Marketing Acronyms You Need To Know

There are lots of acronyms you may stumble across while reading marketing guides or using marketing tools. Professional marketers commonly use these terms because they’re quicker to type and say. But for those of us with little to no marketing knowledge, these terms can often be confusing. Just what is B2B marketing? And what’s all this about UI and UX? This guide aims to demystify these common terms so that you finally know what they mean.

B2B

Business to Business. A B2B company is a business that sells products/services to other businesses. Examples include office furniture retailers, commercial insurance companies, recruitment agencies and business software developers.

B2C

Business to Consumer. A B2B company sells products or services to consumers. Examples include dentists, toy retailers, home insurance companies and tattoo artists.

CRM

Customer Relationship Management. CRM refers to the process of attracting and nurturing customers. Many companies use CRM software (sometimes known as ‘CRM’s) to manage all their marketing and leads from one place – such software can be linked to your website, social media pages, emails and ad campaigns.

CTA

Call To Action. This is the part of an advert, email or web page where you call a customer to take action – either by calling a number, messaging an email address or clicking on a link. Many websites use CTA buttons to convert customers – these are typically buttons that lead to online forms, product pages or call a number.

CTR

Click Through Rate. This is a metric that measures how many people click on a link, ad or email. It is relative to how many people have viewed it. For example, an advert with a CTR of 3% is clicked on by 3 out of 100 people who view it.

KPI

Key Performance Indicator. This is a metric used to measure the success of a business task or strategy. The CTR is an example of a KPI when measuring the success of an advertising campaign. This post gives a few examples of different sales KPIs.

PPC

Pay Per Click. This is a model used by most online advertising platforms. You pay for an advert to run until a certain number of people have clicked on it. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are both examples of PPC advertising.

Public Relations. This is all about managing a company or individual’s public reputation. Some companies use PR agencies to help encourage positive media attention as well as helping to improve one’s brand.

ROI

Return On Investment. This is how much money you make from your marketing relative to how much you spend on marketing. It’s important that marketing has a positive ROI so that you’re not wasting money on ineffective marketing.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization. This is a marketing strategy that involves improving the visibility of a company on search engines. It mainly involves boosting the rankings of web pages for certain search terms, however it can also include encouraging positive Google reviews and optimizing one’s presence on Google Maps.

User Interface. UI refers mainly to the visual elements on a website or app. A UI designer will consider things like the colors, fonts, appearance of buttons and use of images.

User Experience. UX refers more to the overall experience of a website or app. A UX designer runs tests and creates prototypes to improve aspects like navigation, mobile-friendliness and loading speed. They usually work alongside UI designers.