Social Roots

Knowledge base

The terms behind measurable growth.

Online marketing is full of acronyms nobody ever explains. Here is what they mean in plain language, and what we do with them.

A

Data & measurement

A/B test

In an A/B test two variants run at the same time for comparable groups, to measure which performs better.

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Data & measurement

Attribution

Attribution is assigning a conversion to the channels and touchpoints that contributed to it.

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B

SEO & GEO

Backlink

A backlink is a link from another website to yours, counting as a vote of trust.

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Data & measurement

Benchmark

A benchmark is a reference value putting your figures in perspective: the industry average or your own history.

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Advertising

Bidding strategy (smart bidding)

A bidding strategy decides how platforms deploy your budget per auction: manual, target CPA or target ROAS.

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Data & measurement

Bounce rate

The bounce rate is the share of visitors leaving without doing anything: no click, no scroll, no second page.

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Advertising

Brand bidding

Brand bidding is advertising on your own brand name in search engines, or on someone else's.

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Strategy & growth

Buyer persona

A buyer persona is a sharply drawn picture of your ideal customer, based on real data and conversations.

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C

Strategy & growth

CAC

CAC stands for Customer Acquisition Cost: all marketing and sales costs to win one new customer.

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SEO & GEO

Canonical tag

A canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the original when content is duplicated.

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Web & development

Checkout optimisation

Checkout optimisation is removing friction in the final metres of an order or booking.

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Email & CRM

Churn

Churn is the attrition: the share of your customers dropping off in a period and not returning.

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Data & measurement

Cohort analysis

A cohort analysis follows groups of customers who started in the same period, to see how they behave over time.

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Content & creative

Community management

Community management is tending the conversations around your brand: responding, moderating and encouraging.

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Data & measurement

Consent mode

Consent mode makes your measurement follow the visitor's cookie choice without losing everything.

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Content & creative

Content pillar

A content pillar is a fixed theme you create content under, so your story stays recognisable.

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Strategy & growth

Conversion

A conversion is the action you want from a visitor: an order, booking, enquiry or sign-up.

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Web & development

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability of a page.

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Advertising

CPA

CPA stands for Cost Per Acquisition: what it costs to win one customer, order or sign-up.

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Advertising

CPC

CPC stands for Cost Per Click: what you pay for a single click on your ad.

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Advertising

CPM

CPM stands for Cost Per Mille: the cost of showing your ad a thousand times.

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SEO & GEO

Crawl budget

Crawl budget is the amount of attention a search engine spends on crawling your site.

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Advertising

Creative fatigue

Creative fatigue is the moment an ad has been seen enough and results drop while nothing else changed.

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Email & CRM

CRM

A CRM is the system where all your customer data and touchpoints come together.

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Web & development

CRO

CRO is Conversion Rate Optimization: systematically improving the share of visitors who become customers.

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Content & creative

CTA

A CTA is a Call To Action: the button, link or line telling the visitor what the next step is.

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Advertising

CTR

CTR is the Click Through Rate: the percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked through.

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Strategy & growth

Customer journey

The customer journey is the full route a customer travels: from first encounter to purchase and beyond.

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Strategy & growth

Customer Lifetime Value

Customer Lifetime Value is the total value a customer brings for as long as they stay a customer.

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D

Data & measurement

Dark social

Dark social is link sharing through private channels like WhatsApp and DMs, invisible to your measurement.

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Email & CRM

Deliverability

Deliverability is the degree to which your emails actually land in the inbox instead of spam.

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E

SEO & GEO

E-E-A-T

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust: Google's quality bar for content.

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Content & creative

Engagement rate

The engagement rate is the share of your reach that responds: liking, commenting, sharing or saving.

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F

SEO & GEO

Featured snippet

A featured snippet is the highlighted answer Google shows above all other results.

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Data & measurement

First-party data

First-party data is data you collect yourself from your own customers and visitors, without a middleman.

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Advertising

Frequency capping

Frequency capping limits how often the same person sees your ad within a period.

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Strategy & growth

Funnel

A funnel describes the route from stranger to customer, split into stages that each have their own purpose.

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G

SEO & GEO

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

GEO is making your brand visible inside answers from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

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Advertising

Geofencing

Geofencing is advertising within a virtual boundary around a physical place, like a shopping street or event.

