When it comes to tackling digital marketing for your business, all the acronyms involved can give you a headache. Here’s our handy reference guide to some of the most common digital marketing abbreviations and what they mean for you and your business.
B2B – Business to Business
This one isn’t unique to digital marketing, but it’s commonly used in that arena. If you’re selling your products or services primarily to other businesses, you’re a ‘B2B’ business. SaaS companies, accountants, and wholesalers usually fall under this category.
B2C – Business to Consumer
Conversely, if you’re selling your products and services to the general public, then you’re a ‘B2C’ business. Restaurants, retailers, and some local contractors fall under this category.
Depending on your business model, you might offer products and services to businesses and customers. From a digital marketing perspective, it’s better to divide your audience into ‘B2B’ and ‘B2C’ segments so that you can more effectively target customers.
CPC – Cost per Click
Cost per click is a measurement of how much you pay when a customer clicks onto one of your advertisements.
CTR – Click Through Rate
Click through rate is how often people click on your ad. This tells you how effective the ad is at getting noticed. A low CTR can mean that your ad copy, visuals, or target audience are not quite right.
CTA – Call to Action
A call to action asks your customers to do something and are most commonly found in your ad copy or landing pages. ‘Call us today for a free quote’ or ‘Buy now!’ are examples of CTAs.
CTAs can also be found on the ‘buttons’ on your website. The ‘Add to cart’ button that can be found on most retail websites are another example of a CTA.
CPM – Cost per Thousand
That's not a typo – the ‘M’ actually represents ‘Mille,’ which is the term used for 1,000 in advertising. In digital marketing, CPM is a common metric that measures how much it costs for every 1,000 people who see your ad.
CPA – Cost per Action
This is the cost per person taking a specified action. It’s different from cost per click because not everyone who clicks your link will take the action you want them to.
An action could be downloading a free lead magnet, signing up for a free trial, or joining your email marketing list. The action you’re measuring depends on what you want that particular ad campaign to achieve.
Sometimes the ‘A’ is referred to as acquisition – as in acquiring a customer, which is a common type of action.
CPL – Cost per Lead
This is similar to CPA, but there’s a subtle difference. With CPA you’re measuring the cost per qualified lead. A lead is defined as a person that has expressed some interest in your product or service by completing a predefined goal or action.
CPV – Cost per View
This is a metric for video ads that tells you how much it costs per person that clicks to view your video content. Different platforms have varying terms. In Google Adwords, you are not charged the CPV until the prospect watches 30 seconds of your video, or interacts with it in some way such as clicking a link.
These can be a great, cost-effective way to promote brand awareness.
CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization
This involves auditing your website and/or sales funnels to understand how customers interact with them. It also involves identifying any key points where customers drop out of the funnel or fail to take the required action.
Put simply, if a Philadelphia painter and decorator gets 200 visitors a month to their website, but only receives 10 inquiries per month, their conversion rate is only 5%. Applying CRO would potentially involve looking at how customers find the webpage, what their browsing experience is like, and identifying what might be preventing them from contacting the business.
CMS – Content Management System
A content management system is where you manage all of the content on your website. From FAQs to blog articles, your CMS system allows you to amend or update your content quickly and easily without any specialist technical knowledge.
NAP – Name, Address, Phone Number
This one’s huge for local businesses. Having the correct NAP details on every page of your website and every directory listing can make a big difference to your local search engine rankings. When Google can easily verify your location, you’ll rank higher in the local pack.
PPC – Pay per Click
This is a common form of internet advertising. PPC ads are where you only pay the platform for each click on your ad. Google ads are the most common type of PPC ad and are a great way for local businesses to advertise. Check out our blog post on getting the most out of PPC ads for your local business.
ROI – Return on Investment
Return on Investment is the amount of profit you make from your digital marketing. If your digital marketing is generating $5,000 a month in revenue, and you’re spending $1,000 a month on that digital marketing, then your ROI is $4,000 (or 400%)
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
This is the art and science of optimizing your web pages to rank as high as possible with search engines. SEO is a large and complex area of digital marketing. It requires good knowledge of how search engine algorithms work and how to structure your website as well as using the right keywords at an effective frequency across your website.
A good resource for understanding the main components is the SEO Periodic Table.
SERP – Search Engine Results Page
Your SERP ranking refers to how high you appear in searches. It usually refers to organic searches, not paid advertising and the goal is for your business to be listed as high as possible.
Hopefully, this list gives you a clearer idea of the terms you see used in digital marketing. Getting your local business noticed online is crucial and working with an agency that has proven expertise in digital marketing and SEO can dramatically boost your sales and leads. If you want some help with digital marketing and SEO for your Philadelphia business, why not contact us for a quick 15-30 minute consultation to review your current digital marketing strategy?