A/B Split
A/B Split is a technique in which two versions (A version and B version) of a campaign element are tested against 2 randomized groups of users. The technique is used to test campaign elements, such as an email or Landing page, with different colours, wording or design elements. Each group of users (sometimes known as a Test Cell) receives one version of the element. Google and good Demand Generation packages automate these tests as a way to improve Conversion rates.
Google’s AdWords program, for example, allows one to design the test, create the two versions of the ad, and then run the campaign. Google then monitors the response to each version. When the results achieve a statistical significance, Google stops displaying the lower performing ad and shows only the one with a better conversion rate.
Abandonment
Abandonment is the rate at which people abandon an activity, such as visiting your website, waiting on hold during a phone call, or ceasing to read an email. The lower the rate, the more effective your marketing message or piece is.
Above the Fold
Above the Fold is a term borrowed from the newspaper industry to indicate that portion of a web page which is visible above the bottom of the user’s monitor. In other words, the portion of the web page which is visible without the user scrolling the page vertically. Obviously, the actual location of this line is determined by a number of factors such as the size of the monitor, the user’s preference setting for default font size, and the resolution of the screen itself.
Acquisition Cost
Acquisition Cost is the cost to acquire one sales lead – or in broader marketing terms, the cost to acquire any one new subscriber, client or prospect. It is calculated by dividing the total cost of the campaign which produced it, by the number of leads it generated.
Active Visitors
Active Visitors in the Gossamar Sales and Marketing Automation System are visitors who have viewed more than 1 page of your website. Vistors, in other words, who didn’t bounce off the site immediately after arriving.
AdSense
AdSense is an advertising program from Google. It displays ads on pages for which the ad’s Keywords match the keywords on the page. The program is aimed at website owners who wish to generate income from the site and who are paid by Google for each time the ad is clicked (or, in some cases, for each impression). The ads may consist of words, images, or video streams, or any combination of both.
AdWords is Google’s program for PPC advertising. The two programs intersect when Google provides a PPC Ad to a 3rd party site and pays it a fee.
Affiliates
Affiliates, in the online community sense, are websites which receive a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) commission each time a sale (or other predetermined conversion activity) occurs as a result of the affiliate sending a prospect to another site.
Affiliates attract visitors to their website and display ads or articles designed to prompt the visitor into clicking a link to visit a participating merchant site. The merchant then pays a percentage of any sales (the CPA) resulting from the visitor arriving on its site.
An Amazon Affiliate, earns 4% on sales when it sends a person to their site who buys something. On a $10 book, it’s not much, but on some of their bigger ticket items (expensive electronics, lawn mowers, etc.), it can become a significant income stream.
Algorithm
Algorithms are sets of rules dictating the way in which a process or procedure will be performed. Perhaps the most talked about set of algorithms in our business community today are those used by Search Engines to determine Page Rank.
Analytics
Analytics is a fancy term for data analysis. Analytics are core to all Internet Marketing Strategies (which includes Inbound Marketing) because data capture and analysis can be automated, making it easy and inexpensive for marketers to obtain valuable insight on their markets and prospects. With Sales and Marketing Automation (SAMA), market research is ongoing, real time, and free.
Analytics can be divided into macro analytics and micro analytics. Macro analytics deals with entire market segments, finding the source of traffic, l0yalty metrics, bounce rates, conversion rates, and hundreds of other valuable insights. The data captured and analyzed here represents averages for groups of people. Individuals remain nameless and faceless in macro analysis. This is the world of Google Analytics and other web analytics softwares.
Micro analytics, on the other hand, deals with individuals, not averages. This is the world of automated sales lead generation and management, or Demand Generation. Once you gain the individual’s permission, each visitor reveals their own unique profile, preferences, and digital footprint. Marketers can now put a “face” to demand. When integrated with CRM systems, sales and marketers can now close the loop, and connect marketing programs to prospects, and prospects to realized sales opportunities. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) is now available with a click of the mouse.
Together, micro and macro analytics deliver market insight that would have been impossible to achieve in the traditional world of marketing and market research.
For a more detailed look at the incredible market insight that can be gained through SAMA, see our whitepaper “How to get Priceless Market Insight for Free”.
Anchor Text
The anchor text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words used in the anchor text are important from an SEO perspective, since search engines consider this text to be a keyword phrase for the webpage that the hyperlink links to.
Anonymous Visitor Tracking
Unfortunately, the majority of your traffic remain anonymous. Studies show that as little as 2% of your website visitors surrender their email address and thus become prospects.
Some Demand Generation Systems can identify some attributes of “anonymous” visitors. For example, the IP address of each visitor can be used in a reverse DNS lookup to resolve the host name. Not all companies’ host names can be read in this way, but many can, particularly Government, Fortune 500 and higher education organizations.
Some marketing automation solutions take this further by looking up the IP address on WHOIS to find the owner, yielding the full name of the corporation and its geographic location. You can then use this information to perform a more detailed lookup in a service like Dun and Bradstreet to render your formerly anonymous visitor more clearly.
For more information, see our white paper “How Gossamar Stimulates Demand”.
Applet
Applets are small programs or code snippets which perform a specific task. Within the online world, most applets are written in languages such as Java or PHP.
Application Program Interface (API)
API’s are the defined set of call procedures which allow one program to interact with another at the code level. They are used by programmers when the program they are writing needs to access the data, or services, of another program. By using the ‘calls’ to the API, the calling program issues a request to the called program and recives the data or service needed to continue its operation.
Application Service Provider (ASP)
Application Service Providers provide a software service on behalf of its users, thereby eliminating the need for the user to host, run, or maintain the software themselves. The best example of such a company, is Gossamar!! See our Outsourced and Trial Options for more detail.
Automation Business Rules
Automation Rules, or Business Rules as they are sometimes called, are statements coded into a Demand Generation System which dictate the way in which a specific case of a specific lead is handled at a specific instant during the Sales Cycle. In some ways, they can be thought of as the encapsulated best practices of your best marketing and sales people. The rules specify what happens in response to the lead’s interaction with your website — such as viewing certain pages, entering form data, downloading content, or signing up for a demo or webinar.
The rules are usually comprised of English statements, and adhere to a form of logic which lays out the procedure much like a computer program does, although a knowledge of programming is not required to set them up.
Avatar
Avatars – when not being used as the title for a movie – are representational images of someone which are used as a visual stand-in. They can be photographs and thus realistic, or they can be cartoon characters and even just abstract images. The concept is to use something which you believe looks like you or will resemble you enough that it will spark recognition.
Awareness
Awareness, in Marketing terms, is the state of mind a person enters, when they first become aware of the existence of a product, service or company. It is usually considered to be the first phase of the Marketing Life Cycle.
