The digital marketing terminology is unique to the industry. The jargon can be intimidating for newcomers and even seasoned digital marketers.
The language is dense with abbreviations, jargon, and acronyms associated with various digital marketing practices such as SEO, PPC, and web design.
As a quick reference glossary, we’ve compiled a list of the most common digital marketing terms and definitions alphabetically.
We have divided this glossary of digital marketing terms into three parts. In this part, we will cover terminologies starting with a number and with alphabets ‘A’ to ‘H’.
You can read Part #2 here and Part #3 here.
Each part lists terminologies in alphabetical order. You just need to click on the alphabet of your choice to jump to that section.
| A | B | |
| D | ||
| F | G |
# – Digital Marketing Terms
301 Redirects: a code that indicates the act of permanently moving a web page from one location to another
302 Redirects: a code that informs a search engine that a web page has been taken down temporarily
404 Error: a code that informs a web user that the requested page is not available
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘A’
A/B Testing: a way to compare two versions of a single variable by splitting your audience
Above the Fold: content that appears before a user scrolls down
Account-Based Marketing (ABM): focuses on a set of accounts within a market
Ad: promotion of a brand, product or service that aims to attract interest, engagement and sales
Ad Auction: pricing process for online advertising on a pay-per-click basis
Ad Creative: contains all the information for visually rendering an ad
Ad Extensions: a feature that shows additional information, such as an address, contact information, rating, etc., along with your ad
Ad Fatigue: happens when your audience views your ad too often, gets bored, and eventually stops paying attention
Ad Group: a set of ads that share the same or similar targets
Ad Monetisation: the process of generating revenue through your website, app or blog
Ad Network: a company or platform that connects advertisers with publishers who want to host advertisements
Ad Platform: a technology that helps in monetising online traffic
Ad Rank: numerical order in which an ad appears on a search engine result page
Ad Relevance: indicates how closely an ad resembles a user’s search query
Adaptive Web Design: Graphical User Interface (GUI) that adapts to different screen sizes
Alt-Text: also known as alternate text, is a phrase that can be added to a web page, image or HTML tag
Analytics: the process of identifying, understanding, and presenting important data patterns
Anchor Text: a fragment of clickable text that sends a user to a web page
App Store Optimization (ASO): the practise of boosting app store exposure and conversion rate
Attribution: activity of analysing the marketing touchpoints a consumer encounters on their path to buy
Average Position: numerical order in which a URL appears
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘B’
Backlink: incoming link from a web page to another website
Banner Ad: a graphic display that stretches throughout the top, bottom, or sides of a website
Bid: maximum money an advertiser is willing to pay for every click on an advertisement
Black Hat SEO: a set of tactics that go against the search engine guidelines to get a website to rank higher in search results
Blog: website on which a person regularly writes/publishes their opinions or experiences
Bot: a time-saving software application that runs automated digital marketing tasks to get more customers or support existing customers
Bottom of the Funnel: final stage in the buyer’s journey which leads to converting potential customers into buyers
Bounce Rate: percentage of visitors to a website that leaves after just looking at one page
Branded Keywords: keywords that are directly related to your brand, products, and services
Breadcrumbs: links on a website that let users know where they are currently on the site and how far away they are from the homepage
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘C’
Caching: refers to the process of storing information in a cache
Call Ads: are ads that are designed to encourage prospective customers to call your business
Call To Action (CTA): any design that encourages an immediate response from viewers
Campaign: a company’s digital marketing efforts to increase engagement, traffic, conversion or revenue
Canonical: is a technique for informing search engines that a specific URL represents a page’s master copy
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): specifies how HTML elements should appear on screen or in any other media
Channels: are platforms that you can utilise to inform your target audience about your brand, product, or service
Chat Bot: a computer program that simulates human interaction, particularly through the internet
Churn Rate: percentage of customers or subscribers who cancel or do not renew their subscriptions during a given period
Click Share: number of clicks your ads received divided by the total number of clicks Google estimates you could have received
Click-Through Rate (CTR): the number of clicks on your ad divided by the number of times it is displayed
Clicks: is a marketing metric that tracks how many times users have clicked on a digital advertisement to access an online property
Contact Form: a web page that allows users to communicate with the site’s owner
Conversion Rate: percentage of total visitors on a website who complete a desired goal (a conversion).
