Above the Fold The top section of a web page a visitor sees immediately after

clicking the link, without the need to scroll down

Action Any step a prospect takes that can be measured

Advertorial A paid advertisement that’s been designed to look like a

regular content article published by a credible source (the
word is a combination of ‘advert’ and ‘editorial’)

Autoresponder A sequence of emails, texts, or messages that are

automatically sent to a contact - often on a timer - depending
on the actions the contact has taken

B2B The term for any business, project, or task that is concerned
(Business-to-Business) with getting action from other businesses, not to regular
consumers

B2C The term for any business, project, or task that is concerned
(Business-to-Consumer) with getting action from regular consumers

Back-End A broad term used to refer to any material sent to an existing

customer who has already bought from a company i.e. after
their first purchase

Banner Ad A clickable ad on a website that usually occupies a

rectangular space at the top or bottom of a page

Below the Fold Used to refer to anything that comes underneath the initial top
section of a webpage

Benefit The positive function that a feature of a product or service will

result in for a prospect - think of it as the tangible advantage
they will gain by using what you’re offering

Big Idea (Idea) A single, powerful idea that a piece of copy revolves around -
the sales argument’s ultimate point that you want to convince
the reader to believe

Blast Email An email or email sequence that gets sent to an entire contact
list without worrying about the actions particular segments of
that list have already taken

Body Copy Copy that comes after the end of the lead - often thought of
as the point where you begin to focus on proving the Idea that
you’ve set up

Bounce Rate The percentage of visitors to a page who leave without taking
a single action

Brand Awareness Often synonymous with indirect-response advertising - this

concept is more concerned with getting people to see or take
notice of a campaign, rather than measuring any direct results

Call Out A part of copy that focuses on highlighting the ideal client’s
 characteristics or labels, the aim of which is to grab attention
of the target audience

Call To Action (CTA) A direct appeal to the reader, telling them what action they
should take next; CTA’s are usually found on or near buttons

Customer Acquisition The term used for getting new paying customers (buyers) for
a business

Customer Acquisition The amount of money it takes to acquire a single customer for
Cost (CAC) a business on average (cost of sales + marketing budget
‘divided by’ number of new customers in set time period)

Claim A statement made in copy that directly promises any kind of

result or presents something as fact - this should usually be
backed up by proof

Click Through Rate The % of prospects who viewed an ad, page, or email, who
(CTR) also clicked a corresponding link to visit the next stage in the
funnel

Close The final part of copy, the aim of which is to encourage the
reader to take action

Cold Used to refer to an audience who haven’t been exposed to

the advertising material of your business before

Content Writing Usually used in reference to copy that doesn’t directly aim to
make the reader take action and is instead viewed as a ‘brand
building’ or ‘authority-proving’ exercise

Control The best-performing piece of copy (highest converting) used

at a particular point in a marketing campaign - the aim of new
copy is to ‘beat the control’

Conversion Rate (CR) The % of page visitors who take a specific action like buying a
product or downloading a lead magnet

Copy Usually used to refer exclusively to any text that is aiming to

convince a reader to take some kind of action immediately,
but in the wider world, it’s often used to refer to any kind of
writing in marketing

Cost Per Acquisition Used to measure the average cost of acquiring leads - CPA =
(CPA) the total cost of a campaign ‘divided by’ the number of
acquisitions (this doesn’t include buyers)

Cost Per Thousand The total cost of a piece of advertising material divided by the
(CPM) number of impressions made by the thousands i.e. $100,000
Cost / 500,000 impressions = $200 CPM

Cross-Selling The act of presenting a potential buyer with the chance to buy
a product similar to the one they already have in their basket

Customer Value The idea of increasing the LTV of customers, gaining more
Optimisation (CVO) customers, and cutting the cost of acquisitions through more
efficient marketing

Demographic A segment of the population who are grouped together by a

shared characteristic or set of characteristics i.e. age, gender,
income, education, etc

