Above the line
Above the line (ATL) is an advertising technique where promotions are tailored for a mass audience. ATL promotions are carried out through mass media, such as television, radio and newspaper, are classed as "above the line" promotion.
Account management
The process by which an agency or supplier manages the needs of a client.
ACORN
A Classification Of Residential Neighbourhoods: a database that divides up the entire population of the UK in terms of the type of housing in which they live.
Added value
The increase in worth of a product or service as a result of a particular activity - in the context of marketing, the activity might be packaging or branding.
Adopter categories
Five groups into which consumers can be placed according to the time it takes them to adopt a new product or service. The five categories are:
- Innovators – Those who are first to adopt a new product or service.
- Early adopters – Those who adopt a new product or service after the innovators have already adopted it.
- Early majority – Those who adopt just before the 'average' person.
- Late majority – Those who eventually adopt through economic necessity or social pressure.
- Laggards - Those who are last to adopt a new product or service.
Advertising
Promotion of a product, service, or message by an identified sponsor using paid-for media.
Advertorial
An advertisement which is designed to have the appearance of an editorial. Advertorials are normally labeled as "Advertising" or "This is an advertisement". Similar in practice to an infomercial.
Advocacy advertising
Advocacy advertising expresses a viewpoint on a given issue, often on behalf of an institution. Examples are to be found in anti-drink-driving campaigns.
Adware
Free software that includes pop-up banner advertisements that cannot be dismissed.
Affiliate marketing
A form of marketing or advertising used on the internet. Companies that sell products or services online link to relevant sites. The advertising on the other or 'affiliate' sites is paid for according to results.
Affinity marketing
Marketing targeted at individuals sharing common interests that predispose them towards a product, e.g. an auto accessories manufacturer targeting motoring magazine readers. Also, a campaign jointly sponsored by a number of disparate organisations that are non-competitive but have a particular interest in common.
After sales service
Services received after the original goods or service have been paid for.
AIDA
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action: a model describing the process that advertising or promotion is intended to initiate in the mind of a prospective customer.
AIUAPR
Awareness, Interest, Understanding, Attitudes, Purchase, Repeat purchase: a buying decision model.
AdSense
is an ad serving application run by Google Inc. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and video advertisements on their websites. These advertisements are administered by Google and generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis
AdWords
is Google's flagship advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines.
Ambient media
Ambient media are communications platforms that surround us in everyday life - from petrol pump advertising to advertising projected onto buildings to advertising on theatre tickets.
Ambush marketing
A deliberate attempt by an organisation to associate itself with an event in order to gain some of the benefits associated with being an official sponsor without incurring the costs of sponsorship. For example by advertising during broadcasts of the event.
Ansoff matrix
Model relating marketing strategy to general strategic direction. It maps product-market strategies - e.g. market penetration, product development, market development and diversification - on a matrix showing new versus existing products along one axis and new versus existing markets along the other.
Asset led marketing
Asset led marketing uses product strengths such as the name and brand image to market both new and existing products. Marketing decisions are based on the needs of the consumer AND the assets of the product.
Anchor text
The anchor text, link label or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines
B2E
Business to Employee.
Balanced scorecard
A technique allowing a company to monitor and manage performance against defined objectives. Measurements might typically cover financial performance, customer value, internal business process, innovation performance and employee performance.
Banner adverts
Adverts on web pages used to build brand awareness or drive traffic to the advertisers own website.
BARB
The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board Responsible for providing estimates of the number of people watching television. This includes the channels and programmes being watched, at what time, and the type of people who are watching.
Behavioural targeting
An internet marketing term. Technology that targets users with advertisements based on previous browsing behaviour and patterns.
Below the line
Non-media advertising or promotion when no commission has been paid to the advertising agency. Includes direct mail, point of sale displays, giveaways. Also see 'Above the line' and 'Push versus pull promotion'.
Boston matrix
A product portfolio evaluation tool developed by the Boston Consulting Group. The matrix categorises products into one of four classifications based on market growth and market share. The four classifications are:
- Cash cow – low growth, high market share
- Star – high growth, high market share
- Problem child – high growth, low market share
- Dog – low growth, low market share
Brand
The set of physical attributes of a product or service, together with the beliefs and expectations surrounding it - a unique combination which the name or logo of the product or service should evoke in the mind of the audience.
