68 Content Marketing Abbreviations and Acronyms To Know in 2024

Marketing is full of acronyms that can make your head spin. Every day, there seems to be a new shorthand for the latest digital trends or success metrics.

Luckily, we’ve created a list of popular marketing abbreviations, digital advertising acronyms, and website terminology used around our agency and in the industry.

Whether you’re a business owner checking your reports or a marketing manager learning the ropes, this stuff comes up a lot. Feel free to bookmark this for future reference (we won’t tell anyone). 

Pro Tip: Have a specific term in mind? It’s probably here. Search for it with a quick “Command + F” on your keyboard. 

We keep this list updated every year for relevance. Last update: January 2024.

Terms you'll hear and see in the marketing industry

ABM: Account-Based Marketing

ABM, or account-based marketing, is all about sending tailored messages to targeted accounts. Rather than developing buyer personas and then casting a wide net to attract those personas to your brand, ABM focuses on finding ways to engage with people from targeted accounts based on your ideal customer profile. 

AOV: Average Order Value

This tells marketers and salespeople how much an average order is worth. This is important for tracking costs and calculating final return on investment.

API: Application Program Interface

An API is a set of rules, functions, and protocols that dictate how other programs can integrate with a piece of software. Many Software as a Service companies create APIs for third-party applications to integrate with their software.

B2B: Business to Business

A marketing model for companies that sell to other companies.

B2C: Business to Consumer

A marketing model for companies that sell directly to consumers.

BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline

The BANT formula is used to determine whether a business's prospects have the budget, authority, need, and timeline to buy what they sell.

BoFu or BOF: Bottom of Funnel

The stage a user is at in their buyer’s journey when they’re ready to make a decision on which product to purchase. Users in this stage should be served content about what makes your company the best choice.

BR: Bounce Rate

The percentage of users who visit a web page without taking action or visiting another page. A high bounce rate means users are encountering friction on that page and is a good metric to use when deciding which pages to optimize for conversions.

BTF: Below the Fold

Below the fold refers to the section of a web page that is only visible after scrolling down. 

CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost

The cost associated with turning a lead into a customer.

CAC = Total amount spent on sales and marketing in a period / # of customers signed during that period. 

CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing

This law was passed by Congress in 2003 to dictate how businesses can legally communicate with their subscriber list. It outlines some “dos and don’ts” along with implementing protections for users to be able to opt out of any email correspondence easily.

CAPTCHA: Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart

A method to check whether the user is a person or robot. Typically used on website forms, landing pages, or sign-in pages. 

CASL: Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation

The Canadian version of CAN-SPAM. Most countries have one. It’s important for international businesses to make sure their emails abide by the “laws of the land” for whichever country the recipient lives in.

CMS: Content Management System

Most websites today are built using a content management system like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or Concrete5 (my personal favorite CMS).

COS: Content Optimization System

HubSpot’s version of a CMS. Since all data is stored in their system, users are better able to optimize it vs manage it.

CPA: Cost Per Acquisition

This metric tells content marketers how much they spent to bring in a new lead or contact.

CPC: Cost Per Click

How much did that banner ad click cost you? Look at the CPC. Total costs / total clicks = average CPC.

CR: Conversion Rate

A conversion is when a user takes a specific action after clicking an ad or from an email. Your conversion rate is the percentage of users who clicked then converted. CR = Total Conversions / Total Clicks.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management

A content marketer’s biggest motivation should be to build relationships with customers. A CRM like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, or HubSpot can track all information on contacts and customers. Anything from emails and phone calls to meetings, deals, and service requests. Some CRMs even allow you to record phone conversations with contacts or monitor their individual social media feeds.

CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization

A system that uses the scientific method to increase the number of users who convert or take some sort of trackable action. Trackable actions could be anything from a simple click or email open to subscribing to your blog, downloading a case study, or scheduling an appointment with a sales rep.

Essentially, CRO is getting users to say “yes” to take the next step.

CTA: Call-to-Action

Every website page should have a call to action button to lead users to the next most logical step they should take. Look at each page of your site and ask yourself, “Now what?” Your answer will help determine which CTA to place on the page.

CTR: Click-Through Rate

A percentage that shows how many users clicked on an ad or email. CTR = Total Clicks / Total Impressions.

DA: Domain Authority

Domain authority is a search engine ranking score that can forecast a page’s capacity to rank on a search results page. Domain authority scores can be evaluated between 1 and 100.

DM: Direct Mail (Traditional) or Direct Message (Social Media)

If you’re an old-school marketer, DM resonates as Direct Mail, aka “Junk Mail.” In the social media realm, DM stands for Direct Message, which is a private correspondence between two users.

