The complete agency glossary.

54 terms for marketing agencies — from content calendar and brand voice to KPI, ROAS, white-label and MRR. Concise, citable, in plain English.

54terms
7categories
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Agencies

Terms specific to agency workflow and agency management.

Social media agency

also: SMM agency, Social media marketing agency

A social media agency specializes in managing social media channels for clients — typically covering content creation, planning, publishing, community management and reporting.

Marketing agency

also: Advertising agency, Ad agency

A marketing agency delivers marketing activities on behalf of clients — from strategy and branding to running campaigns across various channels, including social media.

Client portal

also: Customer portal, Client dashboard

A client portal is a secure online space where an agency's clients can view their content, reports, planning and communication in one place — usually branded with the agency's own identity.

White-label

also: Whitelabel, Private label

White-label software is offered under another company's brand name — the end client never sees the software vendor's name, only the brand of the agency using the software.

Onboarding

also: Client onboarding, Customer onboarding

Onboarding is the process of bringing a new client into an agency's workflow — typically including intake, setting up the brand kit, connecting social accounts, defining goals and planning the first content.

Brand kit

also: Brand guidelines, Style guide

A brand kit is a collection of brand elements that define a brand's visual and tonal identity — typically including logo, colors, fonts, photography style and writing-style guidelines.

Brandvoice

also: Brand voice, Tone of voice

Brandvoice is the consistent writing style and tone a brand communicates in — for example formal-corporate, young-playful or warm-personal — expressed through word choice, sentence length, humor and emoji use.

Approval workflow

also: Approval flow, Content approval

A process where scheduled content is first reviewed and approved by the client (or an internal reviewer) before it is automatically published to social media.

Content & creation

Everything about making, planning and publishing social media content.

Content calendar

also: Content calendar, Editorial calendar

A structured overview of scheduled social media posts over time — usually in a monthly or weekly format, showing each post's date, platform, content and status (draft, approved, published).

Content planning

also: Social media planning, Content scheduling

The process of designing, writing and scheduling social media posts in advance for specific dates and times — usually aimed at consistent publishing without daily manual work.

AI caption generation

also: AI caption generation, AI captions

Automatically generating social media captions with an AI model — usually from a prompt, an image or brand context — so you can publish faster without losing quality.

Carousel post

also: Carousel, Slide deck post

A social media post with multiple images or slides that the user swipes through — typically 2 to 10 slides, popular on Instagram and LinkedIn for educational content and storytelling.

Reels

also: Instagram Reels, Short video

Short vertical videos on Instagram (15-90 seconds) — similar to TikTok content — aimed at broad discovery via the Instagram algorithm, which prioritizes Reels in the Explore feed.

Stories

also: Instagram Stories, Facebook Stories

Vertical posts of 1-15 seconds that disappear after 24 hours — used for flexible, daily communication such as behind-the-scenes content, polls, questions, and direct interaction with followers.

UGC (User-generated content)

also: User-generated content, Customer content

Content — photos, videos, reviews — created by ordinary users or customers of a brand rather than the brand itself, and shared by the brand as authentic social proof.

CTA (Call-to-Action)

also: Call to action, Call-to-action

A direct prompt to act within a post — for example "Click the link in bio", "Send a DM", "Order now" — that pushes the reader toward a specific action.

Hook

also: Opening hook, First-2-seconds hook

The opening line or opening visuals of a post or video that grab a scrolling viewer's attention in the first 1-3 seconds — crucial for algorithm performance.

Evergreen content

also: Timeless content, Evergreen posts

Content that stays relevant over time — not tied to trends, seasons or specific events. Tutorials, definitions and how-to-X content are classic examples.

Asset library

also: Content library, Media library

A central store of reusable content elements — photos, videos, logo variants, templates — organized per client to speed up content creation.

UGC rights

also: User-generated content rights, Repost permission

The permission a brand must obtain before reusing content created by users (photos, videos) in its own marketing — both legally and ethically.

Social media management

Operational terms for the day-to-day management of social channels.

Social media management

also: SMM, Social management

The strategic and operational management of all of a brand's social media channels — including content creation, planning, publishing, community management, advertising, and performance measurement.

Cross-posting

also: Cross posting, Multi-platform publishing

Publishing the same content to multiple social media platforms at once — for example, pushing a single post to Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn simultaneously — to expand reach without extra work.

Scheduling

also: Post scheduling, Auto-publishing

Automatically publishing social media posts at preset dates and times — without anyone needing to step in at the moment of publication.

Unified inbox

also: Shared inbox, Consolidated inbox

A central interface where all messages from every social media platform (DMs, comments, mentions, reviews) come together — so an agency no longer has to switch between separate apps to respond.

Engagement rate

also: Engagement ratio, Interaction rate

A percentage showing how much interaction (likes, comments, shares, saves) a post receives relative to its reach or follower count — a key KPI for the health of a social media account.

Mention monitoring

also: Brand monitoring, Mention tracking

Continuously tracking when and how a brand name is mentioned online — on social media, in blogs, on forums, or in reviews — so the brand can respond or spot trends.

Hashtag strategy

also: Hashtag research, Hashtag mix

A deliberate plan for which hashtags go under which posts — using a mix of popular, niche-specific and branded tags to reach the right audience rather than a random pile of tags.

Organic vs paid

also: Organic versus paid, Organic and paid social

Organic social media is content shared without an ad budget; paid social is promoted content backed by an ad budget. Each serves different goals and metrics.

Algorithm

also: Social media algorithm, Feed algorithm

The automated system of a social media platform that decides which posts each user gets to see — based on behavior, interests and interactions.

Community management

also: Community manager, Social community management

Actively managing a brand's interactions with its followers — comments, DMs, mentions and reviews — to build relationships and resolve issues on the spot.

Strategy & metrics

KPIs, goals and analyses that drive an agency strategy.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

also: Key Performance Indicator, Performance indicator

A measurable value that shows how well a specific goal is being met — for social media that could be engagement rate, reach, follower growth or click-through rate to the website.

Reach vs impressions

also: Reach vs views

Reach is the number of unique people who saw a post; impressions is the total number of times a post was shown, including multiple views by the same person.

CPM (Cost per Mille)

also: Cost per thousand impressions, Cost per thousand

CPM is the cost to show an ad 1,000 times — a key metric for judging the efficiency of paid social media campaigns, independent of conversions.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)

also: Return on advertising spend, Advertising return

ROAS is the ratio between revenue and ad spend — usually expressed as a multiple: a ROAS of 4 means every €1 of ad spend generates €4 in revenue.

Follower growth

also: Audience growth, Subscriber growth

The number of new followers an account gains over a given period — an important but context-sensitive KPI, because follower quality matters more than quantity.

Social listening

also: Brand listening, Online monitoring

Systematically tracking and analysing what is said online about a brand, industry or competitor — to spot trends, opportunities and problems early.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

also: Click-through rate, Click rate

The percentage of people who click a link or CTA after seeing a post or ad — a key KPI for lead-gen and e-commerce campaigns.

Creative fatigue

also: Ad fatigue, Creative burnout

Occurs when the same ad or content is shown too often to the same audience — recognisable by rising CPM, falling CTR and weaker conversion.

CPL (Cost per Lead)

also: Cost per lead, Lead cost

The average amount a brand pays for one new lead through a social media campaign — an important KPI for B2B and lead-gen campaigns.

A/B test

also: Split test, Variant test

Compares two variants (A and B) of the same post, ad, or page to determine which performs better — measured against a specific KPI.

Sentiment

also: Sentiment analysis, Tone analysis

The tone of a mention — positive, neutral, or negative — often classified automatically by AI/NLP so brands can monitor their reputation online.

Share of voice

also: SOV, Voice share

The percentage of all online mentions in a specific niche that go to one particular brand — measuring how much "space" a brand occupies in the market.

Reporting

How agencies report performance to clients.

Monthly report

also: Monthly reporting, Monthly client report

A structured overview an agency sends a client every month — covering KPIs, highlights, lessons learned and concrete actions for the month ahead.

White-label report

also: White label report, Branded report

A report delivered entirely in the agency's own brand styling — with the agency's logo, colours and fonts, and without any reference to the software that generated it.

Vanity metrics

also: Vanity numbers

Numbers that look impressive at first glance — follower count, likes, pageviews — but say little about real business results. They dress up reports without proving any actual value.

Tech & integrations

Technical concepts agency teams meet in their tool stack.

OAuth connection

also: OAuth, OAuth integration

An open standard that lets a user give an external app access to their social media account without sharing a password — one click exchanges a secure token instead.

API (Application Programming Interface)

also: Application Programming Interface

A set of rules that lets different software applications talk to each other — for example, to pull data from Instagram or publish a post from an external tool.

Webhook

also: Web hook, Callback URL

An automatic notification one system sends to another the moment something happens — for example, an Instagram post getting a new comment, or a Stripe payment coming in.

SaaS (Software as a Service)

also: Software as a Service, Cloud software

A software licensing model where users get online access to software through a monthly or yearly subscription — instead of buying software and installing it locally.

Agency business

Commercial and financial terms for running an agency.

Per-client pricing

also: Per-client pricing, Client-based pricing

A pricing model where an agency (or software vendor) pays per active client they manage — instead of per user, per social account or per feature.

MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)

also: Monthly Recurring Revenue, Recurring monthly revenue

The predictable monthly revenue an agency (or SaaS company) generates from subscriptions — a key KPI because it measures stable income, unlike one-off projects.

Churn

also: Customer attrition, Customer churn

The percentage of clients who cancel within a given period (usually per month or year). Keeping churn low is essential to an agency's health, since winning new clients costs more than retaining existing ones.

LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)

also: Lifetime value, Customer lifetime value

The total revenue (or profit) a customer generates on average over the entire relationship — crucial for deciding how much you can invest in customer acquisition.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

also: Customer acquisition cost, Acquisition cost

The total cost of winning one new customer — including marketing, sales hours and tooling. A healthy CAC is far lower than LTV (ratio of at least 1:3).

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