We’re guilty of using quite a few strange acronyms and marketing terms in the social media world. So, if CPC, CPM, KPI and ROI just seem like a bunch of letters to you, don’t worry – our social media glossary will help!
Social Media Specific
Facebook (and Instagram’s) central hub for managing your Pages, advertising campaigns and audiences.
Dark Ads
Adverts that are only visible to a selected target audience. They do not appear on a business’ profile or Page.
Dark Social
Activity which takes place on non-public social platforms such as Facebook Messenger.
DM/PM – Direct Message/Private Message
A private message sent on a social media platform.
Employee Advocate
An employee who uses their social media channels to share content about their employer.
Influencer
A blogger, vlogger or social media user with the ability to influence their followers – for example, to purchase a product.
HTML provided by a social media platform to place on your website, allowing you to track visitors and retarget them with ads.
RT – Retweet
The act of retweeting a tweet on Twitter
UGC – User Generated Content
Content featuring a product or brand which has been created by a third party (usually a customer).
Reporting
CPA – Cost Per Action
The average cost of a completed action or goal. The action is defined by you and could include a user making a purchase on your website, or signing up to a mailing list.
CPC – Cost Per Click
The average cost of a link click.
CPE – Cost Per Engagement
The average cost of a user engaging once with your post or advert.
CPLV – Cost Per Landing Page View
The average cost of a Landing Page View (counted when a user clicks through to your website and the page loads).
CPM – Cost Per Milli (thousand) Impression
The average cost of a thousand impressions.
CR – Conversion Rate
The percentage of impressions which resulted in a completed action or goal.
CTR – Click Through Rate
The percentage of impressions which resulted in a link click.
Impressions
An impression is counted when an advert or post is displayed in a user’s feed.
KPI – Key Performance Indicator
A metric or goal which indicates whether your activity is performing well and/or on target.
General Marketing
AdWords
An online advertising platform which allows businesses to place clickable ads into Google’s search results. Recently rebranded as ‘Google Ads’.
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
A strategy which specifically focuses on managing a business’ interaction with potential and existing customers.
CTA – Call To Action
A specific request for a user to perform an action, for example ‘Click here to find out more’.
GA – Google Analytics
Google’s digital analytics platform which can reports a whole range of website and app metrics, including visitors, usage and traffic sources.
PPC – Pay Per Click
Used to describe advertising which focusing on driving link clicks. Often used to describe Google AdWords but can also be used to refer to social media advertising.
ROI – Return On Investment
A metric to establish how much financial gain (or loss) a business has generated via their marketing activity.
UTM code – Urchin Tracking Module
A simple line of code which can be added to the end of your URLs to allow Google to track traffic from a particular source.
If you found this glossary useful and want to learn more about social media marketing for your business then check out our upcoming events, here.