Definition

In marketing, any medium through which you push your message into people's consciousness, whether they asked for it or not. Email, social media, carrier pigeons—if it can transmit your brand's desperate plea for attention, it's a channel. Modern marketers obsess over being "omnichannel," which means annoying customers everywhere simultaneously.

Example Usage

We're executing a multi-channel campaign, so you'll see our ads on Facebook, Instagram, email, billboards, and possibly in your dreams.

Source: Marketing terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

Touchpoint

Any interaction a customer has with your brand, from seeing an ad to calling customer service to rage-tweeting about your product. Marketers love counting touchpoints because it makes a seven-touch sale sound strategic instead of exhausting.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Advanced

Programmatic

Using robots to buy and sell ad space in milliseconds, removing the human element from advertising so brands can accidentally appear next to conspiracy theory videos at the speed of light. It's efficient, opaque, and occasionally terrifying.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

cost per engagement

What you pay for each interaction with your ad—likes, shares, comments, or clicks—turning social media validation into a line item on your budget. It's the metric that reveals exactly how much you're spending to get strangers to double-tap your content.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

spend

The total amount of money allocated or actually spent during a specific period, often used by marketers and finance folks who apparently forgot the word 'spending' exists. It's become corporate jargon for any expenditure, particularly in advertising and budget contexts. Because why use a verb when you can awkwardly noun-ify it?

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

Impressions

The number of times your content was displayed on someone's screen, regardless of whether they actually saw it or were asleep with their phone on. It's the marketing equivalent of counting how many people were in the building when you sneezed.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Advanced

platform decay

The gradual decline in organic reach and user experience as social platforms prioritize paid content and algorithmic feeds over chronological ones. The inevitable enshittification of your favorite channel.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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See “channel” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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To Sander

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