What internet marketing terms mean
Internet marketing, often called digital marketing, is the promotion of a product, service or brand through online channels such as search engines, websites, email and social media. Like most fields, it has its own jargon, and much of it is made of acronyms. This glossary explains the terms in plain English and groups them by channel so you can find related ideas together.
Definitions vary slightly between companies and tools, so treat these as common working meanings rather than official standards.
Core terms to know first
If you only learn a handful of terms, these are a good start:
- Traffic: the people who visit your website or page.
- Conversion: a visitor taking an action you want, such as buying, signing up or filling in a form.
- Conversion rate: the share of visitors who convert, usually shown as a percentage.
- Funnel: the steps a person moves through from first hearing about you to becoming a customer.
- Call to action (CTA): a prompt telling people what to do next, such as “Subscribe” or “Get a quote”.
- Target audience: the group of people you most want to reach.
- Analytics: the data about how people find and use your site or campaigns.
Search marketing terms
- SEO (search engine optimization): improving a website so it can appear higher in unpaid search results.
- SEM (search engine marketing): a broad term for marketing through search engines. Some people use it for paid search only, others to include SEO.
- SERP: the search engine results page, which is what you see after you search.
- Keyword: a word or phrase people type into a search engine.
- Organic traffic: visitors who arrive from unpaid search results.
- Backlink: a link from another website to yours. Search engines often treat these as a signal of trust, though how much weight they carry is not publicly spelled out.
- Meta description: the short summary that may appear under a page title in search results.
Content and email terms
- Content marketing: creating useful material, such as articles, videos or guides, to attract and keep an audience rather than promoting directly.
- Blog: a regularly updated section of a website, often used for content marketing.
- Landing page: a page built for one specific goal, often where an ad or email sends visitors.
- Lead: a person or business that has shown interest and may become a customer.
- Lead magnet: something free, such as a checklist, offered in exchange for contact details.
- Email list: the people who have agreed to receive your emails.
- Open rate and click-through rate: the share of recipients who open an email, and the share who click a link in it.
- Newsletter: a regular email sent to subscribers.
Social media terms
- Reach: the number of unique people who see a post.
- Impressions: the number of times a post is shown, including repeat views by the same person.
- Engagement: interactions such as likes, comments, shares and saves.
- Hashtag: a word or phrase with a # that groups posts by topic.
- Handle: a username on a social platform.
- Organic vs paid: organic posts are unpaid; paid posts are promoted with an advertising budget.
- Influencer: a person with an audience who can affect what others buy. See influencer marketing terms for a deeper glossary.
Advertising and targeting terms
- PPC (pay-per-click): an advertising model where you pay when someone clicks your ad.
- CPC (cost per click): what you pay for each click.
- CPM (cost per mille): the cost per 1,000 ad impressions.
- CTR (click-through rate): clicks divided by impressions, shown as a percentage.
- Retargeting (or remarketing): showing ads to people who have already visited your site or interacted with you.
- Affiliate marketing: paying partners a commission for sales or leads they send you. It is related to the models explained in network marketing terms.
- Ad spend: the total amount you spend on advertising.
Measurement and conversion terms
- KPI (key performance indicator): a number you track to judge progress toward a goal. Goal frameworks such as OKRs build on these.
- ROI (return on investment): the gain from spending compared with its cost.
- ROAS (return on ad spend): revenue earned for each unit of currency spent on ads.
- CAC (customer acquisition cost): the average cost of winning one new customer. It is also a scalability measure; see how to measure the scalability of a business.
- Bounce rate: the share of visits where someone leaves after viewing one page. Exact definitions differ between analytics tools.
- A/B testing: comparing two versions of a page, ad or email to see which performs better.
- Attribution: deciding which marketing activity deserves credit for a conversion.
What are the 7 C’s of online marketing?
There is no single official list. Different authors use different “C” frameworks, and these often include ideas such as customer, content, context, community, convenience, cost and communication. If you see this phrase, check which version the author means. The underlying point is the same: focus on the customer, give them useful content and make it easy to act.
Related glossaries
Specific models have their own vocabulary. If you are looking at relationship-based selling, see network marketing terms. If you are working with creators and sponsors, see influencer marketing terms.