- Artificial intelligence, the ability for computers, programs, or machines to learn and adapt in ways that resemble human thinking. Think “Alexa” or “chatbots.”
- Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message, or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API.
- In the context of social media, an algorithm is how a social platform determines which content to display at any given time to a particular user.
- An umbrella term used to describe both social analysis tools and the information those tools provide.
- A social media target audience is the specific group of people you want to reach with your social channels. They are the people who are most likely to be interested in your content, products, or services. They are likely united by some common characteristics, like demographics and behaviors.
- Bid Strategy
- The primary goal of a manual bid is to get cost per desired action (typically a conversion) down. Facebook offers two bid strategies that can help advertisers achieve lower or more stable costs: “Lowest Cost” (the default) and “Target Cost.”
- Originally a contraction of the phrase “web log,” a blog is a type of digital publication in which one or more authors regularly post content, generally on a specific topic.
- A boosted post is a form of social media advertising in which a brand pays to show a social post to people who do not already follow the brand’s social accounts.
- A series of coordinated activities aimed at achieving a specific goal over a set period of time, with outcomes that can be tracked and measured. It can be limited to a single network, or take place across multiple social media platform.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
- Click-through rate, abbreviated CTR, is a measure of how many people who view a social post, ad, or other piece of content click through to read more, buy, or take some other action. It’s a useful metric because it measures how effectively your social content drives people to your owned web properties. The formula to calculate CTR is number of clicks divided by total impressions. CTR is usually expressed as a percentage.
- Anything that someone has posted or shared with others. Content marketing are methods by which businesses or individuals use their social media content to attract and retain customers or followers.
- A conversion occurs when a social media user or visitor to your website takes a specific, desired action. Making a purchase is often the desired conversion, but it is not the only one. Other conversion examples include lead-generation actions like opting into a newsletter, registering for a webinar, or downloading a whitepaper.
- Conversion Rate
- The number of conversions divided by the number of visitors. It’s a social media metric that allows you to measure how well your social media efforts are working to achieve specific business goals. Learn more: 11 Tips to Improve Your Facebook Ad Conversion Rate.
- Conversion Rate Ranking
- Calculates the likelihood that a person who viewed your ad will complete your optimization goal. (ie- buy a product, subscribe to email list, etc.)
- Cost per Click (CPC)
- A metric for how much each click costs in a pay-per-click advertising campaign. Cost-per-click and pay-per-click are sometimes used interchangeably, but they’re actually two sides of the same coin. Pay-per-click is the type of ad model, and cost-per-click is the fee per click.
- Custom Events
- Actions that fall outside those covered by our standard events, and you can give them a unique name to represent the action taking place. You can use custom events to build Custom Audiences. You cannot use custom events for optimization or attribution unless they’re mapped to a custom conversion. You can then choose which standard event you want the custom conversion optimized towards.
- Embedded Post
- Embedding refers to the integration of links, images, videos, gifs and other content into social media posts or other web media. Embedded content appears as part of a post and supplies a visual element that encourages increased click through and engagement.
- Any form of interaction with your brand on social media. Likes, comments, and shares are all forms of engagement.
- Engagement Rate Ranking
- Explains how your ad’s expected engagement rate compared to ads competing for the same audience. The expected engagement rate calculates the likelihood that a person will click, react to, comment on, share or expand an ad.
- When an action occurs on your website (for example, when someone adds an item to their cart), your Facebook pixel fires and logs it as an event. Events take place either as a result of Facebook ads (paid) or organic reach (unpaid). There are two categories of events: standard and custom.
- A data format used for providing users with frequently updated content (ie- Twitter feed, Facebook post feed, etc.)
- An electronic tag that assigns a geographical location to a photograph or video, a posting on a social media website, etc.
- Google Ads
- A form of online advertising, previously known as Google Adwords. Google Ads appear at the top of the Google search listings for your target keywords. They can also appear on other websites through the Google Display Network.
- A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media websites and applications, especially Twitter, to identify digital content on a specific topic.
- A metric that counts how many times an ad or promoted posts is fetched from the server and displayed on a social network. It is not a measure of how many people have seen the ad. For example, one social media user might have the same ad appear in their newsfeed multiple times over a certain period. Each of these instances is counted as one impression.
- Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
- Key Performance Indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. Organizations use KPIs at multiple levels to evaluate their success at reaching targets.
- Landing Page
- The section of a website accessed by clicking a hyperlink on another web page, typically the website’s home page.
- Landing Page Views
- When a person lands on your ad’s destination URL (landing page) after clicking a link in your ad. Optimizing for landing page views is a way to improve the quality of the traffic your website receives because of your ads.
- Link Clicks
- The number of clicks on links to select destinations or experiences, on or off Facebook-owned properties. (ex: someone clicks Shop Now on your ad and goes to your website).
- Lowest Cost Bids
- Formally known as “automatic bidding,” to get you the lowest possible cost per optimized event while spending the entirety of your budget. The primary benefit of the “Lowest Cost” bid strategy is efficiency. Facebook tries to get you the lowest cost per event in the short-term. The primary drawback of this bid strategy is that achieving those low costs may be short-lived. Results may be unstable as you spend more or competition increases.
- Marketing CRM
- A technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. A CRM system helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability.
- An image or video that represents the thoughts and feelings of a specific audience. Most memes are captioned photos intended to elicit humor. However, there are many viral video memes too. Memes are a worldwide social phenomenon, and an increasingly important aspect of viral marketing and social engagement.
- When a brand is referenced, or “mentioned” on the web. Mentions encompass PR, social media, SEO, and overall brand awareness & popularity. (ie- when a business is tagged on Facebook, tweeted at (@), or linked to, it is factored into the brand’s organic search value.)
- Organic Reach
- The number of people who have seen your post through unpaid distribution. The benefits of organic reach is that you can publish posts for free.
- Page Reach
- The number of users who saw any content posted by your page
- Paid Reach
- The number of people who see a paid social media post in their news feed.
- Partner Integrations
- Involve offering another company’s product that integrates with and complements your own.
- Pay per Click (PPC)
- A type of advertising where an organization pays each time a user clicks on an advertisement.
- Marketing pixels, aka tracking pixels, are essentially these tiny snippets of code that allow you to gather information about visitors on a website—how they browse, what type of ads they click on, etc. Not to be confused with the individual building blocks of every digital photograph and most other digital images. In addition to pixels in a digital image, pixels can refer to pixels in a digital display, a digital camera sensor, and other devices.
- Post Reach
- The number of users who saw your specific Facebook post.
- Quality Ranking
- Quality ranking explains how your ad’s perceived quality compared to ads competing for the same audience.
- RSS Feed
- Really Simple Syndication feed is an online file that contains details about every piece of content a site has published. Each time a site publishes a new piece of content, details about that content—including the full-text of the content or a summary, publication date, author, link, etc.
- Simply indicates that the content appeared in the user’s social feed at least once.
- An online advertising strategy that aims to re-engage website visitors who left a site without converting. Retargeting starts with a small tracking tag embedded in your website’s code. You can then target these prospects on other websites, including social networks.
- Typically a customer’s testimony or rating of a product or service provided by a company. (see google reviews, yelp, etc.)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- The practice of increasing the organic visibility of a web page in search results. Although businesses can pay for ads on search engine results page, SEO refers to “free” tactics that enhance the search ranking of a page.
- Sponsored Posts
- Social media posts in which an influencer or celebrity highlights a brand or product that they have been paid to promote. These posts must be identified as ads using a hashtag like #ad or #sponsored.
- Standard Events
- Predefined actions we recognize and support across ad products. When you add them to your pixel code, you can log those standard events, optimize for conversions and build audiences.
- Target Cost Bid
- Formerly known as “manual bidding,” is only available for the following campaign objectives: App Installs, Conversions, Lead Generation and Catalog Sales.
Facebook recommends using this bid strategy for achieving more stable results as your spend increases. The primary benefit of this bid strategy is cost per event stability. Especially useful when scaling. You may see higher fluctuations in cost until the learning phase is complete (50 events in a week) using this approach. You might also find that your overall cost per event is higher when compared to using “lowest cost.”
- The practice of selecting a specific audience for social ads to maximize conversions. Social networks offer many targeting options based on factors like demographics, location, and interests.
- User-generated Content (UGC)
- Content created by the regular people on social media, rather than brands. Brands collect that content through contests, branded hashtags, or simply reaching out to ask permission. When brands reshare that content with their own followers, they’re implementing a UGC campaign. User-generated content can help increase brand awareness and customer loyalty by allowing businesses to tap into the excitement and creative energies of their customers.
- Digital broadcast of a presentation intended to educate or inform.