As a video content creator and business owner how can you tell if your efforts are paying off? Are prospects finding your website? Are your email marketing efforts converting subscribers to paying customers? Are your followers engaging with you through your social channels? Where are the opportunities to improve and optimize your campaigns.
All of these questions can be answered through the help of analytics. Below is a list of the top terms to know when it comes to analytics in the areas of search, email, social, online advertising and video. Understanding these terms and paying attention to your marketing analytics is the best way to know what’s working, identify areas for improvement and maximize your profitability. Let’s get started.
SEARCH ENGINE ANALYTICS TERMS
One of the most common places today’s customers turn for solutions to their problems and answers to their questions is the Internet, specifically, search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, with Google being the most popular and widely use. Familiarizing yourself with the terms below will help enhance your understanding of traffic to your website, and how your search analytics measure up.
Bounce rate – The percentage of visitors to a particular website who leave after viewing a single page
Direct traffic – A URL that a visitor types in directly or accesses through their bookmarks
Exit rate – The percentage of site exits from a particular page
Goals – A term used to measure specific user behaviors on your site, often linked to conversion goals
Keywords – A word or phrase used to describe the contents of a webpage
New visitor – A visitor viewing a website for the first time
Organic traffic – Visitors referred by an unpaid search engine listing
Pages/visit – The number of pages a viewer sees/clicks on per visit
Page rank – A Google ranking software that calculates relevancy of a webpage to the choice of keywords searched and determines in which order the results will appear
Page views – Each individual page a visitor views are tracked as a page view. Total page views represent the total number of website pages viewed, also referred to as impressions
Referral traffic – Visitors directed to your site through links on other sites
Returning visitor – A visitor who has viewed a website previously
SEO – Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a website to improve its visibility in unpaid (organic) search engine results
Time on page – The amount of time a visitor spends viewing a specific page on a website
Time on site – The amount of time a visitor spends on an entire website
Visits – Number of visits to a site
EMAIL ANALYTICS TERMS
Whether you’re just starting out building your online fan base, or you already have a tribe of followers, chances are you’ve heard the saying “the money is in the list.” Often times this “lists” refers to your email subscribers. To get the most out of your list and email marketing efforts, be sure to familiarize yourself with these key terms.
Bounce – Emails that are undeliverable, often due to an incorrect email address or the capacity of recipient’s inbox space
Call to action – An instruction to the audience designed to achieve an immediate response, such as “sign up now”
Clicks per delivered – Percentage of the number of received clicks divided by the number of emails delivered to the inbox
Clicks per open – The number of clicks divided by the number of opens, recorded as a percentage
Click through rate (CTR) – Percentage of users who click on a specific URL within the email
Conversion rate – Percentage of users that respond to a call to action in an email
ESP/Email Service Provider – A company that offers email marketing or bulk email services
Marketing automation system – Software platforms and technologies that allow businesses to market effectively and efficiently across multiple channels, including email
Open rate – The percentage of emails opened of the total emails that were sent
Read/open length – The duration of time that an email is open until it is closed
Spam – Unwanted email messages, often irrelevant or inappropriate sent to a large number of email addresses
Subscribe/Opt-in – When a user provides their email address in order to receive communications from a specific sender, giving a specific sender permission to email them
Unsubscribe/Opt-out – When a user chooses not to receive emails from a specific sender
SOCIAL ANALYTICS TERMS
Social media sites are key to many marketing efforts for video products. Platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and LinkedIn are places video content creators can reach and engage with their audiences and customers in real time. Few businesses have equal presence across all social platforms (most focus on just one that resonates the best with their audience). Whatever stage you’re at with your social media efforts, learning these key terms will get you up to speed with the social media lingo.
Comments – A response to something that another user has posted that other viewers can see
Direct message (DM) – A message sent directly and privately to another user or users
Endorsement – When a LinkedIn user recognizes another user for a specific skill
Engagement – Indicates the amount of interaction a specific piece of content receives
Fans – People who “like” a particular Facebook page
Favorite – When a star icon is clicked to represent that a post is liked
Followers – Users who follow a specific account and therefore will see associated postings in their feed
Handle – In the social media world, another word for a username
Hashtag – The use of a # symbol before a word or phrase that helps to categorize information
Likes – A way viewers show approval of a social posting
Mentions – When an @handle is included in the body of text
Post – A message, photo or video displayed by a user via social media
Reach – The number of people who saw a story published by a “friend” in a specific period of time
Retweet – When a Twitter user shares another person’s post with their own followers
Recommendation – In LinkedIn, a positive evaluation written by one user for another to enhance the recipient’s professional credibility
Shares – When a user “shares” a story or picture
Sponsored – A post that indicates paid content is being displayed
Tag – Also known as a mention, a tag creates a link to the profile of another person, often displayed in a photo or in some way associated with a post
Trending – Indicates popular topics on social media, typically Facebook and Instagram and often associated with a hashtag
Tweet – A 140 character message sent from a person’s twitter account that can be viewed and responded to by followers
Views – The number of times a social media post is seen
ONLINE ADVERTISING ANALYTICS TERMS
When you’re ready to start driving traffic to your website or sales page via paid traffic, here are some basic terms you’ll need to know out of the gate. Understanding these metrics for your campaign can help you optimize and fine tune your efforts to continually improve your outcomes.
Cost per click (CPC) – The amount you pay for each click
Cost per conversion – The total cost divided by the number of conversions achieved
CPM – Cost per 1000 impressions of an ad unit
Customer Lifetime Value – The value of each customer measured by the amount of revenue generated over the customers’ lifetime
Return on investment (ROI) – Expressed as a percentage, this is the net profit divided by the return on a particular investment
VIDEO ANALYTICS TERMS
If you’ve been in the digital video business a while, then may be well versed in these basics. However, if you’re a video content creator just getting started publishing your great assets online, here are some key terms to help you understand both the functionality and success of your video in the digital world.
Buffering – The time it takes load data before the video begins to play, where long buffering times can lead to a decrease in viewership
Downloads – The number of times a video file is transmitted to a device/hard drive so that it can be viewed without an internet connection
Engagement – The total number of comments, ratings, favorites, etc. for a particular video often measured over a defined period of time
Host – A place to upload and store videos where they can be shared and viewed
Shares – When a user “shares” a video with contacts or followers via social media, email or other digital channels
Streaming – Video sent over the Internet displayed to viewers in real time
Traffic sources – The places where viewers are searching for and being directed to your video content, where understanding traffic sources can help advise marketing campaigns
Uploads – Moving a video from a computer or device to a video platform, another device, host or the cloud. In order to be shared with viewers, most video content is uploaded by the content creator
Video platform – A service such as Intelivideo enabling users to upload, convert, store and sell video content online
Views – The number of times a video has been watched
Viral video – A video that becomes popular through Internet sharing, most commonly through social media sites
Have a question about a term that is not listed here? No problem! Simply contact us and one of our video analytics experts will be happy to help.