This online glossary is designed to help you understand the terms and definitions connected with marketing databases, campaign management, insight and analytics, data quality and email marketing.
Click on the terms below for their definitions, or to contact us to talk to one of our experts.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZAbove-the-fold
The top part of an email or web page that can be seen without scrolling. This is generally more desirable placement because of its visibility. Often considered the most import part of the email as if this part interests the recipient then they will open, click and scroll through the whole email.
Absolute Movers
movers suppression file from Experian which includes forwarding address information.
Address formatting
Address formatting is the standardisation of address data fields within a database to improve the quality of your data
Address verification
Usually a stage within a data cleasing or data processing procedure, address verification matches address details of individuals or businesses against industry files such as PAF.
Analysis
Process of using quantitative and/or qualitative data to understand a certain factor such as customers, prospects, optimal location and customer behaviour
Anomalies (data cleansing and suppression)
Anomalies, refered to in data cleansing and suppression reports or data processing, are records identified as including unusual characteristics which deem them not viable to use. These might be celebrity names, foreign addresses or profanities.
Basket analysis
modelling the items that are most likely to appear in a basket together from existing customer information and transactional data. This can help in store promotions, cross sell marketing and other activities.
Best matching (data cleansing and suppression)
Rather than preselecting your one matching type or criteria, using dbg's unique best match functionality you can match to the highest level your data allows – household, individual, DOB - relating to each individual record.
Blacklist
List of IP addresses that are being used by or belong to organizations or individuals that have been identified as sending SPAM. Blacklists are often used by organisations and Internet Service Providers as part of their filtering process to block all incoming mail from a particular IP address (or block of addresses).
Bureau services
The provision of data management by a third party organisation. Data is provided to the third party who then process the data at their premises using in-house technology. A data file is then returned to the client.
Buying cycle
Timeframe for purchases which is often analysed and reviewed to determine marketing activities and campaigns
Campaign funnel
A campaign funnel measures and tracks interactions based on campaign activity such as opens, clicks, responses and even down to purchase. Marketers need to focus and improve each aspect of the funnel for optimum campaign performance.
Campaign Management
The process of planning, creating, executing, and measuring marketing campaigns via a range of channels.
Click through
Action of clicking on link which is assumed a postive action, for example clicking on an email link or banner advertisement
Click through Rate
The number of times all links in an email were clicked compared to the total list size, represented as a percentage.
Cluster
Collection or group of people with similar behaviour or characteristics
Cluster analysis
Process of grouping data into clusters through data analysis
Cognition
Consultancy which looks at your organisational goals and their influencing factors. From this a KPI tree is built to prioritise your marketing strategy.
Communications consolidation strategy
It's certainly a mouthful but what does it mean and why are people talking about it? Well in today's multi channel environment, brands have realised they have different teams running various channels, their voice is being distorted by different authors and messages can be conflicting. This is all about regrouping, defining the message and strategy, and making sure it's at the heart of your marketing communications.
Complaints
The receipt of a complaint from an email recipient who has identified the message as spam.
Confidence level - suppression
Matching against a preset number of industry suppression files to set a confidence level to suit your business. For example, requiring a match against 3 different files to permanently suppress someone from your database.
Contact Strategy
Understanding customer behaviour via data analysis and modelling organisations can construct a contact strategy. A contact strategy aims to encourage positive changes in customer behaviour.
Conversion Rates
This is calculated by looking at the total number of recipients of your marketing activity, versus the number who go on to take action - whether that is to visit a website, redeem a voucher, purchase.
Corporate Telephone Service (CTPS)
Corporate industry suppression file consisting of organisations who do not wish to receive unsoliticted marketing or sales calls. This a recognised file by the DMA.
Customer engagement
How engaged a customer is with your brand in terms of relationships, their feelings towards the brand and their likelihood to be loyal.
Customer Lifetime Value
The profitability of a customer over the period of a business relationship; can include multiple transactions and purchases.
Data Cleansing
The process of removing inaccuracies in data or databases such as missing elements, incorrect postcodes or names.
Data feed
Data feed is a mechanism to receive updated data from various data sources into a database e.g. web, call centre etc
data latency
Usually refers to the time between initiating a request and receiving the answer. For example, the time between running a command and the database being updated or modified.
Data Migration
Transferring data from one or multiple sources into a single platform. Data migration projects are generally complex consolidations of data into a single customer view or CRM platform. Before data is transferred it must be processed, cleaned, standardised and deduped.
Data processing
The process of data quality: working on data to improve accuracy, standardise and suppress, most commonly using technology.
