Marketing Terms - What do the acronyms stand for?

Please see the glossary of marketing terms with their definitions and acronyms (if applicable).

ABM	Account Based Marketing Rather than developing buyer personas and then casting a wide net to attract those personas to your brand, ABM focuses on finding ways to engage with people from targeted accounts based on your ideal customer profile. ABM is all about sending tailored messages to targeted accounts.
AMA	Ask Me Anything Typically used to describe a panel or Q&A format. For Social, it is used to transparently engage with an audience; promote new features, updates, and products; and connect with users in real time. General AMA sessions are a great way to learn more about your audience’s interests and can help inform future content if you notice recurring questions or themes.
API	Application Programming Interface Application Programming Interface is a set of pre-written code features (properties, methods, classes, etc.) specified by the publisher of the API, that help developers use best practices and write consistent code.
	Below the Fold Below the fold refers to the section of a web page that is only visible after scrolling down.
	Buyer’s Journey The buyer’s journey is the progression that a contact follows when researching and purchasing a product. It starts with the awareness stage, when buyers realize they have a problem, moves to the consideration stage, when they evaluate different solutions to that problem, and concludes with the decision stage, when they decide which contender best aligns with their needs and objectives and purchase it. The buyer’s journey differs from the customer journey because not every prospective buyer becomes a customer. Individuals might go through some of the buyer’s journey stages without ever making a purchase.
BANT	Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline The BANT formula is there to determine whether their business prospects have the budget, authority, need, and timeline to buy what they sell.
BOF or BOFU	Bottom of Funnel The bottom of the funnel represents the last stage of the buying process. This is when the buyer has identified a problem, researched possible solutions and is getting ready to buy. At this stage, buyers are typically requesting either a free demo or consultation and beginning a conversation with sales.
BR	Bounce Rate Your website's bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on a page on your website, then leave. They don't click on anything else or visit a second page on the site. (HubSpot)
	Content Marketing Content marketing is a marketing discipline with the goal of increasing awareness and scope for products and brands in the desired target group with content published on the web and offline. The content can be made up of text, images and videos, which are disseminated on your own or third-party websites, blogs or via social media.
	Cookie (Digital Marketing) A server is a computer that delivers data to your computer and a web server delivers websites. A cookie is a piece of code placed on your browser by a web server. Because users visited the website of their own volition, it’s called a first-party cookie. The cookie a web server places on your browser can store different types of information, but the basic premise is to identify the user and the website visited that placed the cookie to begin with.
	Customer Journey The customer journey is a way of tracking a customer’s experience with your company from a visitor’s first interaction through when they sign a deal.
CAC	Customer Acquisition Cost The cost associated with turning a lead into a customer. CAC = Total amount spent on sales and marketing in a period / # of customers signed during that period.
CAPTCHA	Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart It is a method to check whether the user is a person or robot. Typically used on forms.
CMS	Content Management System A software that allows marketers to create, design, host, edit, manage and track the performance of all of their website content. Popular examples include HubSpot, and WordPress.
CPC	Cost Per Click CPC measures the overall cost per click of your PPC ads. Once your campaign is up and running, CPC is a metric used to measure the efficiency and relevancy of your ads.
CRM	Customer Relationship Management (Software) A contact database and sales acceleration tool that identifies business insights and analytics. It's a comprehensive and easily accessible platform that houses the sales process. Examples include Salesforce and HubSpot.
CRO	Conversion Rate and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) Conversion rate is the ratio between the number of people that complete the desired action on a given webpage and the number of people that visit that webpage. That action could include filling out a form on a landing page or clicking a call-to-action (CTA) on a blog post. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) focuses on systematically increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action on a given page.
CPL	Cost per Lead Refers to the amount spent on acquiring a lead. Common use case for cost per lead can be found in paid advertising where there is a direct correlation between the amount of money you are spending in something like Google Ads, and the number of leads you are generating from that spend.
CTA	Call to Action Refers to the next step or the action that the marketer wants the consumer to take. Typically a button or image inviting the prospect to take the desired action.
CTR	Click Through Rate This is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad has been shown. The CTR percentage allows you to measure the engagement with your ad. The higher the percentage, the higher the engagement.
DA	Domain Authority Domain authority is a search engine ranking score that can forecast a page’s capacity to rank on a search results page. Domain authority scores can be evaluated between 1 and 100.
GA	Google Analytics A service by Google to provide you with detailed statistics about your website’s traffic.
H1, H2 and H3	Header Tags H1 = Main keywords and subject matter, what the overall post is about. A H1 tag contains the target keywords for your post. This is the first impression people get when they spot your article in a search engine. H2 = Sections to break up content, using similar keywords to the H1 tag. Think of these as individual chapters that make up the whole story. H3 = Subcategories to further break up the content, making it easily scannable. H3 tags are also excellent additions when you have moderately long H2 sections
	Inbound Marketing The inbound methodology is the method of growing your organization by building meaningful, lasting relationships with consumers, prospects, and customers. The inbound methodology can be applied in three ways: Attract: drawing in the right people with valuable content and conversations that establish you as a trusted advisor with whom they want to engage. Engage: presenting insights and solutions that align with their pain points and goals so they are more likely to buy from you. Delight: providing help and support to empower your customers to find success with their purchase.
