Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
Cost Per Mille, meaning cost per thousand impressions, because apparently saying per thousand wasn't pretentious enough so they used Latin. You pay for a thousand eyeballs to theoretically see your ad while actually staring at their phone during a meeting.
The art of selling things to people by pretending you're not selling things to people. You write a helpful blog post about productivity tips, and somehow by the end, the reader is buying your project management software.
An imaginary funnel that describes how thousands of potential customers enter at the top and approximately three of them actually buy something at the bottom. It's called a funnel because your hopes narrow dramatically at each stage.
A button or phrase designed to make someone do something immediately, like a digital drill sergeant screaming BUY NOW at your eyeballs. The entire internet is just an arms race of increasingly desperate calls to action.
Headlines designed to be so irresistibly intriguing that you click before your brain can stop you. "You won't believe what happened next" is the marketing equivalent of dangling a laser pointer in front of a cat, and we all fall for it every single time.
Cost Per Click, or the exact dollar amount you pay every time someone accidentally taps your ad while trying to close it. It's like putting a coin jar next to a door handle and charging people for touching it on their way out.
A euphemism for the tortuous path a person takes from not knowing your product exists to finally buying it out of sheer exhaustion. Marketers map it out like it's the Oregon Trail, except instead of dysentery, customers die of pop-up fatigue.
The total cost of winning a new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of customers acquired. Also known as CAC, or 'the metric that determines whether your business model is brilliant or just elaborate money-burning.'
The ratio of people who actually click on your ad versus those who pretend it doesn't exist, much like how people treat street performers. A 2% click-through rate is considered good, which tells you everything you need to know about how much people love ads.
The systematic process of increasing the percentage of visitors who complete desired actions, typically through endless A/B testing and arguing about button colors. Science meets superstition in pursuit of marginal gains.
Placing ads based on the content of the page rather than the user's browsing history, making a surprising comeback now that cookies are endangered. It's targeting ads like it's 1999, except now algorithms read the pages instead of humans.
Cost Per Lead—the metric that tells marketers exactly how much they're paying for each potential customer who might, possibly, maybe convert someday. The number that determines whether your campaign was 'efficient' or a 'learning opportunity.' Lower is always better, unless you're explaining why you spent the entire quarterly budget in three weeks.
Long-term brand-building activities that won't show measurable results for months or years, requiring faith that someone will eventually care. The opposite of performance marketing's instant gratification.
A schedule planning what content to publish and when, designed to bring order to the chaos of content marketing and typically abandoned by February. It's the New Year's resolution of marketing planning.
The percentage of customers who continue doing business with you over a specific period, revealing whether your product is good or your churn is just temporarily delayed. The metric that determines if you're running a business or a leaky bucket.
The systematic evaluation of competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses to inform your own marketing approach. It's professional stalking with PowerPoint deliverables.
The total revenue a business expects from a single customer account over the entire relationship duration. It's how marketers justify spending $200 to acquire a customer who buys a $15 subscription.
In marketing, any medium through which you push your message into people's consciousness, whether they asked for it or not. Email, social media, carrier pigeons—if it can transmit your brand's desperate plea for attention, it's a channel. Modern marketers obsess over being "omnichannel," which means annoying customers everywhere simultaneously.
Creating elaborate diagrams showing every touchpoint a customer encounters with your brand, from blissful ignorance to purchase and beyond. It's like stalking, but with Post-it notes and the pretense of empathy.
Software that aggregates customer data from multiple sources into unified profiles, creating a single source of truth about who bought what when. Abbreviated as CDP, or 'the system that knows you better than your therapist.'
The systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take desired actions, through testing, analysis, and psychological manipulation. Often abbreviated as CRO by people who test button colors with religious fervor.
A customer acquisition strategy that accepts high turnover rates by constantly replacing lost customers with new ones rather than improving retention. The marketing equivalent of a leaky bucket with a really big hose.
In graphic design and content marketing, a highlighted excerpt or quote pulled from the main text and displayed prominently to grab attention from people who refuse to read full articles. Think of it as the literary equivalent of waving your arms and shouting "LOOK AT THIS PART!" It's journalism's admission that nobody actually reads anymore.
Placing ads based on the content of the page rather than user tracking, showing car ads on automotive sites instead of following users around. It's the old-fashioned targeting approach that's suddenly new again as privacy regulations tighten.