ESP: Email Service Provider

ESP is the company that provides the email backbone for your marketing efforts. Companies like Constant Contact, MailChimp, and Campaign Monitor are examples of ESPs. Email Service Providers help ensure your mailings won’t get flagged as spam.

GA: Google Analytics

Software that gives marketers detailed insight into the usage of their website and can report on conversions and sales.

KPI: Key Performance Indicator

This is the “gut instinct” that lets marketers know that what they’re doing is working. KPIs aren’t trackable metrics, but they should be used in tandem with a KPM to validate assumptions about marketing performance.

KPM: Key Performance Metric

These are the trackable, “proof in the pudding” metrics that your boss loves to see. You’ll never know if what you’re doing is working if you don’t have a metric to measure. KPMs can include clicks, conversions, page views, time on page, reduced bounce rate, etc. Anything you can track can be used as a key performance metric. KPMs should be specific and constrained to a given time frame.

IBL: Inbound Link

An inbound link, also known as a backlink, is a link back to your site from another web page.

IP: Intellectual Property

Whenever you create a piece of content, you (or the company you work for) own the rights to it. It’s your intellectual property. Intellectual property is an often overlooked part of content marketing today. Don’t take it lightly. There can be heavy consequences for doing so.

ISP: Internet Service Provider

This is the company that provides your connection to the Internet. You know, the ones with horrendous customer support? That’s your ISP.

KTR: Key Term Research

Key term research is the process of identifying the search terms that your prospective site visitors are looking for online. It is critical to ensuring your content can be found on search engine results pages.

LPO: Landing Page Optimization

Similar to CRO. This focuses specifically on making your landing pages perform at the top of their game. You can optimize anything on a landing page. Whether it’s the image placement, page layout, copy, form fields (both type and amount), or submit button text. Even the smallest of changes can have a big impact.

LTK: Long-Tail Keyword

Long-tail keywords are keywords or key phrases that are more specific (and usually longer) than more commonly used keywords. Long-tail keywords get less search traffic but will usually have a higher conversion value as they are more specific to the searcher's inquiry. 

LTV: Lifetime Value

An estimate of how much future profit a single customer is worth over the course of their lifetime. To calculate this, you’ll need to know your Average Order Value, Average Number of Orders per Customer, and Average Retention Length.

MoFu or MOF: Middle of Funnel

The stage a user is at in their buyer’s journey when they’re considering various vendors on which product to purchase. Users in this stage should be served content that helps them make a good decision, but not content that directly promotes your company.

MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead

Using marketing tactics to help determine if the lead is a good fit for the organization.

MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue

This is used in subscription-based services to calculate total revenue coming in each month from subscriptions. It can also be used to forecast how many new subscriptions are needed to accommodate the cost of implementing new features.

MTO: Meta Tags and Meta Tag Optimization

Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s content; the meta tags don’t appear on the page itself but only in the page’s source code. Meta tags are essentially little content descriptors that help tell search engines what a web page is about. 

The meta description is one of a web page’s meta tags. With this meta information, webmasters can briefly sketch out the content and quality of a web page.

MVT: Multi-Variant Testing

This is a tactic in the CRO Toolbox and can be used with LPO as well. Multi-variant Testing works great when your site doesn’t get much traffic and you don’t have time to make one change at a time. Instead, you would use data to determine the best changes to make and then make them all at once.

This could be used in conjunction with A/B Testing, where two versions of a page duke it out for the best conversion rate.

NPS: Net Promoter Score

A simple scale from 1-10 that calculates customer satisfaction. Detractors are those who score a 0-6, and promoters are those who rate you a 9 or 10. To calculate your company's NPS, simply subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.

OBL: Outbound Link

An outbound link is a link from your site to another website.

PPC: Pay Per Click

A model for online advertising where advertisers pay based on the number of clicks their ads receive. Most search engines and social media sites use a PPC model but can also use an impression-based model.

PR: Public Relations

The sister industry to marketing that is all about people and relationships. The goal with PR is to gain media attention by earning it instead of buying it.  People are more apt to respect and buy from a company that didn’t pay for the exposure. PR also helps promote thought leadership and has a positive impact on the brand’s reputation in the community.

QR Code: Quick Response Code

These are those black-and-white codes you can scan with your phone. They bridge the gap between offline and online marketing. I’ve seen these used both brilliantly and idiotically. The worst QR code I’ve seen? A giant billboard on the highway for a local dentist … because scanning a massive QR code while driving is always a great idea...

RFP: Request for Proposal

Businesses send RFPs to certain agencies asking them to bid on a project. An RFP works great because businesses can outline their requirements and budget up front and then allow agencies to send in custom quotes for their project.

ROI: Return on Investment

The ultimate success indicator. ROI is how much net profit your company made from any given marketing campaign or group of campaigns over a period of time.

ROPS: Rework, Optimize, Publish, and Share

ROPS is a strategy we use to update existing blog content that is either not performing or needs updating. Learn more about the process in this blog.

RSS: Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary

Typically used for blog posts and news stories, RSS feeds allow users to subscribe to your feed via email or their web browser and be notified whenever a new post is published. This blog has an RSS feed. Why not subscribe and see what it looks like?

RT: Retweet

On X (formerly known as Twitter), this feature allows users to simply repost something interesting from another user. This feature is what allows posts to go viral and gain more exposure than the follower base of the original poster.

SaaS: Software as a Service

Software hosted by another company and used in a web browser via the Cloud. HubSpot, Dropbox, Google Drive, and many Email Service Providers are SaaS companies.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing

These are the paid ads you see at the top and bottom of search results. Search engine marketing is bidding on keywords and showing your ads to bring clicks back to your site.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of positioning your content and website so it can rank well on and draw traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs). 

SEO includes both on-page SEO, where you attempt to make alterations to your web code and content to improve its ranking, and off-page SEO, where you try to reach out to individuals outside of your company to acquire backlinks and traffic from other sources.

SER: Search Engine Ranking

Every search engine ranks a website or web page on the basis of the quality score known as a search engine ranking. 

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

These are the pages that are shown by the search engine when a user searches for some keywords.

SLA: Service Level Agreement

This outlines, in writing, the level of service expected from a service provider. Whether it be a hosting company for your website or a content marketing agency. SLAs outline what is expected from each party.

SME: Subject Matter Expert

(Pronounced smee). An expert on a given subject, generally of a technical or scientific nature.

SMM: Social Media Marketing

Similar to SEM, this is the practice of placing ads on social media sites like Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, or Pinterest, among others.

SQL: Sales Qualified Lead

An MQL qualifies as an SQL when the sales teams and marketing teams agree that the contact has demonstrated enough interest and is a good enough fit to initiate a sales conversation. Typically, where the marketing to sales handoff occurs.

SSoT: Single Source of Truth

This is the single place where your business data is stored. Things like contact information, website and email statistics, CRM information, etc. Many businesses have their data stored on various platforms, which makes managing it rather difficult.

ToFu or TOF: Top of Funnel

The stage a user is at in their buyer’s journey when they’re aware that a problem exists, but do not quite have it defined. Users in this stage should be served content that helps them identify the symptoms of their problem, and propose possible solutions.

TYP: Thank You Page

After submitting information on a landing page, customers are immediately redirected to a thank you page that thanks them for their submission and provides them with potential next steps. Thank you pages are important in lead nurturing strategy because they deliver the offers individuals are seeking, and they can position other relevant content as a next step.

UI: User Interface

Also called a Graphical User Interface (GUI), this is the “look and feel” of your website or app. There’s a psychology behind designing a helpful user interface, and a UI can either make or break your business.

USP: Unique Selling Proposition

What makes you different than your competition? Not necessarily better. Just different. That’s your Unique Selling Proposition. Find it and dramatize it.

UTM: Urchin Tracking Module

Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) codes are snippets of code attached to the end of a URL to pinpoint specific sources of traffic to a website. At a minimum, UTM codes include a traffic source, a medium, and a campaign name.

They may also contain keyword terms and content identifiers. They are commonly used to measure traffic from specific sources that are harder to track, like individual social posts, QR codes, or email CTAs. 

UV: Unique Visitor

A single user (person) of a website or app.

UX: User Experience

This is more than just the design of a user interface. This is the experience users have while interacting with it. Are they happy? Confused? Frustrated? Much of CRO is optimizing the user experience.

WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get

This term refers to the ability of software to show users exactly how every content will look with no need for additional work or coding. The idea behind WYSIWYG is that any changes made on the screen are automatically reflected in the final output without any extra steps necessary.

The end...or is it?

Craving more? Don't worry — the list of content marketing acronyms is only going to grow as our technology evolves and new tools are released. We’ll stay on the cutting edge of what’s going on so you don’t have to worry about it.  Sign up today to get the right amount of inspiration sent straight to your inbox.

PS: This list was updated in January 2024. Have an addition of your own? Reach out and let us know we're missing!