Glossary

Plain-English marketing & growth glossary

We use a lot of acronyms and shorthand in proposals and reports. Here's what they actually mean.

SEO

AI Overviews: Google's generative answers at the top of many SERPs. They cite sources — being one of those sources is the new ranking goal.
Buyer intent: What the searcher actually wants to do — learn, compare, decide. The single most important lens for keyword strategy.
Generative Engine OptimisationGEO: Optimising content to be cited by AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews). Closely related to traditional SEO but with new ranking signals.
Schema.org: Structured data vocabulary that lets search engines understand your page. Common types: Organization, Service, Article, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList.
Search engine results pageSERP: The page Google shows after a query. Includes organic results, ads, knowledge panels, and increasingly AI Overviews.
Topical authority: Cumulative trust a site builds in a topic by publishing comprehensive, high-quality content over time. Beats backlink scrabbling in 2026.

Paid

Click-through rateCTR: Clicks divided by impressions. Useful for testing creative resonance; rarely meaningful in isolation across the full funnel.
Conversions APICAPI: Server-side event API for Meta. Pairs with the browser Pixel using a shared event_id so Meta dedupes the events and gets cleaner signal.
Cost per LeadCPL: Total spend divided by total leads. Useful but not enough on its own — pair with cost per qualified lead (CPQL) and contribution margin.
Customer Acquisition CostCAC: Total sales + marketing spend divided by new customers acquired. The denominator everyone forgets includes founder time and tooling.
Performance MaxPMax: Google Ads campaign type that runs across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps with shared assets and signals.
Return on Ad SpendROAS: Revenue divided by ad spend. Sub-optimal alone for non-ecommerce — track contribution margin or CAC where possible.

Performance

Core Web VitalsCWV: Google's set of user-experience metrics: LCP, INP, and CLS. Used as a ranking factor on mobile.
Cumulative Layout ShiftCLS: How much the page jumps around as it loads. Stable layouts feel premium; CLS under 0.1 is considered good.
Interaction to Next PaintINP: Replaced FID in March 2024. Measures the latency from a user interaction (click, tap, keypress) to the next paint. Aim for under 200ms.
Largest Contentful PaintLCP: Time from navigation start to when the largest above-the-fold element is rendered. Google's threshold for ‘good’ is under 2.5 seconds on mobile.
Lighthouse: Google's open-source auditing tool that grades performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO, and PWA. Powers PageSpeed Insights.

Analytics

GA4: Google Analytics 4 — event-based analytics platform that replaced Universal Analytics in July 2023.
Server-side tracking: Sending events from your server (or a tagging server) instead of the browser. Survives ad blockers + ITP and gives cleaner signal.
Tag ManagerGTM: Google Tag Manager — container that loads marketing tags (Meta Pixel, conversion tracking, etc.) without code changes.

Operations

DPDP Act: India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Governs how companies collect, process, and store personal data of individuals in India.
Lead scoring: Ranking inbound leads by likely sales fit (firmographics + behaviour). Lets sales focus on the top 20% that drive 80% of revenue.
Retrieval Augmented GenerationRAG: Pattern for grounding LLMs on your own data. The model retrieves relevant chunks from a vector store before answering.
WhatsApp Cloud API: Meta-hosted API to send and receive WhatsApp messages programmatically. Replaces the on-prem WhatsApp Business API.

SEO

AI Overviews

Google's generative answers at the top of many SERPs. They cite sources — being one of those sources is the new ranking goal.

Buyer intent

What the searcher actually wants to do — learn, compare, decide. The single most important lens for keyword strategy.

Generative Engine OptimisationGEO

Optimising content to be cited by AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews). Closely related to traditional SEO but with new ranking signals.

Schema.org

Structured data vocabulary that lets search engines understand your page. Common types: Organization, Service, Article, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList.

Search engine results pageSERP

The page Google shows after a query. Includes organic results, ads, knowledge panels, and increasingly AI Overviews.

Topical authority

Cumulative trust a site builds in a topic by publishing comprehensive, high-quality content over time. Beats backlink scrabbling in 2026.

Paid

Click-through rateCTR

Clicks divided by impressions. Useful for testing creative resonance; rarely meaningful in isolation across the full funnel.

Conversions APICAPI

Server-side event API for Meta. Pairs with the browser Pixel using a shared event_id so Meta dedupes the events and gets cleaner signal.

Cost per LeadCPL

Total spend divided by total leads. Useful but not enough on its own — pair with cost per qualified lead (CPQL) and contribution margin.

Customer Acquisition CostCAC

Total sales + marketing spend divided by new customers acquired. The denominator everyone forgets includes founder time and tooling.

Performance MaxPMax

Google Ads campaign type that runs across Search, Display, YouTube, Discover, Gmail, and Maps with shared assets and signals.

Return on Ad SpendROAS

Revenue divided by ad spend. Sub-optimal alone for non-ecommerce — track contribution margin or CAC where possible.

Performance

Core Web VitalsCWV

Google's set of user-experience metrics: LCP, INP, and CLS. Used as a ranking factor on mobile.

Cumulative Layout ShiftCLS

How much the page jumps around as it loads. Stable layouts feel premium; CLS under 0.1 is considered good.

Interaction to Next PaintINP

Replaced FID in March 2024. Measures the latency from a user interaction (click, tap, keypress) to the next paint. Aim for under 200ms.

Largest Contentful PaintLCP

Time from navigation start to when the largest above-the-fold element is rendered. Google's threshold for ‘good’ is under 2.5 seconds on mobile.

Lighthouse

Google's open-source auditing tool that grades performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO, and PWA. Powers PageSpeed Insights.

Analytics

GA4

Google Analytics 4 — event-based analytics platform that replaced Universal Analytics in July 2023.

Server-side tracking

Sending events from your server (or a tagging server) instead of the browser. Survives ad blockers + ITP and gives cleaner signal.

Tag ManagerGTM

Google Tag Manager — container that loads marketing tags (Meta Pixel, conversion tracking, etc.) without code changes.

Operations

DPDP Act

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Governs how companies collect, process, and store personal data of individuals in India.

Lead scoring

Ranking inbound leads by likely sales fit (firmographics + behaviour). Lets sales focus on the top 20% that drive 80% of revenue.

Retrieval Augmented GenerationRAG

Pattern for grounding LLMs on your own data. The model retrieves relevant chunks from a vector store before answering.

WhatsApp Cloud API

Meta-hosted API to send and receive WhatsApp messages programmatically. Replaces the on-prem WhatsApp Business API.