Glossary
Glossary
Plain-language definitions of the eCommerce, tracking and retention terms used on this site.
A
A/B Testing
A/B testing is an experiment that compares two versions of a page, email or ad to find out which one…
Abandoned Cart Email
An abandoned cart email is an automated message sent to a shopper who added products to the cart but left…
API Integration
An API integration connects two software systems so they can exchange data automatically.
Attribution Model
An attribution model is the set of rules that decides which marketing touchpoints receive credit for a sale or conversion.
Audience Segmentation
Audience segmentation is the practice of dividing customers or visitors into groups that share behaviours or characteristics, so each group…
Automation Flow
An automation flow is a sequence of messages sent automatically when a customer takes, or fails to take, a specific…
Average Order Value (AOV)
Average Order Value (AOV) is the average amount a customer spends per order in your store.
B
Behavioral Trigger
A behavioural trigger is an action by a customer, such as viewing a product or abandoning a cart, that automatically…
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is the percentage of visits in which the user leaves a site without meaningful interaction.
Budget & Bid Optimisation
Budget and bid optimisation is the ongoing adjustment of how much you spend and how much you bid in paid…
C
Canonical Tag
A canonical tag is an HTML element that tells search engines which URL is the preferred version of a page.
Cart Abandonment Rate
Cart abandonment rate is the percentage of shopping carts created that do not end in a purchase.
CDN (Content Delivery Network)
A geographically distributed network of servers that delivers images, scripts, CSS and other static files from the location closest to…
Change Management
Change management is the structured approach to helping people and teams adopt new processes, tools or ways of working.
Churn Rate
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop buying from you, or cancel a subscription, in a given period.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click after seeing an ad, link or email.
Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR)
Click-to-open rate (CTOR) is the percentage of people who opened an email and then clicked a link.
CMP (Consent Management Platform)
A CMP is the tool that requests, records and enforces visitor consent for cookies and tracking technologies.
Cohort Analysis
The analysis of groups of customers who share a common characteristic (usually the date of first purchase or acquisition) and…
Consent Mode
Consent Mode is Google's mechanism for adjusting how its tags behave based on the consent a visitor has given.
Contribution Margin
The amount left from each sale after deducting all variable costs (product cost, commissions, shipping, taxes, packaging and fees). It…
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as buying a product.
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the structured process of improving a site so that a higher share of visitors completes…
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are Google's metrics for measuring real-world page experience: loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the average cost of getting one conversion, such as a sale or lead, from a…
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost per click (CPC) is the average amount you pay each time someone clicks on your ad.
Cost Per Mille (CPM)
Cost per mille (CPM) is the cost of showing an ad 1,000 times.
Crawl Budget
Crawl budget is the number of URLs a search engine is willing and able to crawl on your site in…
Cross-Selling
Cross-selling is the practice of suggesting complementary products to a customer who is buying or has bought something.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost of winning one new customer.
Customer Data Platform (CDP)
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a system that collects customer data from several sources and unifies it into a…
Customer Journey
The customer journey is the full path a person follows from first discovering a brand to buying and coming back.
D
Data Layer
The data layer is an object on the page that holds structured data about what happens on the site, for…
Deliverability
Deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach the inbox instead of the spam folder or being blocked.
Digital Roadmap
A digital roadmap is a prioritised plan of the initiatives a business will carry out to improve its digital performance…
Drip Campaign
A drip campaign is a series of pre-written messages sent automatically over time, usually after a specific action or date.
Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO)
Dynamic Creative Optimisation (DCO) automatically assembles and tests ad creatives from components such as images, headlines and calls to action.
E
Email Automation
Email automation is the use of rules and triggers to send the right email to the right person without manual…
Email List Hygiene
Email list hygiene is the routine cleaning of a subscriber list to remove invalid, inactive and risky addresses.
Email Service Provider (ESP)
An Email Service Provider (ESP) is a platform used to build, send and measure email campaigns and automations.
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate measures how much people interact with your content, emails, ads or site relative to how many saw it.
Event Tracking
Event tracking is the measurement of specific user actions on a site, such as adding to cart, starting checkout or…
F
First-Party Data
First-party data is information you collect directly from your own customers and visitors, with their consent.
Full-Funnel Paid Media
Full-funnel paid media is an advertising approach that covers every stage of the buying journey, from awareness to purchase and…
Funnel Optimisation
Funnel optimisation is the process of improving each step a customer takes from first visit to purchase, to reduce drop-off.
G
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
The practice of optimising content, product data and digital presence so that AI assistants (such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI…
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google's analytics platform, based on events rather than sessions and pageviews.
Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a free tool that lets you add and manage tracking tags on a website without…
Growth Hacking
Growth hacking is a mindset of running fast, low-cost experiments across marketing, product and sales to find scalable ways to…
H
Headless Commerce
Headless commerce is an architecture that separates the customer-facing front end of a store from the back-end commerce engine, connecting…
Heatmap Analysis
Heatmap analysis is a visual way to see where visitors click, move and scroll on a page.
