Every year words are created and dropped from the lexicon. It’s time to test your knowledge and see if you’ve kept your finger on the pulse this year.

AMP – Accelerated Mobile Pages: A Google project designed to improve the load speed of your website content on mobile devices. An AMP removes any non-essential content that would take time to load, and use unnecessary data of your mobile users.

Attribution model: The map of the journey a lead takes to become a customer of your business, giving a different value to the different touchpoints and channels they visited along the way.

BOFU – Bottom of the funnel: The approach or service you provide to start converting your leads into buyers, such as free trials, consultations and discount codes.

Buyer persona: Based on market research and existing customer data, it is the representation of your ideal customer(s). Buyer personas are essential to the development of your marketing/content strategy, business development and website design.

CTA – Call to action: The button on your website that asks potential customers to take a specific action, such as “buy now” or “subscribe here”.

Contextual marketing: Showing web surfers a targeted ad based on their online browsing habits such as after researching winter rugs, the person is then shown ads for soft furnishings.

CRO – Conversion rate optimisation: The strategies used to increase the percentage of traffic that follow through with the action you want. This is usually done by improving the UX on your website/landing pages and reducing the CTA to a single action. 

Customer journey: The journey your customers take to make a purchase. From how they discovered your brand, how they navigate your products or services, what other interactions they’ve had with your brand to how they complete a purchase, the journey is all mapped out.

Evergreen marketing: Content that retains its value for customers long after it has been published. Some items might need updating on an annual basis, while others, such as reports, remain relevant for long periods of time.

Event-triggered email: An email that is sent to a subscriber based on the occurrence of an event, such as the subscriber’s birthday, joining anniversary or a welcome email.

GDN – Google Display Network: Part of the vast network of websites that run Google ads, which include YouTube, Gmail and Google Finance. In the US, this is 94% of all sites. Unlike Google Search Ads, Google Display Ads let you use an image, video, product-listing or rich media formats and be seen by customers almost worldwide.

Inbound marketing: Inbound marketing is providing the engaging and value-adding content that customers are searching for and using that content to secure leads and convert sales.

Long-tail keywords: Usually a specific phrase of 3-4 words that can be used to improve your SEO ratings, such as ‘B2B marketing advice’ or ‘red luxury shoes’.

Macro conversion: The primary goal you want your website visitors or audience to take. Such as purchasing a product, or changing from a free trial to a paid version of a product.

Micro conversion: The smaller steps customers take before a macro conversion. They are the milestone steps that customers take on their journey before making a final commitment.

Micro-moments: The moment that people use a device for immediate information to help them to make a decision, resolve a problem, buy something or go somewhere. This is usually done with smartphones and/or AI voice assistants like Siri or Alexa.

MOFU – Middle of the funnel: The content you show website visitors who are considering your product or business, i.e. comparison sheets, white papers or case studies.

Omnichannel: Online stores and ‘bricks and mortar’ stores working together to deliver a complete experience for customers. This works especially well for retail stores and fashions brands who are able to show ‘looks’ online then encourage shoppers to either purchase online or go to store to physically see the selections.

Path length: The number of page views and actions (i.e. clicks, scrolls) it takes for a user to complete a transaction or conversion goal on your website.

PPC – Pay per click: An internet advertising model where the advertiser pays a certain amount (bid) to the ad platform every time a user clicks on their ad. Bidding strategies and payment methods are making it easier for marketers to get ROI on advertising.

Psychographics: Psychographics data explains who your customers really are i.e. their values, interests, pain points and personalities. This knowledge is invaluable to your business and how well you model your solutions to their needs.

Re-targeting: A form of online advertising where you can target users who previously visited your website with banner ads on display networks across the web, apps and social networks.

SEM – Search engine marketing: The ability to have your ads served only when a user searches for a keyword (or phrase) that you are bidding on. Targeting can be narrowed by location, age, gender and other demographics. Retargeting can also be done via SEM allowing you to target website visitors or people who abandoned their cart but didn’t leave their email address.

SEO – Search engine optimisation: How discoverable your page is based on the key search terms that it relates too.

SERP – Search engine results page: Search snippets that show products, movie times, definitions as well as ads also populate the page and help increase your chances of being clicked in conjunction with your organic results.

Snippets: Snippets are used to tell the search engine what information from your site should be shown to a user based on their search. Snippets are likely to increase in value as voice and image search becomes more popular.

TOFU – Top of the funnel: The channels, content and advertisements you create to build awareness for your brand, address pain points and attract potential customers to your website.

UTM – Urchin tracking module: A string of simple, customisable code that you can add to the end of your URLs to better identify and track web traffic and campaign performance in your Analytics dashboard.