Call to action |
| In an email message, the text or image link, button, widget or visually highlighted body in copy that tells the recipient what action to take. |
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Campaign |
| An email marketing message or a series of messages designed to accomplish an overall goal. |
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CAN-SPAM Act, 2003 |
| The United States of America introduced this Federal anti-spam legislation, passing it in 2003. It requires the following in each email: a legitimate header, a valid 'From' address and a straightforward 'Subject' line. Also required by this act is an unsubscribe/opt-out option and/or instructions and a physical address. All unsubscribe requests are required to be processed within ten days of receipt. |
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Catch-all |
| An email server function that forwards all questionable email to a single mailbox. The catch-all should be monitored regularly to find misdirected questions, unsubscribes or other genuine live email. |
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Cell |
| (Test cell, or version). A segment of your list that receives different treatment specifically to see how it responds versus the control (regular treatment.) |
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CGI |
| Acronym for Common Gateway Interface. It is a specification for transferring information between the Web and a Web server, such as processing email subscription or contact forms. |
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Challenge-response |
| (or C/R) system is a type of spam filter that that automatically sends a reply with a challenge to the (alleged) sender of an incoming e-mail. Senders who answer the challenge successfully are added to an authorization list. Bulk emailers can work with challenge-response but have to keep in mind that they will need to reply to each challenge manually. |
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Churn rate |
| The average number of customers that leave a subscription service during a year (by opting out of a subscriber list); usually expressed as a percentage of the whole list. |
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Click-through |
| A click-through occurs when a recipient clicks on a hotlink which has been included in an email. Hotlinks can take email recipients to website landing pages, articles, blog entries etc. |
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Click-through rate |
| Total number of clicks on email link(s) divided by the number of emails sent. Includes multiple clicks by a unique user. Some email broadcast vendors or tracking programs define CTR differently. |
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Click-through tracking |
| refers to the data collected about each click-through link, such as how many people clicked it and more detailed, how many clicks resulted in desired actions such as sales, forwards or subscriptions. |
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Commercial email |
| Email whose purpose, as a whole or in part, is to sell or advertise a product or service. The email is designed to persuade users to perform an act, such as to purchase a product or click to a Web site which advertises, sells and promotes a product or service. |
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Confirmation |
| An acknowledgment of a subscription or information request. "Confirmation" can be either a company statement that the email address was successfully placed on a list, or a subscriber's agreement that the subscribe request was genuine and not faked or generated by a third party. |
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Confirmed opt-in |
| Inexact term that may refer to a double-opt-in subscription process or may refer to email addresses which do not hard bounce back a welcome message. Ask anyone using this term to define it more clearly. |
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Content |
| All the material in an email message except for the codes showing the delivery route and return-path information. Includes all words, images and links. |
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Conversion |
| When an email recipient performs a desired action based on a mailing you have sent. A conversion could be a monetary transaction, such as a purchase made after clicking a link. It could also include a voluntary act such as registering at a Web site, downloading a white paper, signing up for a Web seminar or opting in to an email newsletter. |
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Co-registration |
| Arrangement in which companies collecting registration information from users (email sign-up forms, shopping checkout process, etc.) include a separate box for users to check if they would also like to be added to a specific third-party list. |
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CPA |
| Cost per Action (or Acquisition), also known as PPA (Price per Action). CPA is an online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for each specified action (a purchase, a form submission, and so on) linked to the advertisement. |
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CPC |
| Cost per Click. An online advertising pricing model where an advertiser pays search engines and other Internet publishers a specific amount of money every time someone clicks on one of their advertisements which brings visitors to a website. The CPC ad rate varies depending on the search engine and the level of competition for a particular keyword. |
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CPM |
| (Cost per Thousand) In email marketing terminology, CPM commonly refers to the cost per 1000 names on a given rental list. For example, on a rental list priced at $250, CPM would mean that the list owner charges $0.25 per email address. In online advertising, the CPM model refers to advertising bought on the basis of impression. It differs from pay-for-performance advertising, where payment is only triggered by a mutually agreed upon activity (i.e. click-through, registration, sale - see CPC and CPA). |
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Creative |
| The content part of the email message such as text, links, images and graphics. |
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CRM |
| Customer Relationship Management technology and systems. |
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Cross-campaign profiling |
| An email marketing method used to understand how email respondents behave over multiple campaigns. |
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Cross-post |
| An email marketing method that allows you to observe different recipient behavior by sending the same email message to at least two different mailing lists or discussion groups. |
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CTR |
| Click-through Rate. Slightly inexact because some clicks "get lost" between the click and your server. Also be sure to ask if the CTR is unique, meaning that each individual user is only counted once no matter how many times they click on a link. |
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