Data unification
The process of deduping records and taking multiple elements from each to create a master record. Data unification is usually carried out via a data bureau or online data processing tool.
Data warehouse
A single database containing information from an entire organisation - customer details, product information etc
Database
This is any collection of data stored centrally, for example email addresses, recipient's name, address gender, date of birth details, etc. It usually refers to data stored on a computer or on a server.
Database Marketing
Using a datamart or single store of data to drive marketing programmes and strategy. Data driven marketing is considered by the marketing industry to deliver increased performance of programmes, due to the insight that can increase targeting and relevance.
Deduplication
The removing of duplicate records from a file or database in order to create a single customer view.
Deliverability
Is the concept of getting the email delivered in the inbox, not to be confused with sending an email. The success of this can vary quite significantly.
Domain Keys
Email authentication system designed to verify the DNS domain of an email sender and the message integrity.
Double Opt-in Email Marketing
The process of collecting permission to email users whereby a submitted email address is not immediately added to a mailing list. Instead, an email is sent to the submitted address asking the user to take additional action to confirm that they do want to receive email communications from the marketer. If the user does nothing, the submitted address is not sent email communications. The user will only be sent email communications if they respond to the confirmation email.
Dynamic Content
Content which is different / more specific per recipient based on data held against them, i.e. geographic, demographic and/ or previous campaign history.
Electoral Roll
File gathered annually of all adults in UK eligible to vote, used as a reference fil for marketers who wish to validate names of those on their database.
Email
(Electronic Mail) sending or transmission of a message via electonic media
Email Address
Is the address to which the email is sent to. An email address consists of two parts, a username and a domain (or host) name with an at symbol ('@') separating them. The domain specifies which server the email should be delivered to and the username tells the server at that domain which mailbox to deposit the email into.
Email Client
A program used to send, receive and manage a user's email. Includes programs such as Outlook, as well as webmail programs such as Hotmail, Yahoo! and Gmail.
Email Hygiene
A process whereby data is put through a process stripping out any invalid domain names and incorrect email structures, profanities, harvested addresses and potential spam traps, ensuring that only valid email addresses are used for broadcasts:
Enhancement (data)
Data enhancement can be the addition of missing data elements and data fields or the appending of information that will enrich a record. For example adding an SIC code to a business or a MPS flag to a consumer record.
ETL
Extract, transform and load. The capability to process and format data prior to load into a database.
Facebook messaging
Facebook messages is a new feature that will combine email, text and instant messages and gather all messages into one central place. The latest innovation from Facebook provides users with a XXXX@facebook.com email address, will allow them to choose who to receive messages from, and give them the ability to have additional emails (e.g. from Hotmail and Gmail accounts) sent to their Facebook messages inbox.
False positive
A legitimate email message that is mistakenly rejected or filtered by a spam filter.
False-negative
When spam filtering devices fail to detect spam and allow it to be delivered.
Golden record
The golden record is refered to when discussing merging duplicate records. A golden record consists of the most accurate and recent elements of multiple duplicates, bringing them together to create a full record.
Greylisting
Process of routing email to a bulk folder if it is borderline spam, as determined by a receiving ISP.
Hard Bounce
An email address that is rejected by the receiving server for a permanent error. Hard bounces are not valid email addresses and should be removed from lists.
Hierachy
Indicates order in which records or information from records or files will be selected. This usually relates to data suppression and how files are ranked or deduplication and how individuals or data fields are ranked.
HTML
Hypertext Mark-Up Language, An email comprised of HTML code. Essentially, an HTML-based email is the equivalent of emailing a web page, complete with colours, graphics, and other visually appealing methods of delivering content and indicates to a web browser how the text is to be displayed, as well as to enable links, and other features.
HTML 5
HTML5 is the latest iteration of the Hyper Text Mark-up Language used to code websites. It improves the HTML standard significantly. Features include simple Audio and Video integration, and the Canvas element for drawing and animation. HTML5 is set to replace HTML4.01 and XHTML 1.1 over the next decade. A process begun by browsers such as Chrome, Firefox and IE9. The term is being banded about in marketing magazines and is being hailed as the next big thing in web marketing.
Integration
Integration is used by marketers to explain the harmonious combination of elements or components. Whether related to channels, messaging, campaign creatives or data, integration is now the holy grail of marketers.
IP addresses
Internet Protocol addresses, the numeric identification number that refers to a specific machine on the Internet.
ISP
Internet Service Provider, these are companies that provide access to the Internet through connectivity services. Examples include AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail.
