We need to align our objectives with company-wide KPIs—CTR, CPA, CPL, you know the drill. What’s your bandwidth? Any ETA on that deliverable? We’ll need a new LP for the PPC group, optimized for SEO, of course. Oh, and make sure it ladders up to the broader OKRs.
HUH?
If you’re new to digital marketing, or generally apathetic to acronyms, reading that might have felt…questionable. We’ve all been there.
No need to worry, though, Division-D is here to help define the common digital marketing terms you might see, note their acronyms, and get you up to speed on why they’re essential to digital marketing campaigns.
Types of Digital Marketing
Today, there are more types of marketing than ever before. Here are a few of the most popular:
Business to Consumer Marketing (B2C): Marketing that creates emotional connections and encourages quick decisions, often through social media, influencers, email, or display ads that highlight ease, benefits, and lifestyle fit.
Business to Business Marketing (B2B): Marketing from one business to another. It’s more logic-driven and focused on long-term value, with tools like paid search, email, and thought leadership helping generate leads and build trust over time.
Omnichannel Marketing: A strategy that makes every brand interaction, whether online, on mobile, or in-store, feel connected. It ensures messaging is consistent and seamless no matter where your audience engages.
Growth Marketing: A fast-paced, data-focused approach that tests what works across the marketing funnel. It’s less about big campaigns and more about constant experimentation to drive real, measurable results.
Affiliate Marketing: A performance-based strategy where partners (affiliates) promote your products and earn commission only when they deliver results, like clicks, leads, or sales. Great for expanding reach with low risk.
Interested in what marketing strategy is best for your brand? Contact us.
Performance Marketing: Marketing where you only pay for results. Whether it’s a click, a form submission, or a sale, every tactic, like paid search or social, is optimized to drive ROI.
Content Marketing: Creating helpful, relevant content (think blogs, videos, infographics) that draws people in. It builds trust and awareness, guiding potential customers to your brand without a hard sell.
Email Marketing: A direct line to your audience. Email keeps people informed, engaged, and coming back through targeted messages, personalized offers, and ongoing relationship-building.
Brand Marketing: Focused on the big picture: how people see and feel about your brand. It’s about telling your story, building trust, and creating a lasting impression across all touchpoints.
Programmatic Advertising: What is it?
This is a big one, so we figured we’d dedicate an entire section to programmatic advertising. It’s extremely prominent in the digital marketing space and an area you’ll want to familiarize yourself with.
Programmatic Advertising Meaning: This is a type of advertising that uses automated technology to buy and sell digital ad space in real time. It relies on data and algorithms to deliver ads to the right audience across websites, apps, and streaming platforms.
Demind-Side-Platform (DSP): A DSP is a tool advertisers use to buy digital ads programmatically. It lets them set targeting, budgets, and bids, then places ads across multiple platforms automatically.
At Division-D, we like to think of DSPs as shopping malls. You’ve got your central site, with tons of store options to shop from. In this case, your ad inventory options represent the ‘stores’ within the DSP!
Programmatic Buying: The automated process of purchasing digital ad inventory, often through real-time bidding. It helps advertisers reach targeted audiences efficiently and at scale.
Supply-Side-Platform (SSP): An SSP helps publishers sell their ad space programmatically. It connects to ad exchanges and ensures the highest bidder wins the impression, maximizing revenue.
Digital Advertising Channels: Where Ads Are Delivered
Search: Applies to paid search and search engine optimization (SEO); helping brands appear at the top of search engine results when users are actively looking for relevant products, services, or information.
Social: Ads served on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X, often highly targeted by user behavior and interests.
Email: Direct messages sent to a user’s inbox to promote products, offers, or content, typically using segmentation and personalization.
Video: Ads that appear before, during, or after video content on platforms like YouTube or embedded across the web.
Connected TV (CTV): Ads delivered through internet-connected TVs and streaming devices (e.g., Roku, Fire TV), shown during on-demand content.
Over-The-Top (OTT): OTT advertising delivers video ads via streaming services that bypass traditional cable, including mobile, desktop, or CTV.
Audio: Ads played on music streaming platforms (like Spotify or Pandora) or embedded in podcasts.
Influencer: Brand messages delivered through content created by individuals with engaged followings across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.
Digital-Out-Of-Home (DOOH): Digital ads displayed in public spaces like billboards, transit screens, or elevators.
Display: Banner, rich media, or static image ads shown on websites or apps, typically via programmatic platforms.
Native: Ads designed to match the look and feel of the content surrounding them, often found within articles or feeds.
Digital Advertising Formats & Placements: Ad Types and Their Specific Locations
- Banner Ads: Static or animated display ads
- Video Ads: Pre-roll, mid-roll, or in-feed video content
- Text Ads: Search engine results or sponsored listings
- Carousel Ads: Scrollable sets of images or videos
- Stories: Short, full-screen vertical media
- Reels / Shorts / TikToks: Short-form vertical videos, often with audio
- Audio Ads: Voice-only ads played during streaming content
- Sponsored Content: Branded editorial-style placements
- IGC (Influencer-Generated Content): Content created by influencers
- CGC (Creator-Generated Content): Brand-directed, creator-style content
Channel vs. Format. vs Placement: What’s the Difference?
These three terms are often used interchangeabley, but they refer to different parts of a digital campaign. Understanding how they work together will give you a much clearer picture of how ads are delivered online.
A channel is the platform or environment where your ad runs. Think of it as the digital “location.” It’s how and where your audience encounters your brand.
A format is the type or style of the ad itself. It’s how the content is presented and how users engage with it. The same format can often appear across multiple channels.
A placement is the specific surface or position within a channel where your ad shows up.
In short:
- The channel is the “where”
- The format is the “what”
- The placement is the “exact spot”
Interested in seeing creative examples? Click here.
Marketing Analytics, Metrics & Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
No matter the channel or tactic, effective marketing comes down to results—and results are measured through metrics and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). These analytics tell the story of what’s working, what’s not, and where there’s room to improve.
Here are some of the most commonly used metrics in digital marketing:
- Impressions: How many times your ad or content was shown.
- Reach: The number of unique users who saw it.
- Clicks: How many people interacted by clicking.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that led to clicks.
- Engagement Rate: Total interactions (likes, comments, shares, etc.) divided by reach or impressions.
- Video Views & Completion Rates: How many people started and finished a video ad.
- Follows/Subscribers: Growth in audience on social or owned platforms.
- Conversions: Actions that matter (purchases, sign-ups, downloads, etc.)
- Conversion Rate (CVR): Conversions divided by clicks.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): How much you paid per click. Not to be confused with Pay Per Click (PPC).
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The cost to gain a customer or lead.
- Cost Per Engagement (CPE): The cost per like, comment, or share.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated divided by ad spend.
- Influencer Metrics: Reach, engagement rate, content saves, branded tag performance, and conversions.
- Attribution: Understanding which touchpoints contributed to a conversion.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of users who leave a landing page without taking action.
- Open Rate / Click Rate: How many opened or clicked through your paid media.
We can report on all of the metrics and more. Ad measurement is paramount in the digital space, and if you aren’t capturing accurate data, you’re wasting time and spend.
Wrapping It Up: Using These Terms to Work Smarter
Digital marketing is packed with terms, tools, and tactics. It can be hard to keep up. But as long as you’re putting in the work, keeping your strategies concise, and taking the time to learn, you’re on the right track.
Whether you’re brushing up on the basics or building a campaign from the ground up, understanding the core concepts like channels, formats, placements, and KPIs is key to making smarter, more strategic decisions.
It doesn’t hurt to have a partner with over twenty years of experience, either.
