Terms that matter in modern marketing practice.
A/B Testing
Split TestingA method of testing two variants against each other on real traffic to decide, data-based, which converts better - instead of guessing.
Accessibility
The state in which a website stays usable when somebody cannot see, cannot hear, cannot handle a mouse or struggles to concentrate - not the checklist you tick off to get there.
AEO
Answer Engine OptimisationShaping content so it is served directly as the answer - in the snippet, the voice assistant or the AI summary, rather than sitting in a list of links.
Agentic Workflow
The loop of perceiving, planning, acting and checking through which an AI agent works a task from start to finish on its own - rather than just answering a single input.
AI Agent
Software with a language model as its engine that completes tasks on its own - not a chat that answers, but a worker that delivers.
AI Bias
The systematic skew in AI outputs: models reproduce the distortions of their training data - and often amplify them.
AI Chatbot
A chatbot built on a language model: it understands freely worded questions instead of funnelling visitors through a click menu - and can qualify leads instead of merely answering.
AI Crawler
Automated bots AI providers use to read the web - block them in robots.txt and you become invisible to ChatGPT, Perplexity and the rest.
AI disclosure
The note that an image, a video or a text was generated or altered by AI. Partly mandatory since 2 August 2026.
AI Overviews
Google AI Overviews / SGEGoogle's AI-generated answer box above the classic results - it answers the query directly and shifts visibility from links to cited sources.
Anchor text
The clickable text of a link - the small piece of language that tells readers and search engines what to expect on the target page.
Answer rate
The share of incoming calls that a person actually answers, counted against every call that comes in, not only the ones somebody noticed.
API
Application Programming InterfaceThe interface through which software talks to software - and which decides whether your tools form one system or a collection of islands.
Attribution
The assignment of a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that triggered it - the basis for knowing which channel earns the budget.
Author profile
The visible evidence of who stands behind a piece: full name, remit, and something a reader can verify.
Backlinks
Link BuildingLinks from other websites to your own - a classic authority signal for search engines. For AI visibility, though, weaker than brand mentions.
Baseline
The starting value captured before a change. Without it, every later claim about an improvement is just an assertion.
Binding period
The period during which you are bound by your own proposal. Set none yourself and interpretation decides it for you.
Booking journey
The concrete path from intent to a confirmed meeting - everything that happens between the click on “book a meeting” and the confirmation email.
Bounce Rate
The share of visits that leave without any interaction - a symptom of friction, not a verdict on your offer.
Brand architecture
The decision about which of your names leads and which runs beneath it - and how many names one company can realistically carry.
Brand Identity
All deliberately designed brand elements - positioning, tone of voice, logo, typography, colours, imagery. Identity isn't the logo.
Brand Voice
The constant character a brand speaks with - stance, word choice, rhythm and the things it would never say. The base on which tone of voice varies by channel.
Buyer persona
An evidenced profile of the person on the other side: what they decide, what they search for, and what they risk by choosing you.
Buying centre
The group inside the client organisation that decides on a purchase together. It is almost always larger than the single contact you speak to.
CAC
Customer Acquisition CostWhat it costs on average to win one paying customer - all marketing and sales costs divided by the number of new customers.
Churn Rate
Share of customers or revenue lost in a period. The one metric more marketing cannot repair.
Closed-Loop Feedback
Every critical response triggers a personal reply, not just a line in a dashboard. The loop only closes once the customer notices the change.
Cold Outreach
Active first contact with leads who haven't engaged yet - usually email or LinkedIn. Success depends on list quality, personalisation, domain reputation.
Consent management
Managing your visitors' consent: what may be stored, for which purpose, and how you evidence it if challenged.
Content Audit
A systematic inventory of everything you have published: what performs, what has aged, what should go, and what deserves a second format.
Content decay
The gradual loss of visibility on a page that has not changed, while the search results, the competition and the facts around it move on.
Content Governance
The rules, ownership and sign-off steps behind who may publish what, and what every piece is checked against before it goes out.
