29 Digital Marketing Terms You Need to Know

These days, it’s difficult to cut through all of the marketing jargon that’s out there. Some terms are “noise” and some are legit. But which are which?

You may be wondering what a certain term really means and whether you should be using it in day-to-day conversations. Or, you may be wondering how a certain term applies to real-life projects you’re working on.

To clear the confusion, we’ve gathered the 29 digital marketing terms that you should absolutely be aware of—and on top of that, we’ve explained how they’re applied to real-life scenarios with the help of Progress Sitefinity.

Digital Marketing Term Glossary

• APIs
• A/B testing
• Brand awareness
• Buyer journey
• Call to action
• Conversion
• Conversion rate
• Conversion rate optimization
• Customer journey
• Digital marketing
• Hyper-personalization
• Key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Landing page
• Lead generation
• Lead nurturing
• Machine learning
• Marketing analytics
• Marketing attribution
• Marketing automation
• Marketing funnel
• Metrics
• Multichannel marketing
• Omnichannel marketing
• Persona
• Personalization
• Responsive design
• Return on investment (ROI)
• User experience
• User interface

Learn more about Sitefinity

APIs

APIs are programming rules that enable applications to interact with each other. Often, APIs allow one system to receive another system’s information or data, so it can then utilize that information in its own internal analysis or use.

How it works in Sitefinity: Sitefinity has an extensive set of APIs that allow organizations to connect external business systems—enabling each platform to exchange information. For example, utilize Sitefinity’s APIs to connect to Google Data Studio, and send that information to Sitefinity Insight to track, analyze and optimize content based off data that accounts for all business functions and activities.

A/B testing

A/B testing is the process of creating variations of content and testing the performance of the variations compared to the original version.

How it works in Sitefinity: Utilize Sitefinity Insight’s A/B testing capabilities to test variations of web copy, design, calls to action, layout, etc. to improve the success of web content.

Brand awareness

Brand awareness is how well the market can recognize your brand, what products/services you provide and what problems you solve.

How it works in Sitefinity: Grow brand awareness by managing digital experiences with Sitefinity. Sitefinity enables organizations to push content across the web and other touchpoints such as mobile, tablets, smartwatches, etc. Deliver consistent content to the audience across every channel to build their brand knowledge and spark purchase interest.

Buyer journey

The buyer’s journey is the series of interactions a prospective buyer takes when researching a product or a problem they’re looking to solve.

How it works in Sitefinity: An organization can control a majority of their buyer journey with Sitefinity. By shaping the experiences delivered to visitors across company websites and marketing communications, organizations can influence the buyer’s journey to drive more conversions.

Call to action

A call to action is a link, button, or icon that encourages a website visitor to take an action that will make them become a lead, such as fill out a form.

How it works in Sitefinity: Create CTAs on web pages and landing pages with Sitefinity to drive people to interact with the pages and make the conversion that will enter them into the sales funnel.

Conversion

A conversion is a key action a visitor takes on a website that an organization defined as qualifying them as a lead including completing a form, downloading content, scheduling a demo, downloading a trial, contacting the organization—or even making the purchase online.

How it works in Sitefinity: Create conversions for web pages in Sitefinity. Then, define conversions in Sitefinity Insight to track and optimize conversion rates.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who completed a key action on a web page, out of the total number of visitors that went to the page and had the opportunity to convert. High conversion rates mean that the web page is performing well and that the audience is responding well to the experience.

How it works in Sitefinity: Track conversion rates in Sitefinity Insight to identify what pages are performing well and what pages need improvement.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization is the practice of improving website conversion rates by actively optimizing web copy, design and the overall journey. The goal is to create an experience that will convert more visitors into buyers.

How it works in Sitefinity: Utilize Sitefinity Insight’s A/B testing capabilities to validate copy, design and journey changes and prove that they will drive more conversions.

Customer journey

Like the buyer’s journey, the customer journey is the series of interactions a customer takes once they officially become a customer.

How it works in Sitefinity: Control the online customer journey with Sitefinity. Centrally manage the customer journey across websites and external communications to increase customer satisfaction and drive upsell opportunities.

Digital marketing

Digital marketing is the process of marketing to target audiences and personas through the internet. This includes marketing on various channels that are enabled by internet from social media, email, Google, etc.

How it works in Sitefinity: Digital marketers can control their online presence with Sitefinity. Connect to major marketing platforms, create compelling experiences and measure the success of those experiences in Sitefinity Insight.

Hyper-personalization

Hyper-personalization is a more advanced form of personalization. Hyper-personalization utilizes visitor data such as name, organization or online interaction behavior to create experiences and communications that are extremely tailored to the visitor.

How it works in Sitefinity: Collect cross-channel visitor data in Sitefinity Insight and define persona profiles. Then utilize Sitefinity’s personalization features to deliver highly contextual experiences to visitors that drive engagement.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators are the marketing metrics that an organization chooses to most closely measure to identify whether the company is achieving its overall business objectives.

How it works in Sitefinity: Organizations can track their KPIs within Sitefinity Insight and measure whether marketing programs are contributing to achieving those KPIs.

Landing page

A landing page is a page on a website that lives for the purpose of generating leads. Often these pages have forms for prospects to fill out to request a demo, download content, contact the company, etc.

