Glossary of Marketing Terms

Strategy and Brand

Marketing mix (4P)

The set of tools a company uses to influence demand for a product: product, price, place and promotion. For services it expands to 7P. It forms the core of tactical marketing decision-making, and note that promotion is only one of the four Ps. Most problems that look like "bad advertising" are actually product or pricing problems.

Segmentation, targeting, positioning (STP)

A three-step process: dividing the market into segments, selecting the target ones and creating the desired perception of the brand in the customer's mind. The foundation of modern marketing strategy. Without STP you run campaigns for "everyone", which in practice means for no one.

Positioning

The final step of STP: the place your brand occupies in the customer's head compared with the competition. It's neither a slogan nor a logo, but the answer to the question "why should I choose you". Good positioning is specific and gives something up.

Brand

A name, symbol, design or their combination that identifies a product and distinguishes it from the competition. A brand carries meanings, associations and the promise a company makes to the customer. It's not visual identity, which is merely its expression.

Brand equity

The added value a brand gives a product beyond its functional properties. It consists of awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty. In practice: it's the reason a customer pays more for the same thing just because your name is on it.

Branding and brand building

The process of deliberately building a brand, from naming through visual identity to communicating values. The goal is a strong, recognizable and preferred brand. Unlike performance campaigns, the effect shows up slowly but accumulates.

SWOT analysis

A strategic analysis tool that maps strengths and weaknesses (internal) and opportunities and threats (external). It serves to formulate strategy. It's useful only when decisions follow from it, not when it ends up as four bullet points in a presentation.

USP (unique selling proposition)

A unique selling advantage: a specific reason why the customer should choose you. It has to be true, important to the customer and hard to copy. "Quality and fair prices" is not a USP, because everyone claims that.

CSR (corporate social responsibility)

A company's voluntary responsibility toward society and the environment beyond what the law requires, covering the economic, social and environmental pillar. It strengthens reputation and trust. It works only when it connects to what the company actually does.

Customer and Research

Target group

A defined group of people a company aims its communication and offer at. It's defined demographically, geographically, psychographically and by behaviour. The more precisely you define it, the more effective your campaigns, and the less money thrown away reaching people who will never buy.

Buyer persona

A model (semi-fictional) profile of the ideal customer: their needs, behaviour, motivations and barriers. It serves as the basis for ad targeting, content creation and overall communication, answering the question "who am I actually writing to". It's the specific, "human" form of the target group.

Marketing research

The systematic gathering, analysis and interpretation of data about the market, customers and competition as a basis for decision-making. It divides into primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative. Even small-scale research beats decisions based on the owner's hunch.

Qualitative research

Research focused on understanding motives, attitudes and the depth of a phenomenon: interviews, group discussions. It works with smaller samples and the results cannot be generalized statistically. It answers the question "why".

Quantitative research

Research that measures phenomena on representative samples using structured instruments, typically questionnaires. It allows statistical generalization and quantification. It answers the question "how many".

Attitudes

Relatively stable evaluative dispositions toward an object, with a cognitive component (what I think), an emotional one (what I feel) and a conative one (how I behave). Crucial for how advertising and persuasion work, and the reason changing an attitude takes longer than changing behaviour.

Communication Mix

Marketing communication

The set of tools a company uses to communicate with the market: advertising, sales promotion, PR, personal selling and direct marketing. Together they form the communication mix. The goal is to inform, persuade and remind.

Marketing communication objectives

The desired states communication should achieve: awareness, attitude, action. They tend to be arranged hierarchically and tied to marketing and company objectives. Without them you cannot evaluate whether a campaign succeeded.

Advertising

Paid impersonal communication through media with a clearly identified sponsor. It serves an informative, persuasive and reminder function. What matters is crafting the message and choosing the media; budget alone guarantees nothing.

Public relations (PR)

Building and maintaining good relationships and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics. Unlike advertising it's usually unpaid and builds on trust and reputation. It can be neither fully bought nor fully controlled.

Sales promotion

Short-term incentives such as discounts, contests, samples and loyalty programmes that stimulate faster or larger purchases. They act on immediate behaviour, less on long-term brand value. Overuse teaches customers to wait for the discount.

Direct marketing

Direct addressed communication with selected customers aimed at eliciting a measurable response: email, direct mail, telemarketing. It builds on databases and personalization.

Personal selling

Direct interpersonal communication between a salesperson and a customer aimed at closing the deal and building a relationship. The most expensive but most effective tool for complex products and high-value orders.

Storytelling

Conveying a message in the form of a story that engages emotions and makes it easier to remember. Used in brand communication and in presentations. It works because people remember stories, not lists of features.

Digital and Performance

Digital marketing

Marketing carried out in digital channels: web, email, social networks, search engines. It's characterized by measurability, targeting and interactivity.

Performance marketing

Data-driven marketing focused on measurable performance (conversions, acquisition) and optimization by return. Typically in digital channels with payment for results. It harvests existing demand brilliantly but doesn't create it, which is why it can't replace brand.

PPC (pay per click)

A paid advertising model where the advertiser pays per click, typically search and display campaigns. It enables fast and measurable traffic acquisition.

