New acronyms seem to be popping up every day. They often feel intimidating as they are apparently an ever-evolving and increasingly inaccessible language of the corporate world. What the heck are SEO and UX and why do we see them everywhere? What is a CRM and how do we use one? How does WOM affect the CTR for a B2B vs. B2C? Wait… which B2 is which? The following is a not-so-scary breakdown of common acronyms to make the language of modern marketing approachable. No panic attacks necessary.

SEO

SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which simply means optimizing a site to be scraped and ranked by Google and other search engines. This is very important, as this is most often how customers find a company. Depending on your product or service, lots of customers come through organic searching on the web. The better optimized your site is, the higher it ranks, and the more customers click. SEO optimization is most often keywords, backlinks, titles, and meta descriptions.

SEM

This is similar to SEO, but instead of optimizing key words and phrases through a blog or site, Search Engine Marketing is the process of advertising in order to appear higher in search results like Google. SEM shows results through both organic and paid strategies.

SMM

Social Media Marketing is using platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, etc., to engage users with the product being sold or general brand exposure. SMM has built-in analytics to track this engagement to see how well an ad campaign or organic content is working. SMM is a great way to have a very low CPL, CPA, and overall CAC, as well as utilize the natural WOM that social media creates. 

WOM

Word of Mouth, the most classic and useful form of marketing. There is nothing in the world of advertising more effective than one customer talking up a business to another. This can be quickened through strategic marketing such as social media campaigns.

CRM

Customer Relationship Management is utilized through tools and systems to track all customer touch points, from site views to sales. Salesforce and Hubspot are most commonly used for CRM, but which system will depend on the industry.

B2B

Business-to-Business interaction, marketing, and sales means instead of a business selling to a consumer, they are selling to another business. This is often wholesale raw material, wholesale finished product, or services like software. B2B is what makes the world of business go round.

B2C

Business-to-Consumer is what most people are used to, classic retail of a business interacting with and selling a finished product to individuals. A company might use the terms B2B and B2C when comparing sales types and marketing strategies, as these target different demographics. Some companies are only B2B, while others are only B2C, and some are both B2B and B2C.

CTA

The Call to Action is a commonly used marketing tool. This is the final selling point to encourage a consumer to complete an action such as buying an item or signing up for weekly newsletters. Though a simple one, it is extremely effective in achieving target goals like CTR.

CTR

The Click Through Rate is the number of people who click on an advertisement after seeing it. This can be calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions. For example, an email newsletter could have 100 views and 5 clicks. This would give that email a 5% CTR.

CPA

The Cost Per Action is the total cost spent to receive each action from a customer, for example a click or a purchase. This can be calculated by the Marketing Cost divided by the number of Actions, or MC/A=CPA. So if a business spent $150 on a campaign and 5 people clicked, the CPA would be $30.

CPL

Similar to CPA, Cost Per Lead is the calculation of how much a lead costs. This can be determined by dividing the Marketing Cost by the number of Leads generated, or MC/L=CPL. You might hear someone in the office say “Hey John, can you get us a report on our current CPL for evaluation of our marketing tactics?”

CAC

The Customer Acquisition Cost is also similar to CPA and CPL, but is a metric that is based on these two and other factors. It is the total cost of sales and marketing, calculated by adding up all overhead and dividing it by the number of new customers in a certain time period. It can be scoped widely (i.e. all marketing efforts for the year) or by single campaign.

KPI

Key Performance Indicator is a type of performance measurement used to evaluate the success of an activity, in order to track progress toward a goal. These must be quantifiable and comparable to specific goals. CAC’s are a common part of this measurement.

UX

User Experience is one of the most important factors in business. This is an overarching idea of customer satisfaction. Discovering the brand, navigating the website, purchasing the product, using the product, and everything in between. From level of ease to moments of fun, all aspects count. Many companies hire consultants to ensure a positive UX design, as customer satisfaction is key.

SaaS

Software-as-a-Service is basically any software, database, or server that is hosted on the cloud by another company. A colleague might ask you, “What SaaS did you choose to increase UX?” You would probably reply with Dropbox, Shopify, Hubspot, Google Workspace, or Slack, as these are some of the most popular examples of SaaS.

API

Application Programming Interfaces are tools which allow two applications to communicate and share data. For example, this is how a weather app on a phone pulls data from a source like NOAA or The Weather Channel.

BR

Bounce Rate can mean two things: either an email was not able to be delivered, meaning that an email list is out of date or incorrect, or potential customers are leaving a site page without clicking on anything else. Both of these meanings translate into low or no engagement with marketing efforts.

PPC

Pay Per Click is the model of advertisement payment where the advertiser pays a publisher, such as a search engine or social media platform, for each click on the ad. For instance, if someone Googled “beta fish” and that person clicked on a paid ad selling beta fish, Google would pay the advertiser the agreed-upon amount for that click. This is where CTR matters!

ROI

Return on Investment is a percentage or ratio indicating overall profitability. This is found by subtracting the Cost of Investments from the Gain of Investments, and then dividing that by the Cost of Investments. Hopefully, the ROI will be positive. If not, a re-evaluation of assets or strategy is in order.

DVM

Data Volume Management is a system or framework that helps to monitor the amount of data a company is managing. This is important to implement in order to maintain a steady and healthy growth for a business. There is so much data to manage, and it is all useful to stay on target.

CONCLUSION:

Although there are seemingly more acronyms to learn every day, breaking them down shows that they aren’t so complicated! They are simply important terms used by companies every day and they can quickly become familiar. These acronyms help us all understand what is happening in the marketing-heavy world around us!

Want more acronyms? Are you nuts? Lindsay Kolowich Cox with Hubspot put together a list of 75 of ’em back in 2014 (updated in 2017).