zombie creative

Definition

Ad content that continues to run long after its expiration date, usually because someone forgot to turn it off. The marketing equivalent of Weekend at Bernie's, propped up and shambling through campaigns.

Example Usage

We're still getting complaints about our Black Friday zombie creative running in March—someone needs to check our DSP settings.

Origin

Industry slang emerging in the 2010s as programmatic campaigns became more complex

Fun Fact

Major brands have accidentally run zombie creative promoting executives who left years prior or products that were discontinued.

Source: Digital advertising industry slang

Related Terms

Intermediate

frequency capping

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.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Intermediate

CPM

Cost Per Mille, meaning cost per thousand impressions, because apparently saying per thousand wasn't pretentious enough so they used Latin. You pay for a thousand eyeballs to theoretically see your ad while actually staring at their phone during a meeting.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

landing page

A standalone web page created specifically for a marketing campaign, stripped of all navigation to trap visitors into a single call-to-action like mice in a very polite maze. It's where conversion optimization goes to either triumph or die trying.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

lead magnet

A free resource or incentive offered to prospects in exchange for their contact information, typically email addresses. It's bribery, but the business development team prefers to call it 'value exchange.'

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

Above the Fold

The part of a webpage visible before scrolling, borrowed from newspaper terminology by people who have never actually held a newspaper. Marketers treat it like sacred real estate, cramming it with CTAs like a clown car at the circus.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Beginner

bottom of the funnel

The final stage of the marketing funnel where prospects are ready to make a purchase decision. Abbreviated BOFU, it's where marketing hands leads to sales and both teams blame each other when nothing converts.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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