Sales Loves MarketingA
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an arrangement where a business pays independent partners, called affiliates, a commission for each visit, sign-up or sale they bring in. The affiliate promotes the product with a tracked link, and the business pays only for results.
Affiliate Network
An affiliate network is a platform that connects merchants who run affiliate programs with publishers (affiliates) who promote them. It handles the tracking links, sales reporting and commission payments between both sides, and usually charges the merchant a fee.
Application Programming Interface (API)
An API (application programming interface) is a set of rules that lets one piece of software request data or actions from another. In sales and marketing, APIs are what let a website form, a CRM, an email tool and an analytics platform share data without anyone copying it by hand.
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Banner ad
A banner ad is a rectangular image or animated ad placed on a web page or in an app, usually delivered by an ad server, that links to the advertiser's website when clicked. It is the classic format of display advertising.
Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)
Blind carbon copy (BCC) is an email field that sends a copy of a message to people without showing their addresses to the other recipients. Recipients in To and CC can't see who was BCC'd, and when the email software handles BCC as intended, BCC recipients can't see each other either.
Business to Business (B2B)
B2B (business to business) describes trade in which a company sells products or services to other companies rather than to individual consumers. Examples include a manufacturer buying parts from a supplier or a firm paying for accounting software.
Business to Consumer (B2C)
B2C (business to consumer) describes companies that sell products or services directly to individual people for their own use, rather than to other businesses. It is usually contrasted with B2B (business to business).
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Clicks
Clicks count how many times people click an ad or a search result that leads to your site. In Google Ads a click is counted when someone clicks your ad, even if your website then fails to load, and it is the base for metrics like click-through rate and cost per click.
CNAME record
A CNAME (canonical name) record is a DNS record that makes one domain name an alias of another. When someone looks up the alias, DNS follows the CNAME to the target name and returns that name's IP address.
Complaint (Spam Complaint)
In email marketing, a complaint (or spam complaint) is recorded when a recipient marks your message as spam or junk in their inbox. Mailbox providers use complaint rates to decide whether your future email reaches the inbox, and Gmail and Yahoo ask bulk senders to keep the rate below 0.3%.
Conversion Rate (CVR)
Conversion rate (CVR) is the percentage of visitors, sessions or ad clicks that end in a desired action, such as a sign-up, demo request or purchase. You calculate it by dividing conversions by the total number of visitors (or clicks) and multiplying by 100.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the systematic process of increasing the share of website visitors who complete a desired action, such as booking a demo, starting a trial or buying. It works by finding what stops people from converting and testing changes that remove those obstacles.
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is the language that controls how a web page looks, including colours, fonts, spacing and layout. HTML gives a page its content and structure; CSS styles it.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the average amount a business spends on sales and marketing to win one new customer. You calculate it by dividing the total acquisition spend in a period by the number of new customers won in that period.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV) is an estimate of how much a customer is worth to a business over the whole relationship, ideally measured as profit rather than revenue. It helps decide how much you can afford to spend to win and keep a customer.
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Email Delivery
Email delivery is the moment a receiving mail server accepts a message, confirmed by an SMTP "250" reply. It says nothing about whether the email lands in the inbox or the spam folder; that is deliverability.
Exact match keywords
Exact match is the narrowest keyword match type in Google Ads. An exact match keyword, written in square brackets like [crm software], lets your ad show only on searches that have the same meaning or the same intent as the keyword.
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Fired pixel
A fired pixel is a tracking pixel that has loaded and sent its signal, telling an analytics, ad or affiliate platform that an event happened, such as a page view, a sign-up, a sale or an email open. "Firing" is the moment the browser or email app requests the pixel from the tracking server.
Frequency Capping
Frequency capping is a setting that limits how many times the same person sees an ad, or ads from a campaign, within a set period such as a day, week or month. It stops ad fatigue and keeps budget from being spent on people who have already seen the ad enough.
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IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is the standard protocol email apps use to read and manage email that stays stored on the mail server. Because the mailbox lives on the server, the same messages, folders and read status show up on every device.
