KomuKonceptowy Glossary of Marketing Abbreviations

ATF (Above The Fold) – the top section on a website, everything we see without scrolling down. It usually contains key information (such as what the page is about, or what values the product/service offers)

AIDA (Attention Interest Desire Action) – one of the most popular funnel schemes. You can read more about what funnels are in marketing here https://komukoncept.pl/czym-sa-lejki-marketingowe-i-jak-moga-wam-pomoc-przejsc-na-wyzszy-level/

API (Application Program Interface) – to put it simply, API is a way for different programs to communicate with each other. For example, a weather company could collect weather forecast data and share it via API. This would allow weather apps on phones to collect this data and share it with their users in a processed way.

ASAP (As Soon As Possible) – as soon as possible, usually used in sentences like “Do something ASAP”.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) – artificial intelligence, i.e. intelligence demonstrated by devices and machines. By intelligence we mean here the features that are associated with natural intelligence, such as the ability to learn or solve problems.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) – similar to the above, only in the Polish version.

ML (Machine Learning) – machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence in which the main goal is to teach machines how to improve and learn. 

B2B (Business to Business) – one of the basic business models involving offering products or services to other companies. 

B2C (Business to Consumer) – similar to above, but in this case the model involves offering products/services to individual customers.

B2B2C (Business to Business to Customer) – a hybrid of both of the above options, i.e. offering the product to entrepreneurs who will offer it to their individual customers. Example: a takeaway ordering system for restaurants. Although our client will be a company (restaurant), ultimately our system will be used by individuals (restaurant customers).

B2G (Business to Government) – another model, this time based on offering services/products to state organizations.

B2E (Business to Enterprise) – a model sometimes specified in which, similarly to B2B, our offer is addressed to enterprises, but in this case only to very large corporations.

BOFU (Bottom of Funnel), MOFU (Middle of Funnel), TOFU (Top of Funnel) – individual parts of the funnel. You can read more about marketing funnels here: https://komukoncept.pl/czym-sa-lejki-marketingowe-i-jak-moga-wam-pomoc-przejsc-na-wyzszy-level/

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) – also known as the cost of acquiring a customer, or how much money we have to spend on average to acquire a customer.

CMS (Content Management System) – a type of program that is used to manage content such as text or images. Currently, the most popular CMS is WordPress.

CPA (Cost Per Action) – cost of performing an action. For example, if our advertising campaign is to encourage recipients to download a free ebook, then CPA will tell us how much it costs us on average for one person to perform this action.

CPC (Cost Per Click) – the average cost we have to pay to get one click on our ad.

CPM (Cost Per Mille) – in some advertising campaigns, the payment model is based on paying for clicks, in others for ad impressions. CPM is the average cost of obtaining a thousand impressions of our ad. Alternatively, you can come across the term CPT (Cost Per Thousand).

Sometimes the terms CPC and CPM are used to describe the type of advertising campaign (CPC campaign, where you pay for clicks, and CPM campaign, where you pay for impressions). However, different terms are usually used – see below.

PPC / PPM (Pay Per Click / Pay Per Mille) – differentiation of the type of advertising campaigns into those in which we pay for clicks or for impressions. The acronym PPM is sometimes translated as “Pay Per Impressions”, i.e. paying for impressions, although the M itself comes from the word Mille, which means thousand in Latin. Sometimes, although rarely, you can also come across the term PPT (Pay Per Thousand). 

CR (Conversion Rate) – conversion rate, which can be calculated between specific stages of the customer journey. For example, if 100 people entered our free ebook page and 20 of them downloaded the ebook, then our CR is 20%.

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) – a term for all activities aimed at increasing the conversion rate.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – a type of program used to manage data about customers and potential customers.

CTA (Call to Action) – the so-called call to action, i.e. all slogans such as “Click here”, “Subscribe”, “Buy now”, “Find out more” and the like, which directly encourage the recipient to perform a given action.

CTR (Click Through Rate) – a coefficient that tells us what proportion of people who saw, for example, an ad clicked on it. For example, if a hundred people saw an ad and two clicked on it, our CTR is 2%.

DM (Direct Message) = PW (Private Message)

ER (Engagement Rate) – engagement rate, similar to CTR, but this time telling us what percentage of recipients performed any action (e.g. liked the post, commented on it, or shared it).

ETA / ETD (Estimated Time of Arrival / Estimated Time of Delivery) – both abbreviations are used to mean the date by which a given item is to be delivered/finished.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – a standard file transfer protocol, most often used to upload files and changes to websites. 

FB, LN, IG, YT, TW – Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter.

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) – a type of behavior observed among the community and often used in marketing as well. FOMO means fear of exclusion, in other words, fear of missing out on something, of not seeing something valuable.

GA (Google Analytics) – an analytical program from Google, most often used to analyze website traffic or define conversions in advertising campaigns.

JS (JavaScript) – a programming language most often used to add various types of functions to websites.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator) – a type of indicator that shows the condition of a company's operations. It is not a specific indicator – instead, each company can define its own KPIs (usually several), adapting them to the stage of its operations. KPIs were introduced to easily measure the effectiveness of operations, limiting themselves to a few key metrics. Examples of KPIs: the number of new customers per month, average revenue from a customer or margin.

LTV / CLV / CLTV (Lifetime Value / Customer Lifetime Value) – As you can see, this abbreviation comes in three different versions. It means the amount that a client brings to us on average over the entire period of cooperation.

MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) – MRR tells us what our “recurring” revenue is, i.e. the one that repeats, for example, every month. This indicator is usually measured in companies that offer their services in a subscription model,

ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) – similarly to the MRR, only from an annual perspective.

NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) – confidentiality agreement.

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) – a way of setting goals for a company/organization. It involves setting specific goals (Objectives) and matching measurable indicators (Key Results) to them, which will inform us about progress.

PR (Public Relations) – the process of communication between a given entity (e.g. a company) and its environment, the purpose of which is to take care of its good image.

QA (Quality Assurance) – “quality assurance”, i.e. ongoing activities aimed at ensuring that the product/service meets quality requirements.

R&D (Research & Development) – research and development. This term is usually used to describe specific departments in companies or companies that focus on conducting scientific research and development work.

R&D (Research and Development) – similarly to R&D, in the Polish version.

RT (Retweet) – a mechanism on Twitter.com, retweeting someone’s post (tweet), thanks to which it will appear to all the people who follow us.

ROI (Return on Investment) – return on investment. If a FB campaign with a budget of PLN 1,000 generated sales with a profit of PLN 10,000, then our ROI is PLN 9,000.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) – a metric for paid campaigns that tells us what the ratio of earnings to costs is. ROAS can be calculated as Advertising Revenue divided by Advertising Costs (+ or multiply by 100%). So if we spent 100 PLN on advertising and earned 500 PLN on sales from advertising, our ROAS = 500/100 = 5 (or 500/100*100% = 500%). Of course, the higher the ROAS, the better.

RTM (Real Time Marketing) – promotional activities relating to current (usually widely known) events. 

SEM (Search Engine Marketing) – otherwise known as search engine marketing. When you search for something on Google, you will see paid ads at the very top of the page. This type of activity is called SEM.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – on the other side of the SEM stick we have SEO, which is the optimization of a website in such a way that it appears high in search results organically, without the need to pay for advertising.

SERP (Search Engine Result Page) – a page with search results, e.g. in Google.

SMB (Small to Medium Business) – companies that employ from 10 to 500 employees. Sometimes you can come across terms such as SMB Sector.

SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) – analogous term to SMB only in the Polish version.

SM (Social Media) – social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram, which primarily allow us to communicate and share content with other people.

SMM (Social Media Marketing) – broadly understood social media marketing. This includes things like paid advertising, running a fanpage/profile, group activities, and the like.

SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) – a type of analysis during which we identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to a given issue. This type of “bird’s eye view” is intended to help in making the right decision.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) – a website security certificate, thanks to which information is sent in encrypted form. Importantly, an outdated SSL certificate is immediately detected by web browser security, and the user is informed that the website is potentially dangerous.

SaaS (Software as a Service) – software as a service, a form of selling software based on a subscription model, in which the customer pays a monthly fee in exchange for constant access to a given tool. This model has become very popular in recent years, due to the many advantages it brings. On the one hand, the company has a more stable and predictable form of income, which will be greater over time than a single purchase, on the other hand, the user has a much lower entry barrier and the certainty that they will always have access to the software in its latest version.

TOS (Terms of Service) – terms and conditions that the customer/user must accept before using the service or product.

TBA (to be announced) – an abbreviation meaning that something has not yet been (but will be) announced. Theoretically, this assumes that the thing in question is already set, although in practice this is not necessarily always the case. For example, someone may send us data about an event, including: ticket price (PLN 100), venue (Hala Wydarzeń X), and date (TBA). So we know that the date has not yet been announced.

TBC (to be confirmed) – “to be confirmed”. Similar to TBA, but in this case it means that the thing has already been initially determined and announced, but has not yet been finally confirmed.

TBD (to be defined) – the last of these types of expressions, in this case means something that has not yet been determined at all.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) – website address.

UU (Unique Users) – also known as unique users, i.e. the number of people who, for example, visited our website.

UI (User Interface) – “user interface”, i.e. what the user sees and interacts with when using programs, websites or mobile applications. The term Front-end can also be used interchangeably. Everything else that is part of a given application/page is Back-end. Looking for an example in the real world, the steering wheel, pedals and gear knob are UI (Front-end), while the engine or the gearbox itself is our Back-end.

UX (User Experience) – the experience that the user experiences when interacting with our product. UX Design, on the other hand, is designing products with an eye to ensuring that interaction with them provides positive experiences. We are not only talking about the pleasure of use, but also about things like usability or ease of understanding.

USP (Unique Selling Proposition) – the value of our service/product that distinguishes it from the competition.

WoM (word of mouth) – a type of spontaneous spread of information in a direct way, from person to person (similar to the way gossip spreads). This term is sometimes used as part of terms such as WoM Marketing or WoM activities, defining specific actions that, for example, a company performs to stimulate the spread of information in this way. 

WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) – a term describing a type of text editor in which what we see in the editor reflects exactly what will appear in the final version.

YoY (year over year) – year-on-year, a term defining, for example, in reports, how data is compared. For example, the information “revenue increased by 15% YoY” means that revenue increased by 15 from year to year.

QoQ (Quarter over Quarter) – similarly to YoY, but in this case it is about quarter-to-quarter comparison.

MoM (Month over Month) – similar to the above, but in this case it is a month-to-month comparison.