Financial Marketing Glossary
Plain-English definitions for the acronyms, metrics and frameworks that shape financial services growth.
What is the Platinum Prospects Financial Marketing Glossary?
A curated reference of UK-specific marketing terminology for financial advisers: from CPL, MQL and LTV to Consumer Duty, financial promotion approver and Section 21. Each definition is written for both compliance teams and growth marketers, and links to related frameworks and benchmarks.
A/B Testing
A controlled experiment comparing two versions of a creative, page or flow to determine which performs better.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
A B2B marketing approach that targets a specific list of high-value accounts rather than broad audiences.
Ad Relevance Diagnostics
Meta and Google signals indicating how well ads match their audiences.
Ad Set Budget Optimisation
Meta setting that sets fixed budgets per ad set.
Advantage+
Meta's automated campaign type for acquisition.
Adviser Directory
Consumer-facing platform listing regulated advisers.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
Optimising content to be cited by AI answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
AI Overview Optimisation
Practices aimed at being cited by Google AI Overviews.
AIDA Model
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action framework for structuring persuasive marketing copy.
Anchor Text
Clickable text of a hyperlink.
Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
Controls preventing use of financial services for money laundering.
AOV (Average Order Value)
Average initial revenue generated per client.
Appointed Representative
Firm that acts under the regulatory permission of a principal.
Attribution
Attribution is the process of assigning credit for a conversion to one or more marketing touchpoints across the customer journey.
Attribution Window
Time period within which a conversion is credited to an ad click.
Audience Segmentation
Splitting total addressable audiences into coherent groups to tailor messaging.
Author Bio Schema
Person schema markup used to reinforce author E-E-A-T.
Awareness Stage
Earliest funnel stage where prospects identify a need.
Backlink
Link from an external site pointing to your domain.
Bing Ads
The former name for Microsoft Advertising's paid search product on the Bing search engine.
Blended CAC
Total customer acquisition cost across all acquisition activity.
Blended CPL
Average cost per lead across all channels combined.
Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)
Stage of the buying journey closest to purchase.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of sessions in which a user leaves the site after viewing only one page.
Brand Search
Searches that include your firm or trade name.
Branded Keyword
Search query containing a firm or product name.
Bridging Finance
Bridging finance is short-term property-secured lending used to bridge cash-flow gaps, typically for 3–24 months.
Buyer Persona
Semi-fictional profile representing an ideal client segment.
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
CAC is the fully loaded cost of acquiring a paying client, including media, agency fees, tooling and sales time.
CAC Payback Period
The number of months it takes revenue from a client to recover the cost to acquire them.
Campaign Budget Optimisation
Meta setting that pools budget across ad sets and allocates dynamically.
Canonical Tag
HTML tag declaring the preferred URL for duplicate content.
CAPI (Conversions API)
Meta's server-to-server conversion tracking protocol.
Care Fees Planning
Care fees planning is the use of financial products and legal structures to fund long-term care while preserving family wealth.
CashCalc
Cashflow modelling and client portal tool for UK advisers.
Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment
Alternative professional body offering investment and wealth qualifications.
Chartered Insurance Institute
Professional body for UK financial advisers and insurance.
Churn Rate
Percentage of clients who leave in a given period.
Click ID (gclid / fbclid / li_fat_id)
A unique identifier appended to URLs by ad platforms to track clicks through to conversions.
Client Lifetime Value
Total expected revenue from a client over the relationship.
Client Onboarding
Structured process of taking a new client from sign-up to first review.
Close Rate
Percentage of qualified appointments that become paying clients.
COBS 4 (Financial Promotions Rules)
The FCA handbook chapter governing financial promotions.
Commercial Intent
Query goal of evaluating options before buying.
Commercial Intent Keyword
Search term signalling readiness to evaluate suppliers.
Compliance Copy
The risk warnings, caveats and regulatory disclosures required on financial promotions.
Consent Mode v2
Google framework adjusting tag behaviour based on user consent.
Consideration Stage
Middle funnel stage where prospects compare solutions.
Consumer Duty
The FCA Consumer Duty is a cross-cutting principle requiring firms to act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers.
Conversions API
Meta server-side endpoint for passing conversion events.
Cookie Consent
Explicit user permission for non-essential cookies and tracking, required under UK GDPR and PECR.
Cookieless Tracking
Measurement techniques that do not rely on third-party cookies.
Core Web Vitals
Google\u2019s page-experience metrics: LCP, INP and CLS.
Cost Per Appointment
The blended cost of generating one booked diary slot with an adviser.
