Working with an advertising agency often means measurable results, friendly customer service, and creative ideas that drive brand awareness. But it also can mean confusing jargon. Here are some common marketing terms you may come across, such as Earned Marketing, while working on your next campaign.

Eye-Tracking

A lot of research has gone into how people consume advertising and other media. Eye-tracking actually shows where people spend most of their time looking. For print advertising, people tend to read it the way they’d read a book.

Eye maps show that most people will read across the top, left to right, and then follow a Z pattern down the page. Eye-tracking affects how web developers build a webpage, graphic designers layout a poster, and even how producers place different elements in a television commercial.

Earned Media

Media is split into three categories: paid, earned, and owned. Earned media refers to brand promotion that is not paid for or created by the brand itself.

If a camera crew shows up to your charity event and you end up on the evening news, that is earned media and doesn’t cost you money. Referrals, word-of-mouth, online reviews, and media coverage all count as earned media.

Estimate

When you start a new project with an advertising agency, your account manager will give you an estimate. This is a prediction of how much the project will cost. Estimates are usually broken down categorically, like an itemized receipt from a store.

It may give you the expected advertising costs based on a media plan, the number of hours the creative department will need to develop your project, costs of production, and other factors.