Marketing glossary
Clear definitions and practical explanations of essential marketing terms. Whether you're new to digital marketing or looking to brush up on terminology, find what you need here.
Analytics terms
A
Average order value
AnalyticsAverage order value (AOV) is the average amount of money customers spend each time they place an order with your business. It helps you understand how much each transaction is worth.
Average session duration
AnalyticsAverage session duration measures the average time users spend on your website during a single visit. It helps you understand how engaged visitors are with your content and overall site.
B
Behavior flow
AnalyticsBehavior flow shows the path users take through your website or app. It helps you see how they move from one page or event to the next, identifying popular routes and potential roadblocks.
Benchmark
AnalyticsA benchmark is a standard or point of reference used to measure and compare performance. In marketing, it helps you understand how well your efforts are doing compared to others or your past results.
Bounce rate
AnalyticsBounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate often means visitors did not find what they were looking for.
C
Calculated metric
AnalyticsCalculated metrics combine raw data points using formulas to create custom, more insightful performance indicators tailored to specific business goals. They provide a deeper understanding of marketing effectiveness.
Campaign tracking
AnalyticsCampaign tracking helps you see how well your marketing efforts are working by monitoring their performance. It shows which campaigns bring in the best results and why.
Cart abandonment rate
AnalyticsCart abandonment rate measures how many shoppers add items to their online cart but leave without buying them. It's a key metric for understanding potential lost sales and improving e-commerce performance.
Checkout behavior
AnalyticsCheckout behavior tracks customer actions from adding items to their cart through completing a purchase. Analyzing this data helps identify and fix roadblocks in the buying process.
Churn rate
AnalyticsChurn rate measures the percentage of customers or subscribers who stop using a service or product over a specific period. It's a key indicator of customer retention and business health.
Click tracking
AnalyticsClick tracking monitors how users interact with elements on a website or ad, like buttons and links. It helps marketers understand user behavior and optimize performance.
Click-through rate
AnalyticsClick-through rate (CTR) measures how often people click on your ad or link after seeing it. It helps you understand how engaging your content is to your audience.
Cohort analysis
AnalyticsCohort analysis tracks groups of users (cohorts) with shared characteristics over time to understand their behavior patterns and the long-term impact of marketing efforts.
Conversion rate
AnalyticsConversion rate measures the percentage of website visitors or app users who complete a desired goal, like making a purchase or filling out a form. It helps businesses understand how effective their marketing efforts are.
Custom dimension
AnalyticsCustom dimensions let you collect and analyze specific data unique to your business that standard analytics reports do not capture. They provide deeper insights into user behavior and content performance.
Custom metric
AnalyticsCustom metrics allow marketers to track unique data points beyond standard analytics, providing deeper insights tailored to specific business goals and advanced marketing strategies.
Customer acquisition cost
AnalyticsCustomer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total expense a company incurs to acquire a new customer. It helps businesses understand the efficiency of their marketing and sales efforts.
Customer lifetime value
AnalyticsCustomer lifetime value (CLV) is the total revenue a business expects from a customer over their entire relationship. It helps prioritize long-term growth and customer retention.
Customer retention rate
AnalyticsCustomer retention rate is the percentage of existing customers a company keeps over a specific period. It's a key metric for measuring customer loyalty and long-term business health.
Customer satisfaction score
AnalyticsCustomer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures how happy customers are with a product, service, or interaction. It's typically gathered through simple surveys.
D
Dashboard
AnalyticsA marketing dashboard is a visual tool that displays key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics, offering a quick overview of marketing campaign performance. It helps teams track progress and make data-driven decisions efficiently.
Data sampling
AnalyticsData sampling is a technique used to select a representative subset of data from a larger dataset to analyze and draw conclusions about the entire population efficiently.
Data visualization
AnalyticsData visualization transforms raw marketing data into easy-to-understand charts and graphs. It helps marketers quickly spot trends, patterns, and insights to make smarter decisions.
Direct traffic
AnalyticsDirect traffic refers to website visitors who arrive directly at your site by typing your URL into their browser or using a bookmark. It indicates strong brand recognition and user intent.
E
E-commerce tracking
AnalyticsE-commerce tracking helps businesses understand how customers interact with their online store, from viewing products to completing purchases. It provides data to optimize marketing efforts and improve the shopping experience.
Enhanced e-commerce
AnalyticsEnhanced e-commerce in Google Analytics provides deep insights into the entire shopping journey, from product views to purchases, helping marketers optimize conversion funnels.
Event tracking
AnalyticsEvent tracking monitors specific user actions on a website or app, like clicks, downloads, or video plays. It helps marketers understand user behavior and optimize digital strategies.
Exit rate
AnalyticsExit rate shows the percentage of visitors who left your website from a specific page. It helps you understand which pages might be the last stop for users before they leave your site.
F
Form tracking
AnalyticsForm tracking monitors how users interact with online forms. It helps marketers understand user behavior, identify drop-off points, and optimize forms for better conversion rates.
Funnel visualization
AnalyticsFunnel visualization tracks customer journeys through defined steps, showing where users drop off. It helps identify bottlenecks and optimize conversion paths.
G
GA4
AnalyticsGA4, or Google Analytics 4, is Google's newest analytics platform. It uses an event-based data model to give marketers a more unified view of user behavior across websites and apps.
