, sales team, or product.

Used in attribution and journey analysis to understand which touches influenced the action.

The approach of improving how content gets selected as a source, accurately represented, and made visible within generative search and answer systems.

Being cited as a source, brand mentions, and visibility within the answer are measured together with organic traffic and conversion data.

Early-stage marketing activities like awareness, reach, and demand creation.

Evaluated with signals like reach, recall, search demand, and new-user pool rather than short-term sales.