Marketing glossary

AI Overviews are AI-generated answer summaries that Google displays above traditional search results for many queries. They synthesize information from multiple web sources into a direct answer, with links to the pages used as sources.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) is the total sales and marketing cost required to acquire one new customer, calculated by dividing acquisition spend over a period by the number of new customers won in that period.

CTR (Click-Through Rate) is the percentage of people who click on a link, ad, or search result after seeing it. It is calculated by dividing clicks by impressions and multiplying by 100.

Conversion rate (CVR) is the percentage of visitors or users who complete a desired action, such as a purchase, sign-up, or inquiry. It is calculated by dividing conversions by total visitors or clicks, multiplied by 100.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is the framework in Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines for evaluating whether content and its creators are credible, with Trust described as the most important member.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring and optimizing content so that AI-powered answer engines, such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, select and cite it when generating responses to user queries.

LTV (Customer Lifetime Value, also written CLV) is the total revenue or profit a business expects to earn from a customer over the entire duration of the relationship, not just their first purchase.

Programmatic SEO is the practice of generating large numbers of search-targeted pages automatically from structured data and templates, rather than writing each page by hand. Each page targets a specific long-tail query pattern, such as a location, product, or comparison.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is a marketing metric that measures how much revenue a business earns for every dollar it spends on advertising. It is calculated by dividing the revenue attributed to your ads by the cost of those ads.

ROI (Return on Investment) is a financial metric that measures how much profit an investment generates relative to its cost. It is calculated by dividing net profit by the total cost of the investment, usually expressed as a percentage.

A zero-click search is a search that ends without the user clicking through to any website. The searcher's need is satisfied directly on the results page by answer boxes, AI summaries, knowledge panels, maps, or other built-in features.