The AI & marketing glossary
54 terms your AI Experts use — SEO, ads, email, agents and the business metrics that matter — defined in plain language for owners, not engineers. Each links to the Experts who work with it.
AI & agents
- AI Agent — An AI that doesn't just answer questions — it carries out multi-step work toward a goal and hands you the finished result.
- Large Language Model (LLM) — AI trained on massive amounts of text so it can read, write, and reason in plain language — the engine behind ChatGPT.
- Prompt — The instruction you give an AI — what you want it to do — written in plain, everyday language.
- Prompt Engineering — The skill of writing instructions that get an AI to reliably produce the result you actually want.
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) — A method that lets an AI look up your real information before answering, so its work is grounded in facts, not guesses.
- AI Hallucination — When an AI states something false or made-up as if it were true — confidently and convincingly.
- Token — The small chunk of text an AI reads and writes in — about a word or part of one — and the unit AI usage is measured in.
- Context Window — The amount of text an AI can keep in mind at once — its short-term working memory for a single task.
- Fine-Tuning — Further training an AI on your own examples so it more naturally matches your style, terms, and way of working.
- Embedding — A way of turning text or images into numbers that capture meaning, so AI can measure how similar two things are.
- Vector Database — A specialized store for AI 'meaning' data that instantly finds the most relevant content for a question.
- Agentic Workflow — An AI that completes a multi-step task on its own — planning, using tools, and adjusting toward a goal.
- Human-in-the-Loop — A setup where a person reviews and approves the AI's work before anything is sent, spent, or published.
- System Prompt — The behind-the-scenes instructions that set an AI's role, rules, and behavior for every conversation.
- Multimodal AI — AI that understands more than just text — it can read images, audio, and video, not only written words.
- AI Guardrails — The built-in rules and limits that keep an AI safe and on-track — what it can do and what's off-limits.
SEO & GEO
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — Improving your website so it ranks higher in Google and brings you visitors without paying for each click.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — Getting your business mentioned and cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — Shaping your content so AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews quote you directly in their answers.
- Long-Tail Keyword — A longer, more specific search phrase that fewer people search — but the ones who do are usually closer to buying.
- Programmatic SEO — Automatically generating many similar, useful pages from a data source to capture lots of specific searches at once.
- Schema Markup — Hidden code that labels what's on your page — a price, a review, an event — so search engines understand it exactly.
- Core Web Vitals — Google's scorecard for how fast, stable, and responsive your pages feel to real visitors.
- Backlink — A link from another website to yours — one of the strongest signals that your site is trustworthy.
- Search Engine Results Page (SERP) — The page of results you get after a search — now a mix of links, ads, maps, and AI answers competing for attention.
- llms.txt — A simple file on your website that points AI tools to your most important pages in a clean, easy-to-read form.
- E-E-A-T — Google's shorthand for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust — the qualities that make content credible.
- Topical Authority — How thoroughly search engines and AI tools trust your site as a go-to source on a specific subject.
Advertising
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) — How much revenue you earn back for every dollar you spend on advertising.
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA) — The average amount you pay to win one new customer or complete one desired action.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR) — The share of people who saw something — an ad, email, or search listing — and actually clicked it.
- Conversion Rate — The percentage of visitors who take the action you wanted — buy, sign up, or book.
- Marketing Attribution — Figuring out which marketing efforts actually deserve credit for a sale.
- Lookalike Audience — A new audience an ad platform builds by finding strangers who resemble your existing customers.
- Retargeting — Showing ads to people who already visited your site or engaged, to bring them back.
Email & CRM
- Email Deliverability — Whether your emails actually reach the inbox instead of the spam folder or nowhere at all.
- Drip Campaign — A series of pre-written emails sent automatically on a set schedule or triggered by what a contact does.
- Lead Scoring — A way of ranking leads by how likely they are to buy, so your team focuses on the best ones first.
- Customer Segmentation — Splitting your customers into smaller groups that share something in common, so you can market to each one differently.
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) — A clear description of the type of customer that's the best fit for what you sell.
- Nurture Sequence — A planned series of follow-up messages that builds trust with a lead over time until they're ready to buy.
Business & growth
- Business Model Canvas — A one-page template that maps out how your business creates, delivers, and makes money — all in nine boxes.
- Value Proposition — A clear statement of the specific benefit a customer gets from you, and why it beats the alternatives.
- Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) — The total profit you can expect from one customer across the whole time they stay with you.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — The average amount you spend on marketing and sales to win one new paying customer.
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) — The predictable revenue your business earns every month from subscriptions, memberships, or ongoing plans.
- Churn Rate — The percentage of customers (or revenue) you lose over a given period — the leak in your bucket.
- Unit Economics — What one customer or one sale actually earns you after the cost of winning and serving them.
- Product-Market Fit — The point where you've built something a specific group of people genuinely want and keep coming back for.
- Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) — The practice of steadily improving your website or funnel so more visitors take the action you want.
Social & brand
- Brand Voice — The consistent personality and tone your business uses everywhere it communicates, so it always sounds like you.
- Content Calendar — A simple schedule of what you'll publish, where, and when — so your marketing runs on a plan, not a scramble.
- Engagement Rate — How actively people interact with your content — likes, comments, shares, clicks — versus how many saw it.
- User-Generated Content (UGC) — Content your customers create about your business — reviews, photos, videos, posts — instead of content you make yourself.