Content Marketing
Strategic creation and distribution of valuable content to attract, retain and convert an audience - without primarily selling.
Content Repurposing
Turning one strong piece of content into many: repurposing translates a core piece into new formats and channels - instead of starting from zero every time.
Context window
The working memory of a language model: everything it can see at once in a single run. Whatever is not in there does not exist for the model.
Conversion Rate
Share of visitors who take a desired action. Realistic: 1-3% on B2B lead pages, 0.5-2% in e-commerce.
Core Web Vitals
Google's set of measurable performance metrics (LCP, INP, CLS) - a direct ranking factor and a lever for conversion at the same time.
Crawl budget
The number of pages a search engine fetches from a site in a given period - a topic for very large websites and for almost nobody else.
CRM
Customer Relationship ManagementThe system and practice of keeping all contact, deal and history data in one place - the backbone of sales and customer care.
CRO
Conversion Rate OptimisationMake more of the visitors you already have: CRO systematically optimises pages and flows so that visits turn into enquiries, sign-ups or purchases.
CTI
Computer Telephony IntegrationThe connection between the phone system and the CRM through which every call, including the missed one, lands automatically as a record on the right contact.
CTR
Click-Through RateThe share of people who actually click after seeing a link, ad or search result - formula: clicks ÷ impressions.
Customer Effort Score
A question about effort rather than delight: how much work did this cost you? In service interactions the answer says more about repurchasing than satisfaction or stated willingness to recommend.
Customer Journey
The entire path a person travels from their first contact with your brand through to purchase and beyond - across all channels and touchpoints.
Customer segmentation
Grouping customers by attributes that genuinely change what you do: price, scope, channel, service level.
Data classification
Sorting content into a few clear tiers, which then decides which tool is allowed to see it at all.
Design fixation
The tendency to stick to a design you have already seen and adopt its features, including the ones that do not suit the task at all.
Design Token
A single brand value - a colour, a type size, a spacing step - stored as a named entry in a file rather than on page 12 of a PDF. Design tool, app and website all read the same value.
DMARC
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and ConformanceA record in your domain's DNS telling receivers what to do with forged messages sent in your name - and sending you the reports about them.
Domain Authority
The best-known SEO metric that Google does not even use: an estimate by tool vendor Moz of how strongly a domain competes in rankings.
Double Opt-in
Double Opt-in (DOI)The two-step sign-up process for email contacts: form entry plus a click on a confirmation link. Only then may you email - and only then is the contact genuinely worth something.
Drip Campaign
A fixed sequence of pre-written messages sent automatically at defined intervals - triggered by an event such as a sign-up.
E-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, TrustGoogle's quality framework of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust - decisive for which sources search and AI systems believe.
Editorial Calendar
The binding schedule of which piece appears when and on which channel, and who has it ready by then.
Email deliverability
The share of your messages that actually reaches the inbox - not to be confused with the delivery rate your sending tool reports.
Embedding
The sequence of numbers a model turns a text into so that meaning becomes computable: closeness between two sequences means similarity in sense, not in wording.
Employee Advocacy
Employees share insights and content through their own profiles - giving the brand faces people trust more than the logo.
Entity
A uniquely identifiable thing a search system knows about - a company, a place, a product, a concept - as opposed to the mere string of characters somebody types.
Escalation path
The described route by which a case leaves the automation and arrives with a person - with a trigger, a destination, a deadline and a context that travels with it.
Evergreen Content
Content that does not age: evergreen content answers the questions your customers ask today - and will still be asking in two years.
Existing-customer exception
The statutory exception under which a business may email its customers without fresh consent: when the address comes from the sale, for its own similar offers, without objection and with notice of the right to object.
FAQ schema
FAQPage from schema.orgMachine-readable markup for question-and-answer pairs in the source - and, since 7 May 2026, entirely without effect in Google Search.
