Marketing Glossary: Core Terms, Metric Formulas, and Common Distinctions
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Category: Marketing Glossary, Marketing Strategy
Authors: Shusaku Yosa
Read marketing terms with their counting rules, denominators, and context. This glossary groups strategy, customers, web advertising, and measurement concepts. An acronym alone is not enough to compare results across platforms or organizations.
Strategy and customer terms
Term | Meaning | Distinction to keep |
|---|---|---|
Marketing | Understanding customers, delivering value, and developing relationships | Broader than advertising or acquisition |
KPI / target | Important indicator / desired level | The measure is not its numeric goal |
STP | Segmentation, targeting, positioning | Specify whom to serve and how |
Persona | Research-informed model of a customer type | Not an invented personality used as evidence |
CRM | Customer relationship management practices | Software installation is not the outcome |
Marketing automation | Automation or support for marketing workflows | State conditions and human decisions |
CAC | Relevant acquisition cost / new customers | Define costs, paying customers, and period |
LTV | Model of customer relationship value | State revenue or margin basis and horizon |
Retention / churn | Continuation / loss of customers or business | Separate customers, contracts, revenue, and cohorts |
NPS | Promoter percentage minus detractor percentage | Recommendation intention, not satisfaction or referrals |
Subscription | Recurring contractual billing | Can be usage-based or tiered, not only flat-rate |
Retention is not necessarily cheaper than acquisition. LTV can be modeled from revenue or gross profit and may include forecasts rather than observed lifetime profit. Preserve the assumptions and uncertainty. Use the CAC and CPA comparison to connect a defined advertising action with eventual customer acquisition.
NPS classifies a 0–10 recommendation response into promoters scoring 9–10 and detractors scoring 0–6. Their percentage difference is a −100 to 100 score, not a customer count or a simple satisfaction percentage.
Web, content, and advertising terms
Term | Meaning | Avoid confusing it with |
|---|---|---|
SEO | Helping content be found and understood in organic search | Cost-free work or guaranteed rankings |
Content / UGC | Provided information / user-generated content | Automatic trust, rights clearance, or accuracy |
Landing page | The session-entry page in analytics | Only a dedicated campaign page |
Paid search | Paid advertising in search results | Organic ranking improvement |
Actively managed advertising | Adjusting delivery, bids, or budgets | One particular placement or billing method |
Programmatic advertising | Automated advertising transactions or buying | Every activity involved in managing campaigns |
Retargeting | Reaching audiences based on previous interactions | Guaranteed access to everyone who visited |
Reach | Deduplicated delivery under platform rules | Perfect knowledge of unique people |
Frequency | Impressions / reach for compatible scope | Every individual seeing the same number |
Retargeting depends on identification, consent, and platform eligibility. Reach may involve estimates. GA4’s landing-page definition concerns the first page_view in a session. A campaign-specific landing page is another common context; neither definition requires a vertically long layout. SEO still requires production and maintenance resources, while UGC does not guarantee credibility or commercial success.
Calculate advertising metrics with compatible inputs
For a fictional campaign in one period, assume JPY 100,000 media spend, 10,000 impressions, 200 clicks, and 10 deduplicated click-attributed actions of one type. Exclude tax, production, and management fees.
Metric | Formula | Fictional result | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
CTR | Clicks / impressions × 100 | 2% | Clicks relative to impressions |
Click conversion rate | Relevant actions / clicks × 100 | 5% | Actions along the selected click path |
CPC | Ad cost / clicks | JPY 500 | Cost per click |
CPM | Ad cost / impressions × 1,000 | JPY 10,000 | Cost per thousand impressions |
CPA | Ad cost / defined actions | JPY 10,000 | Cost of the selected action |
Google Ads’ average CPA is a conversion cost metric. A contact action’s CPA is not automatically customer CAC. CTR and conversion rate also depend on audiences, placements, mix, and measurement; neither independently proves creative or page quality. Separate reported metrics, billable events, and bid objectives. An impression-billed campaign can still have a calculated CPC. A zero denominator makes the ratio undefined.
Separate ROI from ROAS
ROAS divides relevant revenue or defined conversion value by advertising spend. ROI divides the relevant net return by investment. In another fictional example, JPY 300,000 attributed revenue and JPY 100,000 ad spend produce 300% ROAS. Suppose gross profit after product costs but before promotion is JPY 120,000, while ads cost JPY 100,000 and additional creative costs JPY 20,000. Investment is JPY 120,000 and return after promotion is zero: ROI is 0%. Do not deduct an expense twice.
Attributed revenue does not prove that advertising caused all of it. Use department and role KPI definitions to choose operational measures and record the revenue, profit, cost, and population boundaries.
Measurement and data terms need conditions
Attribution allocates outcome credit across touchpoints; it is not incremental causal impact. Marketing mix modeling uses aggregated data to model relationships between marketing, other factors, and outcomes. Google’s MMM methodology explains the assumptions required for causal interpretation. Good fit alone guarantees neither correct effects nor optimal budgets. Read estimates with experiments and other evidence.
First-party data comes from direct relationships; third-party data comes from other providers. This distinction does not establish unrestricted permission to use it. Cookies also have first- and third-party contexts. Chrome settings allow third-party cookies to be permitted or blocked, with blocking by default in Incognito. This does not mean all cookies have disappeared in every browser. Record the browser, settings, applicable consent conditions, and check date when discussing changing specifications.
