Marketing Terms

Analytics Glossary

bounce rate – The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing a single page.

call tracking – A system that measures how callers found a business, and they relevant actions they took.

click-through rate (CTR) – The average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.

CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) – An estimate of the total monetary value of a customer to a business over the duration of their relationship.

cohort analysis – An analytics method of breaking a data set into smaller groups to observe differences in activity over time.

conversion rate – The percentage of visitors who take a desired action.

cookie – Information stored on a user’s computer by a Web site so preferences are remembered on future requests.

cost per action (CPA) – Online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.

cost per click (CPC) – The cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through.

cost per lead (CPL) – Online advertising payment model in which payment is based on the number of qualifying leads generated.

CPM – Cost per thousand impressions.

data-driven attribution – A marketing attribution model that uses machine learning to determine the relative importance of advertising interactions in the user journey.

Data Studio – A free tool from Google that lets users make custom reports with data from Google’s marketing services and external sources.

direct traffic – Website visits that do not have any referrer information, either because the visitor typed the website address directly into the browser, or they used another method that did not pass referrer information to the analytics software.

engaged sessions – In GA4, a session that lasted 10 seconds or longer, or had 1 or more conversion events or 2 or more page or screen views.

first-click attribution – A marketing attribution model that assigns all of the conversion credit in a user journey to the first marketing touchpoint.

first-party data – Data that a company collects directly from its customers and prospects.

Google Analytics 4 (“GA4”) – The latest version of Google Analytics (formerly called “App + Web”).

Google Signals – A feature from Google that uses signed-in data to enable cross-device reporting and remarketing capabilities.

Google Tag Manager – A free tag management system from Google, enabling centralized maintenance and serving of measurement tags on websites and apps.

heatmap – a graphical representation of data where varying degrees of a single metric are shown using colors.

hit – request of a file from a Web server.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.

last click attribution – A marketing attribution model that assigns all of the conversion credit in a user journey to the last marketing touchpoint.

last non-direct click – A marketing attribution model that assigns all of the conversion credit in a user journey to the last marketing touchpoint, excluding direct traffic.

linear attribution – A marketing attribution model that divides conversion credit in a user journey evenly among each marketing touchpoint.

log file – File that records the activity on a Web server.

multi-channel funnels – A group of Google Analytics reports providing channel and timing details associated with the touchpoints of visitor conversion paths.

multi-touch attribution – Any marketing attribution model that assigns conversion credit in a user journey to multiple marketing touchpoints.

offline conversion tracking – The process of importing conversion actions that happen outside of a website or app and attributing them back to online campaigns.

open funnel report – A funnel exploration report that lets users enter the funnel at any step.

page view – Request to load a single HTML page.

position based attribution – A marketing attribution model that assigns conversion credit in a user journey as follows: 40% to the first touchpoint, 40% to the last touchpoint, and the remaining 20% divided evenly among the remaining touchpoints.

predicted revenue – In GA4, the revenue that a user from the last 28 days is expected to generate in the next 28 days.

purchase probability – In GA4, the probability that a user from the last 28 days will convert in the next 7 days.

referral traffic – In analytics, the visitors who arrived via a link on another website.

ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) – An advertising metric that measures the relationship of revenue to ad spend, expressed as a percentage of ad spend.

RPV (Revenue Per Visitor) – The average amount of revenue generated per visitor to a website, calculated by dividing total revenue by total visitors.

scroll depth – The percentage of a web page that a visitor has scrolled to, usually rounded down to predefined scroll depth thresholds (i.e. 25, 50, 75, 90).

segment overlap – In GA4, a report that lets you compare up to 3 user segments and the areas where those segments overlap.

server side tracking – A digital analytics method where data is captured on a website’s server environment, from which it is passed to third-party vendors.

session – A group of interactions by a website visitor in a given time period.

session replay – A reproduction of a visitor’s view of, and interactions with, a website or app.

single touch attribution – Any marketing attribution model that assigns all of the conversion credit in a user journey to a singe marketing touchpoint.

source/medium – In analytics, a dimension that describes how people found a site, combining the dimensions of source (specific) and medium (category).

thank you page – A page where website visitors are sent after submitted a form.

trended funnel – In GA4, a report that shows the performance of each step in a funnel over time.

Universal Analytics – The version of Google Analytics prior to Google Analytics 4 (“GA4”).

UTM codes – A group of Google Analytics tracking parameters added to the end of URLs to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. (UTM = Urchin Tracking Module, from the Urchin analytics software that preceded Google Analytics.)

zero-party data – Information that people voluntarily share with companies.