Marketing glossary

Acquisition=Winning new customers who have never bought from you.

AdTech (advertising technology)=The technology through which paid online advertising is bought, shown, targeted and measured.

Advertising=A paid message used by a business to present a product, service or brand and influence people's decisions.

AEO (answer engine optimization)=Writing content so that systems answering on your customer's behalf understand and quote it: featured snippets, voice assistants and AI chatbots.

Affiliate marketing=You pay other people or sites a commission for sending you a customer who actually buys.

Algorithm (social media)=A system that decides which posts and ads each person sees and in what order. It mainly learns from what held that person's attention and what they interacted with before.

ATL (above the line)=Broad advertising that reaches a lot of people at once and builds brand awareness.

B2B (business to business)=You sell to other companies, not to end consumers.

B2B2B (supply chain of businesses)=A chain of companies: one supplies material, the next turns it into a part, a third assembles the final product.

B2B2C (business to business to consumer)=You sell through another company, but your product is meant to reach its end customer.

B2C (business to consumer)=Straightforward selling of goods or services to the end consumer.

B2E (business to employee)=A company provides products, services or perks to its own employees.

B2G (business to government)=You supply products or services to government, cities or public agencies, usually through tenders.

Benchmark=The typical value in your industry that you compare your own results against.

Brand awareness=How many people even know your company exists and what it does. Nobody buys from a brand they have never heard of.

Brandlift=Measuring how much an ad increased awareness, interest, or trust in a brand among people who saw it, compared with those who did not.

BTL (below the line)=Targeted advertising aimed at specific people at the right moment, driving immediate action.

C2B (consumer to business)=An individual offers value or a service to a company, not the other way round.

C2C (consumer to consumer)=People trade directly with each other; the company just provides the marketplace.

CAC (customer acquisition cost)=The average cost of winning one new customer, ads and the work around them included.

CLV / LTV (customer lifetime value)=How much one customer spends with you in total over the whole relationship, not just on the first purchase.

Content marketing=Creating useful content: articles, videos, guides: that pulls people toward your brand without looking like an ad.

Conversion=The moment a visitor does what you want: buys, signs up, calls. Conversion rate is the share of visitors who do it.

Cookies=Small files a website saves in your browser to remember things like login, language or what was in your cart. Today sites usually need your consent to use them.

Cost-to-revenue ratio=What share of your revenue advertising eats up. It is the flip side of ROAS: lower is better.

CPA (cost per acquisition)=What it costs you in total to win one new customer or order.

CPC (cost per click)=What one click on your ad costs you.

CRM (customer relationship management)=The system where you keep customer information so you can look after them and sell to them again.

CTR (click-through rate)=The share of people who see your ad and click it.

D2C (direct to consumer)=The maker skips distributors and retailers and sells straight to the end customer.

EBITDA=Profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. It shows how much the business itself earns from operations, ignoring financing, taxes and accounting write-downs.

Events (event marketing)=Running your own events or joining others where you meet customers in person. More expensive, but a strong experience sticks.

Funnel (buying journey)=The path from first seeing your brand to buying. Many people at the top, few at the bottom.

G2B (government to business)=Government dealing with companies, from taxes to grants.

G2C (government to citizen)=Government or local authorities providing services and communicating with citizens.

G2G (government to government)=Agencies, ministries or countries exchanging information, data and services with each other.

GA4 (Google Analytics 4)=Google's tool that measures what people do on a website — how many visit, which pages they see and what actions they take. The newer generation of Google Analytics.

GDPR=The European regulation on personal data protection. It gives people control over what data companies collect, how they use it and who they share it with.

GEO (generative engine optimization)=Writing content so generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) use it in their answers and cite you as the source.

Google Search Console=A free Google tool that shows how your website performs in search — which queries you appear for, how many people click, and whether there are technical issues.

GRP (Gross Rating Point)=A number showing the total weight of a television advertising campaign across a broad audience. It combines the percentage of viewers reached with how often they saw the ad on average.

Influencer marketing=You partner with people who have an audience on social media so they recommend your product.

Jingle=A short, memorable tune or sound linked to a brand, advertisement or radio show.

KPI (key performance indicator)=The key number that tells you whether things are going well.

Margin=When a customer pays 100, margin is what remains after the cost of the product or service sold. Rent and wages still come out of it.

MarTech (marketing technology)=Tools and software that help you run and measure marketing: emailing, analytics, CRM, automation.

Media mix=The combination of advertising channels you use together, and how the money is split between them.

Offline marketing=Advertising away from the internet: billboards, print, radio, events, personal selling. Harder to measure, but it still works.

Online marketing=Everything that happens on the internet: websites, search, social media, emails, paid ads. The upside: you can measure it precisely.

OOH (out of home)=Advertising outdoors: billboards, bus stops, building wraps.

P2P (peer to peer)=Two parties trade or share resources directly, with no middleman at all.

Performance marketing=Advertising built for immediate, measurable results: a click, a purchase, a signup. The opposite of brand work, which builds trust over time.

PR (public relations)=Building the company's reputation through media, articles and public appearances rather than paid ads.

Profit=What you actually keep after all costs are deducted — operations, marketing, wages, taxes and interest. Revenue is total sales; profit is what you truly earned.

Remarketing=Reaching people again who visited your site or browsed a product but did not buy.

Research (market research)=Systematic discovery of what people think, how they decide, and what they expect from a brand. It replaces guesswork with evidence.

Retention=Keeping customers who already bought and getting them to buy again. Usually far cheaper than acquisition.

Revenue (turnover)=Total company sales for the year before costs are deducted. Not profit, not EBITDA.

ROAS (return on ad spend)=How much revenue comes back for every dollar you spend on ads.

ROI (return on investment)=What you actually keep as profit after all costs, not just what you sold.

SEO (search engine optimization)=Shaping your website so Google and other search engines find it, understand it and show it to people looking for what you offer.

SoMe (social media)=Short for social media: online platforms where people and brands create and share content and communicate with each other.

TRP (Target Rating Point)=A number showing the weight of a television advertising campaign within one specific target audience. Like GRP, it combines reach and average frequency, but it does not count all viewers.

TTL (through the line)=ATL and BTL combined in one campaign: pretty much the default today.