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO): activity aimed at increasing the conversion rate
Cookies: small text files that are stored in the browser directory or data folder of a user
Cost Per Click (CPC): the actual price you pay for every click on your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
Cost Per Conversion (CPA): is calculated by dividing the amount spent on an ad campaign by the number of conversions (customers) over the same period
Cost Per Lead (CPL): amount spent by your sales team to generate a new prospective customer from a marketing campaign
Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM): also known as Cost Per Mille, is the total sum an advertiser pays for 1,000-page impressions
Crawler: program that search engines use to collect information from the internet
Crawling: process in which search engine bots track publicly available web pages
Customer Acquisition: is the process of acquiring new customers – or persuading people to buy your products
Customer Lifecycle: describes the series of steps a customer takes when considering, purchasing, using, and remaining loyal to a product or service
Customer Lifetime Value: total value of a customer to a business throughout their relationship
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): set of principles, practises, and guidelines that an organisation adheres to when interacting with its customers
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘D’
Dashboard: a visual representation of the most important information required to track key marketing metrics and achieve one or more marketing objectives
Data Studio: is a free reporting and data visualisation tool by Google
Data Visualisation: the process of transforming raw data into something easier to understand
Deep Linking: is a strategy that directs mobile users to a specific page within an app, such as a promotion or product page
Demand Side Platform (DSP): is a software that enables advertisers to buy advertising using automation
Demographics: parameters used in segmenting the targeted audience into more specific groups
Description Tag: is an HTML tag that web page authors use to provide a summary for search engine listings
Digital Asset Management (DAM): is a suite of software that securely stores, organises, and shares digital media files such as photos and videos
Direct Traffic: the amount of web traffic you receive from users who visit your website directly from their browsers via a URL
Display Ads: is a form of online advertisement that combines text, images, and a URL that directs users to a website where they can know more about or purchase products
Display Network: also known as Google Display Network, is a collection of over two million websites, videos, and apps where advertisements can appear
Dofollow Backlinks: A dofollow link is one that a search engine spider is supposed to follow when crawling a website
Domain Authority (DA): is a Moz-developed search engine ranking score that predicts how likely a website will rank in search engine results
Domain Name: is an easy-to-remember name that corresponds to a physical Internet IP address
Dynamic Ads: allows a website to dynamically display advertisements to users based on products they have earlier browsed on a website(s) or based on the content on websites
Dynamic Content: also known as adaptive content, is web content that changes as per a user’s behaviour, preferences, and interests
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘E’
Earned Media: publicity or exposure obtained through means other than paid advertising
eCPM (effective Cost Per Mille): the amount of money a publisher (app developer) earns for every thousand ad impressions displayed on their app
Email Filter: is a programme that filters and organises email into different folders based on predefined criteria
Email List Segmentation: is a method of email marketing in which you segment (or split) your subscriber list based on any number of criteria
Email Lists: is a collection of emails received via your blog or website
Email Whitelist: is the process of adding an email address to an approved sender list so that emails from that address are never routed to the spam folder
Engagement Rate: is a metric that measures how engaged your audience is with your content
Event Tracking: is used in analytics that refers to the tracking of events that a user performs while on a website
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘F’
Facebook Business Manager: is a free Facebook tool that allows businesses/agencies to securely manage their company’s pages, ad accounts, catalogues, and pixels in one place
Featured Snippets: are highlighted text excerpts that appear at the top of a Google search results page in ‘Position 0’
Frequency: refers to how frequently an ad appears to a single user in a given period
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘G’
Geo-Targeting: is the practise of targeting online visitors with localised or location-appropriate content based on their geographic location
Google AdWords: is a Google advertising service for businesses that want to display advertisements on Google search results and its advertising network
Google Analytics: is a free web analytics tool that offers detailed information about the online performance of your website and business
Google Keyword Planner: assists you in researching keywords for use in Search Network campaigns
Google Search Console: is a free Google service that allows you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results
Google Tag Manager (GTM): is a free tracking tool and management platform that enables users to add marketing tags, or snippets of code, to their websites for tracking and collecting marketing data
Guest Blogging: also called Guest Posting, is a content marketing and SEO strategy wherein individuals write articles for other websites for promoting their brands and businesses
Digital marketing glossary – Terms starting with ‘H’
H Tags: also called Heading Tags, are indicators used in HTML to help structure your webpage from an SEO standpoint, as well as to assist Google in reading your content. Ranging from H1-H6, heading tags form a hierarchical structure for your page
Hard Bounce: is an email that’s been returned to the sender as a result of a permanent error — most commonly, an invalid address
Hashtags: are used to tag brands, people, and businesses in online social communities
Heatmap: is a visual map that shows where and how visitors interact with a website
Hits: is a file request from a Web server
Hreflang: is an HTML <link> or <link> tag attribute that informs search engines about the relationship between pages on your website in different languages
HTML: stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It is a standard markup language for web pages that allows us to format page elements like text and images
HTML Banner: are frequently used for menus and search boxes, enabling interaction before the visitor arrives at the destination site
HTML Email: in contrast to plain text email, HTML email is formatted with Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP: stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It is the protocol that is used to transfer data over the internet.
HTTPS: stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. This protocol secures communication and data transfer between a web browser and a website
Hyperlink: is an element in an HTML document that links to another part of the document or a different document entirely
On a concluding note
We understand that some of these digital marketing terms can be confusing, but knowing them will help you measure your ROI, create better advertisements, and identify when something goes wrong with your campaign as well as how to fix it.
These are just a few terms to help you improve your digital marketing verbiage, no matter where you are in your professional journey.
Just as a new digital marketer needs help in setting up their first digital marketing campaign, an entrepreneur needs support in setting up their startup.
To help entrepreneurs juggling with multiple tasks, we have curated a highly useful startup toolkit.
Paytm Startup Toolkit helps businesses in India utilise the best of Paytm products such as payments, banking, growth tools, etc., to scale and grow their business. So, stop juggling and –
