Digital marketing glossary: more than 80 key terms

General marketing terms

• Target audience — the group of people a product is mainly aimed at.
• Buyer persona — a generalised customer description based on real customers: problem, goal, decision process.
• 4P — the four elements of the marketing mix: product, price, place, promotion.
• USP (unique selling proposition) — the main advantage that sets a product apart from competitors.
• Value proposition — a short statement of what the customer gains by choosing you.
• Brand awareness — how well the audience knows the brand.
• Marketing funnel — the stages a customer moves through from first contact to purchase.
• TOFU / MOFU / BOFU — the top (awareness), middle (consideration) and bottom (decision) of the funnel.
• B2B / B2C — business-to-business and business-to-consumer sales models. We explain the differences in our digital marketing guide.
• Omnichannel — a consistent customer experience across all channels.
• Lead — a potential customer who has left their details or shown interest.
• Lead generation — the process of attracting potential customers.

SEO and search terms

• SEO (search engine optimisation) — work to appear in unpaid search results. More: what is SEO.
• SERP (search engine results page) — the page of search results.
• Keyword — the word or phrase a user types into search.
• Search intent — the goal behind a query: informational, navigational, commercial, transactional.
• Long-tail keyword — a longer, narrower and usually less competitive query.
• Organic traffic — visits from unpaid search results.
• Indexing — adding a page to the search engine's database.
• Crawling — a bot discovering and reading pages.
• Title tag — the page headline shown in results. More: on-page SEO guide.
• Meta description — the short summary under the title in results.
• Canonical — a tag showing which of several duplicate pages is the main one.
• Hreflang — a tag showing a page's language and regional versions.
• Backlink — a link from another site to yours. More: backlink guide.
• Anchor text — the clickable text of a link.
• 301 redirect — permanently redirecting an old URL to a new address.
• Core Web Vitals — the LCP, INP and CLS user-experience metrics. More: Core Web Vitals guide.
• Schema markup (structured data) — code that describes page information for machines.
• E-E-A-T — experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness; Google's quality assessment concept.
• Featured snippet — a direct answer block shown above the results.
• Cannibalisation — several pages of a site competing for the same query.

AEO, GEO and AI terms

• AEO (answer engine optimisation) — structuring content so search and AI systems can use it as a direct answer.
• GEO (generative engine optimisation) — work to make a brand appear in answers from generative systems like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. More: AEO/GEO guide.
• AI Overviews — an AI-written summary shown above Google results.
• LLM (large language model) — large language models such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.
• Prompt — an instruction or question given to an AI model.
• Brand mention — a mention of the brand on other sites, with or without a link.
• Zero-click search — the user gets the answer on the results page and visits no site.
• AI referral traffic — visits to a site from AI assistants (e.g. chatgpt.com).

Google Ads and paid search

• SEM (search engine marketing) — paid advertising on search engines.
• PPC (pay per click) — a model where you pay for each click.
• CPC (cost per click) — the price of one click.
• CPM (cost per mille) — the price of a thousand impressions.
• CTR (click-through rate) — clicks ÷ impressions × 100.
• Quality Score — a keyword's quality rating in Google Ads (1–10). More: Quality Score article.
• Ad Rank — the value that determines an ad's position.
• Match type — how a keyword matches queries: exact, phrase, broad.
• Negative keyword — a query for which the ad should not show.
• Smart Bidding — automated bid strategies such as Target CPA and Target ROAS.
• Performance Max — an automated campaign type combining all Google inventory in one campaign. More: Performance Max article.
• Impression share — the share of possible impressions an ad actually received.
• Landing page — the page a user lands on after clicking an ad.
• Remarketing (retargeting) — showing ads again to people who previously visited a site or app.

Meta Ads and social media

• SMM (social media marketing) — marketing on social media. More: SMM guide.
• Meta Ads Manager — the tool for managing Facebook and Instagram ads.
• Campaign objective — Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion, Sales.
• Custom Audience — an audience built from your own data (site visitors, customer lists).
• Lookalike Audience — new people similar to an existing audience.
• Advantage+ — Meta's automation tools for audiences, placements and creatives.
• Meta Pixel — code that sends on-site actions to Meta.
• Conversions API (CAPI) — sending events directly from a server to Meta.
• Frequency — how many times on average one person saw an ad.
• Reach — the number of unique people who saw an ad at least once.
• Engagement — interactions such as likes, comments, shares and saves.
• UGC (user-generated content) — content created by users.
• Hook — the part of a video or post that grabs attention in the first seconds.
• Creative fatigue — falling effectiveness when the same ad is shown too often.

Analytics and measurement

• GA4 (Google Analytics 4) — Google's event-based web analytics tool.
• Event — any action recorded in GA4: a page view, click, purchase.
• Key event — an event that matters to the business and is marked separately (formerly "conversion").
• Conversion — a user action that has value for you: an enquiry, purchase, sign-up.
• Conversion rate — conversions ÷ sessions × 100.
• GTM (Google Tag Manager) — a tool for managing tracking code on a site.
• UTM parameters — tags that show a link's source, medium and campaign.
• Attribution — the rule for assigning a conversion to channels. More: attribution article.
• Last click — an attribution model that gives all credit to the last channel.
• Data-driven — a model that distributes credit across channels based on data.
• Engagement rate — in GA4, the share of engaged sessions (longer than 10 seconds, with a key event or 2+ pages).
• Bounce rate — in GA4, the share of sessions that were not engaged.
• Cohort — a group of users who first arrived in the same period.
• Search Console — a free tool for monitoring a site's visibility in Google Search.

Business metrics

• KPI (key performance indicator) — a key metric tied to a business goal. More: marketing KPI article.
• ROI (return on investment) — (revenue − cost) ÷ cost.
• ROAS (return on ad spend) — revenue from ads ÷ ad spend.
• CPA (cost per action/acquisition) — the price of one conversion.
• CPL (cost per lead) — the price of one lead.
• CAC (customer acquisition cost) — the total cost of acquiring one new customer.
• CLV / LTV (customer lifetime value) — revenue a customer brings over the whole relationship.
• AOV (average order value) — the average value of an order.
• MER (marketing efficiency ratio) — total revenue ÷ total marketing spend.
• Churn — the rate at which customers are lost.
• Margin — the share of the difference between selling price and cost.
• CRM (customer relationship management) — a system for managing customer relationships and leads.

Content and e-commerce

• Content marketing — attracting an audience with helpful content. More: content strategy article.
• Content calendar — a plan of topics, formats and dates for upcoming content.
• Evergreen content — content that stays relevant for a long time.
• CTA (call to action) — an element that asks the user to take a specific action: "Order now", "Get a quote".
• Lead magnet — useful material given in exchange for contact details (a checklist, a guide).
• A/B test — a test that compares the results of two versions.
• CRO (conversion rate optimisation) — systematic work to increase the conversion rate.
• Checkout — the stage in an online store where payment and the order are completed.
• Cart abandonment — adding to the basket without completing the purchase.
• Product feed — a file that sends product data to Google Merchant Center or a Meta catalogue.
• Marketplace — an online platform where many sellers sell their products.
• Upsell / cross-sell — offering a more expensive version or an additional product.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

Knowing the terms makes it easier to read reports, talk to an agency and make the right decisions. Bookmark this glossary and come back whenever you see an unfamiliar term in a report.

To see how these terms work in practice, our Digital marketing course is a good start.