Glossary of digital marketing and communication

Adaptive web design involves creating several fixed layouts, one for each type of screen — mobile phone, tablet, computer —: the website serves the layout that corresponds to the visitor’s device. It is controlled down to the pixel, but does not handle intermediate screen sizes well; responsive web design, which allows a single layout to adjust automatically, has largely replaced it. See our website design page.

Affiliate marketing involves having your products or services promoted by partner websites — comparison sites, deals websites, specialist blogs — which are paid on a performance basis: a commission for every sale, lead or click they generate for you. You only pay for results, but you share your profit margin and are dependent on how your partners present your offer.

A digital agency provides digital content creation services: websites, mobile apps and computer graphics. It also offers services relating to online advertising management and search engine optimisation.

An SEO agency, or natural search optimisation agency, improves a website’s ranking in organic search engine results: website audit, keyword selection, technical fixes, content, backlinks, and ranking monitoring. See our SEO audit.

A backlink, or inbound link, is a link that leads to your website from another website. Search engines view this as a recommendation: relevant links from websites in your sector — partners, customers, suppliers — improve your organic search ranking; links that are bought or mass-produced can penalise it.

Backstage passes are cards that grant access to the backstage area of an event or to a VIP area. These personalised items are usually kept for a long time by their recipients, making them an ideal tool for corporate communications.

A brand identity guide sets out the visual elements to be used across all your communications: in print, on your website and on social media.

Software that simplifies the creation, editing and publication of web content. Most professionals use content management systems, designed so that even someone with no knowledge of web languages can edit a website’s content. Most of the websites we develop use MODX, a robust and open-source CMS suitable for businesses of all sizes, or ArteZya, our CMS built on MODX — the one used on this website. We also build websites using other tools, depending on our clients’ requirements: for example, WordPress for simple websites or blogs, and PrestaShop or Magento for online shops.

A headless CMS separates content management from content display: text and images are entered once and then delivered to a website, an app or any other platform. This is the principle behind ArteZya, the no-code headless CMS that we offer.

Digital communication is a field within communication studies that refers to all activities aimed at disseminating messages via digital media: the web, social media, mobile apps, email marketing and so on…

Integrated communication is defined as the creation of a range of communication materials that are consistent with one another, in order to give your communication a sense of harmony.

Communication 2.0 involves forging a lasting connection with consumers via social media. Companies can engage with their audience, encourage them to respond, and introduce them to their latest products.

CPC, or cost per click, is the billing method used for search engine advertising: the advertiser only pays when a user clicks on their advert. The amount is determined by an auction between advertisers targeting the same keyword: it rises as competition increases. This should not be confused with CPM (cost per thousand impressions), which is common in display advertising. See online advertising.

Website design, or website creation, involves gathering all your clients’ requirements in order to develop a mock-up of the website.

CSS gives HTML pages their final appearance, in line with the designer’s intentions. Web designers can thus customise attributes such as font sizes and colours, or insert background images into HTML pages.

Web browsers have been around for as long as the web itself: some of your customers may be using older browsers, which lack the features of more modern browsers, to view your web pages. Graceful degradation is a web page design strategy that enables you to manage these different browsers: the website is first designed for the most modern browsers; on older or less feature-rich browsers, it degrades whilst remaining functional, with fewer features (animations, etc.). This is the opposite approach to progressive enhancement, which starts with a simple version and gradually adds features to it.

Display advertising refers to online graphic advertising: banners, images or videos displayed on websites, apps or social media platforms, as opposed to text-based adverts in search results. It is mainly used to raise brand awareness or to re-engage previous visitors (see retargeting). It is most often billed on a CPM basis – cost per thousand impressions – or per click.

Email marketing — ‘online direct mail’, as recommended by the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language — involves sending emails to attract new customers or retain existing ones: newsletters, offers, and automated reminders from an online shop. When sent to a private individual, a commercial email requires their prior consent; between businesses, it is permitted if it relates to the recipient’s profession, and the recipient must be able to opt out. See our email and SMS reminders.

The exact rules can be found on the CNIL website: commercial marketing by email.

Event marketing encompasses all the marketing techniques used to organise events that are more or less unusual, or even exceptional, in order to promote a brand, a product or an organisation. Event communication encompasses all the tools and media used to support the communication activities associated with an event.

Our services include hosting for all types of websites — showcase sites, e-commerce sites —, the management of business email accounts and SSL certificates.

Another image file format, limited to a palette of no more than 256 colours, which has been used for animation effects since the early days of the web. It is enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to cinemagraphs – photographs in which only a small section plays in a loop – which can be used to create video teasers.

It is the structural language of web pages: the vast majority of a website’s data is written in HTML. Each part of an HTML document is marked up according to its data type (titles, headings, paragraphs, images, etc.) using tags.

Off-media refers to all communication tools that do not involve the media (press, internet, television, billboards, radio). It includes events, gifts, in-store promotions, direct mail and email campaigns, and so on…

Inbound marketing brings customers to you rather than you having to go out and find them: useful content — articles, guides, answers to your customers’ questions — helps people find you on search engines and social media, and then follow-up messages turn visitors into leads, and leads into customers. This contrasts with outbound marketing — advertising, cold calling — which reaches out to prospects. See how AmaZili uses inbound marketing.

It is a scripting language that enhances the interactivity of HTML web pages. JavaScript libraries, such as jQuery, have long made it easier to use. These are animations written in JavaScript that instruct the browser to move the relevant HTML tags, adding dynamism and a playful feel to your web pages.

It is a popular file format amongst web designers. The JPG format is ideal for reducing the file size of a photograph or a complex illustration, so that it loads more quickly in the browser.

A kakemono is a vertical poster, either mounted on a stand or hung up, which can be used for promotional purposes at a point of sale or at a trade fair.

