Glossary of Marketing, Procurement & Agency Management Terms

I. Core Consultancy & Marketing Management

• Marketing Management: The strategic development and implementation of strategies, processes, commercial arrangements and relationships to optimise marketing communications and achieve business objectives.
• Marketing Communications (MarComms): The integrated set of activities and messages a company uses to communicate with its target audience across various channels.
• Marketing Operations: The optimisation of internal operational strategies, structures, processes and capabilities within a marketing department to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
• Marketing Transformation: The comprehensive process of re-evaluating and changing a marketing department’s strategy, organisational structure, operational processes and capabilities to improve performance and alignment with business goals.
• Marketing Effectiveness: The ability of marketing activities to achieve desired results and deliver accountable value, often seen as a balance between innovation and delivering short-term outcomes.
• Marketing Alignment: Ensuring that all aspects of marketing, including strategy, messaging, branding and execution, are synchronised with each other and with overall business objectives.
• Marketing Suppliers: Refers to agencies and vendors that provide marketing services. TrinityP3’s work often involves optimising their performance, fees, contracts and selection.
• Marketing Strategy: A disciplined approach to making choices about what to do and, crucially, what not to do, to achieve a marketing objective with limited resources, focusing on disproportionate results. It sets the long-term direction, informing the marketing plan.
• Marketing Plan: A tactical roadmap derived from the marketing strategy, detailing specific actions, timelines and resources required to achieve marketing objectives.
• Big Idea (Marketing): A powerful, overarching creative concept designed to drive fame, emotionally engage audiences and build brands for the long term.
• Innovation (in Marketing): The desire to be groundbreaking, challenge category conventions and find new ways of operating and engaging, often balanced with the need for effectiveness.
• Customer-Centricity: A shift in focus from product-centricity to prioritising customer needs, journeys and satisfaction, often leading to a “customer budget” approach.
• Procurement Advisory (Marketing Procurement): Consulting services aimed at optimising the sourcing, management, and overall value of marketing services and supplier relationships for businesses.
• Digital and Data Services: Focuses on guiding clients through the digital landscape, ensuring digital activities align with marketing strategy, optimising digital team structures, assessing customer data value and selecting appropriate technology solutions.

III. Agency Remuneration & Contracts

• Agency Remuneration: The act of rewarding and paying agencies for their effort, output and the value they deliver to the client. TrinityP3 emphasises this over mere compensation.
• Agency Compensation: A term often used in North America, referring to making good for “damage or loss” when paying agencies. TrinityP3 argues this implies a transactional, rather than a value-driven, relationship.
• Agency Fee & Commercial Evaluation: The process of assessing and optimising the financial agreements, fees and commercial terms with marketing agencies to ensure optimal value for money.
• Retainer: A common fee model where agencies are paid a fixed amount over a period, historically based on resources. TrinityP3 suggests moving beyond this to value-based models.
• Commission or Services Fee: A traditional remuneration model based on a percentage of media spend or an agreed markup on costs for marketing services.
• Value-based Remuneration: A contemporary fee model where agencies are compensated based on the tangible value they bring and the outcomes or results achieved for the client.
• Payment by Results (PBR): A specific type of value-based remuneration where agency fees are directly tied to the achievement of measurable business results (e.g., sales, leads).
• Project Fees: Remuneration paid for specific projects, suitable for highly variable or unpredictable scopes of work.
• Price (in consultancy context): The amount paid to the agency, based on the perceived or calculated value of the output or deliverable, rather than merely the cost of the resources expended.
• FTEs (Full Time Equivalence): A measure of the number of hours that constitutes full-time work, often used in resource-based fee calculations.
• Overhead Multiple: A factor used in calculating agency fees that accounts for agency overheads and profit margins.
• Indirect Salary Costs: Costs associated with senior agency leadership (e.g., CEO, Managing Director) and how they are accounted for in remuneration models.
• Profit Margin: The percentage of revenue that represents the agency’s profit, a key element in commercial negotiations.
• Agency Contracts: Legal agreements outlining the terms and conditions between a client and an agency, covering payment, scope of work, intellectual property rights and termination clauses. TrinityP3 emphasises robust and effective contracts.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs): Specific measures on service expectations, sometimes incorporated into agency contracts to define performance benchmarks.

V. Media & Advertising

• Media Planning: The strategic process of defining an audience and selecting media environments to deliver messages, aiming to increase awareness, engagement and drive attitude or behaviour change.
• Media Buying: The strategic process of planning, negotiating and acquiring advertising placements across various media channels and platforms. It requires understanding audiences, media landscapes, pricing and market trends.
• Media Strategy: A component of the overall marketing strategy that outlines how paid, owned, earned and shared (POES) media will be leveraged to achieve marketing objectives.
• Paid Media: Advertising placements purchased through various channels (e.g., TV, print, digital ads).
• Owned Media: Channels controlled directly by the brand (e.g., website, social media profiles).
• Earned Media: Organic visibility gained through publicity, word-of-mouth or social sharing, not paid for directly.
• Shared Media: Content that is shared by users on social media platforms, blurring the lines between owned and earned.
• Programmatic Buying: Automated, data-driven purchasing of ad inventory in real-time.
• Trading Desks: Entities, often part of media agencies, that manage programmatic media buying.
• Media Audits (vs. Benchmarking): TrinityP3 generally dismisses traditional media audits as flawed cost assessments, advocating for “media benchmarking” instead, which compares media agency performance and productivity to market data.
• Media Transparency: The clarity and openness in financial dealings, data sharing and processes between clients, media agencies, and media owners.
• Reach: The total number of unique individuals or households exposed to an advertisement or campaign at least once over a specific period.
• Frequency: The average number of times an individual or household is exposed to an advertisement over a specific period.
• CPM (Cost Per Thousand): A common metric in media buying, representing the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of an advertisement.
• GRP (Gross Rating Points): A measure of the size of an audience reached by a specific media vehicle or schedule.
• Precision (in Media/Advertising): Represents the ability to target specific audiences and measure outcomes with high accuracy, emphasising current, near-term and future relevance.

VII. Procurement & Finance

• Procurement: The process of acquiring goods, services or works from an external source. In a marketing context, it involves sourcing and managing marketing suppliers and services.
• Procurement Enlightenment: A term used by TrinityP3 to describe the increasing understanding by procurement professionals of marketing needs and a more holistic view of value beyond just cost savings.
• Financial Submissions: Detailed financial information provided by agencies during a pitch or review process, which TrinityP3 assesses using proprietary market benchmarking data.
• Contract Negotiation: The process of discussing and agreeing upon the terms and conditions of an agency contract, including fees, scope and intellectual property.
• Benchmarking (General): Using a reference point or standard (often industry average data) to assess where specific levels, mixes or costs sit within a continuum. TrinityP3 emphasises the correct application of benchmarks to avoid compromising high-performing relationships.
• Rate Benchmarking: Specifically comparing agency hourly rates or other cost elements against market data to assess competitiveness and fairness.
• Market Rates: The prevailing costs or prices for specific marketing services or resources within a given industry or market.
• Cost Control: Efforts to manage and reduce expenses related to marketing activities and agency fees.
• Value (in Procurement): Beyond mere cost savings, this refers to the demonstrable benefits, quality and strategic contribution derived from marketing investments and supplier relationships.
• Fixed Fee: A predetermined, agreed-upon price for delivering a project or defined outcomes, irrespective of the hours it takes.
• Direct Response: Marketing efforts specifically designed to elicit an immediate response from the audience, often with measurable outcomes like sales or leads.