Featured snippet
The highlighted answer box at the top of Google search - position zero, which turns your page into the answer before anyone clicks.
Field data
Measurements from the sessions of real visitors, as opposed to a lab test that recreates a single session on a simulated device.
Fine-tuning
Training an existing language model further on your own examples, so it hits your tone and format without you explaining it on every request.
First response time
The time between a message arriving and the first reply that actually moves the case - measured per lane, not as an average across everything.
First-Party Data
Data you collect directly and with consent from your own contacts - through your website, your CRM, your forms - and that belongs to you alone, rather than being rented from platforms.
Gated Content
Content that only becomes visible after a form. The form brings addresses and, in the same move, costs everything the content would otherwise have earned: rankings, links, citations in AI answers.
GEO
Generative Engine OptimizationOptimising content so AI answer systems cite your brand as a source - not clicked, but mentioned.
Google Business Profile
The free listing that appears in Google Maps and the local search block - for location-bound enquiries, often the first page anyone sees of you.
Guardrails
Technical boundaries that define what an AI system must not do - enforced outside the model, not requested inside the prompt.
Hallucination
When AI sounds confident and is still wrong: a hallucination is a fluently worded answer that is invented rather than known.
Heatmap
A colour-coded map of your page showing where visitors click, linger or stop scrolling - always aggregated across many visits, never a single one.
hreflang
The annotation in a page's head that tells Google which addresses are the same page in another language or region.
Human-in-the-Loop
AI does the work, a human reviews and takes responsibility for the result - the control model that makes AI output fit to publish.
ICP
Ideal Customer ProfileData-driven description of the ideal target company - industry, size, region, buying signals, budget. The basis of every B2B sales process.
Image sitemap
A sitemap, or sitemap extension, that gives Google the addresses of the images on a website, above all those it would not otherwise find while crawling.
Imprint obligation
The legal duty to state permanently and in an easy-to-find place on a business website who stands behind the offer and how to reach them directly.
Intent recognition
The step that establishes what an incoming message wants - and therefore which route it takes through the business.
Internal Linking
Links between the pages of your own website - the mechanism through which crawlers discover content, authority gets distributed and topic clusters become readable as a unit.
Landing Page
A page with exactly one goal: guiding visitors from a campaign towards a single action - no navigation, no distraction, no second message.
Lazy loading
Deferring the loading of images and other content until it comes into view, so that the first view of a page is ready sooner.
Lead Magnet
A concrete piece of value - a guide, a template, a calculator - traded for an email address. What separates it from merely good content: a lead magnet does not explain a problem, it finishes part of one.
Lead Nurturing
An automated series of useful messages that accompanies a prospect until they are ready to buy - instead of leaving them to their own devices after first contact.
Lead Qualification
The process that sorts raw enquiries into the ones that genuinely fit you and can buy - before sales invests any time.
Lead Scoring
Method of ranking potential customers by readiness to buy - points for signals like company size, industry, behaviour, buying intent.
Lighthouse
Google's open-source testing tool that loads a page in a single simulated session and calculates scores for performance, accessibility, best practices and SEO.
llms.txt
A standardised Markdown file at the domain root that tells AI crawlers, in clear structure, what a site covers - an emerging standard, but not currently a confirmed citation lever.
Local citation
Any mention of a business name, address and phone number on someone else's site, from a trade directory to a story in the local paper.
Local SEO
Optimisation for location-based searches ('... in Vienna', 'near me') - driven by the Google Business Profile, local signals and consistent location data.
Localisation
Making content usable for another market rather than merely translating it: examples, amounts, legal references, address and proof.
LTV
Customer Lifetime ValueThe total contribution a customer brings over the entire relationship - the ceiling for what acquisition is allowed to cost.
Maintenance agreement
The agreement about who looks after the site after launch. It is worth exactly as much as the response time and the authority written into it.
Marketing Automation
Software-driven automation of recurring marketing and sales steps - email sequences, lead routing, scoring - triggered by behaviour instead of manual work.
