Sales & Marketing Acronyms | TLA

Every sector, profession has its own three letter marketing acronyms (TLA’s). While acronyms have their place, they do have the ability to confuse from what is really happening. The below selection of marketing acronyms and what they all mean, are used in our video, demonstrating how ridiculous it can all get! 

If you are a Sales & Marketing Professional, then watch the 'Too Many TLA's' video. Here is what they all mean...

PPC – Pay Per Click  

A business model whereby a company that has placed an advertisement on a website pays a sum of money to the host website when a user clicks on to the advertisement.

CPC - Cost Per Click 

 The amount of money that is charged to a company, that advertises on a website each time someone clicks on the advertisement on the website. Your maximum cost per click (CPC) is the highest amount you are willing to pay for a click on your ad.

ROI – Return on Investment  

The amount of profit, before tax and after depreciation, from an investment made, usually expressed as a percentage of the original total cost invested.

COP - Communication Optimisation Process – (Note: also means Close of Play) 

Methodology/framework for laying the foundation for your campaign and creating the benchmarks for your resulting actions.

CPA – Cost Per Acquisition (Cost Per Action) 

An ecommerce marketing metric that measures the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level.

QTRS – Quarters 

Meaning a period of three months, used especially as a period for which bills are paid or a company’s income is calculated.

CI  - Continuous Improvement 

Recurring activity to enhance performance. OK not strictly a three letter acronym (TLA), but it worked in the script. 

SLA – Service Level Agreements  

An agreement between a business providing a service and a customer, stating what is being provided, quality levels, etc.

MQL – Marketing Qualified Leads  

A lead that the marketing team has deemed more likely to become a customer compared to others. This determination is based on criteria such as which: web pages were visited, content offers were downloaded, CTAs were clicked, and social posts were interacted with.(source: Hubspot).

SQL – Sales Qualified Leads 

Lead is a prospective customer that is ready to talk to a sales team. Typically, this lead has expressed enough interest in your product or service, that they're ready to move into your sales process. Usually, they've been researched and vetted by your marketing department and then handed off to your sales team.(source: HubSpot).

CTR - Click Through Rate 

A ratio showing how often people who see your ad or free product listing end up clicking it. Click-through rate (CTR) can be used to gauge how well your keywords and ads, and free listings, are performing.(Source: Google Ads).

BR - Bounce Rate 

The percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. A Secret Source Specialist is tasked with reducing bounce rates and increasing conversions! 

OTC  - Off the chart! 

Outside of the normal range of measurement - beyond expectations. "Advance sales quickly went off the chart."

B2B – Business to Business 

A form of transaction between businesses, such as one involving a manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer. Business-to-business refers to business that is conducted between companies, rather than between a company and individual consumer.

CTO – Click to Order (Click Through Order)  

The act of clicking on an advertisement or other link on a website. If the banner advertisement relates to the searcher's interest, it is more likely to result in a click through.

GDPR – General  

The Data Protection Act 2018 controls how your personal information is used by organisations, businesses or the government.

CTA – Call To Action (Click to Action)

A prompt to the reader/visitor regarding what they need to do next, their next action. Click to Action means the audience needs to click something, usually a button to download, visit or follow as typical actions. Calls to actions are often missed or underrated (contact us for call to action best practice).

CTA – Cost to Acquire   

This is the overall cost calculated to acquire a customer. Secret Source Specialists like to analyse this to make sales and marketing budgets go further. 

CRM – Customer Relationship Management  

A process in which a business or other organisation administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.

Co. – Company  

Is used as an abbreviation for company when it is part of the name of an organisation. "Hey guys, let's set up a new co.?"

COS  - Content Optimisation System  

Describes software focusing on optimising content to deliver a personalised web experience to customers and prospects.

CMS – Content Management Solution  

Computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content.

CRO  - Conversion Rate Optimisation 

The practice of increasing the percentage of users who perform a desired action on a website.

PP - Per Page  

Referred to as views 'per page' or 'pages per visit'.

GA - Google Analytics 

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing purposes.

