Marketing Glossary: 30 Terms Every Entrepreneur Should Know
Marketing has a lot of jargon. Here are 30 terms in plain language.
- Audience
- The group of people you want to reach.
- Brand positioning
- How you want customers to see you compared with alternatives.
- Call to action (CTA)
- The next step you ask someone to take, such as "Request a quote".
- Churn
- The share of customers who stop buying over a period.
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Clicks divided by impressions.
- Conversion
- A desired action, such as a purchase, call or form submission.
- Conversion rate
- Conversions divided by visitors or leads.
- Cost per lead (CPL)
- Marketing spend divided by leads.
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Total cost to win one new customer.
- Customer lifetime value (LTV)
- Total revenue a customer brings over time.
- CRM
- Software that stores contacts and tracks conversations and sales.
- Funnel
- The path from awareness to purchase and repeat business.
- Impression
- One time your ad or content is shown.
- Keyword
- A word or phrase people type into a search engine.
- Landing page
- A page built for one specific action.
- Lead
- A person who has shown interest and shared contact details.
- Lead magnet
- A free resource offered in exchange for contact details.
- Lead nurturing
- Follow-up that builds trust until a lead is ready to buy.
- Local SEO
- Optimizing to appear in searches tied to a location.
- Marketing automation
- Tools that send messages or tasks automatically based on rules.
- Meta description
- The short summary shown under a page title in search results.
- Organic traffic
- Visitors who arrive from unpaid search results.
- Paid media
- Advertising you pay for, such as Google Ads or Meta Ads.
- Pay-per-click (PPC)
- An ad model where you pay per click.
- Retargeting
- Showing ads to people who already visited your site or engaged.
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Revenue generated per unit spent on ads.
- SEO
- The practice of earning visibility in unpaid search results.
- Segmentation
- Dividing an audience into groups with similar needs.
- Target audience
- The specific group most likely to buy from you.
- UTM parameters
- Tags added to links to track where traffic comes from.
Related reading
- How to Build a Marketing Plan for a Small Business
- The Marketing Funnel Explained: From Awareness to Repeat Customers
- Marketing Metrics That Matter: What to Track and What to Ignore
- SEO Basics for Small Business: A Practical Starting Guide