How it works in Sitefinity: Quickly create landing pages in Sitefinity without having to rely on IT to help edit or publish. Then, optimize the effectiveness of landing pages’ lead generation through Sitefinity Insight’s analytics, recommendations and A/B testing features.

Lead generation

Lead generation refers to the process of sparking interest in an organization and its product and services through marketing programs. The goal of lead generation is to identify qualified prospects or potential buyers that can be nurtured to eventually make a purchase.

How it works in Sitefinity: Generate leads by creating cross-channel marketing programs that are optimized to be extremely engaging. Easily implement content updates and personalized content to create tailored, relevant campaigns. Track how well those programs are generating leads in Sitefinity Insight.

Lead nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of sending engaged website visitors various additional touches and communications to keep them engaged with the brand, and ultimately make a purchase.

How it works in Sitefinity: Nurture leads with Sitefinity by sending them personalized content across every channel in which they interact with—from web, to email, to social media. Keep leads engaged by sending them tailored communications based off of their preferences to drive purchase decisions.

Machine learning

Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that can learn from repeat tasks and processes and then automatically improve on those processes.

How it works in Sitefinity: Sitefinity Insight utilizes machine learning to provide organizations real-time recommendations on how to improve content to better achieve marketing KPIs, i.e. improve conversions.

Marketing analytics

Marketing analytics refers to the gathering and interpretation of marketing associated data to inform and improve marketing programs.

How it works in Sitefinity: Gather data across multiple platforms and manage it centrally in Sitefinity Insight. Utilize that data to identify trends that can inform future marketing programs to drive improvements.

Marketing attribution

Marketing attribution is the process of discovering the value of marketing programs and campaigns and mapping towards how they contribute to ROI.

How it works in Sitefinity: Automatically track and measure marketing attribution in Sitefinity Insight to discover what campaigns contribute the most to bottom- and top-line results.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation refers to the use of technology to streamline repeat tasks and manual processes to scale marketing operations for a quicker time to market.

How it works in Sitefinity: Sitefinity Insight uses cognitive capabilities to provide proactive campaign notifications and ML-driven optimization recommendations.

Marketing funnel

The marketing funnel represents the phases of the buying cycle and how potential buyers follow through each of the phases until they make a purchase.

How it works in Sitefinity: Capture the purchase interest of visitors by creating an engaging, cross-channel experience in Sitefinity. Then, identify interested buyers in Sitefinity Insight and retarget them with personalized and optimized content to prompt them to purchase.

Metrics

Metrics are measurable values that are tracked for each marketing campaign and program to indicate whether the campaigns is helping achieve overall business KPIs.

How it works in Sitefinity: Measure key marketing metrics in Sitefinity Insight to manage and track marketing performance all in command center.

Multichannel marketing

Multichannel marketing is marketing campaigns that are delivered over more than one channel—including the web, mobile aps, portals, smartwatches, etc.

How it works in Sitefinity: Implement multichannel marketing easily, without reliance on IT with Sitefinity. Control experiences not only on the web but additional channels with the help of Sitefinity’s decoupled architecture.

Omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing refers to the strategy of delivering a seamless customer, buyer, or visitor experience regardless of what device or touchpoint the person is using to interact with the brand.

How it works in Sitefinity: Centrally manage and create an omnichannel marketing experience with Sitefinity. Deliver consistent experiences across multiple channels and touchpoints to a span of various personas.

Persona

A persona is a segment of an organization’s target audience that has preferences, needs and wants that are similar to the rest of the segment but different than those outside of the segment.

How it works in Sitefinity: Identify target personas in Sitefinity Insight and validate assumptions about how they interact with web content. Analyze their journeys, points of conversion and how they engage with personalized content to continuously improve personas’ experiences.

Personalization

Personalization is the process of delivering content to personas that is tailored to the persona segment’s preferences based off of visitor data. Instead of utilizing generic messaging or imagery, the experience is unique to prompt the persona to interact with the brand.

How it works in Sitefinity: Identify and track persona interactions and performance in Sitefinity Insight and then deliver personalized content with Sitefinity’s personalization functionality.

Responsive design

Responsive design is a capability that allows a website to automatically adjust its design based on the device that the visitor is using, eliminating the need to build a separate website for each device.

How it works in Sitefinity: Sitefinity enables websites to be responsive no matter what device the visitor uses with the help of Sitefinity’s decoupled architecture.

Return on investment (ROI)

Return on investment is the point at which a company generates enough money from a technology investment to cover the first cover the investment costs and then generate revenue from it.

How it works in Sitefinity: Track return on investment for various marketing campaigns and programs in Sitefinity Insight. Identify whether campaigns have contributed to real business value.

User experience

User experience refers to how users (aka visitors) interact with a brand and how favorable they perceive their interactions to be.

How it works in Sitefinity: Track user interactions in Sitefinity Insight. Identify points of engagement and points of friction in their journey.

User interface

User interface describes designing an interface in software that is appealing to the end user.

How it works in Sitefinity: Sitefinity along with Sitefinity Insight have an intuitive, easy to use user interface that enables marketers to update, personalize and optimize content without reliance on IT.

Now you’re all caught up on the top need-to-know digital marketing terms. Marketers are notoriously known for creating industry buzzwords that in reality, aren’t true to what marketing really is. Together, let’s eliminate the jargon and start using the key digital marketing terms that can advance our day-to-day work, campaign effectiveness and cross-functional communication.

Get a Sitefinity demo