Infographic
An infographic is a visual that combines charts, icons, images and short text to explain information, data or a process quickly and clearly. Marketers use infographics to make complex topics easy to scan and to create content that others share and link to.
IP Address
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is the numeric label given to a device on a network so data can find its way to and from it, such as 192.168.1.1. In marketing it matters for email sender reputation, website analytics and privacy law, where the EU treats it as a possible personal identifier.
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Macromarketing
Macromarketing is the field that studies marketing at the level of whole markets and societies. In Shelby Hunt's widely cited definition, it studies marketing systems, the effects of marketing systems on society, and the effects of society on marketing systems.
Mail User Agent (MUA)
A mail user agent (MUA) is the email program a person uses to write, send, read and organise email, also called an email client. Desktop apps, mobile mail apps and webmail interfaces are all MUAs.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
Middle of the funnel (MOFU) is the consideration stage of the marketing funnel, when a prospect knows their problem and is comparing ways and vendors to solve it. Marketing at this stage builds trust, answers detailed questions and helps qualify leads for sales.
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Offer
In marketing, an offer is what you give a prospect in return for taking an action. It can be a product at a stated price and terms, a discount or free trial, or a free resource such as a guide or template given in exchange for contact details.
One-to-One Marketing
One-to-one marketing is a strategy where a company adjusts how it treats each customer based on what that customer has told it and what it knows about them. It is also called personalized or individual marketing, and in B2B it shows up most clearly as one-to-one account-based marketing.
Opt-in
An opt-in is a person's active permission to receive marketing messages, such as emails or texts, usually given by ticking a box or submitting a sign-up form. With double opt-in, the person also confirms their address by clicking a link in a confirmation email.
Opt-Out
To opt out is to take an action, such as clicking an unsubscribe link, to stop being included in something you were signed up for or included in by default, for example marketing emails, data sharing or tracking. An opt-out system includes people unless they say no, while an opt-in system leaves them out until they say yes.
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Page Authority (PA)
Page Authority (PA) is a score from 1 to 100, developed by the SEO software company Moz, that predicts how well a single web page will rank in search results. It is based mostly on the links pointing to that page, and it is not a Google ranking factor.
Pageview
A pageview is one load of a web page in a browser that your analytics tool records. Every load counts, so one visitor who opens three pages, or reloads the same page three times, creates three pageviews. Google Analytics 4 reports pageviews under the metric name Views.
Paid Inclusion
Paid inclusion is a search marketing model where a website pays a search engine to be added to its index, reviewed faster or crawled more often, without being promised a higher ranking. It was common in early web search and has largely disappeared; Google says it does not accept payment to crawl a site more often or rank it higher.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model where the advertiser pays each time someone clicks an ad, rather than when the ad is shown. It is most common in search ads such as Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, where ads compete in an auction for each search.
Pay Per Sale (PPS)
Pay per sale (PPS), also called cost per sale, is a payment model in which an advertiser pays a publisher or affiliate only when a visitor they referred makes a purchase. The payment is usually a percentage of the sale, though some programs pay a flat amount per sale.
Phishing
Phishing is a scam in which an attacker poses as a trusted person or organisation, usually by email, text message or phone, to trick people into clicking a harmful link, opening an infected attachment or handing over passwords, money or other sensitive information.
Private Blog Network (PBN)
A private blog network (PBN) is a group of websites, often built on expired domains, that one person or company controls and uses to link to a main site to boost its search rankings. Google treats PBN links as link spam.
Product Matrix (Ansoff Matrix)
A product matrix, usually meaning the Ansoff matrix or product-market matrix, is a two-by-two grid that sorts growth options by whether you sell existing or new products in existing or new markets. Its four strategies are market penetration, market development, product development and diversification.
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Recipient
A recipient is the person or organisation a message is sent to. In email, recipients are listed in the To, Cc and Bcc fields; in email marketing, the recipients are the subscribers on your list who receive a campaign.
Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links are links two websites place to each other, usually because the owners agreed to swap them. A few that make sense for readers are normal, but Google treats excessive link swaps made only for ranking as link spam.