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)
The total ad spend required to acquire one paying client.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
CPC is the average amount paid for each click on a paid ad, used for both pricing and as a derived performance metric.
CPL (Cost Per Lead)
CPL is the average marketing spend required to acquire one qualified lead, calculated as total spend divided by lead volume.
CPM (Cost Per Mille)
CPM is the cost of one thousand ad impressions and is the primary pricing unit for auction-based social and display media.
CPM-Based Buying
Paying per thousand impressions rather than per click or lead.
Crawl Budget
Pages a search engine will crawl on your site in a given period.
Creative Fatigue
The decline in ad performance over time as an audience sees the same creative repeatedly.
Creative Testing
The disciplined rotation and A/B testing of ad creative variants to find winners.
Critical Illness Cover
Insurance paying a lump sum on diagnosis of listed conditions.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Software that stores prospect and client records and interactions.
CRM Automation
Automated workflows inside customer relationship management tools.
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
CTR is the percentage of ad impressions that result in a click, calculated as clicks divided by impressions.
Cumulative Layout Shift
Metric measuring visual stability of a page.
Customer Satisfaction Score
Short-interval measure of customer happiness with a transaction.
CVR (Conversion Rate)
CVR is the percentage of users who complete the desired action on a landing page, such as submitting a lead form.
Data Layer
JavaScript object that stores structured data for tag managers.
Data Retention Policy
Documented rules for how long you keep personal data and when you delete it.
Data-Driven Attribution
Google Ads model that distributes credit using your account data.
DB Transfer
Transfer of defined benefit pension rights to a DC scheme.
Decision Stage
Final funnel stage where prospects commit to a provider.
Directly Authorised
Firm that holds its own FCA permissions rather than acting via a network.
Discretionary Fund Manager
Investment manager authorised to make discretionary portfolio decisions.
Display Network
Image-based ad inventory shown across partner sites.
Disqualified Lead
A lead rejected on vetting criteria such as minimum assets or jurisdiction.
Domain Authority
Third-party metric estimating a domain\u2019s ranking strength.
Dynamic Search Ad
Google ad type that generates headlines from landing-page content.
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust)
Google's quality framework for ranking YMYL content.
E-E-A-T Signals
Signals Google uses to assess Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust.
Email Nurture Sequence
Automated email series that educates a lead until they are sales-ready.
Enhanced Conversions
Google Ads feature that sends hashed first-party data to improve conversion matching.
Equity Release
Equity release is a UK later-life lending product that lets homeowners access tax-free cash from their property.
Estate Planning
Estate planning is the coordinated use of wills, trusts, lasting powers of attorney and lifetime gifting to manage the transfer of wealth.
Event Matching Quality
Meta score of how well server-side events are matched to users.
Fact Find
Structured data-collection interview before recommending advice.
Fair Value Assessment
Consumer Duty requirement that price represents fair value to clients.
FCA (Financial Conduct Authority)
The UK regulator for retail financial services conduct.
FCA Complaints Data
Regulatory dataset showing complaints volumes by firm and product.
Featured Snippet
A direct answer Google shows at the top of the results page.
Financial Promotion (Section 21)
Any communication inviting or inducing activity in a controlled financial product, under FSMA s21.
First-Party Cookie
Cookie set by the domain the user is currently visiting.
First-Party Data
Data you collect directly from your audience and clients.
Form Abandonment
The percentage of users who start filling a form but leave before submitting.
Frequency Cap
Maximum number of times a user sees an ad in a given period.
Funnel Stage
A named position in the buyer journey from first contact to client.
GA4
Google Analytics 4, the event-based successor to Universal Analytics.
gclid (Google Click ID)
The unique click identifier Google appends to URLs from paid ads.
Generative Engine Optimisation
Optimising content to be surfaced by LLM-based search engines.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
Optimising for visibility in generative AI search results.
Google Tag Manager
Tag management system for deploying marketing and analytics tags.
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
A documented description of the customer type most likely to buy, stay and refer.
IHT Planning (Inheritance Tax Planning)
IHT planning is the use of allowances, trusts, gifts and investments to reduce the inheritance tax payable on a UK estate.
Income Protection Insurance
Insurance paying a replacement income on long-term illness or injury.
Incrementality Test
Experiment measuring the causal impact of a channel or campaign.
Informational Intent
Query goal of learning or understanding a topic.
Intelliflo Office
Long-established UK adviser back-office and CRM platform.
Intent Data
Intent data is behavioural signal — searches, content consumption, form interactions — that indicates a user is actively researching a product or service.
