In the world of digital marketing, there are numerous initialisms, acronyms, and phrases to get your head around.
To help clear up any confusion, here’s a breakdown of some basic digital marketing buzzwords you need to know in 2022, some that have been around a while, and some you should keep an ear out for this year.
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
One marketing buzzword you’re sure to hear is CRO. Conversation rate optimisation is crucial because it centres on how marketers can convert users into customers.
This can refer to shoppers who have converted from browsing to buying a product or have completed actions like signing up for a newsletter. Conversion rate is calculated by the total number of conversations ÷ total number of visitors.
CRO marketers look at ways to improve the customer journey to maximise conversions. This includes looking at ways to incentivise customers to act, identifying pain points, and resolving them. This can include aspects like slow page speed, unclear navigation, confusing layouts, and poor check out pages.
A CRO strategy involves gathering user data, running A/B tests and analysing the results to find out exactly how conversion rate can be improved.
User Experience (UX)
UX is similar to CRO in that it looks at a customer’s experience on a website. But while CRO is focused on getting customers to perform an action, UX refers to website usability as a whole.
UX designers work to ensure a user’s experience of a website is as seamless as possible to avoid losing customers to competitors. The goal is to ensure there are no pain points standing in the way of a site’s target demographic finding what they need and making a transaction.
Ensuring a site is easy to navigate and use is vital, which is why UX is so important in website design. UX is one of marketing’s fastest growing fields, so it’s definitely a marketing buzzword to be familiar with in 2022.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Another common digital marketing buzzword is ROI. ROI refers to how much profit a business gains from a marketing strategy compared to the amount spent. A high ROI means a business is getting back more than it’s put in.
Calculating ROI is useful for several different reasons. Crucially, it can be used to help form future marketing strategies. By evaluating the success of previous marketing performances, marketers can determine where money should be spent and which tactics have been most successful in increasing a company’s revenue.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
In marketing, KPIs are metrics for measuring success. KPIs can vary a lot, depending on the type of marketing and campaigns involved. Some typical KPIs include:
- Organic growth
- Click-through rate
- Conversion rates
- ROI
- Social media traffic
Determined at the start of a campaign, KPIs help to determine its success. They can also help determine which strategies have been most beneficial for future campaigns.
Click-through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate is a performance metric used across marketing teams. It’s used to measure the effectiveness of content. It refers to the percentage of clicks an advertisement or article achieves compared to its impressions (how many times it appears in the SERPs).
CTR is important because it shows marketers how well their content is performing. It’s one thing to have a campaign seen by a lot of viewers, but having customers actually click through to your content is the ultimate goal.
- In PPC, CTR is used to measure the performance of paid advertisements on Google. A high click-through rate indicates an advertisement is relevant to the keyword users searched for. Google offers perks to the most relevant, quality ads.
- In SEO, CTR can be used to identify how many users clicked through to a blog or landing page from the SERPs. It can also be used to measure the effectiveness of internal links on the website.
- In email marketing, CTR can measure how many users clicked the link in your email compared to how many opened it.
D2C
You’ve probably heard of B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) marketing, but have you heard of D2C?
D2C stands for ‘direct to consumer’ and is a retail model set to be a big trend in the next few years. In short, D2C refers to orders that are shipped directly to customers by the retailer, missing out the middlemen.
D2C is similar to B2C, in that products are shipped to consumers. However, with D2C, the key is the direct contact. Social media has been a big influence on D2C, as brands have more direct access to customers than ever before and don’t need to rely on third-party sellers.
Some examples of D2C retailers include Dollar Shave Club and hugely successful beauty brand Glossier.
Mobile Optimisation
Over the last few years, Google has made some significant changes to keep up with how search has evolved. As people are using their mobiles to browse more than ever, Google switched to mobile-first indexing. Simply put, this means that it uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking instead of the desktop version.
But mobile optimisation isn’t just for Google; it’s key to keeping customers on page. It refers to steps taken to ensure a mobile site is formatted for the dimensions of the device so it’s easy to navigate and has a responsive design, from its text and button functions to images and videos.
Voice Search Optimisation
With the popularity of virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri, voice search has been a marketing buzzword in recent years, and it isn’t going anywhere.
Voice search refers to – you guessed it – using your voice to search on the web via the smartphones and smart speakers that are ever-present in our lives nowadays.
Voice search optimisation is an important part of an SEO strategy to target these search terms and not miss out on appearing on the SERPs. Steps for this include:
- Targeting conversational, long-tail keywords.
- Including FAQs on pages.
- Answering questions concisely.
Newsjacking
Coined by David Meerman Scott, Newsjacking refers to brands piggybacking on current news stories or trends to promote their own business, usually on Twitter. This clever marketing PR strategy can create a real buzz for a brand.
When done right, newsjacking is a quick, low-cost and highly effective marketing technique. It gives a unique opportunity to build a brand personality and boost a follower base.
Remember Aldi’s lawsuit with M&S? By confronting it head-on and tweeting about it with a sense of humour, they managed to turn it into a positive for them.
Strategies for newsjacking include staying up to date on events that have got Twitter abuzz and checking trends on Google and other social media platforms for hot topics.
Brand Identity
In marketing, it’s hugely important to determine a brand identity. This shows customers who a brand is and what sets them apart from their competitors.
Alongside the products a company sells, lots of factors come into play when it comes to creating a strong brand identity. Factors include colour and design choices, logo and website copy.
Increasingly, this also involves brand values. Now more than ever, customers want to buy from brands that resonate with their own values. In fact, this is as much as 72% of U.S. consumers. This is why knowing your target demographic is so important when creating a brand strategy.
Hopefully our brief breakdown has cleared up any confusion about common digital marketing buzzwords you’ve heard, and will help you stay in the know for 2022 and beyond.
For more marketing tips and insights, head to the connective3 blog.
