Are you lost in all the email marketing jargon? Do you spend hours looking up fundamental email marketing terms to improve your email marketing know-how? 😕
Don’t worry— Our article provides definitions for common and essential email marketing terms and helps you learn more. ☺️
Without further ado, let’s get right into the world of email marketing terminology! 📙
1. A/B Split Testing
An A/B test, split testing, or bucket testing is a methodology for comparing two versions of an email to identify which one performs better. 🅰/🅱
2. Acceptance Rate
The acceptance rate is the percentage of emails a brand sends that the mail server’s Internet Service Protocol (ISP) accepts. It’s also called the delivery rate, which measures the volume of emails not returned to the sender. ✔
3. Acceptable Spam Report Rate
An acceptable spam report rate refers to the percentage of reported emails marked as spam by recipients or email service providers (ESPs). It’s a key metric used to gauge spam complaints generated by senders or email campaigns. ❌
4. Automation
Email automation is an effective way to create emails and send automated messages without doing the work every time. It uses predefined rules to trigger email campaigns and personalizes messages based on customers’ specific actions via automation software.
5. Auto Follow-Up Email
Auto follow-up emails are pre-written email sequences or workflows that are sent out automatically when triggered by an event or a certain action at a specific time.
6. Autoresponder
An autoresponder is an automated, pre-written email that is sent to your subscriber’s inbox when a specific trigger occurs. ✉
7. Blast
An email blast or e-blast is when a single email message is simultaneously sent to a large email list without strategy or segmentation.
8. Blocklist
An email blocklist or blacklist is a collection or database of emails, domains, or IP addresses that spam filters have banned for persistently sending spam emails and preventing messages from being delivered to recipients.
9. Bounce Rate
Email bounce rate is a key marketing metric measuring the percentage of emails returned to the sender because they could not be delivered to the intended recipient.
10. Bounced Email
Bounced emails are messages that are rejected by a mail server. When an email bounces, it has not reached its intended destination for different reasons: the email address doesn’t exist, or the inbox is full, etc.
11. Bulk Emails
Bulk emails are large-scale marketing or advertising emails sent out to a large number of inboxes at once. In fact, they’re canned text emails that are not personalized for each recipient.
12. Call to Action (CTA)
A call-to-action (CTA) is the main action you want a subscriber or recipient to take, like signing up for a newsletter. In other words, this is a link or button with a simple and short phrase that appears at the end of your email.
13. CAN-SPAM
CAN-SPAM stands for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing.” It refers to a US anti-spam law passed in 2003 that determines specific rules for email marketing messages, such as commercial email. Simply put, it protects consumers from abusive, exploitative, and malicious email content.
14. CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Law)
CASL stands for “Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation,” which dictates how email marketers can interact with Canadian recipients. This Canadian act primarily concerns receiving consent from subscribers before sending messages.
15. CCPA
(CCPA) stands for the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, a state law in response to the European Union’s GDPR. This law gives consumers a certain amount of control and the right to access the personal data that businesses collect about them.
16. Churn Rate
In email marketing, the churn rate or attrition rate refers to the percentage of people who unsubscribe from your list or stop reading your newsletters over a certain period of time.
17. Clicks per Delivered
Clicks per delivered is an email marketing metric that measures the effectiveness of your email campaigns. It is calculated by dividing the unique clicks by the emails successfully delivered to the intended inbox.
18. Cold Email
A cold email is a message you send to someone with whom you have no prior connection. The purpose is to make relevant offers to targeted leads. ❄
19. Commercial Email
Commercial emails are messages sent specifically to recipients who have opted-in to your brand’s promotional messages. Their goal is to provide valuable & convincing information to targeted prospects and encourage them to buy your products or services. They include new product updates, sales offers, inbound emails to welcome new customers, etc.
20. Confirmation Email
Confirmation emails are messages that verify current or future transactions that are triggered by a specific customer action. Their purpose is to inform recipients about a sign-up, purchase confirmation process, customer order, email subscription, or finalization of the payment process.
Studies show that confirmation emails are invaluable, with over a 70% open rate.
