Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
A professional spin doctor whose job is making their clients look good in the media, managing reputations, and turning mundane announcements into newsworthy events. They're the buffer between celebrities, brands, or politicians and the press, crafting carefully worded statements and begging journalists to cover their client's latest project. Basically a professional hype person with a Rolodex and crisis management training.
The holy grail metric of online advertising—when someone actually clicks on your ad instead of scrolling past it like the visual noise it usually is. Each click-through represents a tiny victory in the war for attention, though whether that click leads to a sale or immediate regret is another question entirely. Measured as CTR (click-through rate), it's the percentage that determines whether your ad budget was brilliant or wasted.
In B2B marketing, an entire company or organization identified as a good-fit prospect rather than just an individual lead. Abbreviated as MQA, or 'that whole building full of people we want to sell to.'
Products or services produced by one company but rebranded and sold by another under their own name, allowing companies to offer things they didn't actually create. It's business cosplay—everyone pretends you made it, and you pretend that's not weird.
A fraudulent affiliate marketing practice where cookies are placed on users' browsers without genuine clicks, stealing credit for conversions. The digital equivalent of pickpocketing commission checks.
Consumer tendency to scroll past native advertising without noticing it, having developed immunity to sponsored content that mimics editorial. Evolution in action, advertising division.
A metric measuring customer loyalty by asking how likely someone is to recommend your company on a 0-10 scale. Promoters (9-10) minus detractors (0-6) equals your score, which somehow ignores the passives (7-8) entirely.
Video advertisements that play before desired content, testing viewer patience since the dawn of online video. The digital descendant of unskippable movie theater ads, except you're in your underwear.
Delivering ads in a specific order to tell a story or build a narrative over time. Because apparently one interruption isn't enough—you need a whole series.
A method of grouping customers by shared characteristics or behaviors within a specific timeframe to track patterns over time. It's essentially marketing's way of figuring out which batch of customers is actually worth keeping around.
A methodology for ranking prospects based on their perceived value and likelihood to convert, assigning points for behaviors and demographics. It's hot-or-not for potential customers, but with spreadsheets.
In medical terms, how aggressively a disease can mess you up. In marketing, how quickly and devastatingly a campaign can spread (for better or worse). The measure of potency, whether it's a virus destroying cells or a brand message destroying your competitor's market share.
The holy grail of marketing where you transform casual browsers into paying customers, or skeptics into believers. It's the art of turning window shoppers into wallet openers through a carefully orchestrated dance of persuasion, psychology, and sometimes sheer annoyance. Every marketer's favorite verb and every CFO's favorite metric.
Someone else's first-party data that they share with you directly, like a data partnership minus the sketchy middleman. The often-overlooked middle child between first and third-party data.
When your email gets temporarily rejected—maybe their inbox is full, their server is having a bad day, or Mercury is in retrograde. Unlike hard bounces, there's still hope for future delivery.
Intentionally discouraging certain customers from using your product—the anti-marketing move deployed when you're overwhelmed or want to look edgy.
Unsolicited direct mail that everyone hates but somehow still works because occasionally human brains malfunction and respond to offers.
The total profit you'll extract from a customer over their entire relationship with you—basically the only metric that actually matters, yet everyone focuses on acquisition instead.
A large, eye-catching advertisement displayed across a website, usually with the subtlety of a marching band at a library. These digital flags wave desperately for attention, rotating between promises of free stuff and vague warnings about things you definitely don't want to happen to your computer.
A lead that meets your predetermined criteria for being a good potential customer, usually based on fit and interest level. It's a lead that won't waste your sales team's time (in theory).
That slick 3-5 second branded animation your network airs obsessively before content, usually featuring some minimalist logo design that cost more than your annual salary. It's the visual equivalent of a corporate throat-clear.
The total revenue opportunity for a product within a specific segment, subdivided into TAM (total), SAM (serviceable), and SOM (serviceable obtainable). The pie chart that looks progressively more depressing as you divide it.
In marketing, the much-hyped 'trickle-down effect'—the theory that benefits bestowed upon the wealthy will eventually drip down to the poor, despite all evidence suggesting they mostly just pool at the top. Also, literal trickling of fluids.
The plural of medium; the collection of channels and platforms through which brands scream into the void hoping someone—anyone—is listening. Includes TV, radio, digital, and that one influencer your nephew follows.