Popular Email Marketing Terms and Definitions

Whether you are new to digital marketing or just trying to increase your skills, email marketing terms and definitions can get quite confusing and feel like you're learning a new language.

To help, our team at Clever created a comprehensive business, non-profit, and church email marketing guide to serve as a resource and playbook.

This list of a few common email marketing terms will get you started:

• CTA (Call to Action): An explanation of the specific next steps you'd like your audience to take. The CTA could be a hypertext link or button within an email that encourages recipients to make a purchase, sign up for an event, or download a resource.

• HTML Email: An email format that utilizes HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) to incorporate visual elements, formatting, and design, including images, colors, and layout.

• Plain Text Email: An email format that contains only text without any HTML formatting or visual elements. Plain text emails are typically simpler and have a more straightforward appearance.

• Drip Campaign: A series of automated emails sent to subscribers over a specific period of time or based on predefined triggers. Drip campaigns are designed to nurture leads, educate recipients, or guide them through a conversion funnel to a specific and predetermined goal.
  
  
• Segmentation: The practice of dividing an email list into smaller, more targeted segments based on specific criteria, such as demographics, interests, behavior, life-cycle stage, or purchase history. Segmentation allows for personalized, targeted, and relevant email content.
  
  
• Personalization: Customizing email content based on individual recipient data, such as their name, location, past interactions, or preferences. Personalized emails create a more tailored and engaging experience for recipients.
  
  
• Autoresponder: An automated email or series of emails that are triggered by specific events or actions, such as a welcome email upon subscription, an order confirmation, or a birthday greeting. Autoresponders help deliver timely and relevant messages to subscribers.

• Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open an email out of the total number of emails delivered. Open rate is an important metric that indicates the effectiveness of subject lines and sender reputation.
  
  
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of recipients who click on a link within an email out of the total number of emails opened. CTR measures the engagement and effectiveness of your email content and call-to-action.
  
  
• Email Conversion Rate: The percentage of recipients who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, registering for an event, filling out a form, or downloading content, out of the total number of email recipients. A conversion rate reflects the success of your email in achieving its intended goal.
  
  
• Deliverability: The ability of an email to reach recipients' inboxes without being filtered into spam folders or blocked by email service providers. Good deliverability ensures that your emails are successfully delivered to your intended audience.
  
  
• List Hygiene: The practice of regularly cleaning and maintaining an email list by removing inactive or invalid email addresses, reducing the risk of bounces, spam complaints, and maintaining a high-quality subscriber base.
  
  
• Spam Score: A measure of the likelihood that an email will be identified as spam by spam filters. Spam scores are determined based on various factors, including subject lines, content, formatting, and sender reputation.
  
  
• Sender Reputation: The perceived trustworthiness of an email sender based on factors like email engagement, spam complaints, bounces, and adherence to email marketing best practices. A good sender reputation is crucial for email deliverability.
  
  
• Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of recipients who opt-out or unsubscribe from an email list after receiving an email. Monitoring the unsubscribe rate helps gauge the effectiveness and relevancy of your email content.
  
  
• Opt-In: This is the process to describe someone choosing to submit their email address to your organization for email communication. Establishing a clear and easy process that captures a subscribers permission to receive emails is very important for the health of your email list.
  
  
• The Fold: Back in the day, there were these things called newspapers — ask your gramps about that. Today, “the fold” is used to describe the viewable area of an email before it is necessary for the subscriber to scroll to read more. All important information and CTAs should reside above that imaginary cut-off of the screen. Yep, even on mobile.

Need more than email marketing terms and definitions?

Was this list of email marketing terms and definitions helpful? We hope so! Also, this resource unpacks a lot more strategy if you'd like to download it for free.

Email Marketing can be tricky and if this is an area your organization would like assistance with, our team would love to help build your strategy or write out your campaigns, just click here to connect with our team and together we will take your email marketing to a new level!

P.S. Did we miss a popular term? Put it in the comments below and we'll add it.