Brand extension
Process by which a company develops new products to be marketed under an existing brand name.
Brand management
The process by which marketers attempt to optimise the 'Marketing mix' for a specific brand.
Brand mapping and brand maps
Mapping the relative position of competing brands based on perceptual mapping of consumer perceptions of the brands. Also called perceptual maps, position maps and space maps.
Brand personality
Collection of attributes giving a brand a recognisable unique quality. May be the result of contrived marketing action or an accident of market perception.
Brand value
The value which a brand would be given if represented on a company balance sheet.
Business orientations
There are traditionally four approaches, or orientations, to doing business that an organisation can adopt. These are:
- Marketing orientation (customer orientation)
- Sales orientation
- Product orientation
- Production orientation
Business plan
A strategic document showing cash flow, forecasts and direction of a company.
Business strategy
The means by which a business works towards achieving its stated aims.
Business to Business (B2B)
Relating to the sale of a product or service for any use other than personal consumption. The buyer may be a manufacturer, a reseller, a government body, a non-profit-making institution, or any organisation other than an ultimate consumer.
Sales of products or services to government or other public sector organisations may be excluded from B2B and instead be classified as B2G.
Business to Consumer (B2C)
Relating to the sale of products or services for personal consumption. The buyer may be an individual, family or other group, buying to use the product themselves, or for end use by another individual.
Business to Government (B2G)
Relating to the sale of a product or service to a government or other public sector organisation.
Buying behaviour
The process that buyers go through when deciding whether or not to purchase goods or services. Buying behaviour can be influenced by a variety of external factors and motivations, including marketing activity.
Buzz
Buzz marketing uses 'word-of-mouth' advertising: potential customers pass round information about a product.
Bing
The new search engine from Microsoft advertised as a ‘decision engine’.
Black Hat Search Engine Optimisation
Processes of unethical search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques
Blogs
Taken as a fusion of the phrase web logs, a blog is a self published, managed or maintained online journal. A blog can be an opinion piece on a particular subject or a running diary of day to day living.
A good blog needs to be updated regularly and the more personal the better. Blogs are increasingly becoming a fundamental part of most websites today.
Bounce rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of initial visitors who enter a site then leave it without viewing any other pages.
Broadmatch
This is a form of keyword matching where keywords in any selected order can match a search listing.
Cartel
A number of organisations operating in a market to minimise competition or achieve control of the market.
Cause related marketing
Partnership between a company or brand and a charity or 'cause' by which the 'cause' benefits financially from the sale of specific products. The term was first used by American Express in 1983 when it supported the restoration of the Statue of Liberty.
Channels
The methods used by a company to communicate and interact with its customers.
Click-through
The act of a user clicking on an internet advertisement that opens a link to the advertiser's website.
Comparative advertising
Advertising which compares a company's product with that of competing brands. Must be used with caution to avoid accusations of misrepresentation from competitors.
Competitive advantage
The product, proposition or benefit that puts a company ahead of its competitors.
Concept boards
Visual and/or verbal stimulus presenting an idea for a product, service or advert.
Confusion marketing
Controversial strategy of deliberately confusing the customer. Examples are alleged to be found in the telecommunications market, where pricing plans can be so complicated that it becomes impossible to make direct comparisons between competing offers.
Contextual marketing
An internet marketing term. In its simplest form contextual marketing shows a user adverts based on terms for which they have searched. More advanced applications pull adverts based on the content of a website being viewed, or on an individual’s browsing habits.
Conversion rate
Measure of conversion of inquiries or replies to an advertisement, or mailing shot, to sales.
Cookie
Small data file downloaded on to an end-user’s computer which allows a web site to identify the visitor. Cookies can be used to build profiles of repeat users of a website.
Copyright
The law that protects an author's original material, usually (in the UK) for 70 years after the author's death. Similar law covers logos and brand names.
Copywriting
Creative process by which written content is prepared for advertisements or marketing material.
Corporate identity
The character a company seeks to establish for itself in the mind of the public, reinforced by consistent use of logos, colours, typefaces and so on. Also see 'Corporate reputation'.
