Using a common, consistent set of terms to refer to our features, structure, and environments will assist us communicating with and understanding each other. This glossary represents a mixture of Zift Solutions specific terms as well as marketing industry terms.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M |
N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
A
Accelerated Delivery
This digital advertising delivery option tries to show your digital ads quickly until your budget is reached. With this option, your digital advertising can stop showing early in the day if your budget is spent.
Activity Dashboard
Each activity in a campaign has its own dashboard where you can add details, personalize the content, add contacts, and schedule deployment until the activity is deployed. After deployment, the activity can no longer be changed.
After the activity is deployed and is building statistics, the dashboard will display statistics for the activity. For email, it is email opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes. You will also see the date the email was sent. You will also see a Preview option for the email.
Actual CPC Bid
Your actual cost-per-click (actual CPC) is the final amount you're charged for a click. You're often charged less, sometimes much less, than your maximum cost-per-click (max. CPC) bid, which is the most you'll typically be charged for a click.
Ad
A form of marketing communication that advertisers can use to promote their product or service on the Google Network, Bing or LinkedIn. Ads are also referred to as Digital Advertising. Digital advertising can appear within the search engine results page whenever your ad is triggered by a search query containing one of your keywords (depending on budget and bid for a keyword).
Ad Delivery Option
A setting that determines how quickly you want Google, Bing or LinkedIn to use your budget each day: either spread throughout the day (standard) or more quickly (accelerated). This setting affects when during the day your digital ads are likely to show.
Ad Groups
An ad group contains one or more digital ads that target a shared set of keywords.
Ad Segments
The Ad Segments tab within your Zift123 SEM campaign will refer to your different landing pages.
Agency
A third-party business that supplies full-service activities (FSA) to partners. The agency may or may not charge a fee for their services. The supplier determines the fee structure. This fee can be paid with a combination of Marketing Development Funds (MDF) and/or partner out-of-pocket funds. Other terms for the agency include vendor and marketing agency.
Analytics Embed Code
Like visitor tracking of specific syndicated website plugin assets, embedding this JavaScript within a Zift123 user’s site allows Zift to track and report on visitors to the user’s website.
Ansira
Ansira is a third-party company that manages partner marketing funds.
Application Program Interface (API)
An application program interface (API) is a programming language that allows two software programs to communicate with each other. The API defines the correct ways for a developer to write a program that requests services from an operating system or other application.
Automatic Bidding
With automatic bidding, you set a target daily budget and the digital advertising system automatically adjusts your maximum CPC bids on your behalf, with the goal of getting you the most clicks possible within budget.
B
B2B Marketing
A third-party telequalification company is responsible for handling all new incoming leads and qualifying them via phone and email.
Banner
A promotional image designed to encourage clicking to a page with more information or a form to complete. This content is not meant to live on its own page. This content is typically smaller and in the form of an offer or incentive. Banners are best suited to reside across the top of a web page.
Bounces
A bounce occurs when a campaign (email, newsletter, etc.) is not delivered to a recipient. See Hard Bounce and Soft Bounce.
Bounce Rate
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Website bounce rate -The percentage of people who land on a page on your website and then leave without clicking on anything else or navigating to any other pages on your site. A high bounce rate generally leads to poor conversion rates because no one is staying on your site long enough to read your content or convert on a landing page or other conversion event.
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Email bounce rate - The rate at which an email was unable to be delivered to a recipient's inbox. A high bounce rate generally means your lists are out-of-date or purchased, or they include many invalid email addresses. In an email, not all bounces are bad, so it's important to distinguish between hard and soft bounces before taking an email address off your list.
Broad Match Keywords
Broad match is the default match type that all your keywords are assigned. Digital ads may show on searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations. Example keyword: women's hats Example search: buy ladies hats.
Business to Business (B2B)
Business to Business is the term used when "exchanging products or services between businesses rather than between business and consumers", per TechTarget an internet resource for business information.
C
Call to Action (CTA)
Any link inside marketing activities that directs the recipient to a registration form, white paper, video or other destinations.
Campaign
A campaign is a collection of marketing activities that include emails, email workflows, web plugins, print media, digital advertising, or any combination of these. A campaign can be supplier-provided, or you can create your own campaign. By creating campaigns, you will be able to gather data in one place for all the marketing activities around a specific product or service that is offered. Campaigns cannot be deleted but can be archived for later use if needed.
Channel
A channel is a system through which large companies work with smaller companies as a means of distributing their products or solutions to end-users. The smaller companies work as a third party to market and sell the larger company's products, services or solutions. This creates a mutually beneficial relationship between the larger company (the supplier) and the smaller company that is selling their products (the partner).
Channel Account Manager (CAM)
Responsible for developing and supporting relationships with channel partners, enabling them to use co-marketing content, distribution, and analytics to gain visibility into the channel pipeline.
Channel Engagement Manager (CEM)
A Zift Solutions employee who is responsible for a particular supplier and the Zift123 users that fall under that customer.
Channel Management
The implementation of the Channel Strategy, most often with an emphasis on recruiting partners, increasing partner adoption and improving profitability through such practices and applications as Market Development Funds, Channel Marketing Automation platforms, CRMs, and Concierge Services
Channel Marketing
The process by which a vendor (solutions originator) partners with resellers of various types to promote their brand, reduce marketing outlays and drive sales for both the vendor and partner.
Channel Marketing Automation
The use of platforms that manage and integrate the channel marketing activities and track results, providing customized interfaces for both vendor and partner to create content and communications, ease distribution and provide analytics to accelerate sales, build a brand and maximize vendor and partner ROI for Channel Marketing.
Channel Marketing Management (CMM)
Channel Marketing Management platforms allow suppliers to maintain brand integrity and messaging consistency while increasing the cadence and effectiveness of partner marketing efforts. Key capabilities include automated co-branding and customization of content and sales materials, guided execution of supplier-provided marketing campaigns, automatic distribution of digital content directly to partner web sites, scheduled distribution of supplier-provided social content that appears as if it has come directly from the partner, and simplified lead management. CMM solutions also deliver increased insight into channel partners' performance and closed-loop reporting and analytics to identify which campaigns are working and why. Integration with other systems, like CRM (Salesforce) and PRM's makes the CMM even more valuable.quoted from SiriusDecisions Marketplace.
Channel Partner
A reseller of a supplier’s or manufacturer’s products and services expands vendor sales opportunities by utilizing the location, expertise and additional services that partners can provide. Typically, partners will receive access to marketing collateral, campaigns, tools, and training. “Channel partner” can be a collective name for value-added resellers (VARs), consultants, system integrators (SIs), managed service providers (MSPs) and distributors.
Channel Sales
Indirect sales by a manufacturer or supplier to an end customer. Manufacturers will use the channel as a method of distribution in order to reach and sell to their market via channel partners.
Channel Strategy
A vendor plan that governs the decisions and management of marketing and sales through a partner network, a uniquely configured channel set that is designed to maximize sales and profits for the vendor’s products and/or services. Channel strategy includes choosing the numbers, types, locations, expertise, market segment, and scope of channel partners–shaping the structure and function of the network, which may include Value-added resellers (VARs), managed service providers (MSPs), consultants, systems integrators (SIs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), retailers, wholesalers, and distributors.
Click
When someone clicks your ad, email, plug-in, social post, or other content it is counted as a click.
Click-through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate tells you the percentage of people who’ve seen your ad, email, plug-in, social post, or other content end up clicking on it. This metric can help you gauge how enticing your ad is and how closely it matches your keywords and other targeting settings. It is the total number of clicks that your activity or CTA receives divided by the number of opportunities that people had to click. It is an important KPI when measuring digital advertising performance.
Closed-Loop Reporting
Closed-loop reporting allows companies to keep track of leads from the beginning of the sales process to the end of the sales process.
Closed-loop reporting can help marketing teams a great deal by:
- Providing a person’s most up-to-date contact information for future nurturing campaigns.
- Sharing how specific leads end up becoming a sale – were there particular marketing pieces that helped nudge them in the right direction? Reporting these experiences helps to inform future campaigns and, in turn, makes for more conversions over time.
- Sharing why certain leads did not close and fell out of the sales process – were they not educated enough to make a sale? Were they not ready to make purchasing decisions yet?
There are also a couple of ways that closed-loop reporting can help the sales team to perform their job more effectively by:
- Giving them insight into what their current leads are engaging in on their site. If marketing is aware of a specific lead that a sales representative is working on, they can send them up-to-date information on actions that they are taking in terms of different marketing materials they are viewing.
- Keeping marketing informed on what kind of content produces more informed and educated leads. Better educated leads usually make for easier sales.
Closed-loop reporting allows for increased visibility into the sales process for everyone involved, and creates enhanced ability to show the full story of lead interaction.
Co-branded Marketing
When two or more brand names function together on a product, document, web page or event in order to reduce cost, increase exposure and lower risk. Automated channel marketing solutions can lower the cost and complexity of content by enabling channel partners the opportunity to co-brand with their supplier more easily, efficiently and effectively.
Collateral or Marketing Collateral
Collateral content is provided by suppliers to partners. It provides the means to build, mix, and promote business engagement and conversation. Collateral is meant to support and facilitate the promotion of a company, product, or service. It comes in many forms: audio, whitepapers, ebooks, case studies, microsites videos, images, banners, datasheets, PDFs, and more.
Collateral Programs
Zift123 Collateral Programs are a collection of collateral packaged for partners by suppliers to use to achieve a common goal.
Company Details
Company Details settings store basic company details such as name, phone, and physical address. Once populated, the company details will default to your content. You can always edit the details but once entered it settings they are easily available.
Company Profile
Each Zift123 account has a setting called Company Profile. The profile stores the company demographics, web plugin options, opt-in authorization, unsubscribe options, sharing permissions, language preferences, and company logo.
Concierge Services
See Managed Services
Contact
Contact represents an individual person or business that may or may not want to receive materials. The contact has indicated an interest in establishing a relationship with the generator of the materials. Each contact record includes specific contact information such as name, address, city, state, and phone number.
Contact List
A contact list is a group of individual contacts that represent an individual person or business with specific contact information such as name, address, city, state, and phone number. Each contact record includes specific contact information such as name, address, city, state, and phone number.
Content Marketing
The publication of information of interest to drive prospects down the Pipeline in any medium through any communications channel. Examples include blog entries, articles “placed” in industry media, video and slide presentations on sites such as YouTube and SlideShare, white papers, case studies, newsletters, and infographics.
Content Syndication
Syndication is the process of distributing useful, interest-driving information to end-users. Often the terms content and web syndication are considered interchangeable but there are slight nuances.
- Content syndication is the from the supplier, who originates the content, through the partner, who can co-brand the content, leveraging their brand with the suppliers. The content usually contains Calls to Action (CTA) or content linking to related content.
- Web content syndication is slightly different because web syndication is the process of distributing useful, interest-driving information from the web to the partner web location. Web syndicated content is typically not co-branded but also may contain Calls to Action or content linking to related content.
Marketers use syndication to engage prospects and boost conversion rates. Syndication lets you:
- Deliver targeted relevant content to website visitors
- Lift the burden of constant content development
- Boost conversion rates and generate new qualified leads
- Easily personalize and customize content to support your value proposition.
- Solidify your online reputation as an expert in your vertical.
- Monitor website visits, capture deep prospecting data and see exactly how content is consumed.
Zift products syndicate multiple channels of content for partner use in their comprehensive marketing plans. Consider using email syndication, web plugins, and social media in your comprehensive plan.
Zift supports content syndication in these ways: email, social media, and web plugins.
Conversion
Conversions (Email/Web Plugin ) are higher value clicks on links as a result of recipients clicking on the Call to Action (CTA) in an email or responding by clicking links in website plugins. Ideally, items are identified for conversion tracking by the supplier, are high value and signify a lead is hotter than a standard link. Conversions are intended to take the place of the form submissions and give a comparable lead score value.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate measures the percentage of users who take the desired action. The web conversion rate means that someone has filled out the form and downloaded a particular asset. An MQL conversion rate means that a person also meets specific pre-determined qualification criteria such as company size, industry, job title, frequency of visits, specific pages visited, etc. SQL conversion rate means that a person has a budget, authority needs, and timeline. When they reach this stage, they become a qualified pipeline opportunity. This is an important KPI for measuring digital advertising performance.
Co-op
A form of promotional allowance similar to MDFs but an accrual-based program that allocates dollar credits to partners based on performance, usually on a percentage basis.
Create Your Own (CYO)
Zift123 users can Create Your Own campaign or email using their Zift123 account. Some suppliers provide a co-brandable CYO template. Other suppliers leave the design to the partner using the WYSIWYG editor.
Custom Contact Field
Custom fields help Zift123 users target a specific audience when sending out a campaign. You can use custom contact fields to add additional fields to meet your needs such as a nickname or phone number. As you learn more about your contacts, you may want to add custom fields to gather additional information. Learn more.
Custom Email Footer
A unique email footer that displays at the bottom of every email the Zift123 user deploys from their account. The custom email footer can help to manage your mailings and stay within the laws of your region. Using the footer will allow you to send an opt-in link in your emails. Learn more.
Customer
The major enterprise that a Zift123 user falls under. Also called the supplier, vendor, products/solutions provider, manufacturer.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Typically a software tool that allows companies to manage all aspects of a business relationship with potential and current customers. The technology allows you to associate data and communications with a specific contact in a single, accessible place for employees. Integrating a CRM with a Zift123 user account can enhance the impact and value of the total solution for the Zift user. To streamline integration, Zift123 has pre-built connectors to many third-party CRMs, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and SugarCRM.
D
Daily Budget
An amount that you set for each digital ad campaign to specify how much, on average, you'd like to spend each day. You set an average daily budget for each digital advertising campaign, and then the system will aim to show your digital ads as much as possible until your budget is met. When your budget is reached, your digital ads will typically stop showing for that day. How quickly your digital ads are shown during a given day is determined by your ad delivery option.
Deactivated Contacts
When a Zift123 user deactivates a contact, that contact will also fall to the suppression list. However, the deactivated contact's lead activity (email clicks, web views, etc.) will still display in the Zift123 and ZiftMarcom account campaign statistics.
Dealer
A person or company that’s been given permission to sell a product or solution on behalf of a manufacturer or supplier, usually associated with both B2B and retail sales and services but a term that also has many different, company-specific parameters defined in the contract between a vendor and dealer.
Deep Link
A custom URL built to drive to one specific page within a supplier showcase.
Default Lead Owner
A selected user/member of the Zift123 account can be set to receive all lead notifications for the selected supplier. When leads are distributed from your supplier, leads will be assigned to default lead owners. The default lead owner will be assigned notifications on leads until the lead is assigned or reassigned to an appropriate sales rep. Default lead owners can be assigned by the supplier for partners with multi-subscription.
Demand Generation
A company’s full set of marketing programs that creates interest and drives sales, including integrated push/outbound marketing (e.g., email and other direct marketing, offers, promotions) and pull/inbound (content marketing, advertising, social media marketing programming).
Destination URL
The URL address of the page on your website that people reach when they click your campaign activities such as digital ads, email, or social post.
Digital Advertising Services (DAS)
DAS is Zift Solutions' terminology for the suite of services provided to run a digital advertising campaign.
Display URL
The web page address that appears with your campaign activities such as digital ads, email, or social posts, typically shown in green text. For standard text campaign activities, you can define your display URL, and it can be up to 35 characters. For expanded text digital ads, your display URL consists of the domain of your final URL (and the subdomain, if you have one) and your two optional “Path” fields of up to 15 characters each.
Distributed Leads
A Distributed Lead is a lead distributed from the supplier to a partner. These leads come to the supplier via marketing efforts outside of Zift123 and are likely input into a PRM and sent to Zift123 via an integration.
Distributor
A person or company that’s been given permission to distribute a product or service on behalf of a manufacturer or supplier, usually associated with the wholesale of consumer goods, customizable systems, heavy equipment, and electronic hardware, but a term with many different, company-specific parameters defined in the contract between a vendor and distributor.
E
Email Syndication
With email syndication from Zift Solutions, templates and campaigns are created that are reusable. Emails may have landing pages, confirmation pages, and forms associated with them. Partners can choose from the emails made available to them and then co-brand them for consumption by the end-user.
Email syndication has the following attributes
- Supplier provided co-branded emails with the ability to personalize
- Responsive mobile design
- Campaign start and end dates
- Review and approval stages
- Dynamic landing pages
- Campaign workflows
- Campaign tagging
Zift products syndicate multiple channels of content for partner use in their comprehensive marketing plans. Consider using email syndication, web plugins, and social media in your comprehensive plan.
Embedded Access Apps
A suite of vendor and partner marketing and sales tools integrated (embedded) in one interface to facilitate collaboration between vendor and partner and thereby reduce partner marketing outlays, and increase partner adoption and loyalty while reducing vendor outlays for channel management and sales growth. Embedded apps include such tools as MAPs, CRMs, CMSs, PRMs, social media schedules, major email clients and access across multiple devices.
Electronic mail between sender and recipient using digital devices. Emails can be deleted within a Zift123 account.
Email Clicks
An email click or view is when the recipient of an email click on a link in an email sent from Zift123. The more clicks the email receives the more successful we consider it.
Email Conversion
Email Conversions are higher value clicks on links as a result of recipients clicking on the Call to Action (CTA) in an email or responding by clicking links in website plugins. Ideally, items are identified for conversion tracking by the supplier, are high value and signify a lead is hotter than a standard link. Conversions are intended to take the place of the form submissions and give a comparable lead score value.
Email Credit
Email or mailing credit is the postage required for an email to be sent to a single recipient. Partners receive email credits every month. One email credit equals one email send. Large batches of emails are limited to 2500 emails at a time. More credits can be purchased, but sends must follow all of the SPAM laws. Learn more.
Email Open Rate or Email Opens
Email Opens refers to email open rates. It is the number of times a recipient of an email sent from Zift123 was opened. Open rate is calculated as follows
Learn more, How are open rates calculated?
Email Service Provider (ESP)
A company that offers email marketing or bulk email sending services. (MailChimp, CakeMail, and Constant Contact)
Email Summary Report
The Email Summary Report shows the partner how well their sent emails are performing, the number of lead captures, and lead conversions.
End-User
The individual that uses the Zift123 application. Also called partner, Zift123 user, and client.
Exact Match Keywords
Digital ads and SEM may show on searches that are an exact term and close variations of that exact term.
- Symbol: [keyword]
- Example keyword: [women's hats]
- Example search: women's hats
Event
Any tracked interaction with a partner's marketing activities, including email, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes; website views and clicks; digital ad views and clicks; social media clicks, likes, and shares; telequalification events; and form submissions.
Evergreen Social Posts
Evergreen Social Posts do not reference any specific event of timeframe, so they can be published at any time. We call these Library Posts in the Zift123 platform.
F
Filter
A filter is a tool designed to examine any input or output request for certain qualifying criteria and then process it accordingly. Filters limit the amount of scrolling required and return results quickly making it easier to find specific information.
Full-Service Activity (FSA)
A Full-Service Activites are marketing activities that partners can purchase with Marketing Development Funds (MDF). Full-Service marketing activities are executed by a third party.
Funding Summary
The Funding Summary is an overview of funding sources and the dollar amounts associated with each source.
H
Hard Bounce
A hard bounce is generated when you try to send an email to an address or domain that no longer exists. If you are consistently generating a hard bounce rate higher than 5%, there may be a serious problem with how you are populating your lists.
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
Google uses this definition, "HTML is a standardized system for tagging files to achieve font, color, graphic, and hyperlink effects on web pages."
I
Impressions
An impression is counted each time your ad is shown on a search result page or viewed by a visitor. Each time your ad is located and loaded, an impression is counted. Impressions indicate the reach of the ad and provide an estimate of the number of people seeing the ad.
Incentive Management
The planning and execution of a partner incentive strategy that, ideally, touches the pocketbooks of key stakeholders working for partners, from owners to sales reps to through MDFs, segmented and tiered contracts rewarding improved performance, promotions and offers, salesforce rewards and other primarily financial incentives for partners to favor the vendor’s products or services.
K
Keywords
Words or phrases describing your product or service that you choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear. There are four keyword types: broad, modified broad match, phrase match, and exact match. There are also negative keywords as well.
L
Landing Page
The landing page is the page a user visits by clicking a link in digital ads, email, web plug-in or social post. The users land on the page after taking action. The URL of this page may be the same as your ad's final URL.
Landing page experience
One of the several factors that help determine a keyword's Quality Score. The experience of a landing page is represented by such things as the usefulness and relevance of the information provided on the page, ease of navigation for the user, and how many links are on the page.
Lead
A lead represents a potential sale of a product or service. Leads represent contacts interacting with a Zift123 user's marketing campaigns or activities. Typically, this person has submitted a registration form in return for an offer of an asset such as a white paper, case study, datasheet, etc.
Example - The path of a lead.
For the purposes of our campaign within Zift123, leads are participants who have been telequalified and their lead level has been established. Once a participant has been converted into a lead, they will either be passed to the partner or will be placed into an email marketing nurture campaign based on the lead level.
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Lead Level 0 Not a valid lead. This lead will not be placed into the email marketing nurture program.
- Lead Level 1 A possible opportunity has been found, we are gathering account, contact, and participant information. This lead level will be placed in the email nurture campaign.
- Lead Level 2 B2B has contact and account information and a name for the participant. This lead level will be placed in the email nurture campaign.
- Lead Level 3 B2B knows the participant's business needs, in their terms. This lead level will be placed in the email nurture campaign.
- Lead Level 4 B2B has confirmed the prospect will be making a purchase and that the partner will have access to the key decision-maker. B2B alerts the prospect that a member of the partner’s team will be reaching out with a calendar invite to discuss this possible opportunity. The lead will then be passed to the partner through an email notification from the Zift system.
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Lead Deactivation
Leads can be deactivated in Zift123 making them inaccessible. The lead will move to the account suppression list. Leads and contacts can be deactivated from within the Zift123 account from within the lead notification email sent out and from within the user's CRM if one is used.
Lead Distribution
The process of the vendor transmitting lead data to partner’s with solutions and products likely to match the lead’s interests and needs, often automated distribution to tools such as CRMs and processed/sorted according to integrated parameters such as partner and lead business classification, location, expertise, and scope of services and/or product expertise offered and needed.
Lead Distribution Management (LDM)
An application-based process used by vendors to evaluate, distribute, and monitor leads to accelerating sales and optimize profits by matching leads to partners.
Lead Generation
Strategy and processes used to identify and elicit a response that presents a Lead Nurturing opportunity, often with both outbound and inbound marketing communications and activities.
Lead Nurturing
The strategy and process of driving a lead from initial interest down the pipeline to a sale sometimes counted as progressive “touches”–email, a submitted form for content download or viewing, social media activity, Content Marketing–all leading to sales touches and a close.
Lead Scoring
The process of assigning a “score” to a lead based on the digital body language in which they have shown. For example, assigning x number of points to someone for visiting a particular page on a company’s website.
Library Posts
Social Library Posts are an additional resource outside of the Zift123 user's social streams. These posts can be used as a supplement to the supplier social stream posts. The Social Media Library contains supplier-provided posts that are available for you to use. They are typically evergreen — meaning that they don't reference any specific event or time frame — so they can be published at any time.
M
Managed Services
A set of à la carte marketing services supplementing a core solution–for instance, providing a channel partner a custom email template with associated landing pages and content for a particular offer or to suit the interests and needs of a specialized market.
Manual Bidding
With Manual Cost-Per-Click (CPC) bidding, you can set a maximum price on the cost of someone clicking on your digital ads. You can get good value with this bidding method because you pay only when a viewer is interested enough to click your ad and learn more. For CPC bidding campaigns, you set a maximum cost-per-click bid.
Marketing Automation Platform (MAP)
A platform or technology for marketing organizations that automates intelligence, activities, and workflows, allowing measurement and distribution on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.). Examples of these platforms include Eloqua, Marketo, and Hubspot.
Market Development Funds (MDF)
Funds or credits given to dealers, distributors, VAR’s and other channel partners to encourage their marketing activities and increase channel sales. For example, the vendor sponsoring the use of a Channel Marketing Automation platform for co-marketed, co-branded, value-added products and services.
Marketing Role
Each user is assigned a role when the account is set up. Roles for the Zift123 user are marketing, sales rep, and administrator. Possible roles for Marcom users are Administrator, Marketing Administrator, PMM, and Reports Only. The Marketing role can access analysis, social, campaigns, leads, and partner management.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)
MQL is commonly defined as a prospect who has become a lead by filling out marketing offers that indicate a high level of interest in the company's products or services. These should be defined and agreed upon by marketing and sales teams.
Maximum CPC Bid
A bid that you set to determine the highest amount that you're willing to pay for a click on your ad. If someone clicks your ad, that click won't cost you more than the maximum cost-per-click bid (or "max. CPC") that you set.
Metrics
A quantifiable measure businesses use to track, monitor, and access the success or failure of various business processes.
Microsite
A microsite is part of a website with independent links that are accessed from a larger site. Microsites are usually stand-alone pages.
Modified Broad Match Keywords
Digital ads may show on searches that contain the modified term (or close variations, but not synonyms), in any order.
- Symbol: -keyword
- Example keyword: -women's -hats
- Example search: hats for women.
Multi-tenancy
Wikipedia defines software multi-tenancy as software architecture in which a single instance of the software runs on a server and serves multiple tenants. A tenant is a group of users who share common access with specific privileges to the software instance. The ability to have multiple subscriptions in one Zift123 platform.
N
Negative Keywords
Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns, to focus on what your audience is searching for. Using negative keywords can help you better target your audience. For negative keywords, search for terms that are similar to your keywords but appeal to a different audience. Digital ads may show on searches without the term. This is an example: A kitchen supply store that sells drinking glasses, a negative keyword term would be eyeglasses.
Nurture Campaign
A nurture campaign is a group of multi-touch emails to help the buyer through the Buyer's Journey. This will allow for prospects to receive further email marketing communications from the partner (managed by Zift). The prospects may or may not fill out a form on the landing page. After prospects are emailed through our nurture campaign, they will receive a lead status level. Based on their lead status level and interaction with the nurture campaign, they may be eligible to return to B2B for further qualification.
Nurtured Lead
A nurtured lead is a lead that has traveled down the sales pipeline from initial interest to a sale. The nurtured lead has interacted with various tactics such as email, a submitted form for content download or viewing, social media activity, etc. A nurtured lead will have gained lead scoring points of the level that has been defined as a nurtured lead.
O
Opportunity
Opportunity is commonly defined as a sales qualified lead that a sales representative has communicated with and believes has a legitimate chance at becoming a customer.
Opt-in Authorization
Opt-in Authorization is a term used in email marketing. Email recipients are given the option to agree to receive email marketing materials. Opt-in Authorization is when the recipient of the email agrees to receive an email from a Zift123 user. Sending emails to recipients that do not opt-in can result in getting suspended from your email service provider for sending spam.
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)
A technology provider that distributes a product produced by another company under its own brand name.
Overview Report
The Overview Report provides Zift123 users their account metrics at a glance. The report provides data on email opens, email clicks, web views and clicks, form submissions, and leads. Additionally recent activity for leads and companies and Assets for website plug-ins and mailings. A listing of the breakdown of top leads by email opens numbers and percentages. The leads can be exported to a CSV file.
P
Panel
Panels are also called web plug-ins, content syndication, or product showcases. Panels allow you to automatically and easily display supplier-provided web content such as rotating offers, videos, lead capture forms, product showcases, and downloads such as whitepapers and case studies on your website. Panels can be single or multi-pages and it is embedded within a site fitting seamlessly in like other non-syndicated pages. This dynamic content syndication allows you to target the interests of website visitors to deliver the most relevant content to the user. Delivering the right content at the right time greatly increases website visitor conversion rates.
Participants
The participant is a grouping of contacts you have selected to receive email communication that can be manually or dynamically added. Participants can be associated with an activity. Once participants are associated with the activity or order in Zift123, you can export a list of participants for a sales rep to contact in an effort to develop leads and the sales pipeline. You can easily mark participants as leads.
Partner
A company that partners with a manufacturer or supplier to market and sell the manufacturer's products, services, or technologies. Other names that might be used for a partner include Zift123 user or the end-user
Partner Adoption
Services or initiatives in order to generate enthusiasm, drive registration and increase engagement with your channel partners.
Partner Business Manager (PBM)
PBM is the vendor representative responsible for channel business planning, partner relationships, and through-channel marketing and sales, usually for a segment of vendor partners. Partner Business Manager is also known as Channel Account Manager (CAM).
Partner Default Fields
When personalizing a campaign or email, there are certain fields that will default to the original setting the Zift123 user chooses. For example, once a user sets their company logo in one campaign, subsequent emails will default to the same logo unless otherwise instructed.
Partner Demand Center (PDC)
A central platform that allows channel partners to easily engage in co-marketing programs and access customizable resources.
Partner Enablement
The strategy and provision of application-based tools, content, training, MDFs, partner adoption programs and other activities a vendor can sponsor that accelerate the sale and add value to the vendor-partner relationship.
Partner Level
Partner levels are established by the supplier (client) for partners or marketing agencies.
Partner Marketing Manager (PMM)
The person in the partner marketing manager role has responsibilities for providing marketing support for partnership strategy including creating and executing marketing programs and materials that create awareness, generate leads, strengthen relationships and leverage partner channels and platforms for maximum sales and branding benefit.
Partner Portal
A gated section of a vendor’s website and/or systems that are designed for partner use in doing business with the vendor. Usually, one important function of the partner portal is to aid partners in marketing and selling the vendor’s product or service.
Partner Relationship Management (PRM)
An application-based process that allows organizations to manage channel partner relationships often using SaaS-based software applications.
Phrase Match Keywords
Digital ads may show on searches that are a phrase, and close variations of that phrase.
- Symbol: "keyword"
- Example keyword: "women's hats"
- Example search: buy women's hats
Pay-per-click (PPC)
Pay-per-click is an internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays whenever an ad is clicked.
Prospect
A prospect is defined as a website visitor who has either signed up to receive blog updates or company newsletters or emails.
Q
Quality Score
Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your digital ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher-quality digital ads can lead to lower prices and better ad positions. Quality Score is reported on a 1-10 scale. The more relevant your digital ads and landing pages are to the user, the more likely it is that you'll see higher Quality Scores.
R
Recipient
Any email or campaign recipients who are not Zift123 users, but have been added to Zift123. Recipients can be set up to receive certain system notification emails from the Zift132 user.
Registered Lead
Contacts that the partner registers with their suppliers for the purpose of sharing contact information for potential sales are called Registered Leads. Registering a lead notifies the supplier that you are working with a particular customer and may result in additional support from the supplier during the sales cycle. Partners can only register contact with a supplier once. Registering a lead for a previously registered contact will produce an error.
Relevance
How closely the elements of your campaign match what a person seems to be looking for. When people see your emails, web plugins, print media, digital advertising, or any combination of these, they should be able to understand what kind of product, service, or other content they'll find on your site.
Return on Investment (ROI)
"Return on Investment is usually expressed as a percentage and is typically used for personal financial decisions to compare a company's profitability or to compare the efficiency of different investments. ROI = (Net Profit/Cost of Investment) x 100, " per InvestingAnswers an internet resource for financial questions.
Return on Investment is key when measuring pipeline revenue. It helps you measure how much revenue is in play based on the average value of the solution being promoted, and the number of qualified leads from a specific campaign. This is an important KPI for measuring digital advertising performance.
S
SalesForce Automation (SFA)
Represented by a number of players and flavors, SFA provides rich information, real-time tracking, lead distribution and sorting of contact lists by various criteria to share information and to nurture, drive and close leads.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)
SQL is commonly defined as a marketing qualified lead that is deemed by the sales team to be ready for contact after thorough research and investigation. Again, the sales and marketing team need to work together to identify which triggers are put in place to identify the transition between MQL and SQL.
Sales Representative Role
Sales Representatives (Sales Rep) have limited access to Zift123. Users with this role are restricted to seeing only their assigned lead profiles and event timelines.
Sandbox Environment
A sandbox is a development environment that isolates untested code in the context of software development including web development and revision control.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.
Shared Analytics
When a vendor and partner share selected real-time analytics of automated marketing activities and results, improving the responsiveness and time-to-sale of both.
Showcase
Showcases are also called web plug-in, content syndication, or panels. Showcases allow you to display supplier-provided content automatically and easily. This content might be in the form of rotating offers, videos, lead capture forms, and downloads such as whitepapers and case studies on your website. Showcases can be a single or multi-page and are embedded within a site fitting seamlessly in like other non-syndicated pages. This dynamic content syndication allows you to target the interest of website visitors to deliver the most relevant content to the user.
Single Sign-on (SSO)
Single sign-on (SSO) is a session and user authentication service that permits a user to use one set of login credentials (e.g., name and password) to access multiple applications. The service authenticates the end-user for all the applications the user has been given rights to and eliminates further prompts when the user switches applications during the same session. On the back end, SSO is helpful for logging user activities as well as monitoring user accounts. This definition is quoted from Tech Target.
Zift123 customers who utilize a single sign-on portal will require their partners to access the Zift123 platform via the suppliers' SSO portal. The SSO portal will always live on a different URL than the Zift123 platform.
Short Message Service (SMS)
Commonly referred to as text messaging. A service for sending short messages of text to mobile devices, including cellular phones, smartphones, and tablets.
Snap Shot Dashboard
A view in Zift123 where partners can view any feature activities that require additional personalization or scheduling. The Snap Shot Dashboard was designed to step a user through processes.
Social Form
Zift123 users have the option to include a social form with each social post they send out from their Zift123 account. This form requires anyone trying to engage with a social post the user has sent out, to give the user some basic information about the individual engaging with their social post (name, email, company name, etc.)
Social Media Account
A personal or business account within a social media platform such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Social Media Syndication
Partners can push social content to their connections and followers using supplier-based content that is continuously updated by the supplier.
Social Media syndication has the following attributes
- Partners can always create, edit, schedule, approve, ignore, or delete social media posts
- Partners can add mentions with @, hashtags with #, and images.
- Partners can select from a library of supplier-provided co-branded posts.
- Set the campaign language preference
- Add images and graphics
Depending on desired settings, partners may need to act on the available social media posts from suppliers to push the content to their followers. Partners can always create, edit, schedule, approve, ignore, or delete social media posts. Additionally, partners can add mentions with @, hashtags with #, and images.
Social Streams
Social streams are a compilation of the Zift123 user’s social media accounts that are connected to their Zift123 account, the social post topics, and the way each post is configured to deploy. Some suppliers offer a single stream, while others break their social content by product or topic. You can turn content off and on depending on the product or topic.
Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is a temporary error that does not result in the removal of the recipient from the mailing list but may delay delivery to that person. Your email reaches the server but is bounced back before it gets to the intended recipient. A soft bounce might occur if a server is temporarily unavailable or if a mailbox is full. After three failed delivery attempts, it is considered a hard bounce.
SPAM
SPAM is defined by Merriam-Webster as "unsolicited usually commercial email sent to a large number of addresses".
Standard Ad Delivery
The default digital ad delivery option tries to show your digital ads throughout the entire day to make sure that you don't spend your whole budget in the morning and cause your digital ads to stop showing for the rest of the day.
Statement of Work (SOW}
A document, routinely employed in the field of project management, which defines project-specific activities, deliverables, and their respective timelines, all of which form a contractual obligation upon the supplier, in providing services to the partner.
Submission
A form submission through an email landing page (gated asset. event registration, etc.), a web plug-in (gated asset, contact us, etc.), or a social form.
Subscription
The user's Zift123 account. One user can have multiple subscriptions across suppliers (clients).
Supplier
The major enterprise that a Zift123 user falls under. Suppliers might also be referred to as customers, vendors, products/solutions provider or manufacturers.
Suppression List
The suppression list is a list that contains email addresses that are permanently excluded from your email lists and will not receive future emails. The list is comprised of contacts that have opted out/unsubscribed from the Zift123 user’s email marketing. All contacts deactivated by the Zift123 user will also fall to the suppression list. These email addresses cannot be accidentally emailed to again by any user in the Zift123 account.
Syndication
Syndication is the process of distributing useful, interest-driving information to end-users. Often the terms content and web syndication are considered interchangeable but there are slight nuances.
- Content syndication is the from the supplier, who originates the content, through the partner, who can co-brand the content, leveraging their brand with the suppliers. The content usually contains Calls to Action (CTA) or content linking to related content.
- Web content syndication is slightly different because web syndication is the process of distributing useful, interest-driving information from the web to the partner web location. Web syndicated content is typically not co-branded but also may contain Calls to Action or content linking to related content.
Marketers use syndication to engage prospects and boost conversion rates. Syndication lets you:
- Deliver targeted relevant content to website visitors
- Lift the burden of constant content development
- Boost conversion rates and generate new qualified leads
- Easily personalize and customize content to support your value proposition.
- Solidify your online reputation as an expert in your vertical.
- Monitor website visits, capture deep prospecting data and see exactly how content is consumed.
Zift products syndicate multiple channels of content for partner use in their comprehensive marketing plans. Consider using email syndication, web plugins, and social media in your comprehensive plan.
System Integrators
People and companies specializing in combining an organization’s business processes and applications into an integral, coordinated whole that shares and processes information more effectively and efficiently.
System Notification Emails
Zift123 user accounts will send users system notification emails regarding features such as supplier messages, web analytics, and social content approval. Users can select to turn notifications on or off to meet their needs. See What are the Sender Email Addresses for Email Notifications and Exports?
T
Telequalification
When leads are qualified by trained staff making direct calls and follow-up emails to leads. This is done by a third-party vendor.
Through-Partner Marketing
The process of vendor establishing co-marketing programs with partners, usually involving co-branding, to adapt to the increasing share of vendor sales through channel networks or clusters. A collaborative model of channel marketing.
Through-Partner Marketing Automation (TPMA)
An application-based solution that manages Through-Partner Marketing by integrating partner and vendor marketing activities and analytics to result in accelerated sales and lower costs for both channel players.
Top Companies Report
The Top Company Summary captures data from the top companies for each partner. The report shows the partner the company a website visitor is a part of, how many times the visitor has viewed the partner’s website and any leads generated.
Tracking Options
Zift123 users can track the visitors to their website as long as they have the Zift Analytics Embed Code embedded into their company site. Users can track all website visitors, or track them by specific country.
U
Unsubscribe Link
Every email and/or mailings sent as part of a campaign must include an unsubscribe link. Clicking the unsubscribe link unsubscribes the email recipient from an online subscription. Recipients can also manage subscriptions and opt-out of all emails.
Unsubscribe/Opt-out
The number of recipients that unsubscribed/opted out and no longer wish to receive the Zift123 user’s email marketing. Opt-out is canceling the permission granted with an Opt-in.
User Roles
Each user is assigned a role when the account is set up. The roles of Zift123 and ZiftMarcom users are unique.
The roles for Zift123 users are marketing, sales rep, and administrator. Each role has the following access:
- Zift123 Administrators access, create and edit Zift123 account settings.
- Zift123 Marketing
- access, create, and edit campaigns, web plugins, social media, collateral, analysis, and contact tabs in Zift123.
- export data
- Zift123 Sales Representative
- access to distributed and registered leads.
Zift recommends that you create at least one user with both Administrator and Marketing roles.
The roles for ZiftMarcom users are Administrator, Read-Only, Reports Only, Non-Administrator, and Partner Marketing Manager. Each role has the following access:
- ZiftMarcom Administrator access
- and export all reports except for other Marcom users' saved private reports.
