Office of Marketing and Communications

Email Terms and Definitions

In email marketing there are a lot of terms mentioned. To provide a foundation of understand a list of terms and their definitions have been provided below.
  1. A/B Testing: The email process of sending two different versions of an email to compare metrics and determine a winner 
  2. Accessibility: The practice of making information usable by as many people as possible; guidelines for accessibility set by the Americans with Disabilities Act 
  3. Adhoc: Sending an email 1 time; created or done for a particular purpose as necessary 
  4. Alt Tag: A text description added to an image that becomes available if a user cannot view the image; the text within an alt tag is used by screen readers as part of accessibility 
  5. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): A law that protects people with disabilities in many areas of public life; www.ada.gov 
  6. AMPscript: Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s proprietary scripting language for advanced dynamic content within emails  
  7. Automation: A setup technique that aligns updated data (list records) and schedules actions based on timing or recipient activity 
  8. Brand: The articulation of consistent themes that outline what makes Ohio State distinct (ex: fonts, colors, logos, language, imagery, etc) 
  9. Business Unit: Hierarchal structure within Salesforce Marketing Cloud that controls the access to and sharing of information 
  10. Call to Action (CTA): An instruction to an email recipient that encourages a specific, measurable action in the form of a button or visual prompt 
  11. CAN-SPAM Act: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM Act) of 2003 is a law that established the United States'  first national standards for the sending of commercial email 
  12. Clicks: An email marketing metric that tracks the number of times a link was interacted with (clicked) by the email recipient 
  13. Commercial (marketing) Emails: The “primary purpose” of its message advertises or promotes a product/service 
  14. Component: The smallest building blocks, the absolute fundamentals of our system; components include images, headers, paragraphs, buttons, etc 
  15. Data Extension: A data extension is a table that contains data. Utilized to segment and filter data created from outside or inside SFMC. Data extensions share data with reports or campaigns.
  16. Deliverability: The ability for email to arrive in the recipient's inbox  
  17. Dynamic Content: Email content that changes for each unique subscriber in accordance with a set of predetermined rules or variables 
  18. Email Service Provider (ESP): Marketing platform that sends emails on behalf of its clients; example: Salesforce Marketing Cloud 
  19. Engagement: Measures and describes subscriber activity with an email 
  20. Footer: A required block of required content at the bottom of an email  
  21. Frequency: The number of times an email recipient is likely to be exposed and email  
  22. Header: A required block of required content at the top of an email  
  23. Hero Image: A singular large image used to visually convey a message; commonly used at the top of an email 
  24. HTML: Hypertext markup language is a computer language consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets within web and email content 
  25. Inbox: An electronic folder in which emails received by an individual are held  
  26. Junk (spam) Folder: A folder that allows subscribers to view email that was not delivered to the inbox and decide if the email should be received 
  27. Key Performance Indicator (KPI): A quantifiable measure of performance over time for a specific objective (ex: clicks, opt-outs, conversions) 
  28. Module: When two or more components are combined, they become a module; modules include the header, footer, stores, list items, event details 
  29. Opens: The number of recipients who enabled an email to be displayed (opened) 
  30. Opt-out(s): The number of recipients who unsubscribed from receiving email; another term for unsubscribe 
  31. Personalization: A targeting method in which an email appears to have been created for a single unique subscriber 
  32. Preference Center: Tool that allows email recipients to change and personalize their subscription details 
  33. Preheader: String of text that follows the subject line when an email is previewed in the inbox; supports the subject line to increase opens 
  34. Proof: An email test sent to yourself and/or team for approval prior to sending to the entire audience 
  35. Salesforce Contact ID: The unique identification assigned to a subscriber within Salesforce data sources 
  36. Salesforce Customer Relationship Manager (CRM): Salesforce’s platform for managing business relationships with prospects 
  37. Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC): Salesforce’s platform for marketers to interact and engage with large groups of customers via push notifications (email, SMS) 
  38. Scripting: Utilizes a list of computer commands in emails to automate the implementation of dynamic content within the email content 
  39. Seedlist: A list of specific email addresses created to confirm deployments and collect deliverability data; assists in monitoring how your email is being placed by mailbox providers 
  40. Segmentation: Market segmentation is a process that consists of sectioning the target market into smaller groups that share similar characteristics  
  41. Sender Profile: The “from” email address and name; The name is visible to the recipient in the inbox and should be a reputable source 
  42. Sender Reputation: The email sender reputation is a score assigned by inbox providers to entities that send email; the measure of trustworthiness as a sender of email 
  43. Subject Line: A short line of text that recipients see when they preview your email; the key function of a subject line is to gain opens 
  44. TAS ID: A unique identification assigned to a subscriber within The Advancement System (TAS) database 
  45. Template: A ready-made email layout that can be easily edited 
  46. Testing: The process of performing quality control checks of an email prior to sending to an audience 
  47. Transactional (servicing): Emails with content facilitating or confirming a transaction that the recipient already has agreed to 
  48. WYSIWYG: Acronym for “What You See Is What You Get”; a user interface with the ability to make edits to the content and displays the final output on screen