Guide To Digital Marketing Acronyms

Whether you’ve recently started outsourcing your digital marketing or just began taking care of it on your own, you’re bound to have a lot of questions. Unfortunately, any queries you might be wondering about in terms of strategy are only made more complicated by digital marketing acronyms you aren’t familiar with. What’s a KPI anyway, and why should you care? Whether your marketing team is bombarding you with terms you don’t know or you’re trying to make sense of what your ad account is telling you, here is an in-depth guide to some key digital marketing acronyms!

1. KPI: Key Performance Indicator(s)

Simply put, these are the metrics you are most interested in. Each ad campaign you run will be done with a goal and the KPI’s are what you use to measure that goal. Is your goal to increase conversions? Then the conversion metric is your KPI. 

2. CPC: Cost Per Click

This is the amount one click on your ad costs you, whether it’s a unique click or not. If a potential customer clicks on your ad four times, you will be charged for four clicks.

Formula: total cost = (clicks x CPC)

3. PPC: Pay Per Click

A cost model where you don’t pay until there have been clicks on your ads. This is also sometimes called a CPC cost model. 

4. CPM: Cost Per Thousand Impressions

What you are charged for every 1,000 times your webpage loads. Like cost per click, these are not unique, so if an individual loads your page six times, you will be charged for six impressions. This is the most common method for web pricing.

5. CPA: Cost Per Acquisition

Cost per acquisition is determined by which metric you consider a conversion and are actively trying to increase, such as a lead or a sale. The cost per acquisition is what it costs you to gather one of these.

Formula: total cost = (conversions x CPA)

6. CTR: Click Through Rate

The click-through rate of your ad is the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times it has been shown. This is a key performance indicator of how high engagement is with your ad. The higher the percentage, the higher the engagement rate!

Formula: CTR percentage = ((clicks/impressions) x 100)

7. CTA: Call To Action

Usually included near the end of a paid social or paid search ad, this is what you want your audience to do after they read your ad. Common examples include Shop Now, Learn More, Apply Now, etc.

8. CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization

Conversion rate optimization is a process by which you work to optimize your web pages for conversions. By testing what generates the most engagement and conversions from your ideal customer, you can turn your website into the perfect website for them and drive your sales up exponentially. 

9. SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing your website copy to increase your chances of landing at the top of a search engine’s search results page, instead of on page nine where no one will click on your website.

10. ROAS: Return On Ad Spend

Your return on ad spend is how much of your ad spend you have made back. If you spent $5.00 on advertising and made $10.00 back, your return on ad spend is 2.0.

Formula: ROAS = Revenue attributable to ads / Cost of ads

11. CR: Conversion Rate

The number of people that converted on your website divided by the number of people that interacted with your ad. The higher this number, the better!

12. AOV: Average Order Value

This is the average cost of your orders. 

Formula: average order value = revenue/number of orders

We Can Help

There you have it—our in-depth guide to digital marketing acronyms. At Set Fire Creative, we want to help you make the most of your marketing budget and get you the return on ad spend that you are looking for. Our goal is to take the hardest parts of digital marketing out of your hands and help you to put your best foot forward online. If you’re wondering if an agency would be the right fit for you, reach out to us for a free consultation today and get started on your journey forward.