21. Content Delivery Network (CDN)
In email marketing, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) refers to a network of servers strategically placed across various locations to optimize the delivery speed and reliability of email content, typically images, videos, and media files.
22. Conversion Rate
Email conversion rate is a vital benchmark that shows the percentage of audiences who opened your email and took the action you intended. To calculate it, divide the number of recipients who took action by the total number of people to whom the email was sent, and finally multiply the result by 100 to get it as a percentage. 🔄
23. CPM (Cost Per Mile)
CMP is a pricing model & metric in email marketing & advertising that is usually used by ESPs to calculate the cost of sending a thousand emails. Also, CPM is also called cost per thousand impressions, which indicates the total ad cost for every 1000 impressions received by an ad.
24. CTOR (Click-to-Open Rate)
CTOR, also known as clicks per open, is the percentage of recipients who open an email campaign, as well as click on a link via that campaign. To calculate your email campaign’s performance, divide the number of unique clicks by unique opens and then multiply the number by 100.
25. CTR (Click-Through Rate)
CTR is one of the best email marketing metrics and refers to the ratio of people who click on a specific link or ad to the number of times an email is clicked. To calculate it, you should divide the number of clicks your ad receives by the number of times your ad is displayed. 🖱️
26. CUFinder
CUFinder is a reliable B2B lead generation and business data enrichment platform with a professional email finder and free email verifier services for single & bulk email discovery and verification.
27. Dedicated IP/Custom Domain
A dedicated IP address is similar to your home IP address, but it doesn’t change and is unique to your email campaign. You use it exclusively without sharing it with other senders.
28. Deliverability (Acceptance Rate)
Email deliverability, also known as acceptance rate, is the ability of an email to reach the targeted recipients’ inboxes successfully without being bounced or filtered as spam.
29. Deployment
Email deployment refers to the process of sending out an email campaign to your subscribers on an email segmentation list.
30. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM is an authentication approach that validates the authenticity of email messages by adding a digital signature to the header of outgoing emails.
31. Double Opt-in
Double opt-in is a recommended method for verifying consent emails from subscribers who require them to take action to confirm their subscription after initial signup by clicking a link in a confirmation email.
32. Drip Campaign
A drip campaign is one type of autoresponder and also an automated email marketing campaign that sends a series of pre-timed emails as reminders for subscribers to take a particular action.
33. Email Alias
An email alias is an alternate email address that feeds into a single subscriber inbox. Using them lets you filter messages from different senders or for different purposes.
34. Email Body
The email body is the main text and message of an email. When you open an email, you start reading the body, which may contain text, links, photos, graphics, and animations. The body of the email starts after the greeting and ends before the footer of the email.
35. Email Campaign
An email campaign is a series of marketing emails designed to reach a large number of users at once to sell a product or service, send an invitation to an event, offer promotional discounts, share relevant content, or make personalized recommendations. 📥
36. Email Client
An email client is software used by anyone who wants to send, receive, or manage their emails. Outlook, Think Gmail, Apple Mail, Yahoo! Mail, etc., are the most popular email clients.
37. Email Fatigue
Email fatigue refers to a situation in which subscribers feel overwhelmed or exhausted due to the frequency or repetitiveness of marketing emails they receive. At this point, their inboxes are overloaded with your email campaigns.
38. Email Finder/Email Extractor
Email finders are online software and companies that quickly find verified email addresses of people in bulk at any company by determining search filters, such as name, company, industry, etc. 🔎
39. Email Geek
An email geek is an email marketing enthusiast who gets excited about email marketing and thoroughly studies email campaigns, design, strategies, and best practices.
40. Email Harvesting/Scraping
Email scraping or harvesting refers to using various automation email marketing tools, email extractor software techniques, or scripts to collect & extract email addresses from online directories or websites.
41. Email Layout
An email layout indicates the visual email arrangement of images, content, CTA buttons, etc., and the overall appearance of your email.
42. Email Lead Generation
Email lead generation is the process of gathering customer leads, such as names and email addresses, through signup forms. The email leads data is stored in an email marketing database.
