Marketing Automation Glossary

AB testing is a technique to figure out which version of your email or page is best, based on real behaviour, not assumptions.

More than half of your website visitors don’t finish their purchase. An abandoned cart campaign helps re-spark interest in buying your product.

Above the fold refers to the part of a web page or email that’s visible without having to scroll.

AMP is a way to make mobile content faster and more usable for those who browse on slower connections or don’t wait for heavy pages to load.

The acceptance rate is the percentage of your emails that are accepted by the recipient’s mail server.

Acquisition is about gaining new customers or users. Those who sign up, subscribe, or buy what your company offers.

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based arrangement where a business pays external partners a commission for driving traffic or sales through their promotional efforts

The AIDA model is a marketing framework describing the four stages a buyer moves through: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action

Alt text is a written description of an image, designed to be read by screen readers for people with visual impairments.

AMP emails are interactive HTML emails built using Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages framework, allowing recipients to take actions directly within the email without visiting a website

Analytics in marketing refers to the collection, measurement, and interpretation of data from marketing activities to understand performance and guide decision-making

A clickable link that takes users directly to a section of a website page.

An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of protocols that allows two software applications to communicate with each other and exchange data in a structured way

An API is a set of rules that lets two software systems share information and work together.

The at sign has become a universal symbol of communication, connection, and context. It’s used in different ways across the Internet.

Marketing attribution is the process of identifying which marketing touchpoints influenced a conversion, assigning credit to the channels or campaigns that contributed to that outcome

In marketing, audiences are defined groups of people who share common characteristics, behaviours, or interests, used to target campaigns and personalise communications

An automation trigger lives inside a marketing platform as the first step of a journey, for example a nurture campaign.

Backlinks are links from one website to another, used by search engines as a signal of authority and trustworthiness when determining how to rank pages in search results

BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) is an email field that allows a sender to copy additional recipients on a message without the other recipients knowing those addresses are included

A benchmark is a reference point or standard used to compare your marketing performance against industry norms, historical data, or competitor results

Big data refers to datasets that are too large, fast-moving, or complex to be processed by traditional data management tools, requiring specialised infrastructure to store, process, and analyse

BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is an email standard that displays a brand’s logo next to authenticated emails in supported inboxes, improving recognition and trust

A birthday campaign is a marketing tactic that involves sending personalised messages to customers on or around their birthday.

An email blacklist is a database of IP addresses or domains identified as sources of spam, used by mail servers to block or filter incoming messages from those senders

The ‘blind carbon copy’ is a feature in email that lets you privately send a message to someone without having the main recipient know about it.

Bone clicks are automated link clicks generated by email security systems or bots rather than human recipients, inflating click data and distorting email performance metrics

Bot clicks are automatic interactions with digital ads, emails, or website links triggered by software rather than real users.

An email bounce occurs when a sent email is rejected by the recipient’s mail server and returned to the sender, indicating the message could not be delivered

Email bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails that could not be delivered, calculated as the number of bounced emails divided by total emails sent

BIMI is an email standard that lets companies display their verified logo alongside messages in supported inboxes.

A breadcrumb is a navigational aid on a website that shows the user’s current location within the site’s hierarchy, typically displayed as a trail of links near the top of the page

Bulk email is one of the most direct and consistent ways to communicate with a large audience.

Bulk mailing is the practice of sending a single email message to a large number of recipients simultaneously, typically through an email service provider or marketing automation platform

The buyer journey is the path someone takes before they become a customer, typically in the stages ‘Awareness’, ‘Consideration’, and ‘Decision’.

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional profile that represents your ideal customer.

The buyer’s journey is the process a prospective customer goes through from first becoming aware of a problem to making a purchase decision

A call-to-action, or CTA, is a prompt that tells someone what to do next.

A US law passed in 2003 to set basic rules for commercial email. It is in some shape comparable to GDPR.