Junk E-Mail Reporting
Hotmail offers a feedback loop that they call "JMR". As with other feedback loops, Hotmail expects receivers to process any transaction sent via the feedback loop as an immediate unsubscribe to the sender's list.
Junk mail
Term to describe direct mail which is unsolicited or not targeted.
Knowledge Base
The repository that spam filters refer to when they are identifying spam trigger words.
Knowledge Studio
Hosted database built to your specification
Lifestyle data
Data which relates to individuals and their way of life and interests. This contributes to their propensity to respond and relevancy of marketing.
List cleaning and suppression
Process of cleaning a list, deduplicating, removing and correcting poor data and referencing against industry suppression files.
M-commerce
M-commerce (also known as mobile commerce) refers to the practice carrying out commerce via mobile devices such as mobile phones, smart phones, PDAs and other emerging mobile technology. It allows companies to provide consumers with the ability to buy and sell goods via a handheld device with a wireless connection. Common examples include mobile banking (for making payments), pushing sales promotion vouchers and pure m-commerce shopping experiences.
Mailing preference service or MPS
Database of of individuals who have registered with the DMA in order not to receive unsolicited direct marketing via mail. The database is used by marketing organisations to suppress individuals from their mailing lists and is a requirement of the DMA code of conduct.
Mailsort
Royal Mail scheme which grants large volume mailers postal discounts from pre-sortation of their mailings
Market Potential
Market potential is a data analysis exercise which involves profiling of existing customers or markets and matching against other sources, to help to define the commercial universe or market. This exercise is usually completed at a product or proposition level and will help shape business decisions.
Master Data Management
Master Data Management (MDM) is a set of processes used for collecting, aggregating, matching, consolidating and quality-checking data. The key objective of it is to ensure consistency of data within a company.
Member get member
Marketing approach encouragin customers, often by incentive, to get others to become customers via referrals and recommendations.
Merge (records)
After identifying duplicates, records can be merged into one master or golden record to bring the best quality components of data together to have a single customer view
Merge and purge
Industry term for combining multiple lists, removing supplicate records and creating a single master file
Merge Tag
A HTML element that is used to merge the data into the email creative such as the recipient's name details.
Mortality suppression
Referencing industry files of deceased individuals to suppress from a mailing file or database. There are a number of files on the market, such as Mortascreen, which are used within data cleansing and suppression processing.
Multi-part Email
An email that is sent with different versions - usually html and plain text. The recipient's email client settings determine which version is delivered to that inbox.
Multivariate testing
Is a process used in online marketing to test more than one component of a website to determine which variation of content is most effective. The concept is similar to A/B tests but the difference is that it can test a limitless number of combinations. Statistics of web visitors and their subsequent behaviour based on dynamically generated content, layout and offers are then collated. The results of the testing are used to inform decisions on how to improve website conversions.
NCOA Suppress
(previously Royal Mail's Universal Suppression Service) File from Royal Mail which can be used to cleanse and suppres data. It includes daily and weekly updates, and is supplied using verified redirection data.
NCOA Update
Tthis is a forwarding address tool provided by Royal mail that allows users to update address details on their databases with forwarding address details.
Non-Delivery Receipts
Notification that emails have failed to deliver successfully.
Open Rate
The percentage of total recipients who open a given email. An open is only counted when an invisible tracking image placed within an email by an Email Service Provider is viewed. This tracking image is not considered as having been viewed when an email is seen using an email client with images blocked, which makes Open Rates a less reliable metric than many realise.
Opt-out
A way an individual can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information by request . This is most commonly associated with Direct Mail campaigns.
PAF or Postcode Address File
PAF is a file maintained and sold by Royal Mail containing 25 million addresses and 1.5 million postcodes. It is a trusted address validation file with the most accurate UK address information.
PAS 2020
PAS 2020 is an initiative from the DMA and direct marketing industry to encourage a more responsible and sustainable approach to the environment. Data suppression is a key element of this.
Permission-based Marketing
The practice of sending marketing communications only to recipients who have given their consent to receive them.
Personalisation
By inserting a merge tag into your email message that allows you to draw personal information from the recipients account, i.e. first name, title, customer number, etc. This could also take form of a personalised image.
Preference centre or management
Usually built into a marketing database or as part of a database connnected to your email marketing platform, preferences of clients and prospects in regards to the communications they wish to recieve, are a vital component of the data collected and stored. Providing preference options is a proactive way to ensure your marketing communications are relevant - increasing engagement and response rates.
