A

Abandoned Cart Email: A follow-up email sent to someone who has added items to their cart and gotten through a portion of the checkout and then left the site without purchasing.

Above-the-Fold: The area of an email that displays at the top of the email before the viewer scrolls.

A/B Testing: A randomized experimentation process where two or more versions of a variable of a page element are shown to different segments of an audience at the same time to determine which version leaves the maximum impact. Also known as Split Testing.

Acquisition Marketing: Implementing content and advertising strategies to market your products and services to bring prospects down the marketing funnel from brand awareness to purchase decision.

Active Subscriber: Someone who has bought or renewed a subscription within the last stated period of time that is still in effect.

Adaptive Email Design: Email that is customized for the viewer’s user’s chosen device. Also known as Responsive Email Design.

Alt Text: Text used within HTML code on the <img> tag to describe the appearance and function of an image on a page that is displayed when the image is blocked and when recipients mouse over the image.

Animated GIF: (Graphics Interchange Format) An image file that displays multiple images or frames sequentially over time, sometimes in a loop.

AOL: An American web portal and online service provider.

Attachment: A computer file sent along with an email message that is not recommended for promotional emails because of malware potential.

Authentication: Data encoded into every email message that tells where the email came from and which servers relayed the information. 

Autoresponder: An automated message or series of messages. 

B

Best Practices: Professional procedures that generally produce the best results or minimize risk and are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective.

Blacklist – A list of senders of spam that denotes IP addresses as spammer IPs, impeding email deliverability.

Blocked: When an inbox provider stops your emails from being delivered to their clients.

Body Copy: The main text, images, and other content inside your email that becomes visible once opened.

Bounced: An email that could not be delivered.

Bounce Rate – The rate at which your emails are not delivered. Your bounce rate should be less than 5%.

Broadcast Email: An email that is sent to all subscribers.

Bulk eMail – Large scale email marketing sends in which identical content goes to a large group of people.

Bulletproof Button: Buttons built with code instead of images that will show even when email images are blocked.

C

Call-To-Action: Also known as CTA. A design to prompt an immediate response or encourage an immediate sale.

CAN-SPAM – Acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. A law that outlines rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, provides email recipients with the right to make you stop emailing them, and lays out consequences for Act violations. 

CAPTCHA: Anti-bot security mechanism for forms.

Challenger: The design or process you are testing against your existing champion in an A/B test.

Champion: In an A/B test, your existing design or process.

Click: A marketing metric that counts the number of times users have clicked on a digital advertisement or link to reach a landing page.

Click-To-Open-Rate: Percentage of recipients who opened an email that also clicked the content inside, which is calculated by dividing clicks by opens.

CPM: Acronym for Cost Per Thousand. In email marketing, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on an email rental list. For example, a rental list priced at $150 CPM would mean that the list owner charges $.15 per email address. 

CSS: Acronym for Cascading Style Sheets. A markup language used to design emails and web pages.

CTR:  Acronym for Click-Through-Rate. The percentage (the number of unique clicks divided by the number that were opened) of recipients that click on a given URL in your email.

Conversion: In email marketing, when a desired action takes place as a result of an email recipient receiving an email from your brand.

Conversion Rate: Percentage of email recipients who either complete the desired action or become customers, depending on your goal. To compute, divide the number of signups or purchases by the total number of successful email deliveries. Then, multiply it by 100.

Conversion Rate Optimization: Also known as CRO. The process of improving your conversion rate.

Customer Lifecycle: The various interactions that a customer has with a brand, including awareness, consideration, purchase, and retention.

D

Dedicated IP: In email marketing, it refers to an IP address from which only one entity sends email, making that entity solely responsible for the sender reputation of that address.

Double Opt-In: A subscription process that requires subscribers to confirm their opt in by clicking a link in a confirmation email or responding to the confirmation email in some other way after they have clicked a checkbox in a form to agree to receive email. 

Deliverability: The ability to deliver emails to subscribers’ inboxes

Delivered: When an email makes it to the intended recipient’s inbox or junk folder.

Deploy: In email marketing, to send email.

Desktop-Centric Design: Email design approach that uses HTML coding techniques to create a single email rendering that is optimized for viewing on desktops. 

