Glossary — Frequently asked online marketing terms explained simply

Digital marketing is full of jargon. This glossary explains the most common terms in plain language.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file that websites can store in a browser. Cookies can be used to recognize visitors, remember settings, or enable analytics and personalization.

What is a conversion?

A conversion happens when a user completes a defined action — for example, starting a trial, submitting a lead form, or buying a product.

What is website analytics?

Website analytics means measuring user behavior on a website with tools such as Google Analytics. It helps evaluate goals and performance.

What is retargeting / remarketing?

Retargeting (often called remarketing) means showing ads to users who already visited your website.

What is GA (Google Analytics)?

GA is short for Google Analytics, one of the best-known web analytics tools.

What do SEA and SEM mean?

SEA = Search Engine Advertising.
SEM = Search Engine Marketing.
In practice, both are often used for paid search ads.

What does SEO mean?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization: improving your website so it ranks better in organic search results.

What is a SERP?

SERP means Search Engine Results Page — the list of results shown after a search query.

What is a CTA?

CTA means Call To Action — a clear instruction to the user, for example “Subscribe now” or “Get started today”.

What is a snippet?

In SEO context, a snippet is the search result preview (title, URL, description) shown in search engines.

What is a title tag?

The title tag defines the page title shown in browser tabs and search snippets.

What is a meta description?

A short page summary used by search engines in result previews.

What is GTM?

GTM stands for Google Tag Manager, a tool to manage tracking and marketing tags without changing source code each time.

What are AI agents?

AI agents are AI-powered helpers that can do more than write text: within clear limits, they can read data, prepare decisions and trigger steps in tools. In marketing, an agent might summarize a new lead, write a CRM note and draft a follow-up for approval. More: AI agents for SMEs.

What is an LLM?

LLM means Large Language Model: a language model that can understand, summarize and generate text. Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini use LLMs to answer prompts, draft content or analyze information.

What is a prompt?

A prompt is the instruction or question you give to an AI tool or LLM. In marketing, a good prompt can include audience, tone, offer and output format so the result is usable.

What is a prompt set?

A prompt set is a fixed collection of prompts used repeatedly for testing, monitoring or content work. In AI visibility tracking, a team might test the same brand, category and competitor questions every month.

What is prompt coverage?

Prompt coverage describes in how many prompts from a defined prompt set a brand, source or website appears in AI answers. If a brand is mentioned in 6 out of 20 relevant prompts, its prompt coverage is 30 percent.

What is GEO?

GEO means Generative Engine Optimization. It is the practice of improving content, brand entities and sources so AI search systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews can understand and cite them. More: GEO explained.

What is AEO?

AEO means Answer Engine Optimization. It structures content so answer engines can provide direct answers to concrete questions, for example through definitions, FAQ sections and citeable explanations.

What is LLMO?

LLMO means Large Language Model Optimization. It describes work that makes content and brand information easier for large language models to find and understand, similar to how SEO helps search engines.

What is AI visibility?

AI visibility describes how visible a brand, website or source is in answers from AI tools and AI search systems. Practically, it asks whether your brand is mentioned, recommended or cited for relevant prompts.

What is AI search monitoring?

AI search monitoring means regularly checking how AI search systems answer relevant questions. A team can track whether its own brand, competitors or sources appear in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews.

What are Google AI Overviews?

Google AI Overviews are AI-generated answer blocks in Google Search. They summarize information from multiple sources and can complement or partially replace classic organic results.

What is citation share?

Citation share describes the share of AI answers in which a specific source is cited or linked. If your blog appears as a source in 4 out of 20 tested AI answers, that is a visibility signal.

What is brand mention rate?

Brand mention rate describes how often a brand is mentioned across a set of AI answers, search results or monitoring hits. It helps estimate whether a brand is present in a relevant topic area.

What is share of voice?

Share of voice describes a brand’s visibility share compared with competitors. In marketing, it can refer to search results, social mentions, media mentions or AI answers.

What is AI referral traffic?

AI referral traffic means website visits that come from AI tools or AI search systems. Examples include clicks from Perplexity, ChatGPT browsing features or other answer systems that link to a source.

What is a brand entity?

A brand entity is the recognizable digital identity of a brand: name, website, people, topics, products, social profiles and sources that belong together. The clearer this entity is, the easier search engines and AI systems can understand the brand.

What is llms.txt?

llms.txt is a text file on a website that can give AI systems and LLM crawlers important content pointers or context. It is not an official SEO standard like robots.txt, but it can support AI discovery.

What is structured data?

Structured data is machine-readable information in a website’s code. It can explain to search engines whether a page is an article, FAQ, person page or organization page.

What is FAQPage schema?

FAQPage schema is structured data for pages with questions and answers. It helps search engines and AI systems recognize which questions a page answers directly.

What is BlogPosting schema?

BlogPosting schema is structured data for blog articles. It can describe title, author, publish date, image, topics and the main page of the article.

What is Person schema?

Person schema is structured data for a person, such as an author, consultant or founder. It can connect name, role, expertise and profiles on other platforms.

What is Organization schema?

Organization schema is structured data for companies or organizations. It helps describe a brand’s name, website, logo, social profiles and contact details in a machine-readable way.

What does CRM mean?

CRM means Customer Relationship Management. It usually refers to a system or process for managing contacts, leads, customers, deals and communication.

What is GA4?

GA4 means Google Analytics 4, Google’s current analytics platform. It measures website and app behavior with a stronger event-based model than older Universal Analytics setups.