A landing page is the page that a user arrives at after clicking on an advert, an email link or a social media link. Designed for a single action — requesting a quote, signing up or making a purchase — it delivers on the promise made in the advert: a campaign’s conversion rate depends on it. See online advertising.

Lobbying is a campaign of actions undertaken to defend one’s interests with institutions or individuals capable of exerting influence on behalf of the sponsor. This type of campaign is often directed at the political sphere.

The logo is at the heart of a company’s identity. Often the first visual impression people have of it, it is of the utmost importance: choosing a logo is a significant step in setting up a business, whether it is a start-up or a multinational.

Digital marketing encompasses everything that attracts customers via the internet: search engine optimisation, online advertising, social media, email marketing — and measuring the results of each. See our digital marketing page.

Sponsorship enables a company or an individual to associate their image with that of an event, a cause or an organisation. The benefit for a company is that it can promote its image and values through sponsorship, which also entitles it to a tax relief, provided that the donation is not accompanied by disproportionate benefits in return.

A media outlet is a channel used to convey advertising messages: the press, television, the internet, billboards and radio.

Web analytics tracks visits to a website and what visitors do there: page views, referral sources, navigation paths and contacts generated. It reveals what generates revenue and what incurs costs without producing anything. A tool configured in accordance with CNIL regulations — use restricted to website statistics, data not cross-referenced with other sources, tracking cookies limited to thirteen months, with the option to opt out — does not require prior consent from visitors. This is how Matomo is configured on our own website; when we host Matomo for a client, the configuration remains at their discretion. See ‘Measuring to decide’.

The exact conditions can be found on the CNIL website: solutions for audience measurement tools.

The ‘mobile-first’ approach involves designing a website for mobile devices first, and then expanding it to suit larger screens. This is a form of progressive enhancement: effects and features are added for larger screens rather than removed for smaller ones, in contrast to ‘graceful degradation’.

A keyword is what your customers type into a search engine: a word or phrase, such as ‘web agency Annonay’ or ‘logo design’. Choosing the right ones — those used by your customers, not just those associated with your industry — is the first step in both SEO and online advertising.

It is a programme whose main function is to display information from websites, which it retrieves from a server. Common web browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge — which replaced Internet Explorer, discontinued by Microsoft in 2022 — display this information as text and images on a computer screen. Alternative browsers are available for people with visual impairments: they read the page’s content aloud or convert it into Braille.

A domain name is your website’s address on the internet — amazili-communication.com, for example — and the address used for your emails. It is rented on an annual basis from a domain registrar; registering it in your company’s name, rather than that of your service provider, ensures that you retain control over it. See our web hosting services.

PHP is an open-source programming language, primarily used to generate dynamic web pages via an HTTP server, but which can also run locally like any other interpreted language. PHP is an imperative, object-oriented language.

Source: Wikipedia, PHP

The PNG format is a lossless image file format, ideal for transparency effects on websites thanks to its alpha channel, which controls the opacity of each pixel. It is supported by all modern browsers.

Advertising is a communication technique that aims to change consumers’ attitudes and behaviour by encouraging them to take action.

A website redesign is required when your site needs to evolve: following a change to the logo or brand identity, due to technological constraints (such as obsolete technologies like Flash), or because its functionality or appearance no longer reflects the image of your company or its products. We invite you to read the article on website redesigns on our blog.

Responsive web design ensures that a single layout adapts to the screen width: columns rearrange themselves and images resize, from mobile phones to large screens. This is now the norm: Google ranks mobile versions of websites first, and a site that doesn’t display properly on a mobile phone will drop down the rankings. See our website design page.

Retargeting — ‘advertising targeting’, as recommended by the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language — involves identifying a web user who has visited an e-commerce site, in order to show them adverts related to their presumed interests. Google calls it remarketing. It relies on trackers, and therefore on the visitor’s consent. See online advertising.

SEA (search engine advertising), or paid search, refers to adverts purchased on search engines — such as Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising — which appear above the organic results. It drives traffic from day one, as long as you continue to pay, usually on a cost-per-click basis. Together with SEO, it forms SEM (search engine marketing). See organic search and advertising.

SEO (search engine optimisation), or organic search – ‘non-paid search’ in official terminology – encompasses everything that improves a website’s ranking in the non-paid results of search engines: technical aspects, content and inbound links. Its effects take longer to materialise than those of SEA, but they are long-lasting. See our page on organic search.

A computer, much like the one you’re using right now, specially configured to serve web pages to browsers. Even an entry-level server can handle multiple browsers at once. You’ve guessed it: owning or renting a server is essential for having a website. We offer this as an option when you have a website built by us, at affordable prices, through our hosting service.

An e-commerce site is a sales tool: it must be user-friendly, to make purchasing easier, and well-optimised for search engines.

SMO (social media optimisation), or social media SEO, uses social media – and in particular their sharing features – to improve a website’s ranking in search engine results and drive traffic to it. See our tips for social media.

Sponsorship, like patronage, enables a company’s or a product’s image to be linked to an event. Unlike patronage, it involves a direct consideration, most often in the form of advertising: the tax authorities treat it as an advertising expense, deductible from profit, without any tax relief.

The conversion rate is the proportion of visitors who carry out the desired action: requesting a quote, making a call, signing up or making a purchase. A shop that receives 5,000 visits and 100 orders has a conversion rate of 2 per cent. It is this figure, rather than the number of visits, that determines whether a website or campaign is profitable. Measure to decide.

The term ‘4K video’ refers to two similar resolutions: 4096 × 2160 pixels in digital cinema (DCI standard, aspect ratio of approximately 1.9:1), and 3840 × 2160 pixels on television, in 16:9, known as Ultra HD. Ultra HD offers four times the resolution of Full HD (1920 × 1080).