Meta Ads (Pixel, CAPI, catalogue)

Meta's advertising system for Facebook and Instagram, in practice one of the strongest acquisition channels. An account is structured into campaign (objective), ad set (targeting) and ads (creatives and copy). Performance rests on data infrastructure: the Pixel (measurement code on the site), CAPI (server-side conversion sending that complements the Pixel) and the product catalogue.

Advantage+ and Lookalike audiences

Advantage+ is Meta's automated shopping campaign with advanced optimization, suitable for acquisition; the key setting is the existing-customer budget cap (0% targets only new customers). A Lookalike is a "similar audience": Meta finds users similar to your source list, typically at 5% similarity.

Remarketing and retargeting

Targeting users who have already interacted with the brand: visited the site, viewed a product, abandoned a cart. It helps turn interest into an order. Typical formats are dynamic product ads (DPA), engagement remarketing and custom audiences based on behaviour.

SEO

Optimizing a website for organic (unpaid) search results. It covers the technical side, content and the link profile. Results come slowly but don't disappear the moment you switch off the budget.

Link building and E-E-A-T

Link building is the building of backlinks, one of the pillars of a site's authority: you create content, offer it to other sites and earn a link. E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) is the principle by which Google assesses content quality, so write from the position of a long-standing, credible expert.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

Optimizing content so that generative AI search engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) recommend and cite it. It complements SEO. In practice, clear "what is…" headings help, along with an author name with verifiable credentials, FAQ sections, structured files such as llms.txt, and a presence on Reddit or LinkedIn, which AI draws from.

Email marketing

A direct, well-measurable channel for messaging and building customer relationships, formally a form of direct marketing. The issues to handle are deliverability (database health, a dedicated tracking subdomain, protecting the main domain), segmentation and frequency. Emails full of images often land in spam. The cheapest channel, and one most companies leave untouched.

A/B testing and CRO

CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) is the optimization of conversion rate, increasing the share of visitors who take the desired action. Its tool is A/B testing: you compare two variants of a single element (CTA, headline, creative, landing page) and measure the impact on a predefined goal. Always test with a clear goal and outside your main strategy.

STDC and AIDA (the buying journey)

Two frameworks for describing the customer journey, used to plan campaigns and content. AIDA: Attention → Interest → Desire → Action. STDC: See (broad audience) → Think (considering) → Do (buying) → Care (customer care). Each stage calls for a different type of message, and the most common mistake is addressing the whole market in the language of the Do stage.

Upsell and cross-sell

Two techniques for raising average order value (AOV). Upsell is offering a more expensive or higher variant of the same product; cross-sell is offering a complementary product alongside what the customer is buying. They apply mainly after purchase and raise revenue without further acquisition costs.

Metrics and Evaluation

KPIs and SMART goals

KPIs are key performance indicators, the metrics by which you manage and evaluate an activity. SMART is the criterion for a well-set goal: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Without a clear goal, neither an agency nor a campaign will help you.

CTR, CPC, CPM

The three basic paid advertising metrics. CTR (Click-Through Rate) is the click rate, clicks ÷ impressions. CPC (Cost Per Click) is the price of one click. CPM (Cost Per Mille) is the price per thousand impressions.

ROAS and PNO

ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) is advertising return in revenue: how many crowns of turnover one crown invested in advertising brought in. PNO (share of costs in turnover) is the inverse Czech indicator, i.e. what percentage of turnover advertising swallowed; roughly PNO ≈ 1/ROAS. No universally "ideal" value exists; it depends on margin and objectives.

Frequency and ad fatigue

Frequency indicates how many times the same person sees the same ad. Above a sensible limit, ad fatigue sets in: the ad wears out, CTR drops and cost rises. It's one of the first signals that creatives need refreshing.

Vanity metrics

Metrics that look good but say nothing about performance on their own, typically likes and follower counts. They're dangerous when success is reported on their basis for a campaign that brought in no orders.

Media

Media planning and media mix

Choosing and timing media (TV, radio, print, OOH, internet) to reach the target group at optimal cost. It works with indicators such as reach, frequency and GRP.

Audience

The recipients of media and communication messages, who can be passive or active. Knowing them is the basis for targeting content and advertising.

Media effects

The influences of media on individuals and society: cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural, short-term and long-term. The subject of numerous theories of media communication, and the reason the effect of brand campaigns shows up with a delay.

Communication theory

The study of the process of conveying meanings following the scheme source – message – channel – receiver – feedback. The basis of interpersonal, marketing and media communication. Most "communication problems" are a fault at one of these five points.

Management and Projects

Project management

Applying knowledge and tools to project activities so that the goal is reached within the given time, budget and quality. It works with the triple constraint of time – scope – cost: change one and the others change too.

Project life cycle

The sequence of project phases from initiation through planning and execution to closure. It helps manage time, resources and risks in each stage.

WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)

A hierarchical breakdown of the total project scope into smaller manageable work packages. The basis for planning, estimates and control, and the fastest way to discover that something is missing from the brief.

Stakeholder

An individual or group that influences a project or is influenced by it: sponsor, team, customer, supplier. Managing their expectations matters as much to success as execution itself.

Management and its functions

The process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling resources to achieve an organization's goals. It takes place at the strategic, tactical and operational level.

Is something missing from this glossary?

I'll keep adding to the glossary based on what you ask about. If a term is missing here or you're not sure how to apply it in your own case, write to me. I'll gladly explain it and add it.