Interaction to Next Paint
Responsiveness metric replacing FID in Core Web Vitals.
Internal Linking
Links between pages on the same domain for SEO and UX.
Landing Page
A dedicated page built specifically to convert paid traffic into leads.
Largest Contentful Paint
Time until the largest visible element renders.
Lasting Power of Attorney
Legal document allowing another person to act on your behalf.
Lead Magnet
Valuable asset offered in exchange for contact details.
Lead Scoring
Systematic ranking of leads by likelihood to convert.
Lifecycle Marketing
Marketing that matches the customer stage (new, onboarding, active, dormant, lapsed) with appropriate messaging.
Lifetime Mortgage
A lifetime mortgage is the most common form of equity release, secured against the borrower's home and repaid on death or long-term care.
LinkedIn Message Ads (InMail)
Direct-to-inbox sponsored messages on LinkedIn.
llms.txt
Emerging convention telling LLM crawlers how to use your content.
Lookalike Audience
A lookalike audience is a paid-media targeting segment built by the ad platform to resemble a seed list of existing customers or leads.
Lookalike Seed Audience
The source audience used to generate a lookalike audience on Meta, Google or LinkedIn.
LTV (Lifetime Value)
LTV is the total revenue or margin a client is expected to generate over the full relationship, discounted for time.
LTV / CAC Ratio
Ratio of customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost.
Market Sizing
Estimating the volume and value of a defined prospect population.
Marketing Automation
Software that triggers messages and workflows based on user behaviour.
Marketing Dashboards
Visualisations that track KPIs such as CPL, MQL and CAC.
Marketing Efficiency Ratio
Total revenue divided by total marketing spend.
Marketing Funnel
Conceptual model of how prospects move from awareness to purchase.
Marketing Mix Modelling
Statistical approach to attribute sales to marketing and external factors.
Marketing Qualified Account
ABM equivalent of an MQL at account level.
MCF (Multi-Channel Funnels)
Reports that show all the channels a user touched before converting, not just the last.
Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft's paid search and display network, covering Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, MSN and the Microsoft Audience Network.
Microsoft Audience Network
Microsoft's native display network serving ads across Outlook, MSN, Edge and syndicated premium publishers.
Middle of Funnel (MOFU)
Consideration stage of the buying journey.
Model Portfolio Service
Standardised portfolios run by DFMs on adviser platforms.
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
An MQL is a lead that matches baseline marketing criteria such as geography, product fit and minimum data quality.
Multi-Touch Attribution
An attribution model that assigns credit across multiple touchpoints in the customer journey.
NCAC (New Client Acquisition Cost)
The CAC measured specifically for first-time paying clients, excluding existing-client cross-sell.
Negative Keyword
A term that prevents your ad from showing on that query.
Negative Match Type
Keyword match type used to exclude searches from triggering ads.
Net Promoter Score
Customer loyalty metric based on likelihood to recommend.
Net Revenue Retention
Year-on-year revenue retained from existing clients including upsell.
Non-Brand Keyword
Search query that does not include a brand name.
oCPM
Optimised cost per mille; bidding optimised for a conversion event.
Offline Conversion Tracking
Sending CRM-verified outcomes back to ad platforms so they learn which leads became clients.
Offshore Financial Advice
Offshore financial advice is the provision of planning and investment services to UK expats or non-UK-resident clients.
Page Speed (Core Web Vitals)
A set of metrics measuring how fast and stable a web page feels to users.
PAS Framework
Problem-Agitate-Solution structure used widely in adviser lead-gen copy.
Pension Drawdown
Drawdown is a retirement income option where pension funds remain invested and income is taken flexibly.
People Also Ask
Google SERP feature listing related questions.
Performance Max
Google's goal-based campaign that runs across all surfaces.
Pillar Content
Flagship content anchoring a topic cluster.
Pillar Page
Comprehensive SEO page linking to topic cluster sub-pages.
Pipeline Velocity
Speed at which opportunities move from lead to signed client.
Plannr
Modern UK adviser CRM built for cloud workflows.
Position Zero
SERP feature that extracts a direct answer above the organic results.
Positioning
How a brand differentiates itself within the mind of its target audience.
Post-Meeting Nurture
Automated follow-up content after a consultation.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
An auction-based ad model in which advertisers pay per user click, regardless of impressions.
Pre-Appointment Nurture
Emails, SMS and content sent between booking and the first meeting.
Pre-Qualification
Filtering leads before human contact using form logic or enrichment.
Product Qualified Leads
Leads who have shown intent through product usage or self-serve tools.
