The AdRoll Digital Marketing Glossary

Welcome to the AdRoll Marketing Glossary. We have curated a list of commonly used marketing terms, and demystified them with clear definitions and resources for how to utilize them in your own marketing.

Ad Personalization

Ad personalization is the act of using customer insights to increase the relevancy of an ad to that specific person. These insights could be anything from demographic information to their specific interests, purchasing intent, and buying behavior. Learn more about ad personalization here.

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Ad Server

An ad server is essentially the technology used to publish and manage advertisements on behalf of advertisers across channels. The best ad servers consolidate their reporting into one platform, offer all standard requirements, and offer customized targeting. Find the right ad server for your business here.

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Click-through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate, commonly known by marketers as CTR, is the percentage of views or impressions that result in a click on an ad or link. This metric is utilized by many teams in order to understand engagement with content. Learn more about CTR here.

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Cost Per Click

CPC, or cost-per-click, is a metric that represents the price an advertiser pays to the ad publisher for each click-through by a user. Marketers often set target CPC rates for their campaigns to maximize the ROI of their spending. Dive into the details of CPC here.

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CPM in Digital Marketing

CPM stands for cost per thousand impressions and is typically used in measuring how many thousands of people your advertising or marketing piece has (hopefully!) left an impression on. This valuable metric is used by teams to track results. Click here to learn more about CPM.

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Customer Journey

The customer journey is the complete lifecycle of a customer’s relationship with a brand. It is the process they go through when interacting with your brand, from the moment they learn about your company to the years of repeat purchases and deep customer loyalty. Learn more here.

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E-Commerce Marketing

Ecommerce refers to the act of buying something online. An activity millions of shoppers enjoy. Ecommerce marketing specifically markets products or services that customers can buy online. Learn how to build an effective ecom marketing strategy here.

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First Party Data

First-party data is a vital type of data for a third-party cookie-less world. First-party data is gathered by directly asking customers for their information, like on an email list form. Learn more about how to gather and use this data in your strategy here.

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Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics is the practice of tracking and analyzing data across marketing efforts to evaluate performance and reach a quantitative goal. Through marketing analytics, businesses are able to measure ROI, collect deep audience insights, and inform smart changes to future marketing strategies.

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Marketing Attribution

Marketing attribution is unique to each business. It's the way each brand determines which marketing efforts return the most effectively. There are many attribution models to choose from. Learn more about each model and how to use it here.

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Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is the practice of using software to automate the execution of marketing tasks and processes across several different channels.

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Native Advertising

Native advertising is a form of paid ads that is unobtrusive and appears to be part of the normal content offering of a given website. They will generally be tagged as a suggested post, sponsored content, or another identifier. Learn more about native ads here.

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Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing uses multiple channels such as, for example, website, mobile apps, email, events, social media and brick and mortar stores to deliver a seamless customer experience. Learn the difference between omnichannel and multichannel marketing here.

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Persistent Carts

Persistent carts are a feature that preserves the items that a customer has placed in their shopping cart when they exit the site without purchasing, using a cookie that identifies the customer for future sessions, even on other devices. Learn how to use them in your strategy here.

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Return on Ad Spend

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is a marketing metric that tells you how much revenue you make for each $1 you spend on an advertising campaign. The goal is to make more than you spend, resulting in a positive ROAS. Learn more about how to optimize for ROAS here.

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Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is a form of digital marketing in which paid ads are served to a target audience via social media networks. These ads allow marketers to reach desired consumers, promote their brand, and drive sales on popular media channels that house billions of active users.

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