11 acronyms explained to make the online marketing space easier to understand

Maybe you already read my post ’15 expressions explained to make the online marketing spare easier to understand’. While writing that post I noticed that aside from all the strange expressions there are also a lot of acronyms used in the online marketing space, which is why I wrote this post with 11 acronyms explained for you.

Please feel free to write to me about acronyms I missed, I’m sure there is going to be some.

1 – FOMO – Fear of missing out

I mentioned this acronym in my post about expressions that people use in online marketing, and this is what actually makes people buy. If you can create scarcity in some way in regards to your product, people will be more likely to buy it. If the customers fear missing out, and not being able to buy your product again at a later point, or that they know that they have to wait for 2-3 months, they will be more likely to buy.

2 – ICA – ideal client avatar

An avatar is a representation of something or someone. In marketing, it’s a representation of your customer, and the ICA is the representation of your ideal customer.

The reason it’s a good idea to have an ICA is that you can use it in your marketing and your writing. I will go deeper into this in a later blogpost.

3 – SOS – Shiny Object Syndrome

You know that feeling when you are working on a project, and all of a sudden you get this great idea for a new project or blog post, and you just need to drop everything you are doing to do this new thing? This is the Shiny Object Syndrome at its best. It’s all the distractions and brilliant ideas you get when you are working on something, that has nothing to do with the thing you are actually working on.

If you chose to follow these new ideas, you will never get anything done. You will end up jumping from idea to idea because there is always going to be a new shiny idea for you to work on.

So commit to your project and then write your ideas down, and look at them when you have finished what you are currently working on.

4 – CPM – Cost Per Mille

This is often used in Youtube settings – It is the amount paid per one thousand visitors who sees a commercial. For example, if you watch a video on youtube and there is a commercial before the actual video or in the video – The person who owns this video will get a kickback from the advisor for each person who watches the commercial.

5 – CTR – Click Through Rate

This shows how many people actually click on the ads you have running, and get into your site. This is measured in relation to the number of impressions your ad gets.

6 – CPC – Cost Per Click

This is how much you as the advertiser pay for each click you get on your advert.

7 – USP – Unique selling points

This is what makes you unique compared to your competitors. The things that you want to use when you marked yourself towards your ICA.

8 – SEM – Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a broad term that covers everything in relation to marketing via search engines like google and bing – The most well known is probably SEO – Search engine optimization and as is described below. The idea is to been seen more often, and in better spots by the search engines.

This also includes things as paid placement (advertisements on google) and contextual advertising.

9 – SEO – Search engine optimisation

SEO is making your website, blog posts or videos show up when people search for them. The words and terms you use in your post, on your site, and in your video – You optimize those towards the search engines.

10 – KPI – Key Performance Indicators

KPI’s is a term often used in the corporate world, where everything is measured (as it should be). This is the indicators by which people and companies measure success – It would be how many sales per contact a person makes.

11 – MLM – Multi-Level Marketing

This is a term that has big debate around it – however, the basics of it are that it is a marketing form some companies choose, where the brand hires individual distributors, who then create a business based on a mix of product customers and other distributors. Companies like Forever living and Tupperware works like this.

These are products not found in regular stores, as the idea is that the distributor sells directly to the end consumer.

As someone who has been involved with these kinds of companies in the past, I will encourage you to research carefully if this is a business path you choose.

It’s always fun to find out what these acronyms stand for, I think. Especially if you are coming from a different field, where the same acronym might be something totally different.

You can use this site to search for other acronyms and their meaning.