Device-Targeted Content: Responsive email design used to target recipients with different content depending on the device that the email is displayed on.

DKIM: Acronym for DomainKeys Identified Mail. An email authentication technique that links a domain name to an email message that is used to verify an email’s authenticity and to increase deliverability rates.

Drip Marketing: Automated marketing that sends a series of messages to prospects over time. 

Dynamic Content: A section of an email that contains different content for individuals based on their geography, behavior, or other demographics.

E

Email: An electronic message.

Email Address Append: Adding email addresses to your customer files that you do not have, usually done through a data broker.

Email Authentication: A variety of methods that help inbox providers accurately identify email sent by a brand, including Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)

Email Automation: Triggered emails, personalization, dynamic content, and other tools that send emails without manual intervention according to established brand rules.

Email Campaign – An email or series of emails designed to accomplish an overall marketing goal.

Email Client: An application or web interface that displays emails and allows users to reply, forward, and interact with the content of the message.

Email Content Calendar: A calendar of when you will send or launch your email campaigns.

Email Filter – A technique used to block email based on the sender, subject line, or content of an email.

Email Fatigue: When a recipient stops engaging with your email marketing campaigns.

Email List: A collection of email addresses and other data associated with the email address.

Email Marketing: The act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email.

Email Marketing Agency: A group of experts that offer email marketing services to companies to help them reach their target audience. See Reach Marketing.

Email Marketing Workflow: A series of automated emails that are sent based on the subscriber’s contact information, behavior, or preferences to accomplish a goal, like on-boarding a service or purchasing a product.

Email Metrics: Measurements that help assess the success of email campaigns.

Email on Acid: Email rendering platform to check how your email looks on various email clients.

Email Sponsorships Ad space in an email newsletter or the sponsoring of a specific article or series of articles by an advertiser. 

Email Template: Reusable, preformatted email files that include all essential email elements, and allow for customization of content blocks that can be switched out to create individual emails. 

Email Validation: A procedure that verifies if an address is deliverable and valid. 

Email Verification: A service that verifies whether an email address is active, inactive or fake and identifies possible spam traps and other email address discrepancies. 

Engagement: Opens, clicks, and other positive indications that a subscriber is finding value in receiving emails from a company or brand.

ESP: Acronym for Email Service Provider. A commercial provider of email marketing services that allows their clients to manage their own email lists, send messages, track the response of message recipients, and process opt-ins and opt-outs.

F

Fluid Email Design: Email design that uses 100% width images and table cells to have the email content expand to completely fill the recipient’s screen, up to a max width that is set using media queries.

Footer: Are located at the very end of an email that can include legal language, the unsubscribe link, mailing address, social media icons and other details

Forward-To-A-Friend: A link in your email that allows them to forward your email to others.

Freemail: A free email account that is available from Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Outlook.com, or another inbox provider.

From Address: The email address from which your emails are sent.

Full Service Email Marketing Company: A marketing agency offering custom email marketing solutions from strategy to design to execution for businesses looking to reach their target audience. See Reach Marketing.

G

GIF: Also known as Graphics Interchange Format. A bitmap image file.

GMAIL: A free email service developed by Google.

Google Analytics: Most widely used tracking software provided by Google that can track interactions with an email message.

H

Hard Bounce: The failed delivery of an email due to a permanent reason like a non-existent, invalid, or blocked email address.

Honey Pot: A planted email address by organizations trying to combat spam that, when a spammer harvests and emails, identifies that sender as a spammer.

Header: The upper portion of an email that usually includes your logo.

Hero: Primary message located above the fold in the email.

House File: An email list of your customers.

HTML: Acronym for Hypertext Markup Language, the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. 

HTML Email: Coded with Hypertext Markup Language to create graphical messages with graphics, colors, table columns, and links.

HTML Text: Text emails created from a limited number of fonts that are universally or widely supported across email clients.

I

Image Blocking: When inbox providers do not allow the images in an email to load.

Inactive Subscriber: Someone with a valid email address who has not opened or clicked your campaigns recently.

Inbox Provider: An organization that provides users with email accounts and accepts and delivers large amounts of email. (e.g., AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, etc.)

