Glossary of Terms

Above the fold

The part of the email or webpage that is visible without scrolling – generally more desirable placement because of its visibility.

Alt text

Text that is displayed when an image cannot be rendered (e.g. when images are turned off). The use of alt text can vary between browsers and email clients.

Animated GIFs

GIF is an image file format which is suitable for images with relatively few colours, such as brand logos and charts. The GIF format is widely used to provide simple image animation effects.

API

Application Programming Interface that allows an outside system to have a well defined protocol by which they can access another system’s functionality.

Append

The practice in which a marketer leverages offline data to match profiles with users and contact via e-mail.

Authentication

The process of verifying that the sender of an email is genuine. By equipping email messages with the correct verifiable information both deliverability and sender reputation improve. The most common process is where ISPs checking that the IP address of the sender matches the domain name.

Auto Responder

A program or a script that automatically sends a response when someone sends a message to its address. The most common uses of auto responders are for subscribe and unsubscribe confirmations, welcome emails and customer-support questions.

Blog

An online diary. Typically updated daily, blogs should reflect the personality of the author and the company and are a way of ‘humanising’ your corporate face.

Blacklist

List of IP addresses that are being used by or belong to organizations or individuals that have been identified as sending Spam. Blacklists are often used by organizations and Internet Service Providers as part of their filtering process to block all incoming mail form a particular IP address (or block of addresses).

Breadcrumbs

Generally a way of describing a link trail that appears (normally) within the top area of the page, allowing the user to see their journey throughout the site and click back on previous sections or pages.

Cache

The area of memory where visited web pages are stored on your PC. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, the browser first checks to see if it is in the cache and will retrieve it from there because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server.

Cached link

Within results from many search engines, there is a ‘Cached’ link which allows you to view the version of a page that the search engine has stored in its database. The live page on the web might differ from this cached copy, because the copy dates from whenever the search engine last visited the page and indexed the content. Use the cached link to see when a page was last indexed and, in Google, where your search terms are in it.

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Call to action

A request or direction to ‘do something’ – often the next step that a consumer could take toward the purchase of a product or service. For example ‘Click here to find out more’

Campaign

An email campaign is a series of marketing emails that share a single purpose or theme which can be part of an integrated marketing communication. The campaign theme is the central message that will be promoted.

CAN SPAM

A law, which became effective January 1, 2004, that establishes requirements for those who send email with primary purpose of advertising or promoting a commercial product or service.

CSS – Cascading style sheets

A web design language used to describe how an HTML document should be formatted and can improve accessibility and flexibility in presentation.

Click-through

Used to describe the process of clicking on a link in an email to visit an indexed site. This is an important link in the process of receiving visitors to a site via a marketing email, allowing the sender to track how effective messages are at driving recipients to a website or microsite.

Click To Open Rate

The number of times all links in an email were clicked compared to the number of people who opened the email, represented as a percentage. To determine the click-to-open-rate, divide the number of responses (clicks) by the number of emails opened (multiply this number by 100 to express the result as a percentage).

Conversion Rate

The number of recipients that completed a desired action as a result of an email message compared to the total list size, represented as a percentage. To determine the conversion rate, divide the number of recipients who completed the desired action by the number of emails sent (multiply this number by 100 to express the result as a percentage).

Cookie

A message from a WEB SERVER computer, sent to and stored by your browser on your computer. The main use for cookies is to provide customised Web pages based on their content. They’re how pages remember who you are when you revisit, and how they remember that you have logged on to a particular area of a site. They’re also how you might receive banner advertisements based on your ‘profile’ etc.

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Copy

Written material, in contrast to photographs or other elements of layout, in a large number of contexts, including magazines, advertising, and book publishing.

Creative

Terminology used for copy and content of an email. Email creative can be in many different formats including HTML, text, images, etc.

Deliverability

The process of getting your email messages into the inboxes of your recipients. An ongoing battle for email marketers to avoid being classed as spam, successful deliverability depends on a combination of best practices, including authentication and reputation. However, the rules are constantly changing.

Demographics

Data about the size and characteristics of an audience.