Marketing Funnel
Model of the customer's path from first contact to purchase - drawn as a funnel: Awareness → Interest → Consideration → Decision → Retention.
Media break
The point in a process where data changes system and passes through human hands on the way: retyped, copied, printed, entered again.
Model evaluation
Repeatable testing of AI outputs against defined criteria and real test cases - before launch and on every change, instead of trying it once.
Model release
Written consent from the person in the picture. It decides whether you may publish a photograph, quite apart from who owns the photograph.
MQL & SQL
Marketing- / Sales-Qualified LeadTwo maturity levels of a lead: the MQL fits the profile and shows interest, the SQL is confirmed sales-ready by the rep - the handoff line between marketing and sales.
NAP consistency
Name, Address, PhoneName, address and phone number read identically everywhere - in the business profile, the legal notice, on the website and in every directory.
Net Promoter Score
Net Promoter ScoreOne question, one number from -100 to +100: how likely are you to recommend us? Useful as a trend, overrated as a benchmark.
No-show rate
The share of firmly booked meetings nobody turns up to - the metric for everything that happens after the commitment.
Nurture Sequence
A defined series of messages and tasks with a trigger, a goal and an exit - built so that interest turns into a decision step by step.
Owned Audience
An audience that belongs to you rather than a platform: contacts you can reach directly - via newsletter, community or app - without an algorithm deciding in between.
Ownership
The name a case hangs on. Without it a process has no destination, only an address where nobody notices that nothing is happening.
Payback period
The point at which the accumulated savings of an investment overtake its accumulated costs - expressed as a date, not as a percentage.
People Also Ask
Related questions boxThe expandable box of related questions in the search results - and the most honest free source there is for how your customers actually phrase their problem.
Pillar Page
Topic ClusterContent architecture of one comprehensive main page (pillar) and many in-depth cluster posts that link to each other internally - the standard model for topical authority.
Positioning
The deliberately chosen place a brand occupies in the audience's mind - set apart from competitors, sharpened to one clear benefit.
Price anchor
The figure a client measures every further price against. If you do not set it yourself, your competitors' proposals will.
Process costs
What a single recurring task really costs, when the time spent on it is valued at full labour costs rather than at the gross salary.
Processing on behalf
When a supplier processes personal data solely on your instructions, you need a contract for it. Without one the processing is unlawful, even when everything works technically.
Programmatic SEO
Many pages from one system instead of one page per session: structured data, a template and a quality threshold.
Prompt Engineering
The craft of phrasing instructions to AI models so they reliably produce the desired result - rather than the first rough approximation.
RAG
Retrieval-Augmented GenerationAI answers with sources attached: RAG makes a language model look things up first and answer second - from your own documents, databases or the live web.
Referral programme
A fixed routine through which a business asks its customers to bring in new ones: with a clear request, easy passing-on, a rule for what counts as a referral, and often a reward.
Referral rate
The share of your new customers or jobs that came through a personal referral, counted in the CRM with the name of the person who made it, not estimated from memory.
Response window
The promised span within which an answer arrives - counted from a defined trigger and in business hours.
Retargeting
Advertising to people who have already visited your website: retargeting brings back visitors who left without enquiring or buying - as long as the technology underneath cooperates.
Review gating
The practice of screening customers by satisfaction first and forwarding only the happy ones to the public review page - explicitly banned by Google.
Review management
The ongoing routine of asking for reviews, replying to every single one and reporting fake ones - instead of leaving the stars to chance.
Right of use
Permission to use somebody else's work within a defined frame. Not the same as owning the picture, and that is exactly where most stock licences come apart.
ROAS
Return on Ad SpendRatio of revenue to ad spend - formula: revenue ÷ ad spend. ROAS 3 = every euro of ads brings three of revenue.
Schema Markup
Structured data in HTML that explains to search engines and AI systems what the content means - prerequisite for rich results and GEO.
