Below is our index of helpful marketing terms. This glossary will help you understand any marketing language you may come across while using MailerLite or speaking with our customer support team—and to help you make the most of MailerLite on your marketing journey.
| Email marketing term | Definition |
| Abandoned cart | When a customer adds a product to their online shopping basket, but they don’t proceed to checkout and complete the purchase. This could be because they aren’t ready to buy, or they might be using the cart as a ‘wish list’. You can set up automatic, personalized email alerts to remind people that they have items in their cart, as a little reminder for them to finish checking out. This is called an ‘abandoned cart email’. |
| A/B split test | Where you create two versions of a digital asset, to see which version your subscribers respond to better. With MailerLite, you can A/B split test landing pages and email campaigns. A small sample of your subscribers will be tested. Half of them will receive ‘Version A’ and the other half will receive ‘Version B’. The performance of each version is based on conversion rate goals, such as the percentage of people who click on a link, complete a form, or make a purchase. |
| Affiliate marketing | A marketing partnership program. Individuals can become ‘affiliates’ for a company. They receive commission when they successfully refer people who convert (this could be a page visit, a purchase of a signup). The commission often depends on performance tiers, based on the number of conversions. Affiliate marketing is a popular and cost-effective way for companies to build their customer base and increase brand awareness. |
| ALT-Text | Stands for ‘alternative text’, and it is added to HTML code to describe an image on a page. It is also sometimes referred to as Alt tags or Alt attributes |
| Anchor link | A link that helps to link to the content on the same page that has an anchor attached. It is a unique id (identifier) attached to the content block or specific element. To add an anchor link in MailerLite, go to your landing page or website editor and drag the Anchor/Section block exactly where you want to point your visitors to. You can add anchors to any section of your page. Do not forget to add a name to your anchor to find it later. |
| API | Is typically used to integrate one system with another to synchronize them and exchange data. For example, if a user registers on your site and you want to implement email subscription with new registrations, the MailerLite API helps you easily accomplish this task. Our API is also used to develop third-party applications. Thereby you can develop your own application for MailerLite and manage email lists without visiting our site. MailerLite's API interface has a range of opportunities that you can implement in your business projects. |
| Authentication | Permits ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to properly identify the sender of an email. This helps to ensure high delivery rates. The purpose of authentication is to reduce spam, which accounts for nearly 54% of all email traffic (Statista, 2020). |
| Auto resend campaign | Allows you to automatically send another email to your subscribers, if they haven’t opened your first email, or if they didn’t click a link in your email. This saves you tons of time, because instead of checking your non-open reports, creating a new group and writing another email, you can just use auto resend. Also, you can reach up to 30% more subscribers when you resend emails automatically. |
| Blacklists | A list of IP addresses that have been blocked by an email provider or spam filter, due to phishing and/or spam. |
| Blog | A collection of articles that are focused on a certain topic, and they are published frequently on a website. Blog articles can be written by anyone, and comments from readers are encouraged. Successful bloggers can become affiliate marketers, because they can share products and services firsthand with their followers. |
| Bounce rate | The percentage of page visits, where only one page was viewed. These people viewed a part of your site or landing page, but they didn’t engage further. To make people stick around, you could try A/B testing different methods like a special offer, a call to action (CTA), or optimized ad copy and design. |
| Bulk email | An email which is sent to a large group of subscribers at the same time. Marketing campaigns will often use bulk emails to promote a business or a product. Unlike spam, bulk emails are only sent to people who subscribed to receive marketing emails from a company. |
| Call-to-action (CTA) | Anything which prompts a response from your audience. The CTA will tell them what to do after receiving your marketing message. It explains the next step. For example, it might say ‘Learn more’, ‘Contact us’, ‘Shop now’, or ‘Sign me up’. You can experiment with different CTAs using A/B testing, so that you can optimize them and get the best response from your subscribers. |
| Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) | The federal law which deals with spam and other electronic threats. It was created to protect Canadians, whilst also ensuring their businesses can continue to compete in the global market. |
| CAN-SPAM | Stands for ‘Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing’. The CAN-SPAM act sets the rules for commercial emails to put an end to spam messages. It was signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. |
