Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
Highly specific, low-competition search phrases that attract fewer visitors but convert better, like fishing in a small pond with hungry fish instead of the ocean with everyone else. The unsexy workhorses of SEO that collectively drive more traffic than flashy head terms.
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 activities focused on early-stage awareness and consideration rather than immediate conversion. Where brands spend money talking to people who definitely aren't ready to buy yet.
A prospect who's shown enough interest to warrant sales attention but hasn't quite committed, occupying that precious limbo between 'downloaded a whitepaper' and 'actually wants to talk to someone.' The marketing team's way of saying 'we've done our part, now it's your turn' to sales.
To weaken resistance, morale, or harsh edges—the corporate equivalent of turning down an opponent's defenses before asking them to sign the contract.
The practice of inserting your brand into breaking news or trending topics to hijack attention for marketing purposes. Opportunism disguised as timely relevance.
The distinct benefit or feature that sets a product apart from competitors, ideally something compelling and defensible. It's your answer to 'why should I buy from you instead of the other guys,' assuming you have a good answer.
High-production-value flagship content designed to make a big splash and attract massive attention, typically created infrequently. Your marketing team's Avengers movie, budget included.
The percentage of times your ad was shown divided by the total number of times it was eligible to appear, typically in paid search or display campaigns. It measures how much of the available opportunity you're actually capturing.
The ancient art of arranging text on a page so it doesn't look like a ransom note, now mostly automated by software that still can't figure out proper kerning. Originally a painstaking manual process involving tiny metal letters and ink-stained fingers, it's now what graphic designers spend hours perfecting while everyone else uses Comic Sans. The difference between good and bad typesetting is invisible to most people but will make designers weep.
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.
An opinion piece where a publication's editors climb onto their soapbox to tell readers what to think about current events, traditionally unsigned to represent the institution's collective wisdom (or bias). In media, it's also the content side of the business—the journalism and creative work, as opposed to the advertising that actually pays for everything. Editorial calendars plan this content, while editorial independence is the increasingly quaint notion that advertisers don't influence it.
A marketer who focuses exclusively on rapid user acquisition through unconventional tactics, often ignoring sustainability or brand building. A marketer who thinks rules are suggestions.
When print advertising extends beyond the trim edge, or in digital terms, when brands' messaging accidentally spills into each other's territory—awkward both ways.
A person secretly paid to hype up a product while cosplaying as an unbiased enthusiast, essentially the original influencer before Instagram made it a legitimate career. They're the planted audience member at an auction driving up bids, or that 'random customer' in the infomercial who just can't believe how amazing this vegetable chopper is. The word itself has become the ultimate callout in online discourse for anyone suspected of suspiciously enthusiastic endorsement.
The limit on how many times an individual user will see the same ad within a given time period. Preventing your target audience from developing homicidal thoughts about your brand.
The phenomenon where repeated exposure to the same advertisement causes declining performance as audiences develop immunity to your creative genius. Your ad doesn't suck; people are just tired of your face.
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.
The mean time users spend on your website before leaving or falling asleep, whichever comes first. A vanity metric that correlates with engagement unless your site is just really confusing.
Your digital shopping cart's prettier older sibling—a holding area where your soon-to-be regretted purchases wait patiently before you commit to the transaction. Also a metaphor for grouping related things together.
The scientific method of showing two versions of something to see which one sucks less. It's like asking your mom and your friend which outfit looks better, except with statistically significant sample sizes and far less emotional damage.
Advertising where you only pay when a specific action occurs—clicks, leads, sales—rather than just hoping brand awareness somehow translates to revenue. It's marketing for people who believe in accountability, or at least pretend to.
A Google Ads feature that lets you target people who've visited your site when they search for related terms, combining the stalker vibes of retargeting with the intentionality of search advertising. It's the 'oh hey, fancy seeing you here' of digital marketing.
The art of making people feel feelings about your logo, transforming generic products into lifestyle choices through strategic manipulation of colors, fonts, and emotions. The marketing discipline that convinces consumers that one virtually identical product is worth three times more than another because of its 'story.' Involves millions of dollars to answer the question: 'But what's our vibe?'