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In 2023, digital marketing is necessary for any business that wants to increase its customer base, enhance its brand awareness, and maximize its profits.

In the internet era, traditional marketing competes with digital marketing. Being newer, but also highly dynamic and complex, the online environment comes with its specific terminology and unique knowledge. Marketing specialists are familiar with these terms, but it is essential for entrepreneurs to absorb this knowledge as well, even if they work with an agency. In this article, we provide some simple and useful explanations of marketing terms that you need to understand when you have an online business.

 

1. Marketing objectives

The objectives are an essential part of a marketing strategy. It’s important to clearly define your targets and develop a plan to achieve them. Objectives help you monitor each step as well as the progress of the strategy. Furthermore, validate the success of your efforts and help you maintain control.

To correctly set these objectives, marketers use the SMART method. Specifically, this means that the objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. SMART is an effective tool that provides clear guidelines for brainstorming and encompasses all the dimensions necessary for the establishment of clear objectives.

 

2. Marketing plan

The plan lays out the directions that a company will follow in order to achieve its SMART objectives within a certain period. Why do we need a marketing plan? There is a simple explanation: without it, we lack a clear and easily monitored structure for what we want to do.

A marketing plan is usually based on three questions: What is our current position? Where do we want to go? and How can we get there? With the help of the plan, we can measure our progress over specific time intervals and gain a better understanding of certain factors that can impact the success of our initiatives.

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3. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

KPIs are a measurement and monitoring tool used to ascertain the success of marketing actions. In order words, they are a set of metrics that reflect the performance of the methods used in achieving the long-term marketing objectives set in the marketing plan.

 

4. Brand vs. Branding

What is the difference between brand and branding? Simply put, the brand is the perception that people have about a business, while branding is the active process of shaping that perception. A brand is not just a mere image, but it encompasses the overall quality and reputation of a company: how people see it, whether they trust it, whether they would use its products or services for their needs. On the other hand, branding designates the process of building a brand, a marketing strategy aimed at ensuring that people’s responses to the previous questions are positive.

 

5. Website

Technically speaking, a website is a collection of interconnected HTML files, which are accessible on the Internet through a web address or URL. Practically, a website is the “business card” of a business – a platform that shows (or even sells) its products and services. Overall, it represents an extremely important source of information for current and potential customers.

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6. Social media platforms

Social media is a resource on which a significant part of digital marketing relies. Each platform has its own specific characteristics and requires a unique approach, suitable for the users found there. Depending on the product or service you offer and, more importantly, on the target audience, it’s advisable to direct your efforts toward the appropriate networks. Furthermore, there are different post formats for each platform. For example, carousel and reels posts are suitable for Instagram. For Facebook, live videos are effective, while for LinkedIn, business-to-business (B2B) posts are preferred.

 

7. Search engines

The approaches and structures of search engines should be more familiar to you than to a generic user. The search engine is a platform that stores the title, keywords and content of web pages in a database. Every search engine has three major components:

1. Search crawler: A program that targets web pages, reads them, and then follows the links to other pages.
2. Index or catalog: This is where information about each web page found by the crawler is stored.
3. Search software: Allows the search among the multitude of pages registered in the index.

 

Some examples of search engines are Google, Bing and Yahoo. Google offers search functions for images, books, maps, blogs, news groups, documents, quizzes, and web directories. Bing is the search engine provided by Microsoft. Like Google, Bing allows users to search for various resources on the web.

 

8. Cookie

As internet users, we are informed daily about the use of cookies when accessing a website. But what are they? Cookies are files that store information about you, such as the type of browser you use and your internet browsing behaviour.

So what do we use cookies for? First of all, they are useful for performance tracking. Specifically, they keep information about user preferences that can be used in an analysis, as well as data such as the number of users, their browsing trends and their actions. Furthermore, they are useful in delivering personalized ads based on user preferences.

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9. Website visitors

A person who visits the website and completes a contact form or makes a purchase represents, in marketing terms, a conversion. Therefore, website traffic is important for businesses that have a presentation or eCommerce website. To bring as many visitors as possible, two types of sources are used: organic traffic and paid campaigns.

 

10. UI (User Interface) & UX (User Experience)

A successful UX makes a platform easy to use. The user experience involves a whole process undertaken with analytical thinking, attention to detail, psychological knowledge, and strategies to simplify the processes that customers go through when accessing a service or purchasing a product online.

For example, in the case of web applications, websites or online stores, UX helps improve processes and ease-of-use, introducing fast and easy ways that can convert users into customers.

UI is concerned with the aesthetic aspect and seamless interactions that have a persuasion goal, achieved through graphic design, layout and typography. The time spent on a platform depends on the overall impression it leaves: a well-selected color palette, dynamic elements, clean and visually appealing texts are essential. Visual communication, which is crucial in digital marketing, is enhanced through UI strategies.

 

11. Sales funnel

A sales funnel consists of each step a person needs to follow in order to become a customer. It is composed of three sections: ToFu (top of the funnel – a connection between the user and the seller), MoFu (middle of the funnel – building trust between the seller and the buyer), and BoFu (bottom of the funnel – converting the user into a customer).

 

12. PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns

These are paid campaigns that help you bring relevant traffic to your business website and obtain conversions. Implementing a PPC campaign in platforms such as Google Ads relies on the keywords that users enter in the search engines. Every time a user clicks on the ad, the advertiser is charged. Commonly used platforms for PPC campaigns are Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Targeting can be done based on various criteria: browser type, device, language, location, gender, and other interests.

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13. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO techniques help search engines better understand what your business is about. A search engine displays both paid and unpaid results. It has algorithms that order these results, continuously scouring the internet for new and relevant content. The keywords used on your site influence its position among search results. Keyword research is therefore necessary. It’s important to discover the keywords that people use when searching for services or products similar to yours.

 

14. CPL and CPA

The Cost Per Lead measures the profitability of marketing campaigns when it comes to generating new leads. A lead is a person who has expressed interest in the product or service you offer. Cost Per Action is a value that measures the cost of generating an action through advertising.

 

15. Reach & Engagement

Reach is the term used to describe the number of people that see a post, while engagement represents the number of people that interact with a post (through likes, comments, shares).

 

This article serves as a brief introduction to the world of digital marketing and its terminology. Of course, the field is much more extensive, and specialized marketers know all the actions that need to be taken to effectively engage its resources for brand advertisement. A marketing agency can be a trusted partner in generating profit, and every entrepreneur should be aware of the need for such partnership in the present.