| Click-map | Shows you exactly how your audience interacts with your email newsletters. You can see where they click the most, and use this to inform your email design. For example, you might find that your audience clicks on images more than CTA buttons. |
| Click rate/click-through rate (CTR) | The ratio of how many people click a link, compared to the number of people who viewed the page. The CTR measures the success of a marketing campaign, as it shows how many people clicked the link on a page. |
| Confirmation email | A type of a transactional email sent to a customer after a certain condition is triggered. This email can be sent to confirm that a customer has placed an order at an online shop, subscribed to a newsletter, booked tickets, registered for a webinar. In MailerLite, you can send confirmation emails automatically according to specific conditions. |
| Confirmation link | A link that is added to a confirmation email. When someone clicks on it, they will automatically be added to a mailing list. This process verifies that the subscriber’s email address is active. |
| Conversion rate | The percentage of actions taken, after the total number of clicks on a digital asset. This might be to download a B2B (business-to-business) white paper, or to sign up to receive special offers. To calculate the conversion rate, simply divide the number of clicks by the number of actions taken. The higher the conversion, the more successful your marketing campaign. |
| Custom email template | An email template that matches a company’s brand identity, using their colors, fonts and logos. The company can then use the custom email template for different marketing campaigns, keeping their brand identity consistent. |
| Custom fields | Fields are what holds the information a subscriber enters into a signup form. There are nine default fields that exist in Mailerlite when you create an account (name, last name, email, phone, company, country, state, city, zip). Custom Fields are fields that you create in addition to these default fields, i.e. birthday. You’ll need to create a custom field if you want to gather additional information about your subscribers. You can use the additional information to further manage your subscribers and personalize your campaigns. |
| Customer relationship management (CRM) | How companies maintain interactions with their customers, and streamline their business processes. CRM systems are special software designed to manage leads, track customer activity and automate communications. |
| Dedicated IP | A unique internet protocol (IP) address that is specific to your website. It’s like your unique identifying number online, so that you can stay in control of your sender reputation and email deliverability. |
| DNS | Stands for Domain Name System. A DNS translates a human-friendly IP address (e.g. internetwebsite.com) into a computer-friendly IP address, which a web browser uses to find and display a website. You can think of it almost like a phone book: it remembers the ‘phone number’ of a website, so that people just have to remember the name. |
| Domain | The section of your email address which comes between the ‘@’ and the ‘.com’ or ‘.net’ or ‘.org’. For example, in the email address info@mailerlite.com , the domain would be ‘mailerlite’. A subdomain is a section of your domain (e.g. sales.domain.com or marketing.domain.com ) which can be used to increase the deliverability of your email campaign. |
| Double opt-in | An email subscription method. People who sign up will only be added to your mailing list after they confirm their subscription twice. This might be done through a signup form and then via a confirmation link in their inbox. |
| Drag & drop editor | A powerful tool that allows you to easily create emails by adding particular blocks in a template and changing the color, style, size, and location. You do not need specialized knowledge to work with the drag & drop editor. |
| Dynamic content | Allows you to personalize parts of your email for specific audiences. This targeted content is ‘dynamic’, because it only appears to selected groups of subscribers. Everyone else who receives the email won’t see the personalized section. |
| Email automation | Allows you to program exactly when your emails will be sent. You can base this on different triggers, such as a subscriber behavior or within a certain time frame. For example, instead of manually sending out a welcome email to every new subscriber, you could set up a trigger that automatically sends the welcome email for you whenever someone new signs up. This means that you only have to write the email once, and after that, it will automatically reach your subscribers at the right time. |
| Email campaign | One or a series of emails that are sent to achieve a specific marketing goal. An email campaign will include a call to action (CTA) to encourage people to convert. |
| Email deliverability | A metric that measures how many emails reached the subscribers’ inboxes. Deliverability is influenced by many factors, so the best thing is to use a well-known email platform to take care of this. |
| Email list/subscriber list | A list of email addresses that you can send marketing emails to. These lists are usually put into groups or segments so that you can customize your messaging. To build your email list, you can collect email addresses via pop-up forms, landing pages, at the time of purchase, during a competition or giveaway, or using a range of other list-building tactics. |