Domain name, Domain Name Server (DNS) Entry

The domain name is the initial part of a web address (up to the first ‘/’). A domain name is translated via huge tables standardised across the Internet into a numeric IP address unique to the host computer where your requested website sits. These tables are maintained on computers called “Domain Name Servers.” Whenever you ask the browser to find a URL, the browser consults the table on the domain name server which that particular computer is networked to consult.

Double Opt-in Email

Marketing The process of collecting permission to email users whereby a submitted email address is not immediately added to a mailing list. Instead, an email is sent to the submitted address asking the user to take additional action to confirm that they do want to receive email communications from the marketer. If the user does nothing, the submitted address is not sent email communications. The user will only be sent email communications if they respond to the confirmation email.

Email Authentication

Practice of validating that an email sender is legitimate to cut down on spam and phishing scams.

Email Frequency

The intervals at which email marketing efforts are repeated: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc.

Email List Manager

Controller of email list or database entity.

Email Marketing Campaign

Coordinated email marketing messages delivered at intervals with a specific objective or goal.

Email Newsletter

An email message sent out to a group of subscribers with relevant information on a topic. Often used to capture Web site visitor’s email addresses, they can also be used to keep in touch with existing customers, or simply as a means of distributing new product information.

Email Service Provider (ESP)

A company that provides email marketing tools and services.

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Filters

Used to refer to spam filters, implemented by email clients or ISPs to stop spam emails from reaching users’ inboxes.

Flash

Flash is a web design technology created by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe. It facilitates a more interactive interface to be created with more impressive visuals but has it’s drawbacks, such as reduced accessibility, poor SEO and cost of updates.

Frames

An old-fashioned format for web documents that divides the screen into segments, each with a scroll bar as if it were as “window” within the window. Usually, selecting a category of documents in one frame shows the contents of the category in another frame. Although there is a place for the odd frame in a modern website, their use as the foundation of a site is considered obsolete.

Friendly from address

An easily recognisable sender email address.

From Name

The name by which the sender of an email is known.

From address

The email address from which an email is sent.

Geo Targeting

The ability to target users by geography such as city, state, country and postal code.

Hard Bounce

An email address that is rejected by the receiving server for a permanant reason (example: “email address does not exist”). Hard bounces are not vaild email addresses and should be removed from lists.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a browser. HTML is used to structure information – denoting certain text as headings, paragraphs, lists and so on – and can be used to define the semantics of a document.

Image blocking

Many email clients now have images turned off as standard unless the sender is included in the users’ address book, meaning that users have to take an action in order to view the images in an email.

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Inbox preview tool

A tool which allows email marketers to generate a snapshot of how a marketing message will appear to the recipient in a variety of different email clients.

Internet Service Provider (ISP)

A business that provides an individual or a company with access to the internet. Some methods of providing this service are through dial-up telephone, cable, or high-speed DSL circuit. AN ISP might also offer various technical services.

IP Address or IP Number

(Internet Protocol number or address). A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2. Every machine on the Internet has a unique IP address.

Javascript

A scripting language that can make web pages more animated and dynamic in terms of graphics and navigation.

Junk button

Many email clients now include a button in their inbox to allow a user to mark a message as junk or spam without opening it. This can damage a sender’s reputation. Marketing messages can fall foul of this system when recipients mark legitimate messages as junk.

Landing page

The page on a website where the visitor arrives having clicked on a link in the email (which may or may not be the home page).

Links

Text or images in an email which, when clicked direct the recipient to another online location, usually a webpage.

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List Segmentation

Breaking a list into smaller pieces for the purpose of targeting recipients with specific characteristics or demographics.

Microsite

An addendum to the main brand website which can be easily edited to match the formatting of a marketing email without changing the primary website.

Multi-part Email

An email that is sent with different versions – usually html, text and AOL. The recipient’s email client settings determine which version is delivered to that inbox.

Open rates

The amount of emails sent which have been opened by recipients. Used to track success of email campaigns.

Opt-in Code

Code posted on the webpage of a company’s website that allows a subscriber to signup for email from the company and be automatically added to that company’s email list.