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H

Web & development

Headless CMS

A headless CMS keeps your content separate from the website, so the same copy and imagery can be used anywhere.

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Data & measurement

Heatmap

A heatmap shows in colour where visitors look, click and how far they scroll on your page.

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I

Data & measurement

Incrementality

Incrementality measures what a channel truly adds, on top of what would have happened without that campaign.

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Content & creative

Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is collaborating with creators who have their own audience that trusts them.

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K

Strategy & growth

KPI

A KPI is a Key Performance Indicator: a yardstick used to judge whether a goal is being met.

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L

Web & development

Landing page

A landing page is a page with one goal, built for one audience and one message.

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Strategy & growth

Lead magnet

A lead magnet is something valuable you give away in exchange for contact details and consent.

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SEO & GEO

llms.txt

llms.txt is a file on your domain that briefly tells AI models who you are and which pages matter.

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SEO & GEO

Local SEO

Local SEO is being visible for searches in your own region, from Google Maps to restaurant near me.

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SEO & GEO

Long tail

Long-tail keywords are longer, specific queries with less volume but more buying power.

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Advertising

Lookalike audience

A lookalike audience is a new crowd the platform assembles based on your existing customers.

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M

Email & CRM

Marketing automation

Marketing automation is automatically following up behaviour with the right message at the right moment.

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Data & measurement

MER

MER stands for Marketing Efficiency Ratio: your total revenue divided by your total marketing spend.

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N

Strategy & growth

NPS

The Net Promoter Score measures with one question how likely customers are to recommend you, on a scale of zero to ten.

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O

Strategy & growth

Omnichannel

Omnichannel means all your channels form one coherent experience, with the customer switching effortlessly.

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Email & CRM

Open rate

The open rate is the percentage of recipients opening your email, measured through an invisible tracking pixel.

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Content & creative

Organic reach

Organic reach is the number of people seeing your post without you paying for it.

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P

Advertising

Performance Max

Performance Max is Google's campaign type that serves all its channels at once from a single campaign.

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Advertising

POAS

POAS is Profit On Ad Spend: profit per euro of ad budget, so ROAS with margin factored in.

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Advertising

Product feed

A product feed is the structured file with all your products, prices and stock that feeds platforms.

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Advertising

Programmatic

Programmatic is the automated buying of ad space on websites and apps, auctioned per impression.

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Q

Advertising

Quality Score

Quality Score is the quality rating Google gives your search ads, on a scale of one to ten.

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R

Web & development

Responsive design

Responsive design is a site that adapts itself to the screen: phone, tablet or desktop.

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Advertising

Retargeting

Retargeting is advertising again to people who already visited your site or know your brand.

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Strategy & growth

Retention

Retention is keeping existing customers, measured as the share that comes back.

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Advertising

ROAS

ROAS stands for Return On Ad Spend: the revenue you get back per euro of advertising budget.

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S

SEO & GEO

Search intent

Search intent is what someone truly wants to achieve with a query: know, find, compare or buy.

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Email & CRM

Segmentation

Segmentation is dividing your audience into groups with the same behaviour or need, so you communicate more precisely.

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SEO & GEO

SEO

SEO is all the work that makes search engines understand, value and show your pages.

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Data & measurement

Server-side tracking

With server-side tracking, measurement data goes to platforms through your own server instead of straight from the browser.

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Strategy & growth

Share of voice

Share of voice is your share of visibility in your market, compared with your competitors.

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Advertising

Social commerce

Social commerce is selling inside social platforms themselves, from shop tabs to ads where you check out directly.

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Web & development

SSL

SSL encrypts the connection between visitor and website, visible as the padlock and the https in the address bar.

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SEO & GEO

Structured data

Structured data is machine-readable markup explaining what a page contains: a product, a recipe, a company or an article.

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Strategy & growth

SWOT analysis

A SWOT maps strengths and weaknesses next to opportunities and threats, in four quadrants.

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T

SEO & GEO

Topical authority

Topical authority is the standing you build by covering a subject completely and consistently.

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U

Content & creative

UGC

UGC is user generated content: imagery and video that look like a real user made them, rather than a brand.

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Web & development

UX

UX is User Experience: how a site feels in use, from finding to understanding to acting.

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