Protection Advice
Advice on life, critical illness and income protection cover.
Referral Programme
A structured incentive for existing clients to introduce new clients.
Responsive Search Ad
Google ad unit combining multiple headlines and descriptions.
Retargeting
Retargeting serves ads to users who have already engaged with a brand, typically via website visit, video view or lead-form interaction.
Retention Rate
Percentage of clients retained over a defined period.
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
ROAS is revenue generated per pound of advertising spend, expressed as a multiple (e.g. 4.0x).
robots.txt
File instructing search crawlers which paths they may access.
ROI (Return on Investment)
Net gain from a campaign divided by its total cost.
Sales Cycle
The average time from first lead touch to signed client.
Sales Pipeline
The ordered set of stages a prospect moves through from lead to client.
Sales Qualified Account
Account-level equivalent of a sales qualified lead.
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
Salesforce industry cloud for wealth management.
Schema Markup
Structured data tags that describe page content to search engines.
Search Intent
The underlying goal of a user behind a search query.
Section 21 Approval
FSMA requirement that a financial promotion be approved by an authorised person.
Segment
A defined subset of a larger audience based on shared characteristics.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Techniques that earn unpaid visibility on search engines.
Server-Side GTM
GTM container that runs on your server rather than in the browser.
Server-Side Tracking
Event tracking that fires from a backend server instead of the browser.
Share of Voice (SOV)
The percentage of total category advertising that comes from your brand.
Show Rate
Percentage of booked appointments that actually take place.
SIPP (Self-Invested Personal Pension)
A SIPP is a UK personal pension that gives the holder control over investment choices within HMRC and FCA rules.
Small Self-Administered Scheme
Occupational pension scheme for directors and key staff.
Smart Bidding
Google automated bidding strategies using Google AI.
Smart Segmentation
AI-driven audience grouping based on behaviour and intent.
Speed to Lead
Elapsed time between a lead being submitted and the first human contact.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
An SQL is a lead that has been validated by the sales team as ready for a first advisory conversation.
Stage Gate
A qualifying criterion a lead must meet to move from one funnel stage to the next.
Structured Data
Machine-readable markup describing page content.
Suitability
FCA requirement that advice matches client needs, objectives and risk.
TAM / SAM / SOM
Total, Serviceable and Obtainable market sizing for planning growth.
Target CPA
Google Smart Bidding strategy targeting a fixed cost per acquisition.
Target ROAS
Google Smart Bidding strategy targeting a fixed return on ad spend.
Technical SEO
Infrastructure-level SEO covering crawl, index and render.
Third-Party Data
Audience or intent data licensed from an external provider.
Top of Funnel (TOFU)
Awareness stage of the buying journey.
Topic Cluster
Set of semantically related pages that reinforce a topic.
Topical Authority
Depth of coverage on a subject that signals subject-matter expertise.
Tracking Pixel
A small JavaScript or image tag embedded in a web page to report visitor behaviour back to an ad platform.
Transactional Intent
Query goal of taking an action such as booking or buying.
Trust Planning
Use of trusts as part of estate or tax planning.
Trustpilot
A third-party customer review platform widely used as a trust signal by UK financial services firms.
UFPLS
Method of drawing pension lump sums directly from uncrystallised funds.
UGC (User-Generated Content)
Content created by customers rather than brands, often used as ad creative for authenticity.
UK GDPR / Data Protection Act 2018
The UK data protection regime governing personal data processing.
Unbiased
UK adviser directory owned by Unbiased.co.uk.
UTM Parameters
Query-string tags appended to URLs for campaign tracking.
UTM Parameters
URL tags that identify the source, medium and campaign of a click.
Value Proposition
Concise statement of the unique value a firm delivers to a defined audience.
View-Through Conversion
A conversion credited to an ad impression that was seen but not clicked, attributed within a fixed window.
View-Through Window
Period within which an impression is credited if a conversion follows.
VouchedFor
Verified-review adviser directory used by UK consumers.
Voyant
Advanced lifetime cashflow modelling platform.
Vulnerability Policy
Firm policy for identifying and supporting vulnerable customers.
Vulnerable Customer
Under FCA rules, a vulnerable customer is someone who, due to personal circumstances, is especially susceptible to harm and requires additional care in marketing and advice.
Webinar / Online Event
A live online presentation used as a lead-generation or nurture asset.
White Paper
A long-form research or educational document used as a high-value lead magnet.
Will Writing
Preparation of a legally valid Will.
WMQL (Wealth MQL)
A Marketing Qualified Lead in the wealth management segment with a specific asset threshold.