Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
Unsolicited direct mail that everyone hates but somehow still works because occasionally human brains malfunction and respond to offers.
In business contexts, a hierarchical structure that's theoretically stable but often resembles a financial house of cards. Most famous for the multi-level marketing version, where enthusiastic salespeople discover they're actually the ones being sold to. The Egyptian kind at least has the decency to last 4,500 years.
In marketing and analytics, the act of using data to craft a persuasive narrative that proves your point (whether the data fully supports it or not). It's the art of selective truth-telling with charts that make up the story you want to tell.
The helpful little key at the bottom of a map or chart that explains what all those mysterious symbols and colors actually mean. Without it, you're just staring at meaningless squiggles and wondering if the purple blob is a lake or a category error.
In marketing-speak, to actively involve an audience with your brand through interaction, content, or experience. It's corporate jargon for 'please pay attention to us and maybe buy something.'
Showing ads featuring the exact products users viewed on your website, because subtle doesn't work when you're already being invasive.
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.
In marketing, the act of acquiring and retaining customer attention, data, or loyalty—the primary objective disguised as content strategy.
Shifting something from one position to another, or in music, moving a piece to a different key while maintaining its structure. In business and strategy, transposition means rearranging elements to achieve better results or adapt to new contexts.
The measurement and analysis of website visitor behavior and interactions. It's how you discover what you're doing wrong with hard data.
Marketing Qualified Lead—a prospect deemed worthy of sales attention based on arbitrary criteria marketing invented to prove they're doing their job. May or may not actually want to buy anything.
In marketing and advertising, a single instance of an ad being displayed, regardless of whether anyone actually looked at it or immediately scrolled past. Digital marketers obsess over impressions like they're collecting Pokemon, even though an impression doesn't guarantee anyone's eyeballs actually made contact. It's the vanity metric that makes your campaign look successful before you check the click-through rate.
The soul-crushing weariness viewers experience from excessive unskippable video ads before content. Usually measured by the desire to throw devices across rooms.
The automated buying and selling of ad space using algorithms and real-time bidding, eliminating the need for human negotiation and replacing it with machines that work faster and complain less. It's like high-frequency trading, but for banner ads.
Limiting how many times the same person sees your ad, based on the radical notion that showing someone the same message 47 times in one day might be counterproductive. It's the marketing equivalent of knowing when to stop talking.
Advertising disguised as editorial content, marked with tiny disclaimers that readers routinely ignore while consuming what they think is journalism. It's the art of selling things to people who came for articles, not ads.
The percentage of your audience that actually interacts with your content, serving as a ruthless reality check on how much people care about your brand's musings. It's the difference between shouting into the void and having an actual conversation.
Terms you explicitly exclude from triggering your ads, preventing wasteful spending on irrelevant searches. The marketing equivalent of telling your GPS which routes to avoid, except it actually listens.
Content created by customers rather than brands, including reviews, photos, and testimonials. The marketing equivalent of getting the audience to write your material while you take credit and occasionally moderate death threats.
When someone explicitly gives permission to receive marketing communications, theoretically because they actually want them. A legal requirement dressed up as customer courtesy.
Suggesting complementary products to customers based on what they're already purchasing. It's the retail equivalent of being a helpful friend, if that friend worked on commission.
Serving different content or ads based on where someone is located, from country-level down to 'currently standing in your competitor's parking lot.' It's location-based marketing that's only slightly creepy.
The hierarchical framework organizing your marketing messages from core positioning down to tactical proof points. It's the blueprint ensuring everyone isn't just making up shit as they go along.
The supposed core soul of a brand distilled into a pithy sentence that goes on expensive consultant presentations and is immediately forgotten.