| Email marketing | A way to promote products or services through email. Email marketing is a top digital media channel, and it is important for customers’ acquisition and retention. MailerLite offers its email marketing platform with a free plan and can help you design, build, and optimize your email marketing to get the best ROI. |
| Email newsletter | Regular, scheduled emails that are sent out to subscribers. An email newsletter may include tips, news, industry insights, articles, stories or educational content. Email newsletters are important for keeping subscribers engaged, and they build a relationship between the email marketer and their target audience. |
| Email validation | A process that verifies whether an email address is valid and deliverable. It will catch any typos in the address, and also confirms whether the address exists with a reliable domain, such as Outlook or Gmail. |
| E-commerce | The buying and selling of products and services online. The most successful e-commerce operations are powered by data, as it enables targeted emails, audience segmentation and marketing automation. |
| Email service provider (ESP) | A company that provides tools for email marketing, like MailerLite. To make the right choice of ESP for email marketing campaigns, you need to focus on the ESP’s functionality and deliverability rates. |
| GDPR | General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the new set of guidelines that dictate how individuals and companies may acquire, utilize, store, and delete the personal data of European Union (EU) users. If you have subscribers based in the EU, you are responsible for following these regulations even if you operate outside the EU. At its core, GDPR is about giving people more control over their personal data and how others are allowed to use their data. For email marketing, that means providing more transparency and clearer consent agreements when signing up new subscribers. |
| Google Analytics | A platform that measures and reports on website traffic. It shows the number of website visitors, the time spent on each page, the most popular content, and the devices used to browse. It also gives insights into your audience, including the search terms they’re using, and location data. Google Analytics can also be connected to Google Ads, to find out which campaigns are driving the most traffic and leading to conversions. |
| Groups | In MailerLite, groups are like tags (labels) you create to help organize your subscribers. Groups help you bring your own subscriber structure into MailerLite. You can add and remove subscribers based on your wishes. |
| Guest blogging | When someone new contributes to a blog. This allows writers from different websites to attract each other’s audiences. Both the guest blogger and the blog owner will promote the article to their audiences, meaning that both parties can gain visibility from one another. A guest blog will often include a short bio, with links back to the writer’s site and social media accounts. |
| Hard bounce | An email that is rejected by an email server for a permanent reason. This may happen when the subscriber’s email address or domain name doesn’t exist, or if their email server has completely blocked the delivery. However, there are also occasions where a valid email address can also hard bounce. |
| Heat map | A visual data representation that uses color to show areas of highest use on a page. Using a scale of red (hot) to blue (cold) areas, you can see where people click or look the most. This creates a heat map showing which parts of web pages are receiving the most clicks. Web designers can use this information to position CTA buttons where they are most likely to be clicked. |
| HTML | Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the coding language used to create websites. Using CSS and JavaScript, HTML tells a web browser how to format, style and link text and images on a web page. HTML tags can also include attributes and values that tell web browsers what to do with the content. |
| Integration | All modern email marketing services support integration with a wide array of third-party systems. The integration that customers most commonly seek is with CRM, CMS, e-commerce, and payment systems. Through the integration of aggregator Zapier, it is now possible to integrate practically all services. Therefore, a service that offers a Zapier module can be linked with virtually any popular web services. |
| Interest groups (tagging) | Interest groups, which are also known as ‘tags’, allow you to target specific audiences within your subscriber list, by adding custom labels to different groups. You can create interest groups based on their behaviors or interests, to create content that is targeted and personalized for them. |
| Internet Service Provider (ISP) | A company or organization that offers services for Internet access. The ISP is your gateway to getting online. Any home or company with Internet access is using an ISP. |
| IP-address | An IP (Internet Provider) address is a unique address that identifies a device on the Internet or on a local network. This allows a system to be recognized by other systems, and it means that information can be transferred between devices. |
