Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
Targeting competitors' customers with advertising, often by bidding on their brand keywords or geofencing their locations. Marketing as warfare, but with less Geneva Convention oversight.
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.
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.
Software that aggregates customer data from multiple sources into unified profiles, creating a single source of truth about who bought what when. Abbreviated as CDP, or 'the system that knows you better than your therapist.'
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 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.
An algorithmic technique in programmatic advertising that reduces your bid to just above the second-highest bidder, saving money while still winning auctions. The poker player's bluff applied to ad tech.
The gift of gab taken to professional extremes—someone who talks smoothly, rapidly, and seemingly without ever needing to breathe. In sales and marketing, it's either your greatest asset or most annoying quality, depending on whether you're the one talking or listening. Think used car salesman meets TED talk speaker.
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.
Placing ads based on the content of the page rather than user tracking, showing car ads on automotive sites instead of following users around. It's the old-fashioned targeting approach that's suddenly new again as privacy regulations tighten.
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.
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.
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 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 snippet of code that tracks website visitors so you can haunt them with ads across the internet. The technology that makes people think you're literally reading their minds.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
To weaken resistance, morale, or harsh edges—the corporate equivalent of turning down an opponent's defenses before asking them to sign the contract.
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.
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 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.