When working with a marketing agency or a marketing professional, words and phrases get thrown around that could make you feel a little overwhelmed. At Duo, we try to keep things as clear as possible to help you better understand our goals and strategies. The following is a list of marketing words and phrases you might hear us say and what they mean for your business or campaign.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Searching anything on the web can be a daunting task. Everyday there are more than 3.5 billion searches on Google. Google looks through over 54 million active, registered websites, everytime someone clicks “search.” With all that information and potential results, how can you stay at the top? SEO is the answer. SEO stands for search engine optimization. Most people think that it’s something that just happens as you populate your website with generic keywords. We like to think of it as making your sites Google-friendly while engaging enough to keep your potential customers on the website. One of the things that search engines take into consideration when showing your website is quality of content. They’re basically asking: Is this the information the user needs? Search engines also look at the speed of your website’s load time, responsiveness (how well it adjusts to screen size), and age of the website. When we create websites, our copywriters and content creators work closely with you to make sure you stay relevant and at the top of the search results page.
Pixel
The definition of pixel has changed over the last few years to mean more than just a tiny dot that makes up a larger piece. The way we use pixel is to describe the small piece of code we install on your website that helps us track social media visits, leads, and conversions. Our web developers and account executives work together to keep make sure Facebook, or other social media sites, and your website talk to one another. This allows us to use our software to see how many people from Facebook visited your site, made a phone call, or filled out a form. With this pixel, we are able to retarget or remarket your preferred audience to get a higher amount of new business for you. (See definition below)
Retarget/Remarket
People who see ads after visiting a website are 70% more likely to convert. In the internet universe people can get lost or distracted, pulling them away from your site. Remarketing or retargeting is the process of showing people who have already been on your site new ads, reminding them of their interest in your product or service. Remarketing is key in digital marketing because it keeps your brand at the top of their minds. So how does it work? The internet knows when you’ve been on certain sites, collects that information in encrypted data, and lets advertisers know who has been on their site. These advertisers can make targeted ads that will only be shown to people who have visited their site. We never see anything private about a person, name, IP Address etc, only that they have, at some point in the specified time frame, been to your website. This can help make sure the people you are targeting are the right kind of people for your brand.
Hypertargeting
Sounds like something from Star Wars right? Hypertargeting is anything but from a galaxy far, far away. Hypertargeting is just using the resources available to you as a business marketer to target the people you want to see your ads. It can get as detailed or general as you want. One of our favorite ways to hypertarget is in remarketing campaigns (see above definition). We can also target people by gender, age, interests, whether they’ve recently traveled, and location. It makes sense why this feature would be used for digital marketing. With traditional marketing (radio, newspaper, etc) your message is thrown to the wind without any say who will see it. Hypertargeting makes it so you can hone in on your ideal customer and make sure they are the ones who see your ads.
Facebook Advertising
Facebook advertising is not the same as Facebook posting. A lot of people mix the two up, but the way that we use Facebook to advertise is a lot more specific. Facebook advertising is just like any other advertising medium – you have to pay to play. It isn’t about posting a generic ad and hoping that it sticks to someone. We have whole teams of analysts and strategists that take time to figure out what the content needs to be, who to target the ads to, and which ads to put money behind. Facebook advertising is a digital billboard that not only gets your name out, but allows you to retarget to people who have shown interest.
Social Media Posting
The bread and butter of any online presence is an up-to-date, relevant social media page. Not every business needs to be on every outlet, because not every audience is the same. In today’s world, however, you should be somewhere. Having frequent posts on your social media pages shows that you are still in business and are up with the times. It also humanizes your brand and helps people trust you more. We like to make sure your pages are full of quality content that your customers, or potential customers, are interested in.
Return On Investment (ROI)
This word gets bounced around a lot in the marketing world. People want to know, “If I spend X amount of money, what am going to get out of it?” The standard formula to calculate ROI is Benefit/Cost. The higher the percentage, the better the ROI. With traditional marketing (newspaper, radio, billboards, bus ads, etc) it was hard to really determine how a business did. You could spend $2000 on a radio ad but never really know how it affected your business. How could you tell who came in with the radio ad vs. friend referral? Unless you consistently asked customers and tracked results on an intake sheet, you would have no idea. Digital marketing gives us a much better opportunity to show ROI, because we can track everything. If we spend $1000 on Facebook ads, we can show you all the messages, phone calls, and web traffic you received. Even with a 2% conversion rate, most of our clients have a 50% or higher ROI. While we can’t always prove exact ROI, due to the fact that we can’t see how much they spend in your company, you can combine our data with yours to determine it on your end and give us the feedback we need to be successful.
Leads
Leads vary from industry to industry, but are typically defined as people who have shown interest in your business but aren’t customers yet. Leads can be people who visited the site and viewed a certain page, filled out a contact form, called the business, or requested directions. Leads vary in how ready they are to become customers, but knowing how much interest you actually get each month can help you determine your ROI.
Click-through Rate (CTR)
This number shows how many people actually clicked on your ad divided by those who saw it. If it’s an engaging ad, you’ll see a lot higher CTR. If it’s a Facebook ad, the CTR is higher. It’s important to understand what the industry specific standards are for your specific business. Some businesses want a lot of impressions but don’t necessarily care for high clicks; for others, it’s just the opposite. Generally speaking though, a higher click-through rate is what should be aimed for.
Boosting
Facebook, as we mentioned, is a pay to play market. Years ago, you could create a post and most of your followers would see it. Now, the number of people who organically see your ad could be less than 2% of your fans. Boosting is putting money behind a post to “boost” it in the Facebook algorithm. This helps your content get seen by the right people and a good amount of people.
If you’d like to learn more about any of these terms or how they can benefit your marketing plan, give us a call!We’d love to chat about your marketing efforts and what we can do to help you wade through this sometimes complicated world of digital marketing.