The Complete eCommerce, Retail and Data Glossary

Your go-to guide for navigating the world of eCommerce, retail, and analytics

Drowning in acronyms? Confused by conversion rates? Whether you're a seasoned eCommerce pro or just getting started with data analytics, this glossary breaks down the essential terms you need to know to grow your consumer brand.

From data pipelines to customer lifetime value, we've compiled the most important eCommerce and analytics terms in one place, with clear, practical definitions that actually make sense. No more guessing what your marketing team means when they talk about "attribution models" or wondering if you should care about your "cohort analysis."

How to Use This Glossary

You’ll find everything organized into three main categories:

Data & Analytics: The technical backbone that powers your insights, from ETL pipelines and APIs to KPIs and advanced analytics techniques that turn raw data into actionable intelligence.

eCommerce: Everything you need to run and optimize your brand’s online presence, from A/B testing and email marketing to conversion optimization and customer acquisition strategies.

Retail & Market Intelligence: The metrics, data sources, and analytical frameworks that drive success in physical retail stores like Walmart and Target.

Pro tip: Use Ctrl+F (PC) or Cmd+F (Mac) to quickly find any term. Bolded terms have their own definitions elsewhere in the glossary.

Ready to decode the language of modern commerce? Let's dive in.

Data & Analytics

Analytics engineer: A hybrid role that combines data engineering skills with business analytics knowledge. These professionals build custom data models, ensure analytics teams have clean and reliable data, and bridge the gap between technical infrastructure and business insights. Think of them as the translators between your technical team and business stakeholders.

API (Application Programming Interface): A software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Think of it as a universal translator that lets different systems share information seamlessly. APIs are essential for connecting your eCommerce platform to marketing tools, payment processors, and analytics platforms without manual data entry.

BigQuery (BQ): Google's serverless, multi-cloud data warehouse that's part of Google Cloud Platform. BigQuery can handle massive datasets and uses its own SQL syntax, making it powerful for large-scale analytics but requiring some learning curve for teams used to traditional databases.

Cohort analysis: An analysis method that groups customers by shared characteristics (like when they first purchased) and tracks their behavior over time. This helps you understand patterns like whether customers acquired during holiday sales are as valuable long-term as those who discover you organically, or if certain marketing channels bring higher-quality customers.

CSV (Comma Separated Values): A simple file format that uses commas to separate data values. CSVs are the most common way to import and export data between different systems—think of them as the universal language for spreadsheet data. Nearly every platform can export to CSV, making them essential for data analysis.

Customer Data Platform (CDP): A centralized system that aggregates and organizes customer data from multiple sources to create unified customer profiles. CDPs help brands deliver personalized experiences by providing a complete view of each customer's interactions across all touchpoints and channels.

Data-driven culture: An organizational mindset where decisions are based on data analysis and insights rather than intuition or assumptions. Companies with data-driven cultures systematically collect, analyze, and act on data to improve performance and achieve business objectives.

Data monitoring: Automated systems that continuously check your data for quality, accuracy, and freshness. When something goes wrong—like a data source stops updating or numbers look suspicious—these systems alert you so you can fix issues before they impact business decisions. It's like having a security system for your data.

Data orchestration: The automated coordination and management of multiple data processes, workflows, and systems to ensure they work together seamlessly. Data orchestration handles the scheduling, monitoring, and dependencies between different data tasks, making sure your entire data pipeline runs smoothly without manual intervention.

Data pipeline: The automated process that moves data from various sources (like your website, email platform, and payment processor) to your analytics platform. A well-built pipeline ensures you always have fresh, accurate data ready for analysis without manual copying and pasting from different systems.

Data silos: When different parts of your business use separate, disconnected systems that can't easily share information. This creates blind spots and makes it nearly impossible to get a complete view of your customer journey or business performance. Breaking down data silos is often the first step toward becoming truly data-driven.

Data standardization: The process of converting data from different sources into consistent formats. For example, making sure all your sales data uses the same date format and currency, regardless of whether it comes from Shopify, Amazon, or your retail partners. Without standardization, you can't accurately compare performance across channels.

