FYI MGMT

The communicative environment in which we live is becoming increasingly technological. Mobile phone plans have become gigabyte heavy as users warped the market demonstrating an insatiable appetite for data with unprecedented levels of text messaging and app consumption. The speed of technological change has seen a divergence from established syntax, grammar, and proper English. Take a random person off the street and it won’t be uncommon to see text message conversions on their personal phone consisting entirely of acronyms and emojis. ESPN, the self-appointed worldwide leader in sports runs a television advertisement demonstrating this very point.

Business has always been fond of an acronym and the digital playground is no different. To better understand technical jargon, here are a list of acronyms (with their subsequent definitions) commonly used by digital and information technology professionals.

AR – Augmented Reality is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. Augmented reality is not to be confused with virtual reality.

CMS – Content Management System is a computer application that supports the creation and modification of digital content using a common user interface and thus, usually supports multiple users working in a collaborative environment.

CPC – Cost Per Click is an internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the advertisment is clicked.

CPM – Cost Per 1000 impressions is the cost per one thousand advertising impressions on one webpage.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management is a computerised system for identifying, targeting, acquiring, and retaining the best mix of customers. CRM helps in profiling prospects, understanding their needs, and in building relationships with them by providing the most suitable products and enhanced customer service.

CRO – Conversion Rate Optimisation is a system for increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that convert into customers, or more generally, take any desired action on a webpage.

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language. CSS describes how elements must be rendered on screen, on paper, or in other media.

CTA – Call To Action is an instruction to the audience to provoke an immediate response.

CTR – Click-Through Rate is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. It is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website as well as the effectiveness of email campaigns

DNS – Domain Name System is a system for naming computers and network services that is organised into a hierarchy of domains. DNS naming is used in TCP/IP networks, such as the Internet, to locate computers and services through user-friendly names.

FTP – File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer computer files between a client and server on a computer network.

HTML – Hypertext Mark-up Language is the set of markup symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser page. The markup tells the web browser how to display a webpage’s words and images for the user.

IMAP – Internet Message Access Protocol is an Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection.

ISP – Internet Service Provider is a company that provides customers with Internet access. Data may be transmitted using several technologies, including dial-up, DSL, cable modem, wireless or dedicated high-speed interconnects.

LTV – Lifetime Value is a prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.

NPS – Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others. It is used as a proxy for gauging the customer’s overall satisfaction with a company’s product or service and the customer’s loyalty to the brand.

OBL – Outbound Link is a link from a particular webpage that leads to another/other page(s), including pages in the same domain. Proponents of OBL argue providing high quality references enhances the value of a site and increases the chance of return visitors.

OS – Operating System is the program that, after being initially loaded into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs in a computer. Microsoft Windows and Apple OS Yosemite are examples of OS.

POP – Post Office Protocol is a type of computer networking and Internet standard protocol that extracts and retrieves email from a remote mail server for access by the host machine.

PPC – Pay Per Click is a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.

PPL – Pay Per Lead is a type of affiliate marketing program where the advertiser pays the affiliate based on conversion of leads, such as a file or software download, completion of a sign-up form for a newsletter, trial offer sign-up, or other desired action.

ROAS – Return On Ad Spend is a metric calculated by dividing the revenue generated from an ad campaign, by the cost of that campaign.

RSS – Really Simple Syndication is a form of web coding that allows information from a site to be displayed on a computer or other webpage as a continuous stream of information. Individuals are able to subscribe to particular feeds and are notified each time the content is updated or changed.

SaaS – Software as a Service is a software delivery method that provides access to software and its functions remotely as a Web-based service.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing is a type of Internet marketing associated with the researching, submitting and positioning of a website within search engines to achieve maximum visibility and increase your share of paid and/or organic traffic referrals from search engines.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation is a methodology of strategies, techniques, and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine.

SERP – Search Engine Results Page is the page displayed by a search engine in response to a query by a searcher.

SMM – Social Media Marketing is a form of Internet marketing that utilises social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach.

SSL – Secure Sockets Layer is the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. This link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browsers remain private and integral.

TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol is a protocol for communication between computers, used as a standard for transmitting data over networks and as the basis for standard Internet protocols.

TLD – Top Level Domain is the last segment of the domain name. The TLD is the letters immediately following the final dot in an Internet address. Examples of some of the popular TLDs include .com, .org, .net, .gov, .biz and .edu.

UGC – User Generated Content is any form of content such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, posts, chats, tweets, podcasts, digital images, video, audio files, advertisements, and other forms of media that was created by users of an online system or service, often made available via social media websites.

UI – User Interface is the visual part of computer application or operating system through which a user interacts with a computer or a software. It determines how commands are given to the computer or the program and how information is displayed on the screen.

URL – Uniform Resource Locator is the unique address for a file that is accessible on the Internet.

XML – Extensible Markup Language is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format which is both human-readable and machine-readable.