Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
An ad buying method where inventory is offered sequentially to buyers in descending priority order until someone bites. Like a retail clearance rack that goes through progressively less desirable shoppers.
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.
In marketing, the emotional rush or novelty factor that gets people excited about a product or campaign. A product with 'kick' has the X-factor that makes people actually care instead of just scrolling past. Without it, you're just another forgettable ad in a feed of thousands.
Buying all available ad placements across a platform or time period to dominate visibility and prevent competitor messaging. Subtle as a highway billboard collision.
A prospect who's been vetted by marketing, kicked over to sales, and deemed worthy of actual human attention rather than automated email sequences. Abbreviated as SQL, which confusingly has nothing to do with databases.
In digital advertising, the competitive auction process where advertisers throw money at platforms like Google and Facebook for the privilege of showing their ads to eyeballs. It's capitalism at its most caffeinated, with algorithms determining in milliseconds who pays what for each ad impression. The highest bidder usually wins, unless the platform's complex quality score decides otherwise—because even ad auctions need participation trophies.
A marketing approach where companies obtain explicit consent before sending promotional messages, as opposed to interruption marketing which assumes everyone wants to hear about your product. Revolutionary concept: not annoying people who didn't ask.
The principle that your key message should be clear and compelling enough to be understood if displayed on a billboard for only a few seconds. If you can't explain it while driving 65 mph, it's too complicated.
The budget remaining after a campaign that mysteriously needs to be spent before fiscal year-end, often on questionable initiatives. Use it or lose it money that spawns terrible ideas.
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.
An aggressive discounting pattern where prices progressively decrease to move inventory, crushing margin like asphalt under heavy machinery. The retail death spiral in action.
The cost per thousand impressions in advertising, from the Latin 'mille' meaning thousand. It's the pricing model where you pay for eyeballs, whether or not those eyeballs care about what they're seeing.
When positive attributes of one product or campaign positively influence perception of the entire brand. The rising tide that lifts all boats, or the one good kid that makes the parents think they're doing something right.
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.
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 digital marketplace where publishers and advertisers buy and sell ad inventory in real-time through automated auctions. Imagine the New York Stock Exchange, but instead of trading equity in companies, you're trading the privilege of annoying someone with banner ads.
In data analytics and sociology, the act of assigning credit, blame, or characteristics to a person or thing based on analysis rather than self-identification. Marketers use this to decide who deserves credit for a conversion, while sociologists use it to study how society boxes people into categories they didn't choose. Both involve making assumptions that may or may not reflect reality.
A menu of prices influencers charge for various types of content and promotions, from Instagram stories to YouTube integrations. It's like a restaurant menu, except the prices are negotiable and a single post costs more than a Michelin-star dinner.
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.
Cutting out the middleman by selling directly to consumers, which sounds great until you realize middlemen existed because direct sales are expensive.
A curated audience of people who previously interacted with your brand, creating a permission structure to follow them around the internet like a well-intentioned stalker. It's not creepy, it's marketing.
An advertising concept that looks beautiful and timeless in the boardroom but is completely impractical for actual implementation. Named after objects better suited for museums than utility.
The minimum standard for an ad to count as 'viewed'—typically 50% of pixels visible for at least one second. A bar so low that advertisers celebrate ads nobody actually noticed.
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.'