Glossary | Dcrayons

AI + Emerging Tech

Eval Suite: An eval suite is a test-set + automated grading rig for measuring LLM output quality on a defined task. The closest equivalent in traditional software engineering is the test pyramid -- minus the dete...

Fine-Tuning: Fine-tuning is the practice of training a pre-trained LLM on a smaller, domain-specific dataset so it performs better on a narrow task. The base model's weights are nudged to specialise without losing...

MCP Server: An MCP Server exposes data sources or tools to AI assistants via Model Context Protocol. MCP servers run on the customer's infrastructure (or hosted by the agent platform); the AI assistant connects +...

Model Context Protocol: Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Anthropic's open standard for connecting AI assistants to external data sources and tools. Released late 2024 and widely adopted across the LLM tooling ecosystem in 202...

Prompt Caching: Prompt caching lets LLM providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google) cache the system prompt + tool definitions + long context from a request + serve subsequent matching requests at materially lower cost.Mec...

Vector Database: A vector database stores embedding vectors (numerical representations of text, images, audio) and supports approximate nearest-neighbour search across them. It is the retrieval substrate behind most R...

Zero Data Retention: Zero Data Retention (ZDR) is a feature posture in enterprise LLM platforms where the provider commits not to retain customer prompts or completions beyond the synchronous request lifetime. No training...

Amazon Marketing

A10 Algorithm: A10 Algorithm is Amazon's search ranking algorithm (successor to A9). It determines which products appear for which search queries + in what order.Key ranking signals (per public Amazon documentation...

Cloud + Infra

FinOps: FinOps is the discipline of treating cloud spend as a continuously-managed variable, not a fixed budget line. The practice covers: tagging resources so spend can be attributed to product or team, trac...

GitOps: GitOps is an infrastructure + deployment pattern where the Git repository is the single source of truth for what runs in production. A controller (ArgoCD, Flux, GitHub Actions-based pipelines) continu...

IAM Role: An IAM role is an identity an AWS resource (EC2 instance, Lambda function, ECS task) assumes to gain a defined set of permissions, instead of carrying long-lived access keys. Equivalent constructs exi...

Kubernetes: Kubernetes (often abbreviated K8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform. It schedules containerised workloads across a fleet of nodes, handles service discovery + load balancing, auto-sc...

VPC (Virtual Private Cloud): A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is the network boundary around your cloud resources -- a logically isolated section of the provider's network with private IP ranges, subnets, route tables, NAT gateways,...

CMS + Headless Web

Content Modelling: Content modelling is the design of the data shapes that editors author against and that the front-end consumes. In a headless CMS (Contentful, Sanity, Sitecore XM Cloud, .NET ABP), every editorial con...

DXP (Digital Experience Platform): A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) is a federated stack of best-of-breed services that together deliver the customer-facing web + content experience. Unlike a monolithic CMS, a DXP composes: a headle...

Edge Runtime: Edge Runtime is a V8-isolate-based execution environment for serverless functions that runs in CDN POPs around the world, not a single origin region. Vercel Edge Functions, Cloudflare Workers, and AWS...

ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration): Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) is a Next.js feature that lets pre-rendered pages refresh on a schedule (or on-demand) without a full site rebuild. The page is served from the cache; when stale,...

Jamstack: Jamstack is an architecture pattern where the front-end is pre-rendered (or rendered on demand at the edge) and assembled at request time from a CMS + APIs. The acronym originally stood for JavaScript...

Digital Marketing

OKR (Objectives and Key Results): Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a planning framework that links broad qualitative objectives to specific measurable key results. Popularised by Google + Intel; widely adopted in 2010s + frequent...

E-commerce

A+ Content: A+ Content (formerly Enhanced Brand Content) is Amazon's rich-media content layer for product detail pages. Brand Registry holders can add image + text modules below the standard listing: lifestyle im...

Brand Registry: Amazon Brand Registry is Amazon's programme for trademark-holding brands to gain enhanced protection + content control over their listings. Registration requires: an active registered trademark in the...

Buy Box: The Buy Box on Amazon is the panel on a product page that holds the "Add to Cart" + "Buy Now" buttons. It is shown to the seller that Amazon's algorithm picks as the default option among all sellers o...

Dunning: Dunning is the process of recovering failed payments on subscription or recurring billing. When a card declines, the platform retries on a schedule + communicates with the customer to update payment i...

F-Assured: F-Assured is Flipkart's quality + fast-delivery badge for sellers who meet Flipkart's service standards: SLA-bound fulfilment, competitive pricing, low return rate, high seller rating.F-Assured ASINs...

FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon): Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) is Amazon's end-to-end fulfilment service: the seller ships inventory to Amazon's fulfilment centres (FCs); Amazon handles pick + pack + ship to the customer + customer serv...

OMS (Order Management System): An Order Management System (OMS) is the central order-of-record across multiple sales channels. For a brand selling on Shopify + Amazon + Flipkart + Myntra + Nykaa, the OMS unifies order intake, inven...

PIM (Product Information Management): A Product Information Management (PIM) system holds the canonical record for every product the brand sells + propagates that record to every sales channel (D2C site, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Nykaa, d...

TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sale): TACoS is Total Advertising Cost of Sale: total ad spend on a marketplace divided by total brand revenue on that marketplace (organic + paid). The crucial difference from ACoS: TACoS captures the halo...

India Stack

DLT Registration: DLT Registration (Distributed Ledger Technology, run by TRAI) is the mandatory registration for promotional + transactional SMS messaging in India. Senders register their company; recipients consent t...

UPI AutoPay: UPI AutoPay is the mandate-based recurring debit feature on UPI. The customer authorises a mandate with the bank specifying a maximum amount + frequency + duration; the merchant then debits per the ma...

Martech + CRM

CDP (Customer Data Platform): A Customer Data Platform (CDP) unifies customer data from every source -- web + app analytics, transactional records, email, CRM, marketing automation, support tickets, ad-platform events -- into one...

Customer 360: Customer 360 is the unified view of a customer across every channel and touchpoint a business operates: marketing engagement, sales activity, product usage, support history, billing status, social men...

Lifecycle Stage: Lifecycle Stage is the position of a contact in the prospect-to-customer journey: Subscriber -> Lead -> MQL (marketing-qualified lead) -> SQL (sales-qualified lead) -> Opportunity -> Cu...

Marketing Automation: Marketing automation is the practice of triggering messages (email, SMS, push, WhatsApp, in-app) based on customer events, attributes, or scheduled cadences -- without per-message human intervention....

Operations Hub: HubSpot Operations Hub is HubSpot's iPaaS / data-ops product. It handles data sync to external systems (Salesforce, NetSuite, BigQuery, Snowflake), programmable workflow automation, custom code action...

Paid Media

Advantage+: Advantage+ is Meta's family of automated campaign products: Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC), Advantage+ App Campaigns, Advantage+ Audience, Advantage+ Creative, Advantage+ Placements. Each lets Me...

Conversions API (CAPI): Conversions API (CAPI) is a server-side measurement pathway that sends conversion events directly from the advertiser's server to the ad platform (Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn), bypassing the browse...

Event Match Quality (EMQ): Event Match Quality (EMQ) is Meta's measure of how well your Conversions API events match real people. Higher EMQ means Meta's algorithm can attribute + optimise against your events more accurately.Ta...

MTA (Multi-Touch Attribution): Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) distributes credit for a conversion across the sequence of marketing touches that preceded it, instead of crediting one touch (first-click, last-click). MTA models range...

Server-Side Tracking: Server-side tracking is the practice of sending analytics + advertising events from your backend (not the user's browser) to platforms like Meta, Google Ads, GA4, and TikTok. It's the architectural an...

Smart Bidding: Smart Bidding is Google Ads' family of automated bidding strategies (Target ROAS, Target CPA, Maximize Conversions, Maximize Conversion Value) where the algorithm sets bids in real time per auction, u...

SEO + Analytics Tools

Core Web Vitals: Core Web Vitals are Google's three metrics measuring real-world user experience: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS).2026 pass thresholds...

Crawl Budget: Crawl budget is the volume of pages a search engine's crawler will visit on your site within a given time window. Google's crawler doesn't visit every URL on every site; it allocates effort based on s...

Schema Markup: Schema markup is structured-data JSON-LD embedded in web pages that tells crawlers + LLMs the meaning of the content (this is a Product, this is an Article, this is a FAQPage). It is the foundation fo...

Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn Insight Tag: LinkedIn Insight Tag is LinkedIn's tracking pixel for website conversion measurement + retargeting audience building. Installed via tag manager (GTM) or direct script injection.What it enables:Convers...

Web Design & Development

Design Tokens: Design tokens are platform-agnostic data representing visual design decisions: colours, spacings, font sizes, shadows, border radii. Stored as JSON or YAML; transformed into per-platform formats (CSS...

Storybook: Storybook is the open-source documentation + development environment for UI components. Each component renders in isolation across all variants + states, enabling visual review, accessibility testing,...

All Terms

Account-Based Marketing (ABM): A B2B GTM motion where marketing, SDR, and AE align on a fixed list of high-value target accounts and coordinate every touchpoint to convert them. Dcrayons's default ABM engagement is a 200-account li...

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO): The discipline of structuring content, schema, and entity signals so AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) cite your brand. Distinct from classic SEO: AEO optimises for...

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Total cost (marketing + sales) to acquire a new paying customer, divided by the number of new customers acquired in that period. Tracked alongside LTV (lifetime value) and payback period as the core u...

Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM): A statistical technique that uses historical marketing spend and revenue data to estimate the incremental contribution of each channel. Increasingly important post the death of third-party cookies bec...

ROAS: Return On Ad Spend - the ratio of revenue generated to the amount spent on a paid-media campaign. ROAS of 3 means Rs 3 of revenue for every Rs 1 of ad spend. Distinct from MER (Marketing Efficiency Ra...

Share of Voice (SOV): The percentage of branded mentions or citations a company captures within its category's relevant queries across search engines, answer engines, social listening, and PR. In AI-search context, SOV is...