Goal tracking
AnalyticsGoal tracking helps you measure if your marketing efforts are achieving specific business objectives, like getting more website visitors or sales. It shows whether your strategies are working and where to make changes.
Google Analytics
AnalyticsGoogle Analytics is a free web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic, helping businesses understand how visitors find and use their website.
K
Key performance indicator
AnalyticsKey performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable values that show how effectively a company is achieving its key business objectives. They help track progress towards goals and inform decision-making.
L
Landing page report
AnalyticsA landing page report provides data on how visitors interact with specific web pages designed for marketing campaigns, showing their performance and effectiveness.
M
Marketing attribution
AnalyticsMarketing attribution helps marketers understand which touchpoints in a customer's journey contribute to a conversion. It assigns credit to different marketing efforts to optimize future campaigns.
Marketing dashboard
AnalyticsA marketing dashboard is a visual tool that tracks, analyzes, and displays key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics from various marketing activities. It provides a real-time overview of marketing performance to help teams make data-driven decisions.
Month-over-month growth
AnalyticsMonth-over-month growth tracks how a specific metric changes from one month to the next. It helps marketers quickly see if their efforts are improving performance.
Multi-touch attribution
AnalyticsMulti-touch attribution gives credit to all marketing touchpoints a customer engages with before converting. It helps marketers understand the full customer journey and optimize their spending.
N
Net promoter score
AnalyticsNet Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend your product or service to others. It helps gauge overall customer satisfaction and growth potential.
New vs returning visitors
AnalyticsNew visitors are people seeing your website for the first time. Returning visitors have been to your site before, and understanding this helps tailor your marketing efforts.
P
Pages per session
AnalyticsPages per session shows how many pages a user views on your website during a single visit. It helps you understand user engagement and how deeply visitors explore your content.
Paid traffic
AnalyticsPaid traffic refers to website visitors who arrive at your site because you paid for advertisements. This is different from organic traffic, which comes from unpaid sources like search engines.
Performance report
AnalyticsA performance report shows how well your marketing efforts are doing by tracking important numbers. It helps you understand what's working and what needs change to improve results.
Product performance
AnalyticsProduct performance measures how well a product meets its goals, like sales, user satisfaction, and retention. It helps businesses understand what's working and what needs improvement.
R
Referral traffic
AnalyticsReferral traffic is when visitors come to your website from another website by clicking a link. It shows you which external sites are sending people your way.
Return on investment
AnalyticsReturn on Investment (ROI) measures the profitability of an investment. It helps you understand if your marketing efforts are making more money than they cost.
Revenue per visitor
AnalyticsRevenue per visitor (RPV) measures the average revenue generated from each individual who visits your website. It helps evaluate how efficiently your traffic turns into sales.
Revenue tracking
AnalyticsRevenue tracking monitors the monetary value generated by marketing activities, helping businesses understand which strategies drive sales and profitability.
S
Scroll depth
AnalyticsScroll depth measures how far down a webpage users scroll. It helps marketers understand user engagement and content consumption on their sites.
Segmentation
AnalyticsSegmentation divides a target market into smaller, distinct groups based on shared characteristics, allowing marketers to tailor strategies for more effective engagement.
Session
AnalyticsA session tracks a user's activity on a website or app within a specific timeframe. It starts when a user lands on a page and ends after a period of inactivity or leaving the site.
Session duration
AnalyticsSession duration measures how long a user spends actively engaging with your website or app during a single visit. It helps you understand user engagement and the effectiveness of your content.
Shopping behavior
AnalyticsShopping behavior describes the actions and patterns customers follow from discovering a product to making a purchase. It helps marketers understand how and why people buy.
Social traffic
AnalyticsSocial traffic refers to website visits that come directly from social media platforms. It measures how many people click links on your social posts and land on your site.
T
Time on page
AnalyticsTime on page measures how long a user spends viewing a specific webpage. It helps marketers understand user engagement and content effectiveness.
Traffic source
AnalyticsA traffic source tells you where visitors to your website are coming from, like search engines, social media, or email. Understanding these sources helps marketers know what's working.
Transaction tracking
AnalyticsTransaction tracking monitors online purchases and other key conversions to understand marketing campaign performance. It helps businesses see what drives sales and measure ROI.
U
UTM parameter
AnalyticsUTM parameters are short text codes added to URLs to track where website traffic comes from and how visitors interact with your content. They help you measure marketing campaign performance.
Unique visitors
AnalyticsUnique visitors are the individual people who visit your website within a specific time frame, regardless of how many times they return. It helps you understand your audience size.
Universal Analytics
AnalyticsUniversal Analytics is Google's previous generation of web analytics that tracked website and app performance, offering insights into user behavior before Google Analytics 4.
User flow
AnalyticsUser flow describes the path a user takes through a website or app to complete a task. It helps marketers understand user behavior and identify areas for improvement.
W
Website traffic
AnalyticsWebsite traffic measures the number of visitors to a website and the pages they view. It's a key indicator of your website's visibility and popularity online.
Y
Year-over-year growth
AnalyticsYear-over-year growth measures how much a business metric has changed compared to the same period in the previous year. It helps businesses see consistent progress and identify long-term trends.
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