| JavaScript | A coding language that works with HTML, and it enables dynamic web page content, such as sign-in pages, contact forms and shopping carts. It also enables responsive web design to provide a seamless user experience (UX). |
| Keyword | A word or phrase in the content of your web pages that matches the words and phrases users are entering into search engines as closely as possible. The idea is to speak the same language as users when they make their search queries so you rank higher in their organic search results based on relevance. MailerLite keywords include email marketing, landing pages, and automation tools. The keyword is the cornerstone of search engine optimization (SEO). |
| Landing page | A separate web page created for marketing or advertising. Its sole aim is to increase conversion rates. Each element—from the copy to the CTA buttons and images—helps convince the reader to take that desired action. |
| Lead magnet | A special offer or incentive that people will receive when they sign up to join your mailing list. It might be a discount or a free ebook, for example. |
| List cleaning | The process of removing unengaged or outdated email addresses from your subscriber list. This can improve your open rates and click rates, as well as your overall email deliverability. Email marketers often use list cleaning to remove addresses that bounced, and also to make sure that their subscribers are still engaged and interested in receiving their content. Most email service providers (ESPs) offer some kind of engagement tracking. |
| List hygiene | Involves making sure your subscriber list is full of active, engaged contacts. To maintain email list hygiene, it’s good to regularly clean out old and unengaged contacts, and to only add new contacts from reliable sources. Email hygiene is important for your sending reputation and deliverability. |
| List segmentation | Divides your subscribers into smaller groups based on a set of characteristics that will help you deliver more targeted emails. |
| Marketing automation | Any technology that takes over repetitive marketing tasks. This frees up time for people to focus on their marketing strategy. Scheduled email sends and automated social media postings are examples of different marketing automations. It can also determine the best responses to different campaigns, and optimize accordingly. |
| Meta description | A brief summary of what a website is about in the HTML of the page. When writing a meta description, 160 characters with spaces is a good rule of thumb. Search engines will consider meta descriptions when ranking your page, but it’s not one of the most important factors. |
| Meta keywords | The words and phrases in the HTML meta keywords tag of a website. Meta keywords help search engines to understand what the page is about, and rank its relevance to user searches accordingly. The keywords in your tag should reflect the content of your page, otherwise search engines will ignore the meta. |
| Meta tags | The HTML code that helps search engines to understand, evaluate and rank websites. Meta tags include a meta description (the page summary), meta keywords (the words and phrases used in the content), and a canonical URL (the master version of the website). |
| Meta title | A meta title (also called title tag or page title) is the website title, as defined in the page’s HTML code. Search engines will index these meta titles and show them in search results, so the best practice is to include the keywords that you want to rank for. |
| Open rate | The percentage of emails that were opened during an email marketing campaign. It can reflect how well the campaign caught subscribers’ attention, and whether the emails reached the inbox or were marked as spam. |
| Opt-in | Also referred to as permission marketing, it's the process of gaining permission to send people promotional, brand-related content. There may be a single opt-in or a double opt-in pathway. |
| Opt-out | When people unsubscribe or remove themselves from an email list. Most marketing emails will include an ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘opt-out’ button, and in some countries, this is required by law. |
| PDF stands for Portable Document Format. It’s a file that looks like a printed document, and it is compatible across different computer systems. It was developed by Adobe Systems so that people could view, download, save, share, and print a document, regardless of their computers’ operating systems. | |
| Personalized marketing | The process of making advertising and product experiences feel unique and personal to each customer. The email marketer uses analytics to reach the right person with the right message at the right time. |
| Plain text emails | Used for email campaigns that include text but don’t have any images or HTML coding. These are the most basic email campaigns, and they don’t require any coding or HTML knowledge. |
| Phishing | The process of luring people to share confidential information, such as bank account numbers, credit card details, or other personal information. It is network fraud, and it operates using spam, malicious websites and emails. |
| Pop-up | A small window that appears while browsing a website. Marketers mainly use pop-ups for advertising and generating leads. You can easily create a free pop-up with MailerLite. |
| Preheader | A text snippet that you can see in your inbox. It’s displayed after the sender’s name and the subject line. The preheader gives subscribers an idea of the email content, and it can be a way of convincing them to open the email. |
