Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
The automated buying and selling of ad space using algorithms and real-time bidding, eliminating the need for human negotiation and replacing it with machines that work faster and complain less. It's like high-frequency trading, but for banner ads.
When potential customers add items to their online cart but leave without completing the purchase. It's the digital equivalent of filling a physical cart, then abandoning it in the cereal aisle and leaving the store.
The practice of comparing two versions of marketing content by showing each to separate audience segments to determine which performs better. It's the scientific method applied to banner ads and subject lines.
The number of new users each existing user generates through referrals, where anything above 1.0 means exponential growth. It's the mathematical expression of every marketer's fantasy: growth that doesn't require advertising.
The emotional connection and loyalty consumers feel toward a brand beyond rational product attributes. It's when people buy your overpriced product because they've developed feelings for a corporation, which should concern everyone.
Customer feedback and insights captured through surveys, reviews, support tickets, and other channels that reveal their needs and preferences. Abbreviated VOC, it's all the complaints and suggestions companies collect and then ignore.
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 practice of encouraging customers to purchase a more expensive or upgraded version of what they're already buying. It's the art of making people feel inadequate about their original choice.
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.
The corporate equivalent of getting a makeover and pretending you're a completely different person—changing a company's name, logo, or image to distance from past failures or chase new markets. It's what happens when focus groups decide your perfectly good brand needs $2 million worth of "refreshing." Sometimes transformative, often just expensive window dressing on the same old product.
The cost to deliver 1,000 ad impressions, abbreviated as CPM where 'M' is the Roman numeral for 1,000 because marketing loves needlessly confusing acronyms. It's the pricing model that treats eyeballs as commodities.
When a channel partner or retailer requests inventory or marketing support from a larger vendor based on pre-negotiated terms. Essentially the corporate equivalent of calling in a favor you're contractually owed.
That promotional card, coupon, or leaflet strategically stuffed into magazines, packages, or direct mail that inevitably falls out and clutters your coffee table. In marketing and publishing, inserts are additional materials slipped into existing products to advertise, inform, or annoy. They're the reason you can never read a Sunday newspaper without creating a paper avalanche.
Corporate-speak for moving something (product, brand, employee) to a new spot on the strategic chessboard without admitting the old spot was a catastrophe. It sounds purposeful and planned, even when it's actually panic with a PowerPoint deck.
Aggressively targeting your competitor's customers to steal them away—basically poaching with marketing dollars and a smile.
In marketing and analytics, the act of using data to craft a persuasive narrative that proves your point (whether the data fully supports it or not). It's the art of selective truth-telling with charts that make up the story you want to tell.
In content marketing and analytics, the act of retelling events, data, or customer experiences in a way that supports your narrative or campaign thesis. Done well, it's storytelling; done poorly, it's obviously cherry-picked propaganda that savvy audiences immediately distrust.
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.
Impressions = total times seen (if same person sees ad 5 times, that's 5 impressions); Reach = unique people (that same person counts as 1).
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.'
Shifting something from one position to another, or in music, moving a piece to a different key while maintaining its structure. In business and strategy, transposition means rearranging elements to achieve better results or adapt to new contexts.
The amount of money you must spend to acquire a single customer, a number that usually makes your CFO weep.
A dramatic rebranding and revival of something old into something shiny and new—whether it's a spiritual renewal, a comeback, or a product line relaunch. In marketing, rebirth is the carefully orchestrated resurrection of a brand's image.
A custom metric cobbled together from multiple data sources that may or may not be measuring anything meaningful. Born in a laboratory, questionable in real life.