What does GSC mean?

GSC means Google Search Console. The tool shows which queries and pages create impressions and clicks for a website in Google Search.

What is brand monitoring?

Brand monitoring means tracking mentions of a brand, person or product across the web, social media, news, forums or AI answers. It helps teams spot opportunities, criticism, PR signals and new topics earlier.

What is Brand24?

Brand24 is a social listening and brand monitoring tool. It collects mentions from different sources and helps teams analyze brand, competitor or campaign signals.

What does ICP mean?

ICP means Ideal Customer Profile. It describes the type of customer that best fits an offer, for example by industry, company size, region, need and buying readiness.

What is Ahrefs Brand Radar?

Ahrefs Brand Radar is an Ahrefs tool for analyzing brand and topic visibility. In AI visibility work, it can help check where brands, competitors and sources appear in search and AI-adjacent results.

What does KPI mean?

KPI means Key Performance Indicator, a metric used to evaluate success. Marketing KPIs can include leads, conversion rate, cost per lead, organic clicks or AI visibility.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation means using software to automate recurring marketing tasks. Examples include email sequences, lead nurturing, CRM updates, segmentation or internal campaign alerts.

What is workflow automation?

Workflow automation connects individual steps between tools automatically. Example: a form is submitted, a CRM contact is created, a Slack notification is posted and a follow-up draft is prepared.

What does consent mean in marketing?

Consent means permission. In online marketing, it usually refers to whether a person has allowed tracking, cookies, email communication or the processing of specific data.

What is lead triage?

Lead triage means quickly sorting and prioritizing new leads. A team checks whether a lead is a good fit, whether important data is missing and what the next step should be.

What is content repurposing?

Content repurposing means turning existing content into new formats. A blog post can become a LinkedIn post, newsletter section, FAQ questions or a sales snippet.

What is an API?

An API is an application programming interface that lets software systems exchange data or trigger actions. In marketing, APIs can connect CRM, newsletter tools, website forms and reporting systems.

What does UTM mean?

UTM parameters are small additions to URLs that help analytics tools recognize campaign sources. A newsletter link can include utm_source=newsletter so traffic is attributed correctly later.

What is a CMS?

CMS means Content Management System. It helps manage websites and content, for example blog posts, landing pages, images and menus, without editing code for every change.

What does QA mean?

QA means Quality Assurance. In marketing, it can mean checking links, tracking, copy, forms, images and approvals before a campaign goes live.

What does CPA mean?

CPA means Cost per Acquisition or Cost per Action. It shows how much a desired action costs, for example a lead, signup or purchase.

What does GPT mean?

GPT means Generative Pre-trained Transformer. It describes a family of generative AI models that can create text, ideas, summaries or analysis from prompts.

What does ROAS mean?

ROAS means Return on Ad Spend. It shows how much revenue is generated compared with ad spend, for example 5 euros revenue for 1 euro of ad budget.

What does DSA mean?

In Google Ads, DSA usually means Dynamic Search Ads. Google creates search ads automatically from website content and search queries instead of relying only on manually built keyword ads.

What does DTC mean?

DTC means Direct to Consumer. It describes a business model where brands sell directly to end customers instead of mainly through retailers or intermediaries.

What is competitor share?

Competitor share describes how visible competitors are compared with your own brand. In AI visibility work, it can mean how often competitors are mentioned or cited in AI answers.

What does CTR mean?

CTR means Click Through Rate. It shows how many people click after seeing an impression, for example in search results, ads or emails.

What does CRO mean?

CRO means Conversion Rate Optimization. It improves pages, forms, offers or funnels so more visitors complete a desired action.

What does DACH mean?

DACH is the abbreviation for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In marketing, it is often used when audiences, campaigns or markets in these three countries are considered together.

What does DIY mean?

DIY means Do It Yourself. In marketing, it often refers to guides or setups that teams can implement themselves instead of starting with an agency or large project.

What is a PDF?

PDF means Portable Document Format. In marketing, PDFs are often used for whitepapers, checklists, offers, presentations or downloadable lead magnets.

What does SME mean?

SME means small and medium-sized enterprise. In marketing, it usually describes companies with limited resources where tools, automation and campaigns need to stay practical, maintainable and affordable.

What is Gumshoe?

Gumshoe is a GEO and AI search monitoring tool that measures how AI systems talk about brands. Its distinctive angle is persona-based testing: it simulates questions from different buyer groups and reports visibility, sources, competitors and sentiment by persona.

What is a synthetic persona?

A synthetic persona is an artificially created user profile that represents a typical audience or decision context. GEO tools can use it to test whether AI systems recommend different brands to a founder, a marketing lead or a technical reviewer.

What is AI citation monitoring?

AI citation monitoring tracks which sources AI systems mention or link in their answers. This matters because a brand can be mentioned without its own website being cited as the supporting source.

What is a citation audit?

A citation audit analyzes which owned pages, competitor pages or third-party sources AI systems use as evidence. It helps identify content gaps, PR opportunities and pages that should become more citeable.

What is a sentiment audit?

A sentiment audit checks whether AI systems talk positively, negatively or cautiously about a brand. In marketing, it helps reveal repeated strengths, weaknesses or objections in AI answers.

What does AI readability mean?

AI readability describes how easily AI systems can read, understand and reuse content as answer material. Clear structure, definitions, FAQ blocks, sources and machine-readable data improve it.

What is AI-visibility?

AI-visibility is another spelling of AI visibility. It means how visible a brand, website or source is in answers from AI tools and AI search systems.