Where every click is a journey and every impression counts.
Fear Of Missing Out, the primal anxiety that everyone else is having more fun, getting better deals, or attending cooler events than you. Marketers exploit this emotion like a villain in a Disney movie, using countdown timers and "only 2 left" warnings.
High-level executive support or approval that protects a risky marketing initiative from being killed prematurely. Essentially, having a C-suite bodyguard for your crazy ideas.
Templated marketing content where only names, numbers, or minor details change between versions. The literary equivalent of mail merge, and just as soulless.
A Silicon Valley term for marketing on a budget, dressed up to sound like you're breaking into a mainframe. In practice, it usually means spamming people on LinkedIn and calling it a strategy.
A sequential content marketing approach where each piece builds on the previous, leading audiences from awareness to conversion. Like a choose-your-own-adventure book, but with more CTAs.
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.
Technology that automatically assembles personalized ads from various creative components based on user data, serving different headlines, images, and calls-to-action to different people. Mass customization meets surveillance capitalism in a beautiful, algorithmically-optimized dance.
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.
Small user actions indicating progress toward a primary goal, like newsletter signups or video views. The participation trophy of marketing metrics, celebrating tiny victories on the path to actual business outcomes.
The strategic art of defining how a product, brand, or service occupies space in the consumer's mind relative to competitors—essentially, it's competitive mind-gaming. In marketing, it's about carving out your unique spot in an overcrowded marketplace by convincing people your mediocre product is somehow different. Good positioning makes people willing to pay $8 for coffee that costs 30 cents to make.
A statistical analysis technique that quantifies the impact of various marketing activities on sales, using historical data to determine what actually works. It's the marketing equivalent of finally checking the receipts after years of trusting your gut.
Publicity gained through promotional efforts other than paid advertising, like press coverage, social shares, or word-of-mouth. It's called 'earned' because you can't buy it—you have to trick journalists into caring about your product launch.
Small promotional signs attached to retail shelves at product level, literally talking to shoppers at the point of decision. The impulse-buy whisperer of retail marketing.
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.'
Visual banner ads served across websites and apps, ranging from tasteful rectangles to screen-dominating monstrosities that make you question humanity. The descendants of magazine ads, but with the added benefit of following you everywhere online.
A fancy word for 'slice' that marketers use to sound more professional when dividing customers into groups. Whether it's a pie chart section, a customer demographic, or a portion of your total addressable market, segments make everything feel quantifiable and strategic. It's basically the business world's way of saying 'let's break this down.'
The pretentious way of saying 'I picked these things' that makes your personal choices sound like a museum exhibition. Originally meant for actual curators managing art collections, now it's slapped on everything from Spotify playlists to food truck festivals. It's taste and selectivity rebranded as expertise, turning your morning routine into a 'curated experience.'
Information a company collects directly from its own customers through owned channels, increasingly precious in a post-cookie world where tracking strangers is frowned upon. The marketing equivalent of growing your own vegetables instead of buying them from sketchy data brokers.
The combination of tactics and channels used to promote your product, traditionally reduced to the 'Four Ps' (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) by people who love oversimplifying complex systems. It's strategic planning that fits on a napkin.
Marketing channels you control directly, like your website, blog, or email list, as opposed to rented space on platforms that could change their algorithms tomorrow. It's the digital equivalent of owning versus renting, with similar arguments about long-term value.
The Holy Grail metric measuring how quickly content spreads across the internet like a digital contagion. Every marketer dreams of achieving it, most fail miserably, and the few who succeed usually have no idea how it actually happened. It's basically controlled chaos with a fancy epidemiological name.
In business and marketing, the specific audience segment you're trying to reach, sell to, or manipulate into thinking they need your product. It's the demographic, psychographic, or behavioral group that your entire campaign is aimed at—ideally based on data, but often based on whoever the VP thinks buys stuff. Missing your target means wasted ad spend; hitting it means annoying the right people with your ads.
The art of selling stuff online instead of in physical stores, revolutionizing retail by eliminating the need to wear pants while shopping. It encompasses everything from Amazon's global empire to your neighbor's Etsy shop selling handmade soap. Born in the '90s, it's now the default way humans acquire everything from groceries to furniture, much to the despair of malls everywhere.
The art of getting people to pay attention to something through media coverage, press releases, and strategic information drops, ideally without having to pay for advertising. It's what happens when your brand does something newsworthy enough that journalists actually care to write about it. Unlike advertising, publicity is theoretically "earned," though publicists would argue they work pretty hard to make it look effortless.