Marketing Terms

Email Marketing Glossary

abandoned cart emails – Emails generated after an online shopper reaches the cart stage, but does not complete a transaction.

autoresponder – a program that sends an automatic response to incoming emails.

bounce rate – In email marketing, the percentage of emails in a campaign that are undeliverable.

call to action (CTA) – The part of a marketing message that attempts to persuade a person to perform a desired action.

click-through rate (CTR) – The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.

conversion rate – The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.

cost per action (CPA) – Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.

drip campaign – A strategy of sending a series of pre-planned marketing messages (typically email) based on a fixed schedule or user behavior.

email marketing – The promotion of products or services via email.

email service provider – A service that facilitates the management of email lists and delivery of email campaigns to subscribers.

email spam – Unwanted, unsolicited email.

ezine – An electronic magazine, whether delivered via a Web site or an email newsletter.

hard bounce – A situation where an email is permanently rejected because the intended email address is invalid or doesn’t exist.

HTML email – Email that is formatted using Hypertext Markup Language, as opposed to plain text email.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.

lead magnet – a specific deliverable that is offered to prospects in return for contact information, typically to join an email list.

lead nurturing – The process of engaging with leads to keep them progressing through the buying journey.

list cleaning – Removing email subscribers that are inactive or invalid.

list fatigue – Declining response to email marketing campaigns over time due to too many messages or too little new value.

list hygiene – The health or the practices of maintaining the health of an email marketing list.

marketing automation – The use of software to automate repetitive tasks related to marketing activities and connect different parts of the marketing funnel.

opt-in email – Email that is explicitly requested by the recipient.

opt-out – (1) A type of email marketing program that assumes inclusion unless stated otherwise. (2) to remove oneself from an opt-out email marketing program.

pass-along rate – the percentage of people who pass on a message or file.

permission marketing – marketing centered around obtaining customer consent to receive information from a company.

sig file – a short block of text at the end of a message identifying the sender and providing additional information about them.

soft bounce – A situation where an email reached the recipient’s email server but is temporarily undeliverable.

spam – Inappropriate commercial message of extremely low value.

squeeze page – A type of landing page designed specifically to collect email addresses from visitors.

transactional email – An automated one-to-one email with details of a recent transaction or account activity.

UTM codes – A group of Google Analytics tracking parameters added to the end of URLs to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. (UTM = Urchin Tracking Module, from the Urchin analytics software that preceded Google Analytics.)

viral marketing – marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.