Which English marketing terms do you need at work?
English marketing vocabulary sorts into three groups: market and customers ("target audience", "competitor", "market share"), brand and message ("brand", "logo", "slogan", "USP") and campaigns and channels ("campaign", "launch", "advertising", "promotion"). Watch two traps: "advertising" is uncountable, so a single one is "an ad", and the German "Claim" is a "slogan" or "tagline" in English.
- Three groups: market, brand, campaign.
- False friends: "Claim" = slogan, "Aktion" = promotion.
- "Advertising" is uncountable; one item is "an ad".
B1 · Sector Vocabulary · 10 minMarketing English for work, taught brick by brick.
A structured lesson for B1 learners who deal with marketing, advertising or sales at work. Hear the core marketing terms in context, meet the organising idea from a human tutor, then practise the vocabulary in interactive drills and a final quiz. The typical traps for German speakers, such as "Werbung", "Claim" and "Aktion", are included. It takes about ten minutes and nothing requires a signup.
- CEFR levelB1 · Intermediate
- Time to completeAbout 10 minutes
- SkillsVocabulary, Listening, Writing, Speaking
- Bricks10 blocks
01 / 06
What marketing English at work covers
If you work in or with marketing, you meet English terms all the time: in meetings with international colleagues, in briefs for an agency, or in reports on a campaign. Many of these words will look familiar, because German marketing language borrows a lot from English. That is exactly what makes the topic tricky: some words mean something different in English, and others are used in a different way. The core vocabulary sorts into three groups. The first group describes the market and the people in it: "target audience", "market research", "competitor", "market share" and "prospect". The second group is about the brand and its message: "brand", "brand awareness", "logo", "slogan" and "USP". The third group covers campaigns and channels: "campaign", "launch", "advertising", "promotion" and "conversion rate". If you file each new word into one of these three groups, you build a map in your head instead of a loose list. This lesson follows exactly that order and shows you, for each group, where German speakers tend to stumble — above all with "Werbung", "Claim" and "Aktion".
02 / 06
Market, audience and competition
The group you want to reach can be called a "target group", a "target audience" or a "target market". Everyone understands "target group", but in marketing texts you will more often read "target audience" when the people a message should reach are meant, and "target market" when a whole market segment is meant. A campaign "is aimed at" a group or "targets" it: "The campaign is aimed at small businesses." The study of a market is "market research", and "research" is usually uncountable in this sense: "We did some market research." For a single study, say "a market research study" or "a survey". One rival company is "a competitor" or "a rival"; "the competition" can mean the rivalry itself or all your competitors together: "The competition has lowered its prices." Your part of all the sales in a market is your "market share". For people, English often separates "customers", who buy products, from "clients", who hire a service, for example from an agency. A possible customer is "a prospect", and many teams call a contact who has already shown interest, for example by filling in a form, "a lead". Exactly where a prospect ends and a lead begins differs a little from company to company.
03 / 06
Brand, logo and message
The brand as a name, an image and a promise is the "brand": "a strong brand", "our brand values". A legally protected name or sign, on the other hand, is "a trademark". The English word "mark" usually means a sign, a stain or a school grade, not a product brand. How well people know a brand is its "brand awareness"; how they see it is its "brand image". A brand comes with a logo, which is "logo" in English too, and a short, memorable line called a "slogan", in marketing also a "tagline" or, in British English, a "strapline". What makes a product different from the competition is its "USP", short for "unique selling point" or "unique selling proposition"; German also uses USP or the word Alleinstellungsmerkmal. The place a brand should take in customers' minds is its "positioning": "We want to position the app as the simple choice for small teams." Watch the verbs that go with these nouns, too: you "build a brand", "raise brand awareness" and "strengthen the brand image". Fixed pairs like these sound more natural than word-for-word translations, so it is best to learn them as pairs from the start.
04 / 06
Campaigns, channels and numbers
You start a campaign with "launch a campaign" and keep it going with "run a campaign"; you bring a new product to market with "launch a product", and the start itself is "the launch". Advertising as an activity or an industry is "advertising", and it is uncountable: "We spend a lot on advertising." A single advertisement is "an ad", in British English also "an advert", and more formally "an advertisement"; one on television or radio is also "a commercial". For a product, the verb "to advertise" usually takes a direct object: "We advertise our app on social media." For promotion in a wider sense, "to promote" fits: "We're promoting the new range at a trade fair." The ways you reach people are "channels": "social media", "email", "print", "search engines" or "trade fairs". Finally, the numbers that appear in almost every report: "reach" is how many people see your message, "engagement" describes how many react, comment or share, the "click-through rate" is the percentage of times an ad is shown that lead to a click, and the "conversion rate" is the percentage of visitors who go on to buy or sign up. A contact who shows interest along the way becomes "a lead".
05 / 06
False friends: Werbung, Claim, Aktion and co.
Because German marketing language uses so many English words, false friends are especially common here. First, "Werbung": in everyday German, people often say "eine Werbung" for a single ad. In English, though, "advertising" is uncountable; a single one is "an ad" or "an advert". In "an advertising campaign" or "an advertising agency", on the other hand, "advertising" describes the noun that follows, which is why "an" appears there. Second, "Claim": in German marketing, the Claim is the short line that goes with the logo. In English, "a claim" is a statement that something is true; in marketing, for example, a statement about what a product can do. For the line with the logo, say "slogan" or "tagline". Third, "Aktion": a German Sonderaktion in a shop is "a promotion" or "a special offer", not "an action". Fourth, "Konkurrenz": the English word "concurrence" does exist, but it means agreement or two things happening at the same time; your Konkurrenz is "the competition" or "your competitors". And a German Prospekt is a "brochure" or a "leaflet" in English, while "a prospect" is a possible customer. You will find more pairs like these in the lesson "false-friends-de-en-1". Learn such words deliberately together: the misleading German word and its English equivalent right beside it.
06 / 06
Marketing English at work
At work you mostly need these words in short, clear sentences. When you present a campaign: "The campaign is aimed at small businesses in Germany and Austria." When you give the timing: "We're launching the new app on 1 March." When you describe the channels: "We'll run ads on social media and send a newsletter to existing customers." When you report results: "The conversion rate went up from 2% to 3% in April." Watch where the preposition goes in questions. Where German says „An wen richtet sich die Kampagne?“, everyday English usually puts the preposition at the end: "Who is the campaign aimed at?" The form "At whom is it aimed?" exists, but it sounds very formal. A rule of thumb helps with tenses, too: for a result that matters now, the present perfect often fits ("The campaign has reached 20,000 people so far"), while a specific point in the past usually calls for the past simple ("We launched it in March"). Practise these sentences aloud once, and they will be there when it counts.