Referring URL
A referring URL (or referrer) is the address of the page a visitor was on just before they clicked through to your page. Browsers pass it in the HTTP Referer header, and analytics tools use it to show which sites send you traffic.
Return Path
The return path is the email address that bounces and other delivery failure notices are sent to. It comes from the SMTP "MAIL FROM" command, is stored in a Return-Path header on delivery, and its domain is the one SPF checks and DMARC compares with your From address.
Returning visitors
Returning visitors are people who come back to a website after an earlier visit. Google Analytics 4 counts them as returning users, which it defines as users who have started at least one previous session.
Run of Network (RON)
Run of network (RON) is a way of buying ads in which your ad can appear on any website in an ad network, without choosing specific sites or placements. It gives high reach at a low price, in exchange for very little control over where the ad shows.
Run of Site (ROS)
Run of site (ROS) is a way of buying display ads in which your ad can appear on any page of one website, in any open ad slot, instead of in a fixed position. You give up control over where the ad shows and usually pay a lower rate in return.
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Search Engine Positioning
Search engine positioning is the work of improving where specific pages appear in organic search results for the queries that matter to a business. It is a part of SEO focused on rank for chosen keywords, measured in Google Search Console as average position.
Search Query
A search query is the exact word or phrase someone types or speaks into a search engine. Marketers study queries to learn what people want and then choose the keywords they will target.
Search Term
A search term is the exact word or phrase a person types or speaks into a search engine. It differs from a keyword, which is the word or phrase an advertiser or SEO chooses to target. People create search terms. Marketers choose keywords.
Sender Score
Sender Score is a reputation rating from 0 to 100 for an email-sending IP address, calculated by the email company Validity (formerly Return Path). A higher score means the IP's recent sending looks more trustworthy compared with other senders.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
A service level agreement (SLA) is an agreement between a service provider and a customer that sets measurable service targets, such as uptime or response time, and states what happens if the provider misses them. SLAs can also be internal, for example between marketing and sales.
Skyscraper Ad
A skyscraper ad is a tall, narrow display ad that runs down the side of a web page, most often 160 x 600 pixels (wide skyscraper) or 120 x 600 pixels (skyscraper). It sits in the sidebar next to the main content.
Social Proof
Social proof is the tendency to copy what other people do or approve of, especially when we are unsure what to choose. In marketing, it means showing evidence that others already use and trust a product, such as reviews, case studies, customer logos and testimonials.
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Target audience
A target audience is the specific group of people a message, campaign or piece of content is meant to reach. It is usually a narrower slice of your target market, described by traits such as role, industry, location, needs and behaviour.
Text Ad
A text ad is an online ad made of words only, typically a headline, a short description and a link, with no main image or video. The best-known text ads are the search ads shown above and below search results on Google and Bing.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
Top of the funnel (TOFU) is the first, awareness stage of the marketing funnel, when people first notice a problem or discover your brand. Marketing at this stage aims to reach and help the right audience, not to sell to them yet.
Tracking URL
A tracking URL is a normal web address with extra information added, usually UTM parameters or a unique click ID, that tells your analytics tool where a visitor came from. Marketers use it to see which campaign, channel or link brought each visit, lead or sale.
TrustRank
TrustRank is a link analysis method that separates trustworthy web pages from spam by starting with a small set of pages that human experts have checked and passing trust outward through their links. It was published in 2004 by researchers at Stanford University and Yahoo.
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Unnatural link
An unnatural link is a link created mainly to manipulate a site's search rankings rather than because someone chose to recommend the page, such as a paid link that passes ranking credit or a link from a link scheme. Google treats unnatural links as link spam and can demote sites that use them or apply a manual action.
User Experience (UX)
User experience (UX) is how a person perceives and responds to using a product, system or service, including how easy, useful and pleasant it is. It covers every part of their contact with a company and its products, not only the screen they click on.
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Value Analysis
Value analysis is a structured review of a product, service or process that looks at what each part does and what it costs, so you can cut cost or improve function without losing what the customer needs. Value is treated as the ratio of function to cost.
Viral content
Viral content is content that spreads quickly from person to person because people choose to share it, so it reaches far more people than the publisher could reach with its own channels or paid media.