IBL	Inbound Link An inbound link, also known as a backlink, it’s a link back to your site from another web page.
	Keyword (or Key Term) A keyword is what users write into a search engine when they want to find something specific. A keyword can be a single word or a combination of words, e.g. “rose” or “rose species red”. Keyword density tells you how often a search term appears in a text in relation to the total number of words it contains.
KPI	Key Performance Indicator KPIs are used to track progress towards marketing goals. Set the right KPIs for your business to continuously evaluate performance and make adjustments to optimize your marketing strategy.
KTR or KR	Key Term Research or Keyword Research Key Term Research is the process of identifying the search terms that your prospective site visitors are looking for online. It is critical to ensuring your content can be found on search engine results pages.
LP	Landing Page A landing page is a web page optimized for lead generation. Using a form, companies are able to leverage meaningful content in exchange for visitor information.
LTK	Long-Tail Keyword Long-tail keywords are keywords or keyphrases that are more specific – and usually longer – than more commonly used keywords. Long-tail keywords get less search traffic, but will usually have a higher conversion value, as they are more specific.
MOF or MOFU	Middle of Funnel Represents the middle stage of the buying process. Buyers have identified that they have a problem and are continuing to do more research. Examples would include reviewing a case study or engaging with an interactive tool.
MQL	Marketing Qualified Lead Using marketing tactics to help determine if the lead is a good fit for the organization.
MTO	Meta Tags and Meta Tags Optimization Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content; the meta tags don’t appear on the page itself, but only in the page’s source code. Meta tags are essentially little content descriptors that help tell search engines what a web page is about. The meta description is one of a web page’s meta tags. With this meta information, webmasters can briefly sketch out the content and quality of a web page.
NPS	Net Promoter Score Measures how likely someone would be to recommend your company to others on a 1–10 scale. Using this customer satisfaction metric, you can easily identify how loyal your customers are and divide them into three categories: promoters (9+), passives (7–8), and detractors (0–6).
OBL	Outbound Link An outbound link is a link from your site to another website.
	Pillar Page A pillar page is the basis on which a topic cluster is built. A pillar page covers all aspects of the topic on a single page, with room for more in-depth reporting in more detailed cluster blog posts that hyperlink back to the pillar page. Pillar pages broadly cover a particular topic, and cluster content should address a specific keyword related to that topic in-depth
PPC	Page Views or Pageviews Pageviews are the total number of times a page was viewed on your site. A pageview (or view) is counted when a page on your site is loaded by a browser. Unique pageviews is the total number of times a page was viewed by users in a single session. Since this metric discounts instances in which a user reloads or visits the same page in the same session, unique pageviews help you get a better understanding of how many visitors are viewing pages on your site and how popular individual pages are. (HubSpot)
	Ranking Opportunities Ranking opportunities, in the context of search engine optimization (SEO), describe the potential of a website to rank in search engines for certain keywords.
	Responsive Layout Responsive layouts are adaptable and change depending on the user device. They optimize the page to fit as much content on as possible.
ROPS	Rework, optimize, publish, share ROPS is a strategy we use to update existing blog content that is either not performing or needs updating. Learn more about the process in this blog.
	Sessions A session is a group of interactions — including not only page views, but activities such as CTA clicks and events — that take place on your website within a given time frame. The timeframe of a session varies by web analytics tool. For example, sessions in Google Analytics and HubSpot’s traffic analytics tools last 30 minutes by default.
SEM	Search Engine Marketing Search engine marketing (SEM) is the process of using paid advertising to give your site higher rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs) and increased visibility. One SEM practice that you may already be familiar with is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
SEO	Search Engine Optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of positioning your content and website so it can rank well on and draw traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO includes both on-page SEO, where you attempt to make alterations to your web code and content to improve its ranking, and off-page SEO, where you try to reach out to individuals outside of your company to acquire backlinks and traffic from other sources.
SER	Search Engine Ranking Every search engine ranks the website or web pages on the basis of the quality score.
SERP	Search Engine Result Pages These are the pages that are shown by the search engine when a user searches for some keywords.
SME	Subject Matter Expert (Pronounced smee) An expert on a given subject, generally of a technical or scientific nature.
SQL	Sales Qualified Lead An MQL is characterized as an SQL when sales agrees with marketing that the contact has demonstrated enough interest and is a good enough fit to initiate a sales conversation. Typically, where the marketing to sales handoff occurs.
	Tag (Digital Marketing) Tags are the keywords used to describe an element on the page and all their attributes. NOTE: Pixel tags or, web beacons as they are also known, attach to a browser and collect information about an anonymous user's movements on the Internet. A pixel is always going to be a tag, but a tag isn’t always going to be a pixel.