IP Warmup – The practice of gradually increasing the volume of mail sent with a dedicated IP address according to a predetermined schedule in order to build the IP’s reputation.

ISP: Acronym for Internet Service Provider. The company that gives you access to the Internet.

J

JPEG or JPG: Acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group. A common file format of images.

Junk Folder:  The location for storing unwanted email. Also known as Bulk folder or SPAM folder.

L

Landing Page – A standalone web page, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign designed to convert visitors into leads.

Lead Scoring: A joint sales and marketing methodology for ranking leads in order to determine their sales-readiness.

List Building: The process of adding data like email addresses to your mailing list.

List Churn: In email marketing, the percentage of people unsubscribing or being removed from your list.

List Hygiene: Cleaning out inactive subscribers from future marketing campaigns and keeping the remaining list robust.

List Rental: An agreement where a list owner’s customer file is rented by another company for marketing purposes.

List Segmentation – Choosing a target audience from a larger list for whom your email message is relevant. 

Litmus: Email rendering platform to check how your email looks on various email clients.

M

Media Queries: CSS that allows the rendering of an email’s content to vary depending on conditions such as screen size.

Mobile-Friendly Design: Email design that uses coding to create a single email rendering that will render in a range of screen sizes.

MIME: Acronym for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension. A specification for the format of non-text e-mail attachments that allows the attachment to be sent over the Internet.

Multivariate Testing: A process by which more than one component may be tested to determine which combination of variations performs the best out of all of the possible combinations. 

N

Navigation Bar: In email marketing, a user interface element within an email that contains links to webpages on the email sender’s site.

Nurture Campaign: Time-based emails that are sent out to your audience to inform them of your products and services, and, over time, motivate them to take an action, like taking advantage of one of your offers.

O

Onboarding Emails: Emails that are designed to help new customers to use and gain value from a product or service, often by using a signup confirmation page and welcome emails. 

Open: In email marketing, when the images in an email are loaded or rendered, which typically happens when the recipient views an email with images enabled.

Open Rate: The percentage of emails opened in an email marketing campaign, or the percentage opened of the total number of emails sent.

Opt-In: When an individual chooses to receive email communications by supplying their email address to a particular company.

Opt-in Confirmation Page: Webpage that follows a successful email signup.

Opt-in Confirmation Request Email: An email that requires a new subscriber to click a link in the email to confirm their signup or else they will receive no more emails.

Opt-Out: When an individual chooses not to receive email communications from the sender anymore, and requests removal from their email list. It is legally required that all commercial emails provide a clear way to opt-out.

Outlook: An email client offered through Microsoft.

P

Permission: Agreeing to receive promotional email.

Personalization – Elements added to an email that are personalized to each subscriber based on that subscriber’s data within their email content to make the content feel tailor-made for them.

Physical Address – The physical street address of the company sending the email, usually found in the footer of an email, legally required for all email marketing.

Plain Text Email – An email supported only by text sent without HTML. 

PNG: Acronym for Portable Network Graphics. A file format used online and in email messages.

Preference Center: Webpage that shows a subscriber’s email address and other information, such as profile information and preferred communication methods, and allows them to make changes as well as unsubscribe.

Preheader: Visible or hidden HTML text positioned at the very top of an email’s body content, usually a portion of the first text from inside the email that some email clients display after the subject line in the inbox.

Preview Pane: A window in some email clients that allows subscribers to view a smaller portion of a whole email.

Privacy Policy – A clear statement of a website or company’s policy on the use of information collected from and about website visitors and what they will do or not do with the data.

Pristine Spam Trap: Email addresses created solely to capture spammers, uncirculated and hidden on websites where only email address harvesting software will see it.

Product Grid: A multi-column, typically multi-row layout where each grid cell contains a product image and product information.

Progressive Profiling: Collecting additional demographics and information about subscribers by only requesting a few pieces of data at a time on a form, rather than asking for too much all at once. 

Promotional Emails: Emails sent out to announce or promote a product or service.

R

Reach Base Email Database:  The largest, most responsive multi-sourced, multi-channel prospecting database of ambitious decision-makers available. 