43. Email List Hygiene
Email list hygiene, also called email list cleaning, is a process of keeping your email lists healthy & efficient by removing inactive subscribers or bad addresses that affect your email deliverability.
44. Email List Segmentation
Email list segmentation is a process of dividing and separating email subscribers into smaller sections based on their shared characteristics, such as interests, behaviors, or other sets of criteria.
45. Email Marketing/ Marketing Email
Email marketing is a form of inbound marketing and a direct marketing channel in which marketers use emails to promote their products or services, share new products, sales, and updates with customers, and incentivize customer loyalty.
46. Email Personalization
Email personalization is the most effective marketing strategy that involves customizing email content to the specific needs, interests, and behaviors of each person on your email list. This helps marketers deliver incredibly relevant & targeted content to their customers.
47. Email Queue
An email queue is a form of message that is waiting in your outbox folder. Simply put, it is a system that creates a pool of emails that are waiting to be processed for delivery.
48. Email Service Provider (ESP)
An ESP is a company that provides an internal mechanism to send, accept, and manage the delivery of email messages. This allows marketers to send email marketing campaigns to a list of subscribers.
49. Email Sponsorship
Email sponsorship, known as email drops, is an email marketing strategy. It refers to the process of paying a business to gain access to its subscriber list.
50. Email Templates
An email template is a preformatted email layout that you can use to create your own unique email template by changing proposed content. Email templates include a pre-built structure with header, body, footer, text, or images.
Enjoyed this blog post so far? You may also be curious about how to create sales email templates. Check to find out where to start.
51. Email Spoofing
Email spoofing is a threat that is used in spam & phishing attacks to trick subscribers into thinking a message came from an entity or person they trust or know.
52. Email Verification
Email verification is the automated process of authenticating and checking the emails you’ve been given to make sure they’re valid and connecting you to a real email account.
53. Email Verifier/ Email Checker
An email verifier is an email validation software that checks if an email address is authentic, properly formatted, really exists, accepts emails, and more.
54. Engagement Rate
Email engagement is an important email marketing metric that measures the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign or strategy. It typically refers to the number of email subscribers who took some action on your email campaign.
55. False Positive
False positive emails are legitimate emails that are marked as spam or rejected by security filters or spam filtering.
56. Feedback Loop (FBL)
A FBL, also known as a complaint feedback loop, is an inter-organizational form of feedback offered by most mailbox providers (MP). It helps senders to be notified when their emails are marked as spam by subscribers, as well as forwards the complaints originating from their users to the senders. 💭
57. GDPR
The European Union (EU) passed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018 to protect consumers’ personal data. This regulation sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information from individuals, such as email addresses, within and outside the EU. 🕵️
58. Geotargeting
Email list geotargeting is a type of advertising that uses zip codes to target your email list when you purchase an email marketing list.
59. Graymail
Graymails are mass or bulk emails that don’t fit the definition of spam because they’re solicited, are sent to legitimate sources, and have varying value to different recipients. They include newsletters, announcements, or ads targeted to a recipient’s specific preferences.
60. Hard Bounce
An email hard bounce indicates that an email has permanently failed to deliver or has been rejected either because the recipient’s address is invalid, the domain name is incorrect, the email address doesn’t exist, or the recipient is unknown.
61. HoneyPot Email
A honeypot is a special email address set up to identify spammers or lure them. These emails look like legitimate email addresses but aren’t used by real subscribers.
62. House List (or Retention List)
A house or retention list is a permission-based list that sends promotional messages to prospects who have opted in for an email messaging subscription.
63. HTML Tags and Emails
Your email service or program can send & receive emails in an HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) format. HTML tags are elements for formatting and creating the content of emails & websites.
64. Inactive List
An inactive email list consists of subscribers who signed up for your email list but have never engaged with your email content, such as never opening, clicking, or answering messages sent for some time.
65. Inbox Placement Rate (IPR)
IPR is an email marketing metric used to measure how often an email is delivered to the recipient’s inboxes.
