Actuality Social marketing (including the one applied to healthcare) is frequently confused with social advertising, social media, corporate social responsibility, with societal marketing orientation, the marketing applied to non-profit sector, public relations and communication. Till now, only partially clarifications on this subject have been made.  Aim The aim of this paper is to identify the differences that exist between social marketing and similar areas or notions that are usually a source of confusion, in order to highlight its importance and "uniqueness", as well as its applicability to health. Materials and Methods The research is interdisciplinary, applicative, descriptive, with a qualitative approach, based on logical-deductive reasoning. As a first step we have consulted the literature in order to define the listed notions. Subsequently, on the basis of the observations were analyzed the campaigns regarding the cardiovascular health promotion carried out by a public institution and a private institution from the Republic of Moldova in the 2014-2017 period, as well as the National Program for Prevention and Control of Cardiovascular Diseases for the years 2014-2020. Discussions We present a model that illustrates not only the differences but also the connections between social marketing and the seven notions which it is confused with. According to the scheme, each component can be applied to the public health system, where is resent a necessity of social marketing campaigns developed and implemented at the national level.