- access, create, and edit campaigns, content, and leads.
- access partners.
- create agencies.
- create to-partner communications.
- access integrations, internal website plugins, internal workflows, and SSO configurations.
- ZiftMarcom Read Only
- access and export all reports except for other Marcom users' saved private reports.
- view and export campaigns, content, leads, partners, and agencies.
- ZiftMarcom Reports Only
- access and export all reports except for other ZiftMarcom users' and saved private reports.
- ZiftMarcom None
- no access.
- ZiftMarcom Non-Administrator
- access and export all reports except for other ZiftMarcom users' save private reports.
- access, create and edit campaigns, content.
- access partners and agencies.
- ZiftMarcom Partner Marketing Manager
- access and export all reports except for other ZiftMarcom users' saved private reports.
- view and export campaigns and content.
- create and edit leads.
- create to-partner communications.
- access agencies.
- access partners.
V
Value Added Reseller (VAR)
An organization that enhances the value of a product that it resells as part of a package by adding value with complementary features or services. For example, in the software industry, a VAR may combine its suppliers’ products with proprietary software – as well as training and implementation assistance.
Value Proposition
The value proposition is the innovation, service, or feature intended to make a company or product attractive to customers.
Variable Fields for Zift
Zift123 Default Merge Fields |
|||
General Fields |
Merge Field Name |
General Field |
Merge Field Name |
Partner Name |
[PartnerName] |
Postal Code |
[PostalCode] |
First Name |
[FirstName] |
Country |
[Country] |
Last Name |
[LastName] |
Company Name | [Company] |
Email Address |
[EmailAddress] |
Title | [Title] |
Mobile Phone |
[MobilePhone] |
Description | [Description] |
Work Phone |
[WorkPhone] |
Industry | [Industry] |
Address Line 1 |
[Address1] |
SIC code | [SICcode] |
Address Line 2 |
[Address2] |
Website | [Website] |
City |
[City] |
Annual Revenue | [AnnualRevenue] |
State |
[State] |
Employee Number | [EmployeeNumber] |
W
Wallet
The credit card icon appears in the header of Zift123 when using the MDF feature. It is how you will access your funding wallet. See Marketing Fund Management.
Web Clicks
Web clicks are sometimes called Clicks. When someone clicks your ad, it counts as a click. Click-through Rate (CTR): tells you how many people who’ve seen your ad end up clicking on it. This metric can help you gauge how enticing your ad is and how closely it matches your keywords and other targeting settings.
Web Plugin
JavaScript code Zift123 users can embed in their company websites that promote their partnership with suppliers. The plugin can be in the form of product/solution showcases, landing pages, banners, microsites, blog posts, informational pages, free trials, demos, application solutions, subscriptions, etc.
Web Plugin Conversion
Web Plugin Conversions are higher value clicks on links as a result of recipients clicking on the Call to Action (CTA) in an email or responding by clicking links in website plugins. Ideally, items are identified for conversion tracking by the supplier, are high value and signify a lead is hotter than a standard link. Conversions are intended to take the place of the form submissions and give a comparable lead score value.
Web Plugin Syndication
Syndication is the process of distributing useful, interest-driving information to end-users. Web syndication is the process of distributing useful, interest-driving information from the web to the partner web location. Web syndicated content is typically not co-branded but also may contain Calls to Action or content linking to related content.
With a web plug-in from Zift Solutions, syndicated content adjusts automatically based on data about current website visitors. Web Plugins can be just a line or two of code that can easily be embedded into your website. You retain control with the ability to easily personalize and customize content displays to fit your specific brand and value proposition. Built-in analytics allow you to capture deeper prospecting data and measure site visitor activity to improve responses and adjust marketing efforts to the best results. This dynamic content syndication allows you to target the interests of website visitors to deliver the most relevant content to the user. Delivering the right content at the right time greatly increases website visitor conversion rates.
- Panels or showcases are usually a web landing page with multiple types of content. Showcases allow you to automatically and easily display supplier-provided syndicated web content such as rotating offers, videos, lead capture forms, and downloads such as whitepapers and case studies. This web content can be single or multi-pages and can be embedded within a site fitting seamlessly in like other non-syndicated pages.
- Microsites
- Banner widget
Web Plugin syndication has the following attributes
- Responsive web design
- Start and End dates
- Review & publishing stages
- Campaign topic tagging
Web Views
In email marketing, we count the number of times the email recipient clicks the call to action. The recipient viewing/clicking a link and viewing the associated web page is considered a web view.
Website Tracking
The analysis of visitor behavior on a website. Analysis of an individual visitor's behavior may be used to provide the website owner (Zift123 partner) valuable information regarding what services potential customers are interested in. It can also provide metrics around how successfully Zift123 plugins/campaigns/social media are performing.
Widget
A smaller piece of content that is not meant to live as its own page. Usually in the form of a special offer or incentive. Widgets are best suited to reside in a sidebar.
Workflow
From BusinessDictionary.com, "Progression of steps (tasks, events, interactions) that comprise a work process, involve two or more persons and create or add value to the organization's activities. In a sequential workflow, each step is dependent on the occurrence of the previous step; in a parallel workflow, two or more steps can occur concurrently". Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/workflow.html
In Zift123, the workflow is a series of automated marketing activities. Based on the recipient's behavior or criteria, the next marketing activity is triggered. Workflows allow Zift users to send the right message, to the right person, at the right time.
WYSIWYG Editor
A WYSIWYG editor is similar to a word processor. The editor allows you to see on the screen exactly what will appear when the document is published.
Z
Zift Solutions
The company that is running your digital advertising campaign on your behalf in conjunction with other third-party vendors. Zift provides expertise in channel marketing services while supporting IBM co-marketing programs and IBM’s digital content marketing platform for Business Partners.
zPage Parameter
A unique identifier that is assigned to every single page in a supplier showcase.