The document provides a comprehensive glossary of marketing terms crucial for content marketers, including definitions of key concepts such as A/B testing, buyer personas, lead generation, and social media strategies. It outlines essential metrics, processes, and tools that are vital in today's digital marketing landscape. This reference guide serves as a handy resource for professionals seeking to enhance their understanding and execution of marketing strategies.

1. © 2013 NewsCred NewsCred.com l (212) 989-4100 l sales@newscred.com
The
Content
Marketer’s
Dictionary

2. A.
A/B Testing: This is a controlled, equal test
to determine the impact of conditions on a
single variable. For instance, you might A/B test
headlines, copy, images on a homepage by running
two different versions of the homepage viewable to
random audiences.
Above the Fold: This refers to the area of the site
that is immediately visible upon loading. Generally,
content and advertisements that are located
“above the fold” receive higher click through rates.
Annual Contract Value (ACV): ACV is the annual
revenue paid to your company by a specific
customer, regardless of multi-year contracts.
Adwords: A paid service provided by Google
where advertisers can bid on keywords in order to
have ads appear in Google’s search network.
Ad Network: An Ad Network is a group of sites
that sell advertising space.
Analytics: Analytics include the gathering and
interpretation of data. For instance, social analytics
yield engagement rates, number of shares and
mentions, virality, channel growth — to name a few.
Authentic Programming Interface (API):
APIs allow applications to interact with outside
platforms.
Attribution: Usually refers to the catalyst of a
particular outcome. With lead generation, it’s
important to determine if leads can be attributed
to marketing activities or sales activities.
Awareness: Brands try to achieve “awareness,”
recognition and preference from target audiences,
through a variety of advertising, marketing and
PR activities. Social media is considered a leading
driver of awareness.
B.
Backlinks: Backlinks (inbound links, incoming
links) are links from an external site to a specific
webpage. For instance, NewsCred backlinks to
other content marketing and journalism blogs from
our blog. More backlinks from authoritative content
marketing sites will improve your SEO for the
content marketing search term.
Behavioral Targeting: On nearly all major social
networks, brands are able to target content
and advertisements to users by collecting
psychographic data from users’ profiles.
Bit.ly: Bit.ly is a link shortening service; however,
the term “bit.ly” has become a bit of an eponym.
There are many other URL shortening services
available, which shorten links, collect link data,
and skirt character-length restrictions for social
networks and SMS.
Marketing Terms Every
Content Marketer Should Know.
Mind-numbing “officespeak” aside, you need to know countless made up and misused marketing terms
and abbreviations. Here’s a quick guide that you can keep handy on your phone, at your desk, or even on
the desktop of your computer, should you need to peek at it once in a while…
© 2013 NewsCred 2

3. Blog: An informative or entertaining site maintained
by companies or individuals. For example, B2B
companies have started investing in “blogs” as
content hubs and a channel for promoting thought
leadership and products, and driving brand
awareness.
Bottom of the Funnel: This refers to the later stage
of the buying cycle, where consumers evaluate
products and have demonstrated intent
to purchase. As prospects reach the bottom of
the funnel, they may be passed from marketing
to sales.
Bounce Rate: Bounce Rate is the percentage of
site visitors that leave the site after only viewing
one page. You can improve Bounce Rates by
featuring engaging content, additional links, and
obvious CTAs.
Buying Cycle: The Buying Cycle refers to the
consumer’s process of realizing a problem,
evaluating solutions, and purchasing a product
that addresses their needs. A basic buying cycle
starts with the “early stage” where the consumer
is realizing a new problem or need, “middle
stage” where they look for solutions and evaluate
products, and “late stage” where they are deciding
which product to purchase.
Buyer Personas: The quantitative and qualitative
set of characteristics that define your target buyer.
Role or function, company size, business problems,
web behavior, and demographic information are
just part of a buyer persona. Consider personal and
professional qualities, concerns, and competencies
for a deep understanding of what motivates your
buyers in their purchase decisions.
C.
Call-to-Action (CTA): The action that you’d like your
customer to do after experiencing your marketing.
For instance, when users come to NewsCred’s blog,
we use pop-up sign-up forms to encourage them to
sign up for our newsletter.
Check-in: When a person announces their arrival or
presence at a particular location (i.e. hotel, airport
or bar, store) on a social network. Brands may
use check-ins for promotional purposes, such as
discounts, mayorships, and surprise rewards.