Corporate reputation
A complex mix of characteristics, such as ethos, identity and image that go to make up a company's public personality. Corporate reputation hinges on investor confidence, unlike brand reputation which is contingent on customer confidence and reflected in sales.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
A commitment by business to behave in an ethical, social and environmentally responsible way, and to have a positive impact on the local and global environment.
Corporate strategy
The policies of a company with regard to its choice of businesses and customer groups.
Cost leadership
The strategy of producing goods at a lower cost than one's competitors.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The profitability of customers during the lifetime of the relationship, as opposed to profitability on one transaction.
Customer loyalty
Feelings or attitudes that incline a customer either to return to a company, shop or outlet to purchase there again, or else to re-purchase a particular product, service or brand.
Customer orientation
Another term for marketing orientation. See ‘Marketing orientation’.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The coherent management of contacts and interactions with customers.This term is often used as if it related purely to the use of IT, but IT should in fact be regarded as a facilitator of CRM.
Cache
The action of storing web files for later use, it is by definition a form of high speed memory. When browsing the internet your internet browser will store HTML code so that when you revisit a certain page the information doesn’t have to be downloaded again.
Cloaking
Cloaking is when a website shows one page to a human visitor and a different page to a search engine bot or spider using the same URL.
Content Management System (CMS)
A CMS is a web based tool that allows webmasters to publish and manage content such as graphics, text and video. Normally consisting of a content management application (CMA) and content delivery application (CDA), the CMS allows a web manager who may not be familiar with HTML to make changes easily.
Conversion Rate
This is a measurement of the rate users of your website are converted to customers.
Cost Per Action (CPA)
Cost Per Action (CPA) is advertising where when a user performs an action as the result of an ad and payment is then required. Whether it be making a purchase, requiring a follow up call or signing up for a newsletter.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost Per Click (CPC) is the amount of money you pay every time a user clicks through from a pay-per-click ad to your website. This is where the majority of text ads sold by search engines are billed.
Click Through Rate (CTR)
Click Through Rate (CTR) is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. It is obtained by the dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered.
Cutts, Matt
One of the top search engine optimisers at Google.
DAGMAR
Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Response - a model for planning advertising in such a way that its success can be quantitatively monitored.
Data Protection Act
A law which makes organisations responsible for protecting the privacy of personal data. The current act (Data Protection Act 1998) is the United Kingdom's response to the requirement to implement National legislation in accordance with the European Directive 95/46/EC.
Database marketing
Whereby customer information, stored in an electronic database, is utilised for targeting marketing activities. Information can be a mixture of what is gleaned from previous interactions with the customer and what is available from outside sources. Also see 'Customer Relationship Management (CRM)'.
Decision Making Unit (DMU)
The team of people in an organisation who make the final buying decision.
Differentiation
Ensuring that products and services have a unique element to allow them to stand out from the rest.
Direct marketing
All activities which make it possible to offer goods or services or to transmit other messages to a segment of the population by post, telephone, e-mail or other direct means.
Direct Response Advertising (DRA)
Advertising incorporating a contact method such as a phone number, address and enquiry form, web site identifier or e-mail address, with the intention of encouraging the recipient to respond directly to the advertiser by requesting more information, placing an order and so on.
Diversification
An increase in the variety of goods and services produced by an individual enterprise or conglomerate. It may be encouraged, either by business owners or by governments, in order to reduce the risk of relying on a narrow range of products.
DoDo
A product with a low market share of a declining market.
DRIP framework
Differentiate - Reinforce - Inform - Persuade. A marketing communications model.
Deep Link
A deep link is a link that points to a page on another website that isn’t the home page.
Domain Name
This is your identification on the internet and it is tied to an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Once a domain name has been bought, it is exclusive to the buyer and no one else may use it as long as you keep up the renewal.
Ecommerce
This is the online transaction of business that features the linked computer systems of the vendor, host and buyer. Electric converse is a generic term that covers all sales and service done over the internet via an Electronic Data Interchange.
Email Marketing
This is a direct form of advertising that comes straight into your email inbox.
Email marketing is a relatively cheap form of advertising, sent directly to your customers rather than relying on them coming to find it on your website
E-marketing
Marketing using electronic media such as the internet, mobile phones or email.
Endorsement
Affirmation, usually from a celebrity, that a product is good.
Ethical marketing
Marketing that takes account of the moral aspects of decisions.
