So I was reading a blog by Amnesia Razorfish – digital agency – and I was introduced to a new acronym today, NUI – Natural User Interface, and it got me thinking about the acronyms I use at work on a daily basis and how foreign they probably are to folk new to the digital media industry.

You will be able to find this information in many places on the web but for my blog readers, you may have heard it here first!

I’ve been working in online marketing in Sydney for the last 8 years and these are the terms I can think of just off the top of my head as I type, so they may be Sydney centric. I’ll add to it over time so you have a glossary of terms.

CPM – Cost per thousand – ad impressions purchased in digital media

CTR% – click through rate. Number of clicks by number of ad impressions shown

CPA – cost per acquisition – buying model for digital media planning and buying, as well as a reporting metric for clients to work out how much it cost them to acquire each action, new sale or customer

CPC – cost per click – buying model for display advertising online or paid search, as well as a reporting metric to measure the effectiveness of your media. How many clicks did you get for your advertising spend = new customers or prospects

CTC% – click to conversion rate – how many acquisitions/ sales/ customers/ sign ups did you get by the number of clicks that the advertising delivered

IR% – interaction rate – mostly used with rich media display banner advertising (expandable ads online) and video advertising

ROI – return on investment. How much value did you get back from the money you spent on advertising

PPC – pay per click (usually referred to in search engine marketing (SEM) or paid search)

SEM – search engine marketing – same thing as paid search. Most common is Google Adwords

SEO – search engine optimisation – non-paid search. Optimising your website so your content shows up as high as possible in organically in Google’s natural search listings. Also called natural search or organic search

eDM – electronic direct mail – an email.

DM – direct mail – a marketing letter you receive in your postal mail box

UAT – user acceptance testing – before a website goes live, a brand must do in depth testing to find all the ‘bugs’ or errors

UX – user experience. This is a technique/ skillset where an expert is employed to review a website to ensure that people visiting said website have the best possible user experience.

That gives you a good oversight of the acronyms used in digital media planning and buying and a couple of key reporting measurements or industry lingo

Update 29 September 2011: I came across another blog post with a glossary of digital terms that was far more extensive than mine. There is a lot of cross over and duplication in the digital terminology we’ve covered this this one really goes into detail in a lot of different areas of digital marketing, online advertising, internet usage, website design etc.

If you want more terms of reference for the digital industry, not just media buying, please comment and let me know.

I can give you a heads up as to what display or affiliates mean.