MOT – Ministry of Transport

Nearly all motor vehicles have to take an MOT annual test for roadworthiness, the term is often used to refer to an overall health check in other areas of a business.   

DM  - Direct Mail

Can also mean Direct Marketing or Direct Message (Twitter)  

Using physical literature/post to reach a target audience.

PR – Public Relations  

Professional maintenance of a company's brand, products or people in a marketplace.

SOP – Standard Operating Procedure 

A set of step-by-step instructions compiled by an organisation to help workers carry out routine operations.

ASAP – As Soon As Possible 

Short form used when something needs to happen as soon as possible (also see 'need it yesterday')

SITREP – Situation Report  

Used commonly in the military, it is requested when someone needs to understand the current situation. Adopted in everyday life to suggest someone wants to know what is going on. 

CE  - Cost Effective  

Effective or productive in relation to its cost. Why not just say cost effective, as it is a lot more effective?!

QR – Quick Response  

A quick response (QR) code is a type of barcode that stores information and can be read by a digital device, such as a mobile phone.

N/A  - Not Applicable 

Not relevant or doesn't apply to someone or something.

KPI – Key Performance Indicator  

Quantifiable measures used to evaluate campaign performance. Often key indicators are chosen to help give a high-level view and indication on performance. They are often the most important or influential metrics needed.

CAC - Customer Acquisition Cost 

Costs related to acquiring a new customer. Also known as CoCa (Cost of Customer Acquisition). No, we did not make this one up, it is real!

ATL - Above The Line 

Denoting or relating to advertising in the mass media.

BTL - Below The Line 

Relating to advertising by means such as direct mail, email, promotional events, as examples. 

PV  - Pageviews 

A pageview (or pageview hit, page tracking hit) is an instance of a page being loaded (or reloaded) in a browser. Pageviews is a metric defined as the total number of pages viewed (Source: Google Ads).

HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language  

Hypertext Markup Language, a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, colour, graphic, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages.

CSS – Content/Cascading Style Sheets 

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation  

The process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. So if you don't know your Penguins from your Pandas, then pick up the phone to one of our Secret Source specialists today. 

SAAS – Software as a Service  

A method of software delivery and licensing in which software is accessed online via a subscription, rather than bought and installed on individual computers.

RSS – Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary  

A standardised system for the distribution of content from an online publisher.

SM/ SMM - Social Media  (and Social media marketing) 

The use of social media websites and social networks to market a company's products and services.

EOD  - End of the Day 

When everything is taken into consideration. That's enough 'todaying' for today. 

RT – Retweet 

A reposted or forwarded message on Twitter. I know! We could not believe it either, when people use RT instead of Retweet? 

UV - Unique Visitors 

A term used in Web analytics to refer to a person who visits a site at least once within the reporting period. If you thought it meant ultra violet, then you were not on the same wavelength. 

MoM - Month on Month  

Used to compare financial results, sales, etc. for one month with those in previous months.

QoQ - Quarter on Quarter 

Used to compare financial results, sales, etc. for one quarter with those in previous quarters.

YoY – Year on Year 

Used to compare financial results, sales, etc. for one year with those in previous years.

UX – User Experience 

The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

UI – User Interface 

The process of creating, analysing, and enhancing customer interactions with your business operations or software. 

PM - Project Management 

The process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints.

WOM – Word of Mouth   

Spoken communication as a means of transmitting information. The passing on of infomation, such as a recommendation. 

10-4 – OK 

Message received. For the origination of the term, visit Dictionary.com 

BLT – Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato

A sandwich, of course...

We could have gone mad and the list be twice as long! Here are some other three and four letter acronyms that didn’t quite make it to the video!   

AIDA – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action 

BANT – Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline  

CLV or CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value (See LTV) 

B2C – Business to Consumer  

URL – Uniform Resource Locator  

MRR – Monthly Recurring Revenue 

NPS – Net Promoter Score 

OoO – Out of Office  

For a plain speaking marketing agency, book your discovery meeting, call or chat online today.