Reach Marketing: A full service email marketing agency of email experts that offer email marketing services from strategy to design to execution.

Re-engagement Email: A message sent to an individual in an effort to get them to engage again, because they have not engaged with your emails in a long time . Also known as re-activation.

Relevance: How valuable a subscriber thinks your email content is to them.

Rendering: The way an email message appears in each subscriber’s inbox.

Re-order Email: An email message sent to an individual subscriber in response to a product that person purchased being near or at its recommended lifespan. Also known as replenishment email.

Re-permission Email: A message that asks a subscriber to reconfirm their subscription by clicking a link in the email in order to remain active.

Reply-to Email Address: The email address that the reply message is sent when you want the reply to go to an email address that is different than the from address.

Re-send: An email marketing tactic where you send the same email a second time to try to get more people to respond to it.

Responsive Email Design: Email design that use media queries and other progressive enhancement techniques to control the formatting, layout, and display of email content depending on the subscriber’s screen size.

Retention Marketing: A type of marketing that is focused on getting existing customers to do more business with you, rather than finding new customers.

Return Path: A hidden email header that indicates where and how bounced emails will be processed.

S

Seasonality: Related to an upcoming or current buying season.

Secondary Navigation Bar: Usually positioned right below your standard navigation bar, providing deeper navigation into one of your standard navigation bar links. 

Seed List: A list of email addresses added to a sender’s email list that helps to determine whether emails sent by the sender are delivered to their subscribers’ inboxes.

Segmentation: An email marketing strategy where a list is broken up into different segments based on specific data.

Sender Score:  A reputation rating from 0-100 for every outgoing mail server IP address. Mail servers will check your Sender Score before deciding what to do with your emails. A score of over 90 is good. 

Sender Name: The name that appears in the from line in an email client.

Sender Reputation: A reflection of your trustworthiness as an email sender. Your sender reputation is tied to your email domain and is built up over time.

Shared IP – An IP address from which multiple companies send emails.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Email: A message sent to an individual subscriber when that person leaves one or more unpurchased items in their shopping cart.

Social Media Bar: A row of social media icons that link to your brand’s pages on those social media sites.

Soft Bounce: The failed delivery of an email due to a temporary issue, like a full mailbox or an unavailable server.

Spam: Email sent to someone who has not opted-in or given permission to email to the sender, considered unwanted or irrelevant.

Spam Cop – A paid spam service that plants their own emails and monitors who harvests the address and spams it.

Spamhaus: An international nonprofit organization that tracks email spammers and spam-related activity.

Spam Trap: An email address used by anti-spam entities to trap spammers.

SPF: Acronym for Sender Policy Framework. A DNS record that says on whose behalf an IP or domain sends email.

Static Image: An image that does not change over time, unlike an animated GIF.

Subject Line: An email message’s equivalent of a headline, or title.

Subscriber: Someone who has consented to joining your email list.

Suppression List: Individuals to whom you do not want a particular message to be sent.

T

Target Audience: A group of people identified as being likely customers of a business.

Targeting: Sending the right message to the right subscriber at the right time.

Throttling: Controlling the amount of email messages sent to one ISP or remote server at one time.

Total Clicks: The total number of clicks received on your campaign.

Total Opens: The number of times the images of an email were loaded or rendered.

Transactional Email: Emails sent to confirm orders, reservations, and anything else.

Triggered Email: A message sent to an individual subscriber through automation in response to an action taken by that person or a specific event happens. (a birthday for example)

U

Unique Clicks: The number of subscribers who selected a link or linked image in an email at least once and visited the associated landing page.

Unique Opens: The number of subscribers who loaded or rendered the images of an email at least once.

Unsubscribe: When a subscriber requests to be removed from a brand’s email list.

Unsubscribe Page: Webpage that is launched when subscribers click the unsubscribe link in your emails where subscribers complete the unsubscribe process.

Unsubscribe Rate: A percentage that shows how often people are opting out from your email campaigns. 

W

Webmail: An email client accessible via a web browser.

Welcome Email: An email message or a series of email messages sent to new subscribers. 

Whitelist – A list of IP addresses that have been approved to deliver email to a recipient.

Y

Yahoo Mail: An email service offered by Yahoo!.