Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
Traffic that comes from private channels like texts and DMs where marketers can't track it, making it the speakeasy of social sharing. It sounds sinister, but it's really just your aunt forwarding articles in the family group chat.
A series of automated emails that slowly wears down a prospect's resistance over time, like water torture but with subject lines. The idea is that if you email someone enough times, they'll eventually buy something just to make it stop.
Visual banner ads served across websites and apps, ranging from tasteful rectangles to screen-dominating monstrosities that make you question humanity. The descendants of magazine ads, but with the added benefit of following you everywhere online.
A cooperative advertising arrangement where manufacturers support local dealer advertising efforts with funding and creative assets. The automotive industry's way of saying 'please don't make terrible ads with our logo.'
A collection of websites, apps, and videos where your banner ads can appear, giving you access to millions of placements ranging from premium publishers to extremely questionable mobile games. It's the democratization of ad placement, for better or worse.
An unpublished social media ad that appears in users' feeds without being posted to the brand's timeline. The marketing equivalent of a stealth bomber—you see it once, then it vanishes into the algorithm void.
An elaborate marketing presentation or product demo designed more to impress than inform, typically involving excessive showmanship. Substance optional, theatrics mandatory.
Marketing jargon for making your product stand out in a crowded market, or in math, the process of finding derivatives (equally painful either way). Companies differentiate by highlighting unique features, benefits, or brand personality that competitors supposedly lack. It's the reason every startup claims to be "different" while doing essentially the same thing as everyone else with slightly different colored buttons.
Software that allows advertisers to automatically purchase ad inventory across multiple exchanges and networks through a single interface, because manually buying ads on ten thousand websites would require immortality. Abbreviated as DSP by people who enjoy acronyms.
The practice of scheduling ads or content to run during specific times of day when target audiences are most active. Because showing cereal ads at 3 AM is generally suboptimal.
Technology that automatically assembles personalized ads from various creative components based on user data, serving different headlines, images, and calls-to-action to different people. Mass customization meets surveillance capitalism in a beautiful, algorithmically-optimized dance.
A sudden decrease in quantity, participation, or performance, or the place where you abandon your kids/packages/passengers for someone else to deal with. In business metrics, it's that terrifying moment when your chart takes a nosedive and you need to explain to your boss why engagement fell off a cliff. Also conveniently describes what happens to New Year's gym memberships by February.
Scheduling ads to appear only during specific times of day because apparently ads at 3 AM get different results than at 3 PM (and they kinda do).
A junior marketer whose primary job is creating endless PowerPoint presentations for meetings that may never happen. The modern equivalent of a Victorian-era scribe.
Marketing activities designed to create interest in a product or service where none previously existed, rather than just capturing existing demand. Building the haystack before finding the needle.
Directing marketing messages based on statistical characteristics like age, gender, income, and education—the paint-by-numbers approach to audience segmentation. Simple, measurable, and often wildly reductive.
Intentionally discouraging certain customers from using your product—the anti-marketing move deployed when you're overwhelmed or want to look edgy.
Cutting out the middleman by selling directly to consumers, which sounds great until you realize middlemen existed because direct sales are expensive.
The duration someone actually pays attention to an ad, especially in out-of-home or digital contexts. The uncomfortable metric that reveals most people ignore your billboard in 0.3 seconds.
Physical marketing materials delivered via postal service, the analog dinosaur that refuses to go extinct because it still converts. What millennials call 'junk mail' and what marketers call 'tangible touchpoints.'
Showing ads featuring the exact products users viewed on your website, because subtle doesn't work when you're already being invasive.
When content creators hit the brakes on overhyped products and tell you to save your money instead. It's basically the anti-influencer move: honest product roasting that encourages critical thinking over impulse purchasing.
Marketing activities designed to create awareness and interest in your product, typically at the top of the funnel. It's the art of getting people to realize they have a problem you can solve.