Call to action |
| In an email message, the link or body 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. Requires that all unsubscribes should 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 |
| Aka 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 system |
| An anti-spam program that requires a human being on the sender's end to respond to an emailed challenge message before their messages can be delivered to recipients. Senders who answer the challenge successfully are added to an authorization list. Bulk emailers can work with challenge-response if they designate an employee to watch the sending address' mailbox and to reply to each challenge by hand. |
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Churn |
| How many subscribers leave a mailing list (or how many email addresses go bad) over a certain length of time, usually expressed as a percentage of the whole list. |
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Click-through & click-through tracking |
| When a hotlink is included in an email, a click-through occurs when a recipient clicks on the link. Click-through tracking refers to the data collected about each click-through link, such as how many people clicked it, how many clicks resulted in desired actions such as sales, forwards or subscriptions. |
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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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Commercial email |
| Email whose purpose, as a whole or in part, is to sell or advertise a product or service or if its purpose is to persuade users to perform an act, such as to purchase a product or click to a Web site whose contents are designed to sell, advertise or promote. |
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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 automatically generated by a third party. |
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Confirmed opt-in |
| Inexact term that may refer to double-opt-in subscription processes 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. The conversion rate is the percentage of emailed recipients who responded to a specific complaint. |
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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 (also can be Acquisition). A method of paying for advertising, or calculating results from non-CPA marketing. |
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CPC |
| Cost per Click. A method of paying for advertising. Different from CPA because all you pay for is the click, regardless of what that click does when it gets to your site or landing page. |
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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. Alternatively it can mean the cost of sending 1000 emails. |
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Creative |
| An email message's copy and any graphics. |
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CRM |
| Customer Relationship Management technology and systems |
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Cross-campaign profiling |
| A method used to understand how email respondents behave over multiple campaigns. |
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Cross-post |
| To send the same email message to at least two different mailing lists or discussion groups. |
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CTR |
| Clickthrough 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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