	Tap Target A tap target is any element on a web page that a user interacts with. These include action buttons, links, ads, etc. that a user taps on when accessing a web page using a touchscreen. The sizing of a tap target is triggered when tap targets like links or buttons are packed closely together or are too small for a user to click on them.
	Tech Stack (Software Stack) A tech stack, also called a software stack, is the set of technology and software an organization uses to run their business. For most businesses, that could include having a CMS, CRM software, sales acceleration tool, marketing automation platform and project management program.
	Tracking Pixel Tracking pixels are code snippets added to a website in order to gather information. A snippet of code is added to your website to create a 1×1 pixel graphic. The tiny size makes it unlikely to be noticed by visitors, and tracking pixels are usually designed to blend in with your existing site or be transparent. When a user visits your site, the tracking pixel loads to collect information about them as they browse your website. NOTE: Tracking pixels and cookies are actually very similar, and they are often used in conjunction with one another. The difference between cookies and tracking pixels is how the information is delivered and where it is kept. Cookies are saved in an individual’s browser, such as Google Chrome or Firefox. They cannot follow users across their devices, and users can block cookies or clear their cookies if they so choose.
	Traffic Sources Traffic sources show where your site visitors are coming from. Like visitor information, this metric is usually collected via the tracking code on your site. HubSpot’s traffic analytics tools track multiple categories, including: Organic Search Referrals Organic Social Email Marketing Paid Search Paid Social Direct traffic
TOF or TOFU	Top of Funnel The top of the funnel refers to the first stages of the buying process. During this stage, buyers are becoming aware that they have an issue and are looking for more information. Examples include subscribing to a blog or watching a video. Have helpful content that prompts visitors to take the desired next steps.
TYP	Thank You Page After submitting information on a landing page, customers are immediately redirected to a thank you page that thanks them for their submission and provides them with potential next steps. Thank you pages are important in lead nurturing strategy because they deliver the offers individuals are seeking and they can position other relevant content as a next step.
UGC	User-generated Content It is written or visual content created by the user (fan) of a product or service. UGC can be expressed as testimonials, blog posts, social media posts, websites, images, videos, etc.
UI	User Interface The user interface (UI) is the series of screens, pages, and visual elements—like buttons and icons—that enable a person to interact with a product or service.
UTM	Urchin Tracking Module Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes are snippets of code attached to the end of a URL. UTM codes are used to pinpoint specific sources of traffic to a website. At minimum, UTM codes include a traffic source, a medium, and a campaign name. They may also contain keyword terms and content identifiers. Five UTM parameters recognized in Google Analytics: Campaign Source - Used to identify the source of your traffic. This could be a website name, search engine, newsletter name, or social network. Campaign Medium - Used to identify the medium used to share and access your link. This could be email, social, cost per click (cpc), or another method. Campaign Name - Used to identify a campaign or promotion tied to your link. This could be a product name, type of sale, contest name, etc. Campaign Term - Used for paid search campaigns to track relevant ad-based keywords. Campaign Content - Used to determine what someone clicked on to get to your site when there are multiple links pointing to the same URL. Example: www.example.com/page?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=summer-sale&utm_term=camping-gear
UX	User Experience User experience (UX) is the internal experience that a person has as they interact with every aspect of a company’s products and services. Simply put, UX is the overall experience that a customer has with your business.
	Visitors (New and Unique) New visitors — also termed new users, unique visitors, or new visitor sessions, depending on the web analytics tools — is the number of unique visitors on your website. A new visitor is an individual who visits your site for the first time. Returning visitors (or users) is the number of visitors on your website who have visited before.
	Website (Basic Anatomy and Terms) Header = This is the top part of a website containing the logo and usually (but not always) the site’s navigation menu. The header is the zone at the top of the page that stays constant and visible as visitors click around your site. Navigation (Navigation Bar or Main Menu) = These are the links at the top of the page to help you find what you’re looking for. The navigation links are usually in the header or just below it. Feature Image (Hero Image) = This is the large image you see at the top of a web page that grabs your attention and sets the tone for the rest of the page. Feature images typically span the full width of the page and often contain headlines or calls to action. Slider = A slider is used to display pictures where the images slide from right to left or vice-versa. Sliders can appear anywhere on a website, but they’re commonly used on homepages in place of (or in addition to) a feature image. Website Content = Website content is the information your visitors consume. Web copy or body copy refers to written text. Website content refers to all the elements used to communicate your message — text, images, video, audio, the whole shebang. Footer = A footer performs the same function as the header — it’s a region on a website that’s constant from page to page — except a footer is at the bottom of a page instead of the top.
WYSIWUG	What You See is What You Get The term refers to the ability of software to show users exactly how every content type will look with no need for additional work or coding. The idea behind WYSIWYG is that any changes made on the screen are automatically reflected in the final output without any extra steps necessary.
	Wireframes Wireframes are blueprints for your website. They provide the framework upon which the functionality and design of your final website will be built. The focus of wireframes is not on the look and feel of your website, but rather the structure and layout of content that will prompt the intended actions of your user.