A canonical URL is the preferred version of a webpage specified by a canonical tag, used to prevent duplicate content issues and consolidate link equity in search engines

A carbon copy (or: CC) lets you send a copy of your email to someone without making them the primary recipient.

CSS is a language used to control how things look on a web page.

Churn is the opposite of retention and happens when a customer decides to stop using your product or service.

Customer churn is about the number of users leaving; revenue churn looks at the money lost when subscribers downgrade or cancel.

Click rate is the percentage of delivered emails in which at least one link was clicked, measuring the overall engagement level of a campaign and the effectiveness of its calls to action

Click-through rate, often shortened to CTR, measures how frequently people click on a link, ad, or call-to-action after seeing it.

The click-to-open shows how many people who opened your email clicked on something inside it.

Competition analysis is the process of systematically researching and evaluating competitors to understand their strengths, weaknesses, positioning, and strategies

Confirmed Open Rate (COR) is a metric used in email marketing to measure the number of recipients who opened an email.

A connector is a pre-built integration that links two software applications, enabling them to exchange data automatically without requiring custom development work for each connection

A Content Management System or CMS allows you to create, manage, and publish content on a website.

Content marketing is a strategy that involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant content to attract and engage a target audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action

Conversational AI refers to technologies that enable computers to understand and respond to human language in real time, powering chatbots, virtual assistants, and automated customer interactions

A conversion is when someone takes a specific action you want them to take, split in macro and micro conversions.

CRO is the process of improving your website (or landing page, email, or app) to encourage more visitors to take a specific action.

Cost per order (CPO) is the total marketing or advertising spend divided by the number of orders generated, measuring how much it costs to acquire each completed transaction

CPC, or cost-per-click, is a way advertisers pay for online ads, only when someone actually clicks on them.

A countdown timer tells visitors exactly how many hours, minutes, and seconds are left in a promotional campaign.

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system is software that helps businesses manage interactions with prospects and customers, centralising contact data and communication history to improve sales and marketing outcomes

Cross-selling encourages customers to purchase additional, related products alongside their main purchase.

CAC tells you how much it costs your business to win a new customer: Divide the spent budget by the amount of leads generated. Quick maths!

A Customer Data Platform is software that helps businesses gather everything they know about their customers into one place.

A customer journey maps out how people move through each stage of getting to know, buying, and using your product or service.

The customer lifecycle includes all customer relationship stages.

Put simply, it’s the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend with your business over the entire length of their relationship with you.

CRM is both a strategy and a toolset that helps businesses manage interactions with customers and potential customers in one central place.

Customer Retention Rate is a metric that tells you how well your business keeps its customers over time.

Dark mode is a colour scheme setting that users can enable on their device, operating system, browser, or specific apps.

A DMP is a tool that collects, stores, and organises data about your audiences so that you can better target them.

A Data Protection Officer is the person responsible for overseeing how a company collects, manages, and protects personal data.

A data warehouse is a centralised repository that stores large volumes of structured data from multiple sources, optimised for querying and analysis rather than real-time transaction processing

A database holds rows and tables of data that can be sorted, searched, updated, and analysed with precision and speed.

Deepsell is a sales and marketing strategy focused on expanding revenue from existing customers by identifying and addressing additional needs that the current relationship does not yet serve

Email delivery refers to whether a sent email successfully reaches the recipient’s mail server, without being rejected or bounced, before any inbox placement assessment occurs

Delivery rate is the percentage of sent emails that were successfully accepted by the recipient’s mail server, calculated as delivered emails divided by total emails sent

Demand generation is a marketing strategy focused on creating awareness and interest in a company’s products or services among a target audience, building the pipeline of future buyers

Digital accessibility is the practice of designing and developing digital content and interfaces so they can be used by people with a wide range of abilities, including those with visual, auditory, cognitive, or motor impairments

Direct mail is a marketing channel that delivers physical printed materials, such as letters, brochures, or postcards, directly to a recipient’s postal address

DMARCbis is an email security tool that helps stop scammers from pretending to send emails from your domain.