I
Incremental Lift
Incremental lift is the measured increase in conversions or revenue caused by a campaign compared with a control group that…
Incremental Revenue
Incremental revenue is the extra revenue that happened because of a marketing action and would not have happened otherwise.
K
KPI Framework
A KPI framework is a structured set of metrics that links business goals to the indicators the team tracks.
L
Landing Page Optimisation
Landing page optimisation is the process of improving a page designed to receive traffic so that more visitors take the…
Lifecycle Marketing
Lifecycle marketing is the practice of tailoring communication to the stage a customer is at, from new subscriber to loyal…
Lookalike Audience
A lookalike audience is a group of people that an ad platform selects because they resemble your existing customers or…
LTV (Lifetime Value)
LTV is the revenue or margin a customer generates for a store over the whole period they keep buying.
LTV:CAC Ratio
The LTV:CAC ratio compares the Lifetime Value of a customer with the cost of acquiring them.
M
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is the use of software to run marketing tasks and messages automatically, based on customer behaviour and rules.
Multi-Touch Attribution
Multi-touch attribution distributes credit for a conversion across several touchpoints in the customer journey, instead of giving it all to…
N
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty by asking how likely people are to recommend a brand, on a scale…
O
Omnichannel
Omnichannel is a strategy that gives customers a consistent, connected experience across every channel they use, online and offline.
Open Rate
Open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that were opened.
P
Personalisation
Personalisation is the practice of tailoring content, offers and experiences to each customer based on their data and behaviour.
Post-Purchase Email
A post-purchase email is a message sent after an order to confirm it, inform the customer and encourage the next…
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics uses historical data and statistical models to estimate what is likely to happen next.
Product Feed
A product feed is a structured file that contains your product data and is sent to advertising and shopping platforms.
Product Recommendation Engine
A product recommendation engine is software that suggests products to each shopper based on their behaviour and similar customers.
Progressive Profiling
Progressive profiling is the technique of collecting customer information gradually over several interactions, instead of asking for everything at once.
R
Remarketing / Retargeting
Remarketing, also called retargeting, is advertising aimed at people who already visited your site or interacted with your brand.
Repeat Purchase Rate
Repeat purchase rate is the share of customers who placed more than one order within a given period.
Replenishment Campaign
A replenishment campaign reminds customers to reorder a consumable product just before they are likely to run out.
Retention Marketing
Retention marketing focuses on keeping existing customers buying, rather than only acquiring new ones.
RFM Analysis (Recency, Frequency, Monetary)
RFM analysis segments customers by how recently they bought (Recency), how often (Frequency) and how much they spent (Monetary).
ROAS
ROAS is the revenue generated by ads divided by the spend on those ads. It measures revenue efficiency, not profit.
ROI (Return on Investment)
The metric that measures the financial return generated by an investment relative to its cost. In eCommerce, it shows whether…
S
Schema Markup
Structured code (usually in JSON-LD) that you add to website pages to tell search engines and AIs the exact meaning…
Server-Side Tagging
Server-side tagging sends tracking data first to a server the store controls, which processes it before forwarding it.
Session Replay / Session Recording
Session replay is a tool that records and replays what individual visitors did on a site, including clicks, scrolls and…
SMS Campaign
An SMS campaign is a text message sent to subscribers who have given consent, usually for promotions, reminders or order…
Social Proof
Social proof is the influence that other people's opinions and actions have on a shopper's decision.
Structured Data
Structured data is code added to a page that describes its content in a standard format that search engines can…
T
Tag Management System
A tag management system (TMS) is a tool for deploying and controlling marketing and analytics tags on a website from…
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is the work of making a website easy for search engines to crawl, render, index and rank.
Time to Conversion
Time to conversion is the length of time between a customer's first interaction with your brand and their purchase.
Triggered Email
A triggered email is an automatic message sent in response to a specific action or event from the customer.
U
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
A unique selling proposition (USP) is the clear reason a customer should choose your brand over alternatives.
Upselling
Upselling is the practice of encouraging a customer to buy a higher-value version of the product they are considering.
User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content (UGC) is content created by customers rather than the brand, such as reviews, photos and videos.
UTM Parameters
UTM parameters are tags added to a URL so analytics tools can identify where a visit came from.
W
Welcome Series
A welcome series is a sequence of automated emails sent to new subscribers or customers after they sign up or…
Win-Back Campaign
A win-back campaign is a set of messages designed to re-engage customers who have stopped buying.
X
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the important URLs of a website so search engines can discover and…
Z
Zero-Party Data
Zero-party data is information a customer intentionally and proactively shares with a brand, such as preferences, size or interests.