Scope creep
The gradual expansion of a project's scope without time, budget and resources growing with it. Each request looks small; together they shift the project.
Scroll depth
How far visitors scroll down a page - the number only becomes useful as the share of visitors who reach a given mark at all.
Search Intent
The real goal behind a query - to learn, compare, buy or navigate. Match the intent and you rank; miss it and you don't.
Semantic search
Search that matches on meaning rather than on strings, which is why your page can appear for a phrasing that never occurs on it.
SEO
Search Engine OptimizationTechnical and content optimisation so a site ranks higher in search engines like Google - the foundation of digital visibility.
SERP features
Everything on a search results page that is not a plain blue link: answer box, AI overview, map pack, image row, shopping row.
Server-side tagging
Measurement no longer runs in the visitor's browser but through your own server - technically more robust, legally unchanged.
Service level
The promise of what share of cases you answer within a set deadline - a rate over a time, not an average.
Shadow AI
AI tools used in everyday work that nobody approved, vetted or even recorded.
Share of Voice
Your share of the total attention in a market or topic - how much of the conversation, advertising and search presence goes to you rather than your competitors.
Single source of truth
The decision about which system holds the valid state for a given kind of data, and which copies may be overwritten in case of doubt.
Social Proof
Evidence that others already trust you: testimonials, numbers, logos, genuine insights - trust built before the first conversation.
Social Selling
Selling through visibility and relationships in your own network: being present before the need becomes acute, instead of cold-messaging strangers from a list.
Special hours
Different opening hours for individual days, such as public holidays, company holidays or a stocktake, set in advance in your profile and on your website.
Speed to Lead
The time between an enquiry arriving and your first real response - one of the most underrated levers in sales.
Style Guide
The working document that captures how a brand writes and looks - voice attributes, example pairs, banned words, formatting rules. Done well, the text section fits into an AI prompt.
System prompt
The invisible job description of an AI: the system prompt sets role, rules and boundaries before the first user ever types a word.
TCO
Total Cost of OwnershipThe full cost of a solution over its entire life - not just the purchase price, but onboarding, running, maintenance and internal time added together.
Technical debt
The work that was deferred while building, knowingly or not. It does not disappear, it simply falls due later and usually at a worse rate.
Third-country transfer
Sending personal data to a country outside the EEA. Permitted only with its own basis, and that basis can change while your tool keeps running.
Tone of Voice
How a brand speaks - word choice, sentence length, directness, humour. Captured in style guides so all content sounds consistent.
Topical Authority
A domain’s reputation for covering a subject area comprehensively and credibly - built through many interconnected pieces on the same field rather than scattered one-off articles.
Unsubscribe Rate
The share of recipients who opt out after a message. More honest than the open rate, because a decision sits behind it rather than a loaded image.
UTM parameters
Urchin Tracking ModuleSmall additions to your links that tell any analytics tool which campaign a visitor came from - the simplest attribution there is.
Value Proposition
The one clear sentence for why someone should buy from you - which problem you solve, for whom, and what sets you apart from the alternative.
Vector database
The store for embeddings: given a query, it finds within milliseconds the sequences of numbers closest to it in meaning, even among a very large number of entries.
Visibility index
A number from an SEO tool that condenses your positions across a fixed keyword set - useful as an early warning, poor as a target.
WCAG
Web Content Accessibility GuidelinesThe W3C's international rule set for accessible web content, built from testable success criteria across the three levels A, AA and AAA.
Webhook
The API call in reverse: a system reports of its own accord the moment something happens - the foundation of any real-time automation.
Welcome Series
The sequence of emails that follows a sign-up. The most attended-to run of messages on your whole list - and the one with the highest unsubscribe rate.
Willingness to pay
The highest price someone is prepared to pay for a service. It depends less on the service than on what the client can tell apart about it.
Win-back
A targeted attempt to regain customers who no longer buy: with a reason that fits why they left, instead of a mass email to everyone.
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