DANE (DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities) is a security protocol that uses DNSSEC to bind TLS certificates to domain names, enabling more secure email and web connections

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine results pages, scored on a scale of 1 to 100

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet’s address directory, translating human-readable domain names into the numerical IP addresses that computers use to communicate

An API is a set of rules that lets two software systems share information and work together.

DKIM adds a digital signature to the email’s header, which the recipient’s mail server can verify.

Double opt-in is an email subscription process that requires new subscribers to confirm their email address by clicking a link in a confirmation email before being added to a mailing list

A drag and drop editor is a visual design interface that allows users to build emails or web pages by dragging pre-built content blocks into position, without writing code

A drip campaign is a series of automated emails sent to a contact at predetermined intervals or triggered by specific behaviours, designed to move them through the funnel over time

Duplicate content refers to blocks of text that are identical or near-identical to content appearing on another page, either within the same website or across different domains, which can affect search engine rankings

Dynamic content is email or website content that changes automatically based on recipient or visitor attributes, delivering personalised information to different people within the same communication

An email campaign is a coordinated series of email messages, or sometimes a single email, sent to a targeted list of recipients to achieve a specific marketing goal

An email client is the application or interface used to send, receive, and read emails, such as Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, or a mobile email app

Email copy is the written text content of a marketing email, including the subject line, preheader, body text, and calls to action, crafted to engage recipients and drive a specific response

An email domain is the part of an email address that comes after the @ symbol, identifying the organisation or service responsible for that email account

Email marketing is the practice of sending targeted commercial communications to a list of contacts via email to build relationships, promote products or services, and drive specific actions

Email marketing automation is the use of software to send targeted emails automatically based on triggers, schedules, or contact behaviour, without manual intervention for each send

Email marketing software is a platform that allows businesses to create, send, manage, and track email campaigns and automated communications to a contact list

Email file size refers to the total size of an email message in kilobytes or megabytes, including HTML code, inline styles, and any embedded content, which affects load time and deliverability

An email template is a pre-designed, reusable email layout that provides the structural framework for consistent email creation, including placeholders for content that changes with each send

In email marketing, an emoji is a small digital icon or symbol used in subject lines or email body content to add visual interest, convey emotion, or improve scannability

An ESP (Email Service Provider) is a platform that provides the infrastructure and tools needed to send marketing emails at scale, including list management, template builders, automation, and deliverability features

Event tracking is the practice of recording and analysing specific user interactions with a website, app, or email, such as clicks, form submissions, and video plays, to understand engagement and behaviour

Facebook Ads is Meta’s paid advertising platform that allows businesses to run targeted ad campaigns across Facebook and Instagram, using audience data to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviours

Facebook Advertising refers to promoting products or services through paid campaigns on the Facebook platform.

An email feedback loop (FBL) is a service offered by inbox providers that sends spam complaint notifications back to the sender when recipients mark their emails as spam

Fluid design is an email layout technique that uses percentage-based widths so the email scales smoothly across different screen sizes without fixed breakpoints

A follow-up email is a message sent after an initial contact or communication to continue a conversation, prompt a response, or move a prospect or customer to the next step

An email footer is the bottom section of a marketing email containing the unsubscribe link, company address, and compliance information required on every send

A form transcript is a saved record of the data submitted through a web form, capturing a contact’s responses and storing them for follow-up and segmentation

A marketing funnel is a model representing the journey prospects take from first awareness of a brand through to becoming a customer, with each stage narrowing as people progress toward conversion

Gamification is the application of game-like mechanics such as points, badges, and challenges to marketing activities to increase engagement, motivation, and desired behaviour

Gated content is digital content such as guides, reports, or templates that requires a visitor to complete a form and provide their contact details in order to access it

GDPR is a European Union regulation that governs how organisations collect, store, and process personal data of individuals in the EU and EEA