Desire Anything your prospects actively wants that they think will
improve their life in some way

Differentiation The act of making your product or service appear as unique

when compared to others in the same market

Dimensionalization The process of making the messages in your copy feel more
‘real’ for your reader by presenting them as situations they
can easily recognise or imagine - typically used to make
benefits more vivid or to show your understanding of their
current problems

Direct Mail A marketing strategy that uses paper mail delivered physically
to addresses to acquire leads and gain customers; this was
one of the most common methods of direct-response
advertising until wide usage of the internet began

Direct Marketing The act of communicating advertising material directly to a

pre-selected audience

Direct Response Used to refer to any advertising material that aims to provoke
an immediate action from the reader i.e. direct mail, Facebook
ads, sales pages, marketing emails

Downsell Used to refer to a lower-priced offer that’s presented to the

customer after they’ve purchased the initial offer but refused a
subsequent upsell

Drip Campaign An email campaign designed to automatically send out

messages over a set period of time

Evergreen Usually used to refer to an automatic marketing campaign

that runs continuously and can be engaged by new prospects
at any time

Exclusivity A benefit that appeals to the reader’s sense of superiority,

showing them that they have the chance to belong to a small
group of those ‘in the know’

Eyebrow Copy Copy that goes above the headline in smaller type, usually
used as some kind of ‘pre’ or ‘introductory’ headline

Fascination Used to refer to bullet point copy that aims to intrigue the
reader and tease something so interesting or useful that the
reader ‘can’t help but buy’

Feature Any specific trait or attribute held by a product or service

Front-End Used to refer to any advertising material that is shown to
raiders before they make an initial purchase

Funnel A general term for any kind of structured marketing campaign

that can be measured at each stage and aims to move people
towards, through, and beyond the point of sale (sometimes
used more specifically to refer to linear sequences of
advertising material coined by companies like Clickfunnels)

Graphics Design-based assets that accompany copy on pages

Guarantee Any promise made in advertising material that customers can

use to mitigate the risk of accepting an offer; most commonly
seen as ‘money-back guarantees’ and ‘free trials’

Headline The most visually striking line of copy at the beginning of any
piece of advertising material that is seen and read before
anything else - used to grab attention and encourage the ideal
prospect to read on

Hero Section Used interchangeably with ‘Above the fold’ - refers to the top
section of any page that can be seen without any scrolling

Hook A piece of copy that aims to grab the reader’s attention and
implicitly or explicitly promise the reveal of an interesting
piece of information if they continue to read

Indirect Voice of Raw quotes taken from the target market in contexts where
Customer Data (IVOC) they don’t know they’re being probed or analysed for market
research or by an authority

Landing Page A web page that’s targeted at a particular audience whereby

the visitors ‘land there’ after clicking on a link that’s promised
them some kind of specific information

Lead Generation The act of collecting a list of prospects’ contact information

who may be likely to accept paid offers at some point; usually
done through the use of lead magnets

Lead Magnet A piece of content that can be accessed by a reader in

exchange for their contact information like an email address

Lifetime Value (LTV) The average amount of revenue a customer will generate
over the entire course of their relationship with a business

Lift A message (usually an email) sent to prospects to encourage

them to click through to a specific point in a funnel like a sales
page - lifts usually test different angles to see which works
best

List A collection of contacts that a business has procured, usually

split into segments depending on the extent of each contact’s
relationship with the business so far

Longform Copy Used to refer to pieces of copy that are longer than a certain
 number of words, though there is no set number and
perceptions of this can often differ depending on the form that
the copy takes (i.e. Email, FB Ad, Sales Letter)

Market A group of prospects who are specifically targeted by

campaigns because everyone within it shares a problem or
label in some way

Market Sophistication Refers to how similar a particular market is with advertising

within the market - lower levels of market sophistication
typically mean the advertising can be more direct as few or no
businesses have tried to serve the market before so there is
less competition

Micro Commitments Statements in copy that implicitly ask for a rhetorical ‘yes’
from readers - used to move the reader into a compliant state
of mind where they’re used to accepting what is being said in
the copy (sometimes also refers to smaller steps within the
funnel such as 1 step of a 2-step order form)

Niche A micro segment of the mass market, usually used to refer to

a copywriter’s specialist area of copy

Objection, Claim, Proof, A formula for dealing with objections in body copy: start by by
Benefit (OCPB) acknowledging or assuming a specific objection, state a claim
to counter it, provide proof to prove that claim, and reveal an
associated benefit with that claim being true

Offer An explanation of the full set of deliverables and supporting

bonuses, including how much they will cost

One-Time-Offer (OTO) Refers to an offer (usually an upsell) that can only be

procured on the page in question and won’t be available
anywhere else at any time

Open Rate The percentage of emails opened by contacts on a list during

a specific campaign

Opt-In An option for prospects to submit their contact information in

order to be kept updated or to receive a lead magnet - usually
via a form on a landing page or by ticking a checkbox when
checking out

Order Form A form where prospects can input their personal and payment
information to purchase

P.S. (Post Script) Originally used in letters to provide additional information after
the sign-off, P.S.’s are commonly used at the bottom of sales
letters to urge action, remind/reveal a specific benefit, or to
summarise the sales message

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) A type of paid advertising whereby businesses pay a fee

every time their ad is clicked by a prospect

Problem Anything that a prospect recognises as something they want

 solved. A problem arises wherever a prospect believes that
they want a change in their life.

Promise A statement in copy that tells the reader specifically what the
result of using the product in question will be for them

Proof Evidence used to support any claims made throughout copy

Prospect Refers to a potential buyer within a target market who is yet to

make a purchase from the business

Research The act of identifying, collating, and organising relevant

information and data from a product, market, and competitors
to plan and write copy

Risk Reversal A technique whereby the reader is made aware that the risk
of them buying lies completely on the shoulders of the
business - this is most commonly seen through guarantees

Sales Argument The series of points in any sales copy that encourage a
prospect to take action

Sales Funnel A linear, measurable advertising campaign that aims to move

readers from one stage to the next using predefined and
targeted messaging - usually consists of ads, pages, and
emails (but can include any mediums that can be measured)

Sales Page Any page specifically dedicated to presenting a sales

argument to a reader, which aims to get them to buy (usually
via an order form on the next page)

Split Test (aka A/B Test) The act of testing one version of a page against another by
running traffic to them in a 50/50 split - the winner is defined
by the one that performs best

Squeeze Page A web page that aims to collect the contact information of a
prospect

Subhead Usually refers to the text directly under the main headline
which is still cut out from the main copy beneath - can also
refer to subsequent section headlines throughout the copy
(which are sometimes also called crossheads)

Swipe File A copywriter’s collection of advertising material that they’ve

found to be interesting or effective - many people use this to
‘swipe’ from; in other words, they take inspiration from the
ideas in their swipe files and try to identify what’s working
based on the obvious success of some material

Target Market A segment of the mass market that contains the ideal
prospect for a particular advertising campaign - usually this is
synonymous with ‘people who share the same problem that
the product in question solves’

Testimonial Positive statements about a product or business from existing

 customers - commonly used as proof for a business’s
authority on sales pages

Unique Selling A clear articulation of why the product or service being

Proposition (USP) advertised is different and superior to all competition

Upsell The act of offering a customer a chance to purchase

something additional after they’ve accepted the main offer -
typically used to sell complementary products that will make
the desired result quicker or easier to obtain, or make it more
complete in some way

Value Proposition A clear statement which sums up the benefit and result a
business is promising based on the use of their product

Video Sales Letter (VSL) Sales letter copy presented in a video format - often proven to
outpull text-based counterparts

Warm Usually refers to a prospect or group of prospects who have

had some engagement with the business in question and are
more likely to buy than a ‘cold’ audience