Churn: The process of customers switching to other
suppliers for various reasons
Click Through Rate (CTR): is the number of ad
clicks divided by the number of impressions, page
views, or queries you received. For example, if you
have five clicks and 1000 impressions, then your
CTR is 0.5%.
Closed-Loop Marketing: The process by which
customer data feeds your marketing campaigns
and drives up sales performance.
Community: A group of individuals who have
shared interests, such as sports, art, technology,
professions, etc. Brands can tap into pre-existing
communities by adding value to a community’s
mission.
Community Manager: A program that allows
publishing, editing and modifying content as well
as maintenance from a central platform.
Content Management System: Program that allows
publishing, editing and modifying content as well as
maintenance from a central interface.
Conversion: When a specific action is performed by
the intended target audience. For instance, when
a consumer sees an ad, clicks the ad, and then
completes an online purchase.
Copy: Unique writing done on social media or email
marketing designed to give your brand a unique
voice.
Cost Per Impression (CPI): How much it costs you
to offer potential customers one opportunity to see
your advertisement
Cost Per Lead (CPL): A pricing model, where the
advertiser pays for an explicit sign-up from an
interested consumer interested in the advertiser
offer.
Cost Per Opportunity (CPO): Opportunity cost is
the cost of a foregone alternative. If you chose one
alternative over another, then the cost of choosing
that alternative is an opportunity cost.
Creative Commons: A non-profit organization
devoted to expanding the range of creative works
available for others to share and to build upon,
legally.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM):
The organization and data collection of a brand’s
interactions with its customers, used in order to
improve account management processes and build
deeper customer relationships.
Crowdsource: Sourcing information or participation
by enlisting collaboration and services of a group.
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4. Crowdsourcing may be paid or unpaid, and is
fueled by the viral, instant communication of
social and the web.
Curation: Collecting, organizing and displaying
information relevant to a particular topic or area of
interest.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): How much a
business needs to allocate in order to acquire an
additional customer.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): how much the
entire future relationship with a customer is worth.
D
Distribution: The strategic process of sharing or
disseminating an idea, opinion, or content to others.
Content distribution is effective through social
media, email, and ad networks.
E
eBook: An electronic version of a printed book that
can be read on a computer or handheld device.
Editorial Calendar: A calendar/ organizational
process by which you can schedule your content
distribution across multiple distribution channels.
Email Marketing: Sales or marketing
communications delivered through e-mail
to targeted individuals or groups.
Engagement: The rate at which customers or
potential customers interact with your marketing
efforts.
Exit Rate: The percentage of visitors to a site who
actively click away to a different site from your
page.
F
Flashmob: A group of people who suddenly
assemble in a public place, perform an unusual and
seemingly pointless act (often a dance) for a brief
time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes
of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.
Forum: A place, (digital or physical) meeting, or
medium where ideas and views on a particular
issue can be exchanged.
Follow Friday: Practice on Twitter whereby users
suggest other users for their followers to “follow”.
Usually designated by the hashtag #FF.
Friend: Connecting with someone on a social
media platform; a term usually associated with
Facebook. i.e. “we’re Facebook friends.”
G
Gamification: is the use of game thinking and
game mechanics in non-game contexts to
engage users in solving problems. In Marketing,
gamification is a tactic used for customer and
brand loyalty.
Geolocation: The process of identifying a
customer’s location. Often then the next step is to
tailor marketing services or offerings to them based
on their location.
Gross Margin: Profit divided by revenue.
H
Hangout: (Google+ Hangout) — free video chat
service from Google that enables both one-on-one
chats and group chats with up to ten people at a
time. Focuses more on group interaction rather
than the one-on-one face calls of Skype,
for example.
Hashtag: On social media sites like Twitter, a
phrase or name is prefixed by the pound sign (#)
in order to group, identify and search messages
on a certain topic.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language; a language for
creating things/documents on the internet through
a variety of tags and attributes
HTML5: The 5th more “user friendly,
multimedia-friendly” version of HTML.
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5. I
iFrame: An HTML document embedded inside
another HTML document on a website. Often used
to insert content from another source (like an ad)
into a web page.
Impression: A measure of the number of times
an ad is displayed. Each display counts as one
impression.
Inbound Marketing: Advertising through blogs,
websites, social media, SEO, whitepapers or other
types of content marketing.
Infographic: A visual image such as a chart or
diagram used to represent information or data;
makes data more digestible and visually appealing.
J
Javascript (JS): A computer language (like HTML)
commonly used to create interactive effects within
web browsers.
K
Keyword: The word(s) or phrase(s) entered into a
search engine’s query. One of the most important
SEO Strategies brands can employ is to optimize
their site pages with content that contains targeted
keywords relevant to their product.
© 2013 NewsCred 5
Klout: A website and mobile app that uses social
media analytics to rank its users according to online
social influence via the “Klout Score”, which is a
numerical value between 1 and 100. The score is
determined by the size of a users social network, as
well as the rate and quality of engagement a user’s
network has with that user’s content.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI): The value by
which you judge the success and efficacy of a
marketing effort.
L
Landing Page: The webpage where customers end
up after they click your ad
Lead Generation: The strategic marketing process
of driving consumer interest in products and
services.
Lead Nurturing: The planned, ongoing
communication between a brand and a prospect.
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and
maintaining prospect relationships in hopes of
driving the prospect towards a deal.
Lead Scoring: A way to measure leads based on
their perceived value to your brand based of their
perceived intent to purchase and value to your
brand.
Link Building: The process of establishing relevant,
inbound links to your website with the intention
of gaining higher ranking with the major search
engines; helps drive targeted traffic to your site.
Long-Tail Keywords: Lesser searched for keywords
that, when combined, have search volumes
but when combined, their search volumes may
outweigh those of the top ten keywords.
M
Marketing Qualified Lead: A lead that has been
“vetted” to the point that it’s deemed worthy to
hand off to the sales team.
Marketing Automation: Software designed to
automate repetitive tasks — allows for greater
efficiency and less chance for human error.
Mashup: An application (created by hackers) that
uses content from more than one source to create
a single new service displayed in a single interface.
For example, you could combine the addresses and
photographs of your recent travels with a Google
map to create a map mashup.
Meme: An item of pop culture (or a version of
it) that is popularized and spread virally via the
internet and word of mouth. For example, “Texts
From Hilary Clinton” featured images of Clinton
texting, captioned with comical, made up text
conversations.
Metatags: A snippet of HTML code in a web page
header that summarizes the content that is on
the web page. They do not factor into Google’s
algorithms for search.
Microblogging: Sometimes called “Microposts”
allow users to share short “snippets” of content,
usually a few sentences long. Often the posts come
via mobile.

6. Middle of the Funnel: The part of the buying
process where a lead has acknowledged a need
for your services, and may or may not be evaluating
your offer. MoFu content should drive the lead
closer to a deal.
Mobile Marketing: Marketing a service or product
on or with a smartphone; benefits include the
ability to provide customers with time and location
sensitive, personalized information.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): A measure of
the predictable and recurring revenue components
of your subscription business; the revenue you can
bank on month over month.
N
Native Advertising: Advertising using content
within the context of a users experience; becoming
more popular for mainstream publishers and looks
and functions much like a traditional advertorial.
Newsfeed: A feed of content, often news articles,
aggregated from your personal networks. For
example, the Facebook Newsfeed will display a
combination of news about your “friends” as well as
news your friends have engaged with and chosen
to share publicly.
O
Offer: The product, features, quality, services
etc a company offers for sale to customers. The
name and brand of the product are also part of the
offering.
Off-Page Optimization: Factors that have an affect
on your web site or Web page listing in natural
search results that you do not control; i.e. popularity
and page rank.
On-page Optimization: Ways to effect your site
listing in search controlled by you. For example,
popularity and page rank.
Owned Media: A channel that a publisher or brand
owns, allowing them to publish virtually whatever
type of content they chose and distribute however
they see fit. For instance, a blog is an owned media
channel.
P
Paid Media: Distributing content via a paid method
such as an advertisment.
PageRank: An algorithm applied by Google that
assigns a rank to a hyperlinked web page. Its
basic purpose is to list web pages from the most
important to the least important.
Page Views: How many times a user requests to
visit or load your page
Pay Per Click (PPC): How much you are paying per
click for an advertisement or sponsored content. A
key performance indicator for many social channels.
Permalink: A static link to a webpage or blog entry.
Permission Marketing: The privilege to deliver
marketing to a consumer or lead who has “opted in”
to receiving your marketing.
Persistent Cookie: A cookie that will only be
deleted when you clear your cache.
Predictive Revenue Model: Used to predict future
customer behavior to project revenues based on
previous behavior patterns.
Promoted Accounts: When a brand pays to
promote their account on Twitter in order to gain
more followers to gain more followers for greater
distribution and awareness.
Promoted Trends: When a brand sponsors a
“trend” or “trending topic” on Twitter, usually
using a hashtag.
Promoted Tweets: When a brand or individual
“promotes” or “sponsors” a certain tweet generally
for the purpose of driving traffic to a landing page
or to create buzz around a specific event or piece
of content (as opposed to gaining followers via a
promoted account).
Psychographic Data: Data on consumers based
on psychological and behavorial characteristics.
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7. Q
QR Code: A machine-readable code consisting of
an array of black and white squares, typically used
for storing URLs or other information for reading
by the camera on a smartphone. In marketing,
these are used on-site or “in-store” to yield and
immediately redeemable coupon or discount.
R
Real-time: Marketing performed “in-real-time” to
determine an appropriate or optimal approach to a
particular customer at a particular time and place.
For example, Oreo’s real-time reaction to the power
outage at the 2013 Super Bowl resulting in extreme
virality. [remove rest of old sentence.
Retargeting: An online platform for advertising
that helps bring potential customers who have
previously visited your website back to your site.
Retention Rate: Customers who continue to
purchase in a subsequent year or buying cycle.
Responsive Web Design (RWD): Design approach
based on creating a website that provides the
optimal experience for every visitor. This includes
making navigation and reading easier with
minimizing, resizing, panning, and scrolling.
Return on Investment (ROI): The measurable
value of your marketing efforts — how you can
quantify the value of all types of marketing in terms
of lead generation, customer retention, sales etc.
Retweet: The reposting of an individual’s tweet
for the purpose of distributing information and
community building. Often can be seen as a
gesture of goodwill.
S
Sales Qualified Lead: A prospect that is deemed a
viable lead after achieving a particular lead score
or maintaining communication and demonstrating
intent to purchase with a member of the sales team.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Promoting your
website by increasing visibility in results through
SEO and paid search.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The process of
making your website relevant and important so that
it ranks high in the search results for a particular
word.
Sentiment: The way customers or potential
customers are talking about your brand — can be
positive, negative or neutral.
Social Advertising: Advertising on social media
channels such as Twitter and Facebook through
sponsored posts, stories or promoted links or
trends.
Social Targeting: Targeting your advertisements on
social channels like Facebook and Twitter to certain
groups to increase the relevance of your post to a
particular audience. Can also include “excluding”
certain groups or locations from seeing your post.
Sponsored Story: An advertisement option on
Facebook, where the brand pays to promote
a follower’s interaction with the brand to the
follower’s friends. It appears as a timeline brand
endorsement from a friend rather than an ad.
Sponsored Update: Paying to extend the reach
of a specific post to targeted audiences.
T
Tagging: Referencing a person or brand via a
“tag” so that a visitor can link back to the content
originator.
Target Audience (or Buyer): the market segment
or group of customers that a company is aiming to
communicate with or sell to.
Time on Page/Site: The length of time a lead or
visitor spends on your site.
Top of the Funnel (ToFu): The beginning of the
sales funnel where a prospect acknowledges a
need for a specific product or service. ToFu content
serves to educate and inspire the audience, in
hopes of moving the audience to the Middle of the
Funnel. (see: Middle of the Funnel).
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8. U
Unique Page Views: Each time a unique visitor
loads one of your pages. This is counted via a
counter or cookies.
Unique Visitors: Individual visitors to your site.
Unconference: An informal conference. Expect
brainstorming, conscious streams of thought,
whiteboarding and sticky notes.
URL: The address of a particular page published
on the Internet, such as www.newscred.com.
Urchin Tracking Modules (UTM): Code that is
attached to URLs to track sources, mediums,
campaigns and users’ web analytics.
V
Viral: The term that describes trending,
highly sharable web content.
Visitors: A web user that visits your site.
W
Widget: A software application with specific
functionality.
Word Cloud: A jumble of meaningful keywords.
For instance, a social word cloud would pull
trending keywords from public social networks
to show which topics are being discussed by
your audience.
X
XML Sitemap: The XML file that allows search
engines to discover your site.
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9. © 2013 NewsCred NewsCred.com l (212) 989-4100 l sales@newscred.com