Geotargeting is the practice of delivering different content, ads, or messages to users based on their geographic location to improve relevance and campaign performance

A GIF animation is an animated image file used in email marketing to add movement and visual interest, supported across most email clients without requiring video or additional plugins

Growth hacking is a data-driven, experimental approach to finding the most efficient ways to grow a business rapidly, combining marketing, product, and data skills to identify high-leverage tactics

A hard bounce is a permanent email delivery failure caused by an invalid or non-existent email address, indicating the message will never be deliverable to that address

An email header refers to either the visual top section of an email design containing the brand logo and banner, or the technical metadata that mail servers use to route and authenticate messages

A heatmap is a visual representation of data that uses colour gradients to show where users click, scroll, or focus attention on a web page or email, helping identify engagement patterns

An HTML email is an email message coded in HTML that displays formatted text, images, colours, and layout rather than plain text, enabling richly designed marketing communications

Hyper-personalisation is an advanced marketing approach that uses real-time data, AI, and behavioural signals to deliver individualised content and experiences far beyond basic name or company personalisation

An ICS file is a universal calendar file format used to share event details that recipients can add directly to their digital calendar, commonly included in event invitation and confirmation emails

In email marketing, an image is any visual asset embedded in or linked from an email, including photos, illustrations, banners, logos, and GIFs

Image blocking occurs when an email client automatically prevents images from loading in an email, displaying ALT text or blank spaces instead, which affects how recipients experience the message

Image-text ratio is the proportion of image content to written text in an email, a factor that spam filters use to assess whether a message is legitimate

Inactive contacts are email subscribers who have not opened or clicked any emails over a defined period, typically three to twelve months, and who may need re-engagement or suppression

Inbound marketing is a strategy that attracts customers by creating valuable, relevant content that addresses their needs, drawing them in organically rather than interrupting them with advertising

An email inbox is the primary folder in an email client where incoming messages are delivered, and the primary target for every email marketing deliverability effort

Inbox placement rate is the percentage of delivered emails that land in the recipient’s inbox rather than the spam or junk folder.

Influencer marketing is a strategy that involves partnering with individuals who have built a credible following in a relevant niche to promote a brand, product, or message to their audience

With Instagram Advertising, can place ads through sponsored posts, Stories, Reels, and other formats, targeting audiences based on demographics, interests, and behaviours.

An IP address is a unique numerical identifier assigned to every device connected to the internet, used to route communications and, in email, to identify the server sending a message

An IP lookup is the process of querying a database to retrieve information associated with a specific IP address, such as its geographic location, organisation, or email sending reputation

In email marketing, an ISP refers to the major inbox providers such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo that host recipient mailboxes and make filtering decisions about incoming messages

Journey mapping is the process of visually documenting the steps, touchpoints, and experiences a customer goes through when engaging with a brand, used to identify gaps and improve the overall experience

Junk mail is a colloquial term for unsolicited or unwanted email that recipients did not request, broadly synonymous with spam, and the folder where email clients route suspected unwanted messages

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are specific, measurable metrics used to evaluate the success of marketing activities against defined business objectives

A keyword is a word or phrase that people type into search engines when looking for information, used in SEO and paid search to target relevant traffic and inform content strategy

A landing page is a standalone web page designed for a specific campaign or objective, where visitors arrive after clicking an ad, email link, or search result and are guided toward a single desired action

Lead generation is the process of attracting and capturing the interest of potential customers, converting anonymous prospects into identified contacts who can be nurtured toward a purchase decision

Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with prospects over time through targeted, relevant communications that guide them through the buying process at their own pace

Lead qualification is the process of evaluating whether a lead meets the criteria to be considered a viable sales opportunity, based on factors such as budget, authority, need, and timeline

Lead scoring is a method of ranking prospects by assigning numerical values to their profile attributes and behaviours, indicating how sales-ready they are and helping prioritise follow-up

Leads are individuals or organisations who have expressed interest in a company’s product or service and provided contact information, making them identifiable prospects in the sales and marketing funnel

A link domain is the domain used in tracked links within marketing emails, which can be customised to match the sender’s brand for better deliverability and a more consistent recipient experience

Paid advertising on LinkedIn to target professional audiences with tailored campaigns.

List hygiene is the ongoing practice of maintaining a clean, accurate, and up-to-date email contact database by removing invalid addresses, managing bounces, and addressing long-term disengagement

Loyalty marketing is a strategy focused on retaining existing customers and encouraging repeat business by rewarding engagement, purchases, and advocacy through structured programmes and personalised communications

Machine learning is a branch of artificial intelligence where systems learn from data to improve their performance on tasks over time, without being explicitly programmed for each specific outcome

A mail server is a computer system responsible for sending, receiving, and storing email messages, acting as the infrastructure backbone of all email communication

A mailing list is a database of email addresses belonging to subscribers, customers, or prospects who have consented to receive communications from a sender

Marketing automation is the use of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks and deliver personalised communications at scale based on contact behaviour, data, and defined workflow logic

An MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is a lead that marketing has assessed as ready for sales engagement based on their profile fit and level of engagement with marketing content and campaigns

Media queries are CSS rules that apply different styles to an email based on the screen width or device characteristics of the viewer, enabling responsive email layouts that adapt to mobile screens

A meta description is an HTML attribute that provides a brief summary of a web page’s content, typically displayed as the descriptive snippet beneath the page title in search engine results

A meta title, also called a title tag, is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page, displayed as the clickable headline in search engine results and in the browser tab

Metrics are quantifiable measurements used to track, assess, and communicate the performance of marketing activities, campaigns, and programmes over time

Mobile optimisation in email is the practice of designing and coding emails so they render correctly, load quickly, and are easy to interact with on smartphones and tablets

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend a company to others, calculated from a single survey question on a scale of 0 to 10

A newsletter is a regularly sent email that keeps subscribers informed and engaged to a brand through curated content, updates, and insights.

A newsletter subscriber is a person who has actively opted in to receive a newsletter, representing engaged contacts in a marketing database.

Nurture in marketing refers to the process of building relationships with prospects and customers over time through relevant, helpful communications.

An online version is a web-hosted copy of a marketing email that recipients can view in a browser for those who cannot view it correctly.

An open pixel is a tiny, invisible image embedded in a marketing email that records when the email has been opened, enabling open rate tracking.

Open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that were opened by recipients, used as an indicator of subject line effectiveness & audience engagement.

The sender name is the display name shown in a recipient’s inbox to identify who sent an email, appearing alongside the sender’s email address

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication method that helps verify a sender’s identity to prevent email spoofing.

A signup form is a web form that collects a visitor’s details, typically their email address, to add them to a mailing list or database

Spam complaint count is the total number of recipients who have clicked ‘report spam’ or ‘mark as junk’ in their email client after receiving a message from a sender. Each complaint is registered with the inbox provider and contributes to the sender’s complaint rate, which is one of the most heavily weighted signals inbox providers […]

Spam placement rate is the percentage of delivered emails that are routed to the recipient’s spam or junk folder rather than their inbox.

A subscribe popup is an overlay that appears on a website inviting visitors to join a mailing list, typically triggered by a specific user behaviour

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A thank you page is the webpage a visitor sees after completing a form or action on your site, confirming the action was successful and often providing a next step

Companies can use short video ads, sponsored challenges, or branded content. Targeting options include demographics, interests, and user behaviour.

Unsubscribing is the process by which a recipient removes themselves from a mailing list, opting out of future email communications from a sender

An unsubscribe link is a clickable link included in marketing emails that allows recipients to opt out of future communications from the sender

Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of email recipients who opt out of a mailing list after receiving a particular email send

A WhatsApp chatbot is an automated system that communicates with users through the WhatsApp messaging platform.

Zero-shot prompting is an artificial intelligence technique particularly relevant in natural language processing tasks.