A small business owners guide to digital marketing terms and acronyms

Digital marketing and social media lingo can seem like a different language! Abbreviations like CTA, SEO, KPI, and more can all be very confusing at first, so we’ve compiled a list of the most common digital marketing terms and acronyms for you so you can quickly decipher these codes…

General digital marketing terms

Let’s start with the most basic digital marketing terms you will see when referring to your business, customers, sales and more online… 

B2B: Business to Business- a business who makes transactions with other businesses.

B2C: Business to Consumer- a business who makes transactions with consumers which includes local retail, ecommerce, online banking and more.

KPI: Key performance indicators- a metric used across all industries to track the success of marketing campaigns by tracking and measuring progress in areas such as brand awareness, lead generation, conversions, bounce rates, and more.

ROI: return on investment- ration between the net profit earned and cost of investing in your campaigns.

SEM: search engine marketing- a method of advertising that includes purchasing ads on search engines to increase website traffic. 

SEO: search engine optimization- the process of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

SERP: search engine results page- paid and organic page results that show up after a user performs a search.

CTA: call to action- this is usually a button on an ad or website that encourages customers to take action. This could mean make them click, purchase, or submit their information. CTAs should be big, bold, clear and grab attention. Text should be short and sweet.

Digital advertising terms

These comprise of the terms you will see when you run digital ad campaigns online…

CPC: cost per click- an online revenue model that charges you for each time a user clicks on your advertisement.

PPC: pay-per-click- advertisers pay each time their ad is clicked on.

CPL: cost per lead- all the costs associated with generating a lead such as advertising spent, website design/development/hosting, email campaign set up and more.

CPI: cost per impression- measures how many times your ad appears on the site you are running it on, and not how many people actually see or interact with it.

CR: converstion rate- the number of people to take action on your ad, divided by the total number of people that had the opportunity to (or saw it). So, if your email reached 100 people, but only 50 responded, your conversion rate would be 50%.

CTR: click through rate- the performance indicator that indicates the percentage of visitors who took action on your ad or landing page. The CTR would be the total number of people who saw it divided by the number of people that actually clicked and moved on to the next step. 

QS: quality score- the metric Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and Bing use to determine the rank and cost per click of ads.

ROAS: return on ad spend- the profit compared to the total amount spent on ads.

Website terms

Marketing terms and language used when building, analyzing, managing or just referring to your website…

Bounce rate: the percentage of people who land on your page but leave to go to another website (or bounce off).

CMS: content management system– a computer software used to create, manage and modify all of your digital content in a user-friendly interface. It could be a solution to creating a website, with little resources. Examples include Salesforce, Hubpost, WordPress and more.

Inbound link: a link to your website from a third-party site.

Unique visitors: number of visitors on a website during a specific set of time

Above the fold: website content that is “above the fold” shows up before a user has to scroll down. The most important information should be located here such as content for SEO purposes, calls to action, important information that gives a clear idea of who you are, etc.

Google analytics: a free analytics platform for websites that tracks visitors, bounce rates, referrals and more. 

Email marketing terms

ESP: Email service provider- a third-party company that you can use to create, send, analyze and modify email campaigns from. Some popular companies include MailChimp, Constant Contact, Hubspot and Drip.

List segmentation: segmenting your email lists is a way to break up your contacts by company, age, location, or stage in the sales cycle (new, returning, prospect). With these lists you can create separate email campaigns or funnel into automations. 

Bounce rate: the percentage of emails not delivered

Open rate: tells how many contacts actually opened your email. Sometimes you can get the total open rate which would tell how many total times someone went back and opened your email (if they did it more than once).

In a digital world full of catchphrases, abbreviations and slang, digital marketing terms and acronyms are no exception. While some are more widely known and used more than others, hopefully this dictionary can be a quick resource to reference when you need it!

Learn more about how and why you should invest in digital marketing initiatives like your website, social media, SEO and email campaigns.

When it comes to marketing your golf course, you have to think outside of print marketing, radio ads, or Facebook ads, and consider key digital marketing initiatives such as email marketing and local search engine marketing.

Today most digital marketing strategies are extremely cost-effective, easy to implement and successful. 

Here are 5 must-haves in your digital marketing golf bag…

  1. Local search engine marketing. On average, it is said that search engines provide more traffic to a golf course’s website than any other channel. The point is, when and where you show up in Google’s search engine results can impact the traffic to your website. The most important ranking for golf courses is Local Rankings—or where your business shows up compared to your competition for search terms like “golf courses in [your city’s name]” or “golf courses near me.” With a strong local search engine presence, you will capture new golfers looking for you. 

The first step to ranking higher is to claim your local listings or your course’s Google My Business and Bing Places listings. When you claim these and complete your profiles, you are verifying that your information is correct and already gaining momentum over competitors. Learn more about this in our Google My Business Guide for Local Small Businesses.

  1. Defector email campaigns. When it comes to digital marketing, we often times think of ways we can capture new customers, but it’s important for your golf course to make sure you are reaching out to past and existing customers as well. Defector emails are a good way to reach golfers who have not visited your course for a while. For example, you might send them an offer for a “free beer with your next round” or “free bucket of balls when you book a tee time today.” Defector emails help grab attention and can increase repeat or lost customers.
  1. A responsive, well-built website. It takes more than beautiful pictures of your golf course on your website to increase leads and conversions. You definitely need high-quality videos and images, but you also need a website built with intuitive navigation, clear calls to action, easy booking for tee times, lead capture forms and a website that is responsive, or mobile friendly.  

You want to optimize your website with keywords that will help rank your site higher on Google and other search engines as well. Our team can help you identify and implement these keywords (among other beneficial SEO practices). 

  1. Golf apps for playing, GPS and more. One neat new factor in golf marketing is the GPS integrated app. GPS enabled golf cars and watches are becoming outdated and expensive, so consider using a downloadable app on your mobile site that golfers can use for scorecards, yardage, weather, shot making and messages from you. You can use the app to promote daily specials, give tips or even sell food and drinks during the round.
  1. Website analytics and analytics on all digital campaigns. Simply running a website and digital ad campaigns and then forgetting about them won’t cut it. It’s important to analyze and track all of your digital channels, revenue and competitive performance in the digital space. This is often times what clients don’t have time to do and find most beneficial about our digital marketing services. We can help review your Google Analytics and social campaigns to track your data, site performance, campaign performance and more. Or, if you would rather do that yourself, we can help you select a user-friendly platform to do this so you can always adjust your strategy from one place. Keeping up with your analytics will keep you competitive and keep your campaigns active and performing well.

These are just a few important digital marketing strategies to make sure you have in your bag. 

Learn more about how you can optimize your website, capture leads and do even more to increase your golf course’s presence online.