Why digital marketing needs a jargon buster
It’s not just you. A lot of the language used in digital marketing is either borrowed from advertising, borrowed from tech, or invented by someone who wanted to sound clever on LinkedIn. The result is a soup of acronyms that makes it hard for busy business owners to engage with their own marketing.
Here are the terms we see small business owners asking about the most, grouped by the channel or topic they belong to.
The foundations
1. Digital marketing
Any marketing activity that happens online or on a digital device. Covers search, social, email, display ads, content, affiliate, influencer, SMS and more.
2. Channel
A route you use to reach customers. “Google Ads” is a channel. “Email marketing” is a channel. Your overall strategy is usually a mix of several.
3. Funnel
The journey a customer takes from never having heard of you to buying from you. Usually split into awareness, consideration and decision stages.
4. Attribution
Working out which marketing activity actually caused a sale. Harder than it sounds, because customers rarely click one ad and buy immediately.
5. KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
A metric you’ve chosen to measure how well something is working. Revenue, leads, and cost per acquisition are common marketing KPIs.
Paid advertising terms
6. PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Any ad model where you pay each time someone clicks. Google Ads and Microsoft Ads are the most common examples.
7. CPC (Cost Per Click)
How much you pay, on average, for each click on your ad.
8. CPM (Cost Per Mille)
Cost per thousand ad impressions. Used more for display and social ads where the goal is reach rather than clicks.
9. CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
How much you pay, on average, to get one customer (or one lead). Usually the most important number in a paid campaign.
10. ROAS (Return On Ad Spend)
Revenue divided by ad spend. If you spend £1 and make £4, your ROAS is 4. Simple and brutal.
11. Quality Score
Google Ads’ rating of how relevant and useful your ad, keyword and landing page are. A higher score means lower costs and better placement.
12. Retargeting (or remarketing)
Showing ads to people who’ve already visited your site. Often cheaper and more effective than targeting cold audiences.
Email marketing terms
13. Open rate
The percentage of recipients who opened your email. A rough proxy for how compelling your subject line was.
14. Click-through rate (CTR)
The percentage of recipients who clicked a link in your email. A better measure of engagement than open rate alone.
15. Bounce rate (email)
The percentage of emails that didn’t reach the inbox. High bounce rates suggest a dirty list that needs cleaning.
16. Segmentation
Splitting your email list into groups so you can send more relevant messages. The foundation of good email marketing.
17. Automation / drip campaign
Pre-built email sequences that send automatically when someone does something (signs up, abandons a cart, becomes a customer).
Social media terms
18. Organic reach
How many people saw your post without you paying to promote it. Has been declining on most platforms for years.
19. Engagement rate
Likes, comments, shares and clicks divided by reach. How much your audience actually interacts with your content.
20. UGC (User Generated Content)
Photos, videos and reviews created by your customers rather than by you. Often more trusted than polished brand content.
21. Influencer marketing
Paying (or gifting) someone with a relevant audience to talk about your product. Works best with smaller, trusted creators rather than big names.
Analytics and data terms
22. Sessions
A group of user interactions with your site that happen within a given time frame. One visitor can have multiple sessions.
23. Users
Unique people visiting your site. More useful than sessions for understanding audience size.
24. Bounce rate (site)
The percentage of visitors who leave without interacting. Note: GA4 redefined this, so the numbers look different from old Universal Analytics.
25. Conversion
Any action you want visitors to take. Form submission, sale, signup, phone call. See our complete guide to CRO for more.
26. UTM parameters
Little tags you add to the end of a URL so you can track exactly which campaign, source and medium drove the click.
Content and SEO crossovers
27. Content marketing
Creating useful content (blog posts, videos, guides) to attract and keep customers. Usually a long game. See content marketing for small businesses.
28. Lead magnet
A free resource (template, ebook, checklist) offered in exchange for an email address.
29. Landing page
A page built for one specific purpose, usually tied to a campaign. Fewer distractions, clearer call to action. See how to build landing pages that actually convert.
30. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Software that stores customer and lead data. HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive and Zoho are common ones. Most small businesses need one eventually.
The terms we deliberately left out
“Synergy.” “Growth hacking.” “Omnichannel.” “Value-add.” If someone uses these without explaining what they actually mean in your business, ask them to translate. If they can’t, that’s useful information.
Good digital marketing doesn’t need clever language. It needs clear thinking, consistent effort, and honest measurement. If you’d like help making sense of your marketing data or planning what to do next, get in touch. We speak plain English.