| Promotions | Promotions are marketing communications. They inform target audiences about products and services, and they persuade them to purchase them. There are four main types of promotions: advertising, sales, personal selling and publicity. |
| Redirect | Sends someone to a different website than the one they requested with a URL. Redirects are often used if the content has been moved, or deleted, and the marketer can direct people to their new, updated content. This helps to prevent 404 errors, and it keeps URLs short and easy to remember. |
| Responsive design | When a web page will display correctly on different devices, whether it’s a phone, a tablet or a computer. Sites will evaluate the type of device and the screen size, and then render the content into a layout that works for that device, with the help of CSS. |
| Rich-text | An email format where HTML format is not needed, but it still allows some text adjustability. With rich-text, you can create plain text emails with the formatting capabilities of HTML, letting you add links, images, bullet points and different text styles. |
| RSS | RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It takes website content and packages it into an index which can easily be displayed on other websites. This allows websites to share content from third parties, and multiple RSS feeds can be combined into a single interface so that people can track updates to multiple websites at the same time. |
| Search-engine-optimization (SEO) | Involves making changes to the content and structure of a website to improve its ranking on a search engine results page (SERP). White hat SEO refers to improving your ranking on SERP, without compromising the integrity of your website. This can involve practices such as using relevant keywords, using simple and concise URLs, and schema markups to return more informative results on search engines. |
| Segment | A list of subscribers that are set apart according to a “rule” within your email list. Using a filter, you can send an email campaign to a specific part of your email list, depending on whether they fit the created rule. |
| Single opt-in | An email subscription method where people are added directly to the email list after they have shared their email address and clicked ‘Subscribe’. This is different from double opt-in, where they would also have to confirm their subscription with a confirmation email. |
| Soft bounce | An email that doesn’t reach a subscriber’s inbox for a temporary reason. For example, their mailbox might be full, or the email message might be too big, or the subscriber’s email server is down or offline. |
| Spam | Any form of unwanted or unsolicited digital communication. It could be an email, a text, or a social media message, and it’s the digital version of junk mail. To stop your email marketing campaigns from being marked as spam, ask people to actively sign up to join your email list, and provide unsubscribe links somewhere in each email. |
| Spam filter | Designed to identify and mark any incoming emails or links that look like spam. |
| SPF | SPF stands for ‘Sender Policy Framework’. It’s an email validation system that detects email spoofing. Email spoofing is when emails are sent under a forged email address. It’s often used in spam or phishing emails, to trick people into thinking that the email comes from a trusted source. |
| Subject line | The headline of your email. It will appear directly in your subscriber’s inbox, along with the sender name. The subject line is your first impression, and it can have a big influence on open rates. You can personalize your subject lines by name, location or interests, to increase the chances of your subscribers opening the email. |
| Transactional email | Notifications that are triggered by the recipient. They could be password reset emails, welcome emails, account activations, billing notices, download links appointment confirmations, or anything else which is triggered by an action. Transactional emails often have higher open rates, because they contain information which is important to the recipient. |
| Unique visitors | This is the number of individuals who visited your website during a certain timeframe. Visits refer to the number of times your website was accessed over a time period. For example, if 3 people accessed your website 10 times during one day, then you would have three unique visitors, and 30 visits. |
| Unsubscribe page | The web page that appears when someone clicks the unsubscribe link in the email footer. It confirms the opt-out, and it is the last chance for the subscriber to change their mind, before they are unsubscribed. |
| Unsubscribe rate | The percentage of users who opted-out of receiving further emails after an email campaign, by clicking the unsubscribe link in the email footer. The unsubscribe rate impacts email deliverability. A large number of unsubscribes can lead to negative consequences from ESPs, like Gmail and Outlook. |
| Welcome email | A message that is sent to new subscribers or customers. They may follow up from a newsletter signup, a service subscription or after a product purchase, for example. Welcome emails establish a relationship, tell your brand story and turn subscribers into customers. You can even do an automated welcome email series, to keep your subscribers engaged and interested in your brand after they sign up. |