Commonly used email marketing terms

I have been asked to post some commonly used email marketing and online advertising terms, so here they are. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather indicative of what is being used at the moment. Expect more acronyms to emerge as new technologies and online strategies come into play.

Above-the-fold – When talking about web pages, this is the part of the screen which is visible without scrolling. It is generally the most popular placement on any website because of its visibility. When talking about emails it is the part of the email which is visible in the readers viewing pane. Above the fold is where most call to action mechanisms should be placed.

Affiliate and affiliate marketing - An affiliate essentially enters into a contract with a supplier to promote a product or service. Links on your site (the affiliate) direct users to a sales promotion or product page of the company. Affiliates earn money either by click-throughs, leads, or sales generated by their promotional efforts.

Bounces – This is when an email is returned to the sender because it cannot be delivered for some reason. There are two kinds of bounce e-mail, hard and soft bounces. Hard bounce e-mail is permanently bounced back to the sender because the address is invalid. Soft bounce e-mail is recognized by the recipient's mail server but is returned to the sender because the recipient's mailbox is full, the mail server is temporarily unavailable, or the recipient no longer has an e-mail account at that address.

Conversion rate – Is the ratio of recipients who respond to your call-to-action in any given email marketing campaign. The conversion rate is a measure of how successful an email campaign is. It is important to note that this can be measured in a number of ways like website visits, telephone calls and footfall.

CPA - Cost per action or acquisition. Payment is based solely on qualifying actions. This means that you only get paid when a specified action is completed, such as a sale, registration, etc.

CPM (Cost per thousand) – When renting a list of email addresses etc, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on any given rental list. For example, a rental list priced at £250 CPM would mean that the list owner charges £0.25 per record.

CTR (or Click-through rate) - The percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your email communication.

HTML email – (Hypertext Markup Language or HTML refers to the language used to design the email). Sending HTML emails makes it possible to include unique fonts, graphics and background colors.

Open rate - The percentage of emails opened in any given email marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.

‘Opt-in’ – This is when a visitor a site has given their express permission to be emailed by owners of the website and any possible third parties. The subscriber can often indicate areas of personal interest (e.g. kittens, sewing, surfing) and/or indicate what types of emails she wishes to receive from the sender (e.g. brochures – newsletters etc).

Opt-out (or unsubscribe) - To opt-out or unsubscribe from an email list is to choose not to receive communications from the sender by requesting the removal of your email address from their list.

Permission-based email – emails are sent to recipients who have opted-in or subscribed to receive email communications from a particular company, website or individual. Permission is an absolute prerequisite for legitimate and profitable email marketing

Personalisation – Addressing individual recipients by first name, last name or both in an email.

Privacy policy - A clear description of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data.

Rental list - A list of prospects or a targeted group of recipients who have opt-in to receive information about certain subjects.

Retention list - A permission-based list that you built yourself. It can be used to cross sell and up-sell and to establish a relationship with customers over time.

Signature file - A tagline or short block of text at the end of an email which identifies the sender and provides additional information such as company name and contact information.

Spam - An email communication sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to the sender. Characteristically, spam is unwanted, unexpected email from a sender unknown to the recipient.

Targeting - Selecting a target audience or group of individuals likely to be interested in a certain product or service.