Data transformation: Converting raw data into a format that's useful for analysis. This might involve cleaning messy data, combining information from multiple sources, or calculating new metrics like customer lifetime value. Most data needs some transformation before it's ready for business insights.

ELT (Extract, Load, Transform): The modern approach to data processing where you first extract data from various sources, load it into a data warehouse, then transform it for analysis. This method is faster and more flexible than traditional ETL approaches, especially when dealing with large datasets.

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load): The older method of data processing where you extract data from sources, transform it in a staging environment, then load it into your final destination. While still used, most modern analytics platforms prefer ELT because it's more scalable and allows for faster iteration.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator): The critical metrics that measure how well your business is performing against its goals. Good KPIs are quantifiable, directly tied to business objectives, and actionable—meaning you can actually influence them through your decisions. Not every metric is a KPI; only the ones that truly matter for your business success.

Lagging indicator: A KPI based on something that has already happened, like net profit or total sales. Lagging indicators help you understand past performance and learn from what worked or didn't work, but they can't predict future outcomes.

Layer Cake analysis: A powerful visual tool that shows your revenue performance over time, broken down by customer acquisition cohorts. Each "layer" represents customers acquired in a specific period, helping you see whether you should focus more on acquiring new customers or retaining existing ones. The thickness of each layer shows retention strength.

Leading indicator: A KPI that predicts or signals future performance, like email subscribers or active trial users. Leading indicators help you understand what's coming and make proactive decisions before problems arise or opportunities disappear.

North star metric: The single most important metric that drives your business growth. This could be customer lifetime value, monthly active users, or net revenue retention. Having a clear north star helps align your entire team around what matters most for long-term success.

Real-time analytics: Data processing and analysis that happens immediately as new information comes in, enabling you to make decisions based on what's happening right now rather than waiting for weekly or monthly reports. This is crucial for time-sensitive decisions like inventory management or campaign optimization.

Reverse ETL: The process of taking data from your analytics warehouse and sending it back to operational tools like your email platform or advertising accounts. This lets you use insights from your data warehouse to power marketing campaigns and customer experiences, closing the loop between analytics and action.

RFM analysis: A segmentation method that groups customers based on three factors: how recently they purchased (Recency), how often they buy (Frequency), and how much they spend (Monetary value). This helps identify your most valuable customers and those at risk of churning, enabling targeted retention strategies.

Single source of truth: A centralized location where all your business data lives in a consistent, accurate format. Instead of juggling multiple spreadsheets and dashboards that might show different numbers, everyone in your organization looks at the same reliable data. This eliminates the "which report is right?" problem.

SQL (Structured Query Language): The programming language used to communicate with databases. While you don't need to be a SQL expert, understanding basic concepts helps you work more effectively with data teams and make sense of how your analytics platforms organize information.

UMS (Unified Marketing Schema): A standardized data structure for organizing marketing performance and spend data across all your channels, making it easier to compare and analyze campaign effectiveness across platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok.

UNS (Unified Notifications Schema): A standardized format for organizing email, SMS, and other notification data, allowing you to analyze communication performance across different platforms and understand the complete customer messaging experience.

UOS (Unified Order Schema): A generic, standardized way of organizing order and transaction data from different commerce platforms, making it easier to analyze sales performance across channels without wrestling with different data formats.

XML (Extensible Markup Language): A coding format that adds structure and meaning to text documents. While you might not work with XML directly, it's the backbone of many data feeds and integrations that power your business, especially when exchanging data with retail partners.

Zero-party data: Information that customers intentionally share with you, like survey responses, quiz answers, or preference settings. This is considered the most valuable type of customer data because people voluntarily provide it, making it highly accurate and actionable for personalization and marketing.

eCommerce

Amazon Fulfillment Network (AFN): Amazon's comprehensive logistics infrastructure including fulfillment centers, storage facilities, delivery stations, and transportation networks. Brands can leverage AFN through services like FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) to access Amazon's logistics capabilities.

Authorization: The process where a customer's credit card issuer approves a payment transaction. Authorization happens in seconds during checkout and reserves the funds, but the actual charge (capture) may occur later when the order ships.

