Sales and marketing glossary

20 Marketing and sales terms

AIDA: An acronym used in Sales that stands for Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. They are the four steps of the now somewhat-outdated Purchase Funnel (although most agree the funnel is much more complex than what is represented in this traditional model), wherein customers travel from awareness to purchase.
Bad Leads: Leads that are unlikely to become paying customers -- and a sales rep's worst nightmare, because they are a waste of time.
Bluebird Sales: A "bluebird" is a sale that came seemingly from nowhere or with unexpected ease. A sales rep might say, "Fortunately, a bluebird flew right in at the end of the quarter, helping me reach my goal."
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): A stage of the buying process leads reach when they're just about to close into new customers.
Brand image: How your customers perceive your products, services, and company. This is ultimately something you can’t control.
Breadcrumbs: If you’re thinking "Hansel and Gretel," you’re right. This fairy tale duo left a trail of breadcrumbs as they ventured into the forest so they could find their way back home.
Buying Signal: A communication from a prospect indicating they are ready to make a purchase, either verbal or non-verbal.
Classified Advertising: Ads appearing on the same page and grouped into categories in a list-like format. Common categories are real estate, home services, clothing, and cars.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of users who click on the link in your digital marketing message after seeing it. For example, if 10,000 users see your display ad, and 10 users click on it, your click-through rate (CTR) is 0.001 or 0.1%.
Closed Opportunities: An umbrella term that includes both closed-won and closed-lost opportunities, although some people use it to mean only closed-won opportunities.
Content Marketing: Content marketing is a strategy businesses use to attract, engage, and retain customers by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media.
Conversion Path: The "events" on a company's website that help companies capture leads. In its most basic form, it'll consist of a call-to-action (typically a button that describes an offer) that leads to a landing page with a lead capture form, which redirects to a thank-you page where a content offer resides.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): The process of increasing the percentage of users who take the actions you want them to, such as clicking on a website link or purchasing a product online.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): How much you spend to win a single paying customer. Cost per acquisition (CPA) is a marketing success metric that can be calculated for a campaign, a digital marketing channel (such as email), or across all channels and tactics.
CPM: Cost per thousand impressions of an online ad. When an ad is served to a user, it’s counted as an impression. If an ad network charges you $1,000 for delivering 1 million impressions, your CPM is $1. A CPM model can be a good strategy if your campaign goal is to raise awareness of your brand.
CSS: Cascading style sheet (CSS), a language that dictates how a web page looks. It covers layout, colors, fonts, font sizes, and more.
Customer Data Platform: A customer data platform (CDP) is a central location for customer data from a variety of sources. It aggregates and organizes that data to create a single customer profile that can be used to optimize marketing and customer experience initiatives.
Direct Mail Marketing: A type of direct marketing that’s delivered physically to a prospect’s mailbox through the United States Postal Service or other delivery service. Postcards, flyers, and catalogs are common examples. Email marketing is the digital equivalent.
Display Ads: A type of online advertisement that combines text, images, and a URL that links to a website where a customer can learn more about or buy products.
DMARC: Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is a widely recognized email protocol that helps people and businesses protect their email addresses and domains from being misused by third parties.