OMG! Here’s Our Helpful Guide to Industry Acronyms!
NASA, SCUBA, ASAP, BRB, and, most importantly, KISS. A brief history on acronyms, to impress your loved ones or maybe win a round in trivia. The first acronyms in the English language date back to 1879, when, you guessed it, the telegraph was popular! Walter P. Phillips gave us the acronym SCOTUS to abbreviate Supreme Court of the United States. I’m not a historian, but that sounds right.
Marketing and sales acronyms have become common in the workplace and have become ingrained in our vernacular. Whether you are new to marketing, working with a marketing agency or just need a refresher, I have canvassed my team to come up with (what we hope to be) a comprehensive list of acronyms that you may hear around the office.
An online list is great, but an alphabetized and nicely designed printable version is a plus! This is something I wish I had when I started in the industry, so if you want to take this list with you, you can download the PDF here.
AIDA: Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action
API: Application Program Interface
B2B: Business-to-Business
B2C: Business-to-Consumer
BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline
BOFU: Bottom of the Funnel
BR: Bounce Rate
CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost
CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing
CASL: Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation
CEO: Chief Executive Officer
CFO: Chief Financial Officer
CIO: Chief Information Officer
CLV or CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value
CMO: Chief Marketing Officer
CMS: Content Management System
COO: Chief Operating Officer
COS: Content Optimization System
CPA: Cost-per-Action
CPC: Cost-per-Click
CPL: Cost-per-Lead
CPM: Cost-per-Thousand (Impressions)
CR: Conversion Rate
CRM: Customer Relationship Management
CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization
CSO: Chief Security Officer
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
CTA: Call-to-Action
CTO: Chief Technology Officer
CTR: Clickthrough Rate
CX: Customer Experience
DM: Direct Mailer
DM: Direct Message
DNS: Domain Name Server
EOD: End-of-Day
EOW: End-of-Week
ESP: Email Service Provider
FTP: File Transfer Protocol
GA: Google Analytics
HTML: Hyper-Text Markup Language
IBL: Inbound Link
IM: Instant Messaging
ISP: Internet Service Provider
KPI: Key Performance Indicator
LTV: Lifetime Value
MoM: Month-over-Month
MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue
MTD: Month-to-Date
NDA: Non-Disclosure Agreement
NPS: Net Promoter Score
NSFW: Not Safe For Work
OBL: Outbound Link
OOO: Out-of-the-Office or Out-of-Office
PM: Project Manager
PPC: Pay-per-Click
PR: Public Relations
PTO: Paid Time Off
PV: Page View
QoQ: Quarter-over-Quarter
QR Code: Quick Response Code
QTD: Quarter-to-Date
ROAS: Return on Ad Spend
ROI: Return on Investment
RSS: Rich Site Summary
RT: Retweet
SaaS: Software-as-a-Service
SE: Search Engine
SEM: Search Engine Marketing
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
SERP: Search Engine Results Page
SLA: Service Level Agreement
SMB: Small-to-Medium Business
SMM: Social Media Marketing
SMO: Social Media Optimization
SOV: Share of Voice
SQR: Search Query Report
SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
TOS: Terms of Service
UGC: User Generated Content
UI: User Interface
URL: Uniform Resource Locator
UV: Unique Visitor
UVP: Unique Value Proposition
UX: User Experience
WOM: Word-of-Mouth
YOY: Year-over-Year
YTD: Year-to-Date
Did we miss one? Let us know! We aren’t too big for our britches to revise our list. Check back with us as we will be updating this list with any missed opportunities and as new acronyms pop up.
