Recently updated on August 27th, 2024 at 03:46 pm
When it comes to reporting the outcomes of marketing activities the actual meaning of what is going on can get lost in all the jargon. To help you navigate the waters of marketing language we have put together a glossary of marketing reporting terms for you to peruse.
Common Reporting Terms
- Attribution: The tracking of user actions and assigning values to these actions, as well as the channels in which the actions occurred. Three common models for marketing attribution:
- First Touch Attribution: Method of evaluating marketing touchpoints which assigns all credit for a conversion to the channel responsible for the first interaction from a customer.
- Last Touch Attribution: Method of evaluating marketing touchpoints which assigns all credit for a conversion to the channel responsible for the last interaction from a customer.
- Multi-Touch Attribution: Method of evaluating marketing touchpoints which distributes the credit for a conversion across multiple touchpoints along the buyer journey.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of users who visit a website or landing page and then leave without interacting with any other pages or elements on the site.
- Conversions: Desired actions taken after clicking on or seeing your ad, e.g. filling out a form, registering for an event, etc.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A technology for managing your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
- Impressions: Number of times your ad was displayed.
- Key Result: A measurable value that shows how effectively you achieve marketing objectives.
- Leads: Individuals or organisations who show interest in a brand’s products or services by sharing contact information, clicking on an ad, downloading a whitepaper, etc.
- Lead Score (LS): A methodology used to evaluate the quality of leads.
- Marketing Automation System: Technology used to manage and automate marketing activities to improve engagement and efficiency.
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): A lead that meets marketing’s benchmark for being considered a strong prospect. They are usually qualified through analytics and/or a lead scoring system.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising (revenue/cost = ROAS).
- Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): A lead that the Sales team has vetted and qualified as a prospective customer.
- User Experience (UX): The overall experience that a user has when interacting with a product, service or system.
- User Interface (UI): The visual elements, interactive components, and layout of a digital product or system with which users interact.
- Vanity Metric: A measurement that looks good on the surface but doesn’t provide meaningful insight into business performance.
Common Digital Marketing Terms
- Call to Action (CTA): A prompt or directive that encourages a user to take a specific action such as clicking a button or filling out a form.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The amount of clicks in your campaign divided by the number of impressions.
- Click To Open Rate: The percentage of people who click within the ad or mailer after opening it (clicks divided by opens).
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The cost paid by an advertiser for each conversion.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): Total spent on your ads divided by clicks. The average amount you are paying per click.
- Cost Per Lead (CPL): The amount of money you spend to acquire a lead.
- Cost Per Mille (CPM): Total spent on your ads divided by 1,000 impressions.
- Cost Per View (CPV): Average cost per view. This relates specifically to video content.
- Featured Snippet: The handy little box you see at the top of Google’s search results – it provides a quick answer to your query.
- Frequency: The average number of impressions served to each unique user. Frequency equals impressions divided by reach.
- Inbound Marketing: This form of marketing is all about drawing customers in with valuable content (such as blog articles), rather than pushing out ads.
- Metadata: The behind-the-scenes info that search engines read to understand what your pages are about. Things like title tags and descriptions help boost your site’s visibility in search results.
- Open Rate: For Mailers or Message and Conversation Ads on LinkedIn, the open rate equals the number of opens divided by the number of sends.
- Outbound Marketing: The traditional method of reaching customers which involves pushing out messages, such as ads, cold emails, or direct mail.
- Reach: The unique number of people exposed to at least one impression.
- Remarketing/Retargeting: A marketing strategy that involves targeting individuals who have previously visited a website or used a mobile app but did not make a purchase.
- Rich Snippets: Enhanced search results that display extra details, such as star ratings or images, directly below the link. They make your page stand out and offer users more information at a glance.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM): A digital marketing strategy that involves promoting a website or online content through paid advertising on search engines.
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): The process of optimising a website or online content to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases.
- Black Hat SEO: Unethical or manipulative SEO techniques used to artificially increase a website’s search engine ranking.
- White Hat SEO: Ethical and legitimate SEO techniques used to improve a website’s search engine ranking through honest and sustainable practices.
- Gray Hat SEO: SEO techniques that fall somewhere between White Hat and Black Hat practices.
- Search Engine Results Page (SERP): The page displayed by a search engine in response to a user’s query.
Once you have familiarised yourself with the terms related to marketing reporting, it is important to align the metrics you are measuring with your overall marketing goals.
