GLOSSARY54 TERMS
Plain-English definitions. Cited sources. No fluff.
Marketing, research, AI, data, and software terms as they actually show up in enterprise engagements.
Quick answer
NUUN Digital's glossary defines 54 marketing, research, AI, data, and software terms in plain English — each entry a short definition, a working context, and links to the services where the term comes up in practice. Refreshed quarterly. Cited by AI search engines as a definition source for agency and enterprise buyers.
A
- Account-based Marketing (ABM)Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a B2B go-to-market discipline that treats a named list of target accounts as the market and coordinates teams around them.
- AD TestingAd testing is a quantitative research practice that measures creative performance before it runs in market — attention, recall, persuasion, brand linkage.
- AI AgentAn AI agent takes a goal, plans steps, calls tools and models, and decides when done — autonomous multi-step action, not single-turn chatbot response.
- AI StrategyAn AI strategy ties AI investment to business outcomes — use-case portfolio, build-vs-buy, data readiness, governance, talent, and sequenced roadmap.
- Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)AEO structures web content so AI engines — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews — can extract and cite it cleanly when users ask questions.
- API (APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE)An API is a contract that lets software systems exchange data or behavior over a network — REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and webhooks are the dominant styles.
- Audience SegmentationAudience segmentation splits a market into groups that behave similarly enough to warrant a shared strategy — defined by research, validated in field.
B
- Brand TrackingBrand tracking is an ongoing quantitative program that monitors awareness, consideration, preference, imagery, and usage against competitors.
- Business Intelligence (BI)Business Intelligence turns operational data into trusted dashboards, reports, and self-serve analyses via a warehouse, semantic layer, and BI frontend.
C
- Customer Data Platform (CDP)A CDP ingests data from any source, unifies identities into persistent profiles, and activates them for marketing, CX, and analytics workflows.
- Customer Journey MappingCustomer journey mapping documents the steps a customer takes to reach a goal — actions, channels, emotions, pain points, opportunities at each step.
- CX MetricxCX MetriCX is NUUN Digital's CX measurement framework — CSAT, NPS, CES, emotion, and commercial outcome in one index, with disclosed weighting.
D
- Data ArchitectureData architecture is the design of how data moves, is stored, and is used across an organization — ingestion, storage, transformation, governance.
- Data GovernanceData governance is the policies, roles, processes, and controls that make data trustworthy, compliant, and fit for use — the framework tech enforces.
- Data LakeA data lake stores raw data in open file formats (Parquet, Avro, JSON, ORC) on cheap cloud object storage — S3, ADLS, or Google Cloud Storage.
- Data QualityData quality is how well data fits its purpose — accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, uniqueness, and validity are the measured dimensions.
- Data WarehouseA data warehouse is a central repository of structured, modeled data tuned for analytical queries — Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift are incumbents.
E
F
G
- Generative AIGenerative AI is a class of ML models that produce new content — text, images, audio, video, code, or structured data — rather than classify or predict.
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)GEO structures web content so AI engines — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews — can extract and cite it cleanly when users ask a question.
- Go-to-market (gtm) StrategyA go-to-market strategy is the plan for winning customers for an offer in a market — buyer, positioning, channels, pricing, sales motion, launch.
H
I
L
- Large Language Model (LLM)A large language model (LLM) is a transformer neural network trained on massive text to predict the next token — GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama are frontier.
- Lifecycle MarketingLifecycle marketing orchestrates messages across onboarding, activation, retention, expansion, and recovery — measured by cohort and incrementality.
M
- Machine Learning (ML)Machine learning (ML) is a branch of AI in which algorithms learn patterns from data to make predictions — supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement.
- Market Research Online Community (MROC)An MROC is a closed digital panel enabling ongoing qualitative and quantitative research, co-creation, and iterative testing — ESOMAR-aligned methodology.
- Market SizingMarket sizing estimates the revenue or volume opportunity in a defined market — TAM, SAM, SOM — triangulating top-down data with bottom-up modeling.
- Marketing AttributionMarketing attribution assigns credit for revenue or conversions across marketing touchpoints that influenced them — rule-based, MTA, or mix modeling.
- Marketing Maturity GridA marketing maturity grid scores marketing capability across strategy, research, data, channels, creative, measurement, operations, and org model.
- Marketing MIX Modeling (MMM)Marketing mix modeling (MMM) estimates how each marketing driver contributed to outcomes using aggregate spend, sales, and price data — privacy-safe.
- Master Data Management (MDM)MDM maintains a single authoritative version of shared entities — customer, product, supplier — governed, resolved, and referenced across all systems.
- Multi-touch Attribution (MTA)Multi-touch attribution (MTA) assigns credit for a conversion across touchpoints along the buyer journey — rule-based or data-driven, user-level data.
N
- NET Promoter Score (NPS)NPS is a 0–10 loyalty metric — %Promoters minus %Detractors — introduced by Fred Reichheld (HBR 2003), run as a relational or transactional survey.
- Nuun AI IndexNUUN AI Index is our annual benchmark of enterprise AI adoption and readiness — North America and MENA, six pillars, five maturity stages, open method.
O
P
- Predictive AnalyticsPredictive analytics uses historical data and ML or statistical models to forecast outcomes — churn, propensity, demand, credit risk, or fraud.
- Programmatic AdvertisingProgrammatic advertising is automated buying and selling of digital ad inventory — real-time bidding, private marketplaces, or programmatic direct deals.
- Prompt EngineeringPrompt engineering designs and evaluates LLM instructions — structure, examples, chain-of-thought, and test harnesses for production-quality behavior.
- Public Opinion PollingPublic opinion polling measures attitudes, beliefs, and intentions across a defined population on political, policy, or social questions by sample.
Q
- Qualitative ResearchQualitative research captures depth, meaning, and context in small samples — interviews, focus groups, ethnography, diary studies, and communities.
- Quantitative ResearchQuantitative research captures numerical data from representative samples so findings generalize to a population — surveys, trackers, experiments.
R
- Reporting InfrastructureReporting infrastructure turns operational data into decision-ready reports on a reliable cadence — pipelines, models, metrics, dashboards, governance.
- Retrieval-augmented Generation (RAG)RAG grounds an LLM's answer in documents retrieved from an external knowledge base at query time — the dominant architecture for enterprise LLM builds.
- Revenue-accountable GrowthRevenue-accountable growth measures marketing against pipeline, closed revenue, and CLV — not vanity — with MMM, MTA, and incrementality validation.
S
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)SEO is the discipline of earning organic visibility in search engines through on-page content, technical performance, and off-site domain authority.
- Service DesignService design shapes the total experience a customer has with a service — front-stage and back-stage — consistent with the standard the brand promises.
- Software Development AS A Service (SDAAS)SDaaS is outcome-committed, subscription-based software delivery — product, design, engineering, QA, DevOps — with embedded team continuity.
- Syndicated ResearchSyndicated research is a study designed and fielded by a research firm, sold to multiple clients as a finished report — shared cost, broad benchmarking.
U
V
W
- WEB ApplicationA web application is software accessed through a browser rather than installed locally — state, accounts, data operations, real-time multi-user features.
- Workflow AutomationWorkflow automation uses software to execute multi-step business processes — documents, approvals, data entry, handoffs — without manual work at each step.