Digital Marketing Terms: A Practical Dictionary for 2025
Want to understand digital marketing terms without the hassle? This article summarizes a concise glossary of the most relevant terms, core metric formulas, modern GA4/attribution practices, and contextual examples.
Use it as a quick reference when building strategies, measuring performance, or having cross-team discussions.
Key Digital Marketing Terms: A Glossary
Ad & Growth Metrics
- CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of clicks compared to impressions; an indicator of ad relevance and creative appeal to the targeted audience.
- CPC (Cost Per Click): The average cost per click paid by an advertiser.
- CPM (Cost Per Mille): The cost per 1,000 impressions; commonly used for reach/awareness goals.
- CPA (Cost Per Action/Acquisition): The cost per desired conversion action, such as a purchase or registration.
- CPL (Cost Per Lead): The cost to acquire one lead; popular for B2B or high-consideration products.
- ROAS (Return On Ad Spend): Ad revenue divided by ad cost; focuses on the efficiency of ad spend.
- ROI (Return On Investment): (Revenue – Total Cost) / Total Cost; includes non-ad costs like production/agency fees.
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): The total cost to acquire one new customer.
- LTV (Customer Lifetime Value): The estimated revenue value over the entire customer relationship. The LTV:CAC ratio helps assess growth sustainability.
SEO
- On-page vs. Off-page: On-page involves optimizing elements on the page (title, content, internal links), while off-page includes external signals like backlinks. This practice is at the core of the best SEO services in Jakarta.
- Backlink and Anchor Text: A backlink is a link from another site; anchor text is the clickable text that provides context to search engines.
- Canonical: Tells search engines the preferred version of a URL to avoid duplicate content issues.
- Noindex: An instruction to prevent a page from being indexed.
- 301/302 redirect: Directs users and bots to a new URL; 301 is permanent, 302 is temporary.
- Core Web Vitals: Page experience metrics (speed, interactivity, visual stability) that impact the search experience.
- E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness as principles for helpful and reliable content.
- Schema markup: Structured data that helps search engines understand content and display rich results.
Search & Display Ads
- Keyword match types: Exact, Phrase, Broad determine how strictly a search query must match the keyword.
- Quality Score: An estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages; helps diagnose relevance.
- Ad Rank and Auction: Ad Rank determines ad position and is calculated in each auction based on bid, quality, and other factors.
- Performance Max: An automated campaign across Google channels to reach high-value customers and scale conversions.
- Remarketing: Re-targeting people who have previously interacted with your business.
- Lookalike/Similar Audience: Lookalike (social platforms) reaches people similar to your existing customers. Similar Audiences in Google Ads has been discontinued and replaced with a broader, signal-based approach.
Social Media
- Reach: The number of unique people who see your content.
- Impressions: The total number of times your content is displayed (including repeats).
- Engagement rate: The ratio of interactions to audience/views; used to assess content engagement quality.
Email Marketing
- Open rate and CTR (email): Open rate measures email opens; CTR measures clicks on links within the email.
- Deliverability and Spam score: Deliverability is the ability of an email to land in the inbox; spam score relates to the likelihood of being filtered as spam.
- Unsubscribe: The rate of unsubscribing; an indicator of content relevance and frequency.
- Drip/Automation, Segmentation, Lead scoring: Automation sends an email flow based on behavior/segments; lead scoring assigns value based on signals of interest/purchase readiness.
Analytics (GA4)
- Event, Parameter, Conversion: GA4 is event-based; you can add parameters and mark important events as conversions.
- Explorations: Advanced ad hoc analysis to explore user behavior and funnels.
- Attribution model: Comparing last-click vs. data-driven affects how conversion credit is divided among channels.
Quick Formulas + Examples
CTR = Clicks / Impressions.
Example: 1,200 / 60,000 = 2%
CPC = Cost / Clicks.
Example: Rp3,000,000 / 4,000 = Rp750
CPA = Cost / Conversions.
Example: Rp3,000,000 / 120 = Rp25,000
Schedule a free 30-minute branding consultation session with our experts.
ROAS = Ad Revenue / Ad Cost.
Example: Rp24,000,000 / Rp3,000,000 = 8x
ROI = (Revenue – Total Cost) / Total Cost.
Note: Include production/agency fees in the Total Cost.
Funnel & KPIs: TOFU–MOFU–BOFU
- TOFU (Top of Funnel): Focus on reach/engagement (KPIs: CPM, ER). Content: educational articles, short videos.
- MOFU (Middle of Funnel): Focus on consideration/leads (KPIs: CPC, CPL). Content: webinars, case studies.
- BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): Focus on conversions/sales (KPIs: CPA, ROAS). Content: demos, free trials, limited-time offers.
Example campaign structure: combine Search to capture active searches, Performance Max to scale across channels, and Remarketing to drive final conversions. Set KPIs per stage and realistic targets that strategically combine various types of digital marketing.
Modern Tracking: UTM, GA4, GTM, Attribution
- Standard UTMs: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content. Use consistent naming for accurate reports.
- GA4 is event-based: Mark key events like form_submit or purchase as conversions for clear reporting.
- GTM (Google Tag Manager): Use GTM so the marketing team can install/manage tags without major code changes.
- Attribution: Compare last-click vs. data-driven models in GA4; understand their impact on CPA/ROAS before shifting budgets between channels.
Grow Your Business’s Digital Marketing with Dreambox
In short, understand the terms, measure metrics with the right formulas, build a goal-aligned funnel, and ensure high-accuracy tracking with GA4, UTM, GTM, and attribution. Ready to grow with a strategic partner? Understanding the role of a digital marketing agency is the first step.
Learn about Dreambox’s Digital Marketing services, contact the team for a consultation, and read the latest insights on DBX Insight.