Phishing (pronounced “fishing”)

Refers to email scams whose purpose is identity theft. Identity thieves send fraudulent email messages with return addresses, links, and branding that appear to come from credit card companies, banks and some of the Web’s most well known sites. These messages are designed to “phish” for personal and financial information (e.g. passwords, usernames, social security numbers, credit card numbers, mother’s maiden name, etc.) from the recipient. For examples, see www.anti-phishing.org.

Privacy Policy

A clear description of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they do, and do not do, with the data. Your privacy policy builds trust especially among those who opt-in to receive e-mail from you or those who register on your site. If subscribers, prospects and customers know their information is safe with you, they will likely share more information with you making your relationship that much more valuable.

Reading/preview pane

An area in an inbox which can show the recipient the content of the email without being opened.

Renderability

The process of getting all aspects of your email messages to load properly and look as intended.

Reputation

The reputation of the sender impacts directly on deliverability rates. Building a goodreputation can be helped by avoiding spam words and sending relevant, timely emails. When a recipient labels your email as spam it puts a black mark against your name, directly affecting deliverability of future emailing campaigns.

RSS or RSS feeds

Short for “Really Simple Syndication” (a.k.a. Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary). Any website can issue an RSS feed. When a user subscribes to this feed, they are alerted to new additions to the feed since they last read it – for example a new item of news, new blog post, new email alert etc. In order to read RSS feeds, you must use a feed reader, which formats the code into an easily readable format.

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Script

A script is a type of programming language that can be used to fetch and display Web pages. There are many kinds and uses of scripts on the Web. They can be used to create all or part of a page, and communicate with searchable databases. Forms (boxes) and many interactive links, which respond differently depending on what you enter, all require some kind of script language. When you find a question mark (?) in the URL of a page, some kind of script command was used in generating and/or delivering that page. Most search engine spiders are instructed not to crawl pages from scripts, although it is usually technically possible for them to do so.

Segmentation

The process of separating your overall mailing list into small groups (or segments) in order to test the effectiveness of aspects of your campaign by sending variations to each group.

Server, Web Server

A computer running web server software, assigned an IP address, and connected to the Internet so that it can provide documents via the Internet. Also called HOST computer.

Server-side

Something that operates on the server computer (the one providing the Web page), as opposed to the “client” computer (your own home PC).

Social network bookmarking links

Some ESPs include a link in your marketing emails so that recipients can post it to popular social networking sites such as Facebook. This is a way of facilitating viral marketing.

Spam

Unsolicited commercial email. The term normally given to commercial email sent without the recipient’s permission.

Spiders

Robot programs, sometimes referred to as “crawlers”, “knowledge-bots” or “knowbots” that are used by search engines to roam the Internet, visiting sites and databases to keep the search engine database up to date. They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones. Their findings are then integrated into the “home” database. Most large search engines operate several robots. Even so, the Web is so enormous that it can take a long time for spiders to cover it, resulting in a certain degree of out-of-datedness (or ‘link rot’) in all search engines.

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SSI commands

SSI stands for “server-side include,” a type of HTML instruction telling a server to dynamically generate data, usually by inserting variable contents based on user input into a fixed template web page. Used especially in database searches.

Straplines

An advertising slogan used as a secondary sentence attached to a brand name.

Sub-domain

e.g. account-name.circulator.com – circulator is the domain, account-name.circulator is the sub-domain.

Subject line

The title of the email which is usually displayed in the inbox.

Targeting

Selecting a specific group of people to send a message to, often through segmentation of data.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of any Web Site or File.

Viral Marketing

A type of marketing that is carried out voluntarily by a company’s customers. It is often referred to as word-of-mouth advertising. Email has made this type of marketing very prevalent. Tools such as “send this page, article or website to a friend” encourage people to refer or recommend your company product, service or a specific offer to others.

Web text

Visible text that can be manipulated by HTML code.

XHTML

Extensible Hypertext Markup Language – a hybrid between HTML and XML that is more universally acceptable in Web pages and search engines than XML.

XML

Extensible Markup Language. XML is very useful for pages emerging from databases and other applications where parts of the page are standardised and must reappear many times.

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