66. Inbox Service Provider (ISP)/ Mailbox provider
ISP refers to the various email services that recipients use to access their email addresses, like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.
67. Interactive Emails
An interactive email is an email that allows subscribers to take action and interact with its content directly. These actions typically include clicking, swiping, or other ways.
68. IP Warming
IP warming is the process of gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from a new IP address based on a predetermined schedule to build a good reputation with ISPs.
69. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs are measurable benchmarks used to assess the success of email campaigns. Common email marketing KPIs contain open rate, CTR, conversion rate, unsubscribe rate, and bounce rate.
70. Levels of Authentication
A reliable way of determining a sender’s identity and ensuring the sender can send from a given domain.
71. Mailing List
A mailing list is a collection of email addresses and names used by a company or an individual to send messages, such as newsletters or updates, to multiple recipients. 📜
72. Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)
A MAP in email marketing is software that automates tasks like creating, managing, and analyzing email campaigns and other marketing activities.
73. MX Record
A DNS MX record, known as a mail exchange record, is a Domain Name System (DNS) record that directs email to specified mail servers. MX records involve the IP addresses of a domain of mail servers.
74. Newsletter
A newsletter in email marketing is a brief, regular email update sent to subscribers to keep them informed about a company, organization, or individual’s latest news, offers, or updates. 📰
75. Nurture Email
Nurture emails involve sending personalized and relevant emails to potential customers over time to build relationships and guide them toward purchasing.
76. Onboarding Email
Omnichannel marketing involves seamlessly integrating email with other channels (such as social media, SMS, and website interactions) to provide a unified customer experience.
77. Open Rate
Email open rate is the percentage of recipients who open an email out of the total number of emails delivered. 🔓
78. Opt-in/ Subscribe
Opt-in in email marketing is when individuals consent to receive marketing emails from a specific sender or organization.
79. Opt-out
Opt-out refers to the process where recipients request to stop receiving marketing emails by unsubscribing from the sender’s mailing list.
80. Physical Address
The physical address, typically found in the footer of an email, is the street address of the company sending the email. It’s a mandatory legal requirement for all email marketing.
81. Plain Text Email
A plain text email is a simple email composed solely of text, without any formatting or design elements.
82. Preheader Text/ Preview Text/ Preview Pane
The snippet of text appears next to or below the subject line in an email inbox. It provides recipients with a brief preview of the email’s content, which is visible without opening it.
83. Promotional Email
A promotional email is a marketing message to promote a product, service, offer, or brand.
84. Read or Open-Length
Read or open length in email marketing refers to the duration an email recipient keeps an email open and actively reads its contents. 👀
85. Rendering
Rendering refers to how an email appears visually and functionally when opened by recipients across different email clients, devices, and screen sizes.
86. Rental List (or Acquisition List)
It is a list of email addresses that marketers temporarily lease from a third-party provider for sending promotional emails.
87. Reply Rate
Reply rate in email marketing is the percentage of recipients who respond to an email campaign by sending a reply.
88. Responsive Design
Responsive design in email marketing ensures that emails display properly and are easily readable on different devices and screen sizes. 🖌️
89. Return on Investment (ROI)
ROI measures the profitability of a campaign relative to its costs, calculated by subtracting the total cost from the total revenue generated, then dividing by the total cost and multiplying by 100 to express as a percentage.
90. Revenue Per Email Sent (RPES)
RPE, often called Revenue-per-email, measures the currency or monetary value each email brings to your brand.
91. Seed List
A seed list is a limited set of email addresses used to test the functionality and appearance of an email across different platforms and devices before sending it to the main email list.
92. Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
SPF is an email authentication protocol used to prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks by verifying the authenticity of email senders.
93. Sender Reputation
Sender reputation is a score that determines the probability of their email reaching recipients’ inboxes, as well as measures how trustworthy an email sender is.
94. Sender Score
Sender Score measures the reputation of an email sender’s IP address or domain based on various factors such as email volume, engagement rates, and spam complaints.