Priority Inbox
Google's latest edition to Gmail attempts to automatically identify what mail you want to receive or what is important versus pure marketing messages that might be unsolicited or according to past experience have not been interested in.
Profiling
Profiling is a method used in marketing to identify and describe demographic, lifestyle and cultural characteristics of groups or segments.
Promoted Trends
Promoted Trends is an advertising concept introduced by twitter whereby brands have the ability to insert themselves into Twitter's Trending Topics list.
Promoted Trends are paid for by brands and are marked as "Promoted" on Twitter. If a user clicks on the trending topic they are presented with the most popular search results along with a Promoted Tweet by the advertiser at the top.
Propensity modelling
Analysis and modelling to predict probability of actions to assist with company planning. analyses variables connected with customers to predict the probability of an outcome or response. This assists with planning future company strategies.
Reactivation campaign
This is a technique designed to get dormant email recipients opening and clicking again. E.g. this might be used for people that have never responded to emails or those that used to respond but have suddenly stopped.
Regression analysis
Regression analysis is a modelling technique comparing the relationship between variables. It is commonly used for prediction and forecasting and analysing customers. Essentially it's a term used by analysts...you don't need to understand it, but understand the results they provide.
Response modelling
Modelling based on variables to predict the probability of a response.
Searchandising
Searchandising (as you might guess from the name) combines search capabilities with merchandising. It is becoming an increasingly important part of ecommerce, with the majority of shopping starting with a keyword search. Searchandising allows customers to find the products they are looking for quickly and easily by combining intelligence from search terms with expertise in merchandising.
Segmentation
Identifying and splitting into groups only a select portion of data based on shared pre-determined criteria, such as date of birth, behavioural conditions such as opens and clicks on previous mailings. Segmentation is used to help increase the relevance of a marketing to the recipients.
Sender reputation
A key benchmark of deliverability used by major ISPs such as Hotmail and Yahoo.
Sender Score Certified
Email certification process that requires originators of legitimate email adhere to a baseline set of industry standards for email communication.
Site location planning
Using data intelligence and analysis, market and demographic data related to specific geographic areas, you can establish the best locations for future sites and outlet planning.
Social commerce
Social commerce is the concept of ecommerce via social media channels, such as selling via Facebook. The idea involves user ratings and other user generated content driving sales but this is now advancing into an actual sales environment as the social media networks expand their functionality.
Social CRM
Social CRM describes the next level of the single customer view, listening to the conversations via social web and becoming active in them.
Soft Bounce
An email that makes it to a recipient's email server but is bounced back. This can be due to a recipient's inbox being filled to capacity. A soft bounce email may be deliverable at a later time if re-sent after the initial bounce.
SPAM
Unsolicited bulk or unwanted email usually sent without the recipient's permission.
Split testing
Concept of testing variables such as subject lines in an identical test environment (same quantity and time of test etc) the best performing test in the used to the remaining majority audience. This is used to maximise campaign results.
Suppression
Removing or flagging contacts that can no longer be marketed to - for example if they have registered with preference services, have moved or are deceased.
Suppression list
A list of contacts that should not be mailed any longer.
Telephone Preference Service (TPS)
Industry suppression file of consumers who have opted out of unsolicited marketing and sales calls. Any organisation who does not adhere to the regulations associated with the TPS are likely to face a fine.
The data protection act
A law which exists to protect individual's personal data and puts the onus on organisations to protect their privacy.
Tracking
Monitoring the performance of an email broadcast to view Opens and Clicks rates.
Triggered Emails
Emails which are sent out in an automated fashion, typically as a response to a click through on a previous campaign, web page or on a certain date within the database, i.e. Birthday.
Unique Clicks
The number of individual recipients who click on a link within a given email. Even if one person clicks on three links within an email, he/she is only counted as one unique click.
Validated email addresses
Email addresses that have been sent to and at which emails have been opened during the previous 6 months.
White list
A list of email addresses that a user designates as safe to receive email from. Inclusion on a whitelist means that no email from those particular senders will ever end up in the user's junk mail folder unless express action is taken by the user to remove an address from the whitelist.
XML
Extensible Markup Language - A flexible way to create standard information formats and share both the format and the data on the Web.
This is commonly used in social media monitoring to determine the attitude of a social media user with respect to a topic or the tone of their posts (blog, Facebook, Twitter YouTube etc).
Various social media monitoring platforms employ different techniques to evaluate sentiment across the web. In general this is achieved using an algorithm that analyses social media content and rates it as positive, negative or neutral in sentiment.
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