20 Marketing Automation Terms Marketers Should Know

Magdalena Georgieva
Magdalena Georgieva

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This is an excerpt from our new free ebook, The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Glossary. To grab your free copy of the complete glossary, download it here.

It's easy to get overwhelmed with industry terminology, and such confusion can prevent you from understanding critical information. If you are curious about marketing automation, you need to be familiar with the key terms related to this concept. Here are 20 essential marketing automation terms you should know.

marketing automation1. Behavior-Based Marketing Automation

Behavior-based marketing automation refers to a system that triggers emails and other communication based on user activity on and off your site. It enables marketers to nurture leads and send them information only when it is most relevant to their point in the buying cycle.

2. Brand Advocates

A brand advocate is a person who supports your mission and sticks out his or her virtual neck to vouch for you. Make sure to reward your advocates with offers that stand out above typical discounts.

3. CRM

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system that manages interactions with existing and potential customers and sales prospects.

4. Cross-Channel Analytics

Cross-channel analytics track the behavior of your prospects across multiple channels, such as your website, in social media, and on your blog.

5. Cross-Platform Marketing Automation

Cross-platform marketing automation refers to the ability of your emails to display well across different platforms like tablets and mobile devices. If you fail to optimize for mobile, you miss out on a huge opportunity to communicate with potential customers.

6. Customer/Buying Lifecycle

The customer lifecycle is a process that consists of many steps, including research, inquiry, purchase, and usage. Marketers need to facilitate and enrich this process in order to build healthy customer relationships.

7. Drip Marketing

Drip marketing is a synonym for lead nurturing, a series of emails that seek to qualify leads, keep them engaged, and gradually push them down the sales funnel.

8. First-Time Visitor

A lead that has decided to start a relationship with you by trying your product or service for the first time.

9. Internal Sale

Internal sale is a concept that you will most likely encounter in the B2B world. It refers to getting internal approval to purchase a product or service.

10. Interruption-Based Marketing

A traditional type of marketing in which audiences are interrupted with messages to purchase a product or a service. Interruption-based marketing is unsolicited and optimized for immediate conversions.

11. Multi-Channel Marketing Automation

To truly be relevant, lead nurturing and email campaigns need to take into account buyers’ experiences across multiple channels and platforms, such as interactions on social media.

loyalty offers12. Landmark Emails

Landmark emails are the messages that celebrate customer landmarks like birthdays, major milestones, or anniversaries as a customer.

13. Loyalty Offers

Loyalty offers are the exclusive gifts or genuine thank-yous given to loyal customers.

14. Permission-Based Marketing

This type of marketing asks for permission from its audience and seeks to be educational. Permission can come in the form of opting in to receive a newsletter, subscribing to a blog, or following a company in social media.

15. Qualified Lead

A qualified lead is a contact who opted in to receive communication from your company, became educated about your product or service, and is interested in learning more.

16. Repeat Purchase

When customers are happy with a product or service, they engage in repeat purchases. Marketers should stay top of mind for their existing customer base and seek to establish long-term relationships.

17. Revenue Performance Management (RPM)

RPM is a system that improves your interactions with prospects along the sales cycle, measures results, and seeks to maximize revenue.

segmentation18. Segmentation

Segmentation refers to the process of separating your target audience into personas with different needs and preferences. These segments will ideally be marketed to in a way that reflects their specific experiences or interests.

19. Shopping Cart Fetchback/Abandoned Shopping Cart

When someone places an item in their online shopping cart but doesn’t complete his or her purchase, marketers call this an abandoned shopping cart. Abandonment can be reduced through a targeted lead nurturing campaign.

20. Zero Moment of Truth

Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) is a book written by Jim Lecinski, Google’s managing director of US sales & service, and it refers to the customers’ inclination to do product research online before making a purchase.

For a more comprehensive review of important inbound marketing terms, download the The Ultimate Inbound Marketing Glossary here.

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