95. Shared IP
A shared IP in email marketing is an IP address used by multiple senders for their email campaigns, offering cost savings but less control over reputation and deliverability compared to a dedicated IP.
96. Signature File
An email signature, or a signature file, is a block of text or graphics automatically appended to the end of an email message. It typically includes the sender’s contact information and may include branding elements such as a logo. 𓂃🖊
97. Signup Form
An email sign-up form is a hosted or embedded web form used to gather first-party customer data, especially email addresses. 📄
98. Single Opt-in List
A single opt-in list is created when people sign up for email communications but don’t authenticate the action. This means someone else can sign up for this list, and as such, it isn’t a recommended method for building a healthy email list.
99. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. It’s a standard protocol for sending and relaying email messages between servers. It transmits outgoing emails from a sender’s email client or application to the recipient’s email server.
100. Soft Bounce
A Soft bounce is a temporary email delivery failure. It happens when your email marketing campaign reaches your prospect’s mail server, meaning your email address was identified.
101. Spam Cop
SpamCop is an email spam reporting service and blacklist provider that helps identify and combat spam emails.
102. Spam Filters
Spam filters are tools that automatically identify and block unwanted or unsolicited email messages.
103. Spam Trap
A spam trap is an email address created to catch and identify spam emails, harming the sender’s reputation and deliverability if emails are sent to them. 🗑️
104. Subject Line
An email subject line is a brief preview or headline for the content of an email and is crucial in grabbing attention and encouraging the recipient to open & read the message. In other words, it’s the first single-line text that recipients see after the sender’s name when they receive an email from you.
105. Suppression List
It is a list of email addresses excluded from receiving future emails, typically due to unsubscribe requests, bounce-backs, or spam complaints.
106. Thank You Email
Thank you emails are automated messages sent to customers who act in your interest, such as placing an order, sharing your email, filling out a survey, and more. A personalized thank you email is the best way to show appreciation for users’ time and efforts.
107. Transactional Email
Transactional emails are automated messages triggered by user actions or events, providing essential information or updates.
108. Triggered Email
Triggered emails, also known as transactional or behavioral emails, are automated messages sent to subscribers when they take a specific action or engage in a particular behavioral pattern.
109. UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email)
UCE, also known as spam or junk emails, involves emails that are sent to individuals without their permission for promotional purposes.
110. Unique Clicks
A unique click is a metric that indicates how many unique recipients have clicked on a link in an email. 🖱️
111. Unique Opens
Unique opens represent how many subscribers opened your messages, regardless of how many times they did it.
112. Unsubscribe Link
An unsubscribe link in an email enables recipients to opt out of future email communications from the sender.
113. Unsubscribe Rate
An unsubscribe rate refers to the percentage of recipients who opt out of receiving further emails from a sender. To calculate it, divide the number of unsubscribes by the number of delivered emails.
114. Webmail
Webmail is email accessed through a web browser, allowing users to manage their email accounts online without additional software.
115. Welcome Email
A welcome email is the first message sent to a new subscriber or user after they sign up for a service, make a purchase, or join a mailing list. 👋
116. Whitelist
A whitelist is a list of approved email senders or domains designated as safe, ensuring their emails bypass spam filters and are delivered to the inbox. 📜
💡 Bonus: If you’re also eager to learn business terminology, check out our 70 Sales Terms glossary.
Final Remarks on 115+ Essential Email Marketing Terms
Almost everyone knows how to send emails, but email marketing goals are much more than just pressing send. In this blog post, we reviewed over 115 key email marketing terms and metrics that most email marketers use when designing successful email marketing campaigns & strategies.
We hope you found this quick glossary of essential email marketing terms helpful! What other terms can you add to this list? Contact us and comment! 💬
FAQs
1. What is ecommerce email marketing?
Ecommerce email marketing is an approach for business owners to connect with their customers through personalized, relevant messages in real-time without the permission of restrictive Internet gatekeepers.
2. What are the 5 steps of email marketing?
The five stages of email marketing include awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, and advocacy.
3. What are the four types of email marketing?
The four common types of email marketing are transactional, promotional, informational, and confirmation emails.