Back end: The behind-the-scenes, server-side portion of a website that handles data processing, database management, and business logic. Built with languages like Python or PHP, the back end powers everything customers don't see but rely on for their shopping experience.

Billing address: The address associated with a customer's credit card or payment method. Payment processors verify this address matches their records to prevent fraud, so mismatches can cause legitimate transactions to be declined.

Black Friday: The day after Thanksgiving in the US, traditionally marking the start of the holiday shopping season. Black Friday sales have become a global phenomenon, often paired with Cyber Monday for online deals. Many brands see 20-40% of their annual revenue during this period.

Brand board: A visual document that captures all the design elements of your brand identity, such as colors, fonts, logos, imagery style, and tone. Brand boards ensure consistency across all marketing materials and help team members and agencies stay on-brand.

Business to business (B2B): Commerce between companies rather than individual consumers. B2B transactions often involve larger order quantities, different pricing structures, and longer sales cycles compared to B2C commerce.

Business to consumer (B2C): Direct commerce between businesses and individual customers. Most eCommerce brands operate B2C models, selling products directly to end consumers through their websites or marketplaces like Amazon.

Buy-to-detail rate: A Google Analytics metric showing how many product purchases occur relative to product detail page views. If 100 people view a product page and 3 buy it, your buy-to-detail rate is 3%. This helps identify which products convert browsers into buyers.

Buyer persona: A detailed, semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real customer data. Good personas include demographics, motivations, pain points, and shopping behaviors, helping you create more targeted marketing messages.

Call to action (CTA): Clear instructions telling customers what you want them to do next—"Buy now," "Sign up," "Learn more." Effective CTAs are specific, action-oriented, and create urgency. The placement, color, and wording of CTAs significantly impact conversion rates.

Cart-to-detail rate: A Google Analytics metric showing how often visitors add products to their cart after viewing product detail pages. This metric helps identify products that interest people but might have barriers preventing them from taking the next step toward purchase.

Carrying cost: All expenses related to storing inventory until it sells, including warehouse rent, insurance, taxes, labor, and depreciation. Understanding carrying costs helps you optimize inventory levels—too much inventory ties up cash, too little causes stockouts.

Chatbot: Automated software that can communicate with website visitors through text, often used to answer common questions or guide customers through basic processes. Modern chatbots can handle simple customer service tasks, reducing response times and workload for human agents.

COGS (Cost of Goods Sold): The direct costs of producing or acquiring the products you sell, including materials, manufacturing, and shipping to your warehouse. COGS is essential for calculating gross margin and pricing products profitably.

Contribution margin: Revenue minus all variable costs including COGS, discounts, returns, and direct marketing costs. Contribution margin shows how much money each sale contributes to covering fixed costs and generating profit.

Conversion funnel: The path customers take from first discovering your brand to making a purchase, visualized as a funnel because fewer people complete each successive step. Understanding your funnel helps identify where you're losing potential customers.

Conversion path: The specific sequence of touchpoints and actions a customer takes before converting. This might include seeing an ad, visiting your homepage, reading reviews, and finally purchasing. Understanding conversion paths helps optimize the customer journey.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO): The systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who complete desired actions. CRO involves testing different page elements, analyzing user behavior, and making data-driven improvements to boost conversions.

Cookies: Small text files websites store on visitors' browsers to remember information like login status, shopping cart contents, and preferences. While useful for personalization, privacy regulations increasingly restrict cookie usage, forcing marketers to find new tracking methods.

CPC (Cost Per Click): The amount you pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement. CPC varies widely based on competition for keywords and audience targeting. Understanding CPC helps you budget effectively and evaluate ad performance across platforms.

CPO (Cost Per Order): The average marketing spend required to generate one order, regardless of customer status. Unlike CPA, CPO includes orders from existing customers, making it useful for evaluating promotional campaigns and overall marketing efficiency.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Systems and strategies for managing all interactions with customers throughout their lifecycle. CRM platforms help track customer communications, purchase history, and preferences to improve relationships and drive retention.

Customer acquisition: The process and strategies used to attract new customers to your business. This encompasses all marketing activities and touchpoints that convert prospects into first-time buyers, from advertising and content marketing to partnerships and referral programs.

Customer experience (CX): The complete perception customers have of your brand based on every interaction across all touchpoints—your website, customer service, packaging, and more. Positive CX drives loyalty, referrals, and higher lifetime value.

Customer segment: A group of customers with shared characteristics like demographics, behavior, or purchase patterns. Effective segmentation allows you to tailor marketing messages, product recommendations, and experiences to specific groups for better results.

Customer retention: The ability to keep existing customers engaged and purchasing over time, rather than losing them to competitors or inactivity. Strong retention strategies focus on delivering ongoing value, personalized experiences, and building loyalty through excellent service and products.

Cyber Monday: The Monday after Black Friday, traditionally focused on online deals and promotions. Many brands see their highest online sales volume of the year on Cyber Monday, making it crucial for eCommerce strategy and inventory planning.

Demographics: Statistical data about population groups, typically including age, gender, income, location, and education level. Demographics help you understand who your customers are and create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with specific groups.

Domain: Your website's main address on the internet, like "daasity.com." Your domain is part of your brand identity and affects both customer trust and search engine optimization. Choose domains that are memorable, brandable, and relevant to your business.

Dropshipping: A business model where you sell products without holding inventory. When customers place orders, you forward them to suppliers who ship directly to customers. This reduces upfront costs but offers less control over quality and shipping times.

D2C (Direct-to-Consumer): A business model where brands sell products directly to customers through their own channels (like websites or stores) instead of going through retailers or middlemen. D2C brands control the entire customer experience, keep higher profit margins, and own their customer relationships, but must handle everything from marketing to fulfillment themselves.

Email flow: An automated series of emails triggered by specific customer actions or behaviors, like welcome sequences for new subscribers or abandoned cart reminders. Email flows nurture relationships and drive conversions without manual intervention.

Engagement rate: A metric measuring how actively your audience interacts with your content, typically calculated as total interactions divided by reach or followers. High engagement rates indicate content resonates with your audience and can improve algorithm visibility on social platforms.

Event-triggered email: Automated emails sent based on specific customer actions or milestones, like birthday offers, anniversary messages, or post-purchase follow-ups. These timely, relevant messages often achieve higher engagement than generic campaigns.

First-party data: Information you collect directly from customers through your website, email list, surveys, and purchase history. First-party data is highly valuable because it's accurate, compliant with privacy regulations, and gives you complete control over how it's used.

Front end: The customer-facing part of your website that visitors interact with directly, including design, navigation, and user interface elements. Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the front end creates the visual experience that influences customer behavior.

GA4 (Google Analytics 4): Google's latest analytics platform that replaced Universal Analytics in 2023. GA4 offers enhanced privacy features, cross-platform tracking, and AI-powered insights, but requires learning new interfaces and reporting structures.

Gateway (Payment Gateway): The service that securely processes credit card transactions between your website and payment processors. Popular gateways like Stripe or PayPal handle the technical complexity of payment processing while ensuring security and compliance.

GMV (Gross Merchandise Value): The total value of all transactions processed through your platform over a specific period, before accounting for returns, discounts, or fees. GMV helps measure overall business volume and growth trends.

Google Ads: Google's advertising platform for creating and managing pay-per-click campaigns across search results, websites, and apps. Google Ads offers powerful targeting options and detailed performance tracking, making it essential for most digital marketing strategies.

Growth hacking: A marketing approach that combines creativity, analytical thinking, and technology to rapidly grow businesses, especially startups. Growth hacking focuses on finding scalable, cost-effective ways to acquire and retain customers through experimentation.

Heatmap: Visual representations of user behavior on websites, showing where visitors click, scroll, and spend time through color-coded overlays. Heatmaps help identify optimization opportunities by revealing how users actually interact with your pages.

High-value customers (HVCs): Customers who are highly engaged with your brand, purchase frequently, and spend significantly more than average customers. These customers typically represent a small percentage of your customer base but generate a disproportionate amount of revenue, making them crucial for retention efforts and business growth.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): The foundational code language used to create web pages, defining structure and content like headings, paragraphs, and links. While you don't need to code HTML yourself, understanding basics helps communicate effectively with developers.

Infographic: Visual content that combines data, