Within the digital marketing online community there’s an abundance of communication and information. Whether from blogs, articles, twitter posts, you name it digital marketing is talked about everywhere. The problem for a newcomer is overcoming the lexicon of terms, concepts, and weird acronyms. Here’s an informative and quick summary of the essential acronyms and concepts so you don’t have to feel like you’re reading Greek and understand what’s being discussed.

 

Cost Per Action “CPA”

 

CPA refers to the amount an advertiser is paid.

The way digital advertisers are most often paid is by the success of an advertisement. Depending on the arrangement this could mean whenever someone clicks the ad, how long they engage, and/or if they actually purchase something.  These are all capital A actions, and the cost is the price of the advertisers service. 

 

Similar Term: Cost Per Click (CPC) – Getting paid per click

 

Bounce Rate “BR”

 

BR is the percentage of people who “bounce off” a website after viewing only one page.

Retention, this is the metric BR measures. Sure you might be able to draw people to your website, but are they truly engaging with it’s value? Or do they “bounce off” after only viewing a page and go about their internet exploratory time completely forgetting the website ever existed.

 

Impressions vs. Engagements

 

Impressions are the number of people who viewed an advertisement. Banner ads, facebook ads, long form copy, etc. The question of impressions is how many potential customers have actually seen the ad?

Vs.

Engagements (aka clicks) refer to who actually responded, engaged with an ad, clicked to learn more, following to the website. Engagements measure success in intriguing a potential customer with an ad.

 

Search Engine Optimization “SEO”

 

Search Engine Optimization or SEO, refers to the process of improving rankings of a website in the various search algorithms.

The reason why SEO is exploding and is so important is because in this new digital world Search Engines are where almost all customer acquisition happens. Business is a competitive space, and the dogfights are happening after a potential customers search. Google, bing, yahoo, even youtube are how customers fill needs. For example someone with back pain might search, “Chiropractor near me” “I have lower back pain, what should I do?”. If you’re a chiropractor and able to provide value to this customer you want to be at the top of the search landing page to make sure the customer comes to you.

If you are curious and want to learn more about SEO learn how to spot scams, the most useful free tools to use in 2022 to improve SEO, and more here.

Conversion Rate “CR”

 

The percentage of people who took the action the advertiser wished them too. This can range from signing up for an email list or buying a product. Regardless, the CR is an extremely useful metric, and often coined term.

 

CR is where the effectiveness of an offer is displayed, whether it’s time to celebrate or brainstorm.

 

Similar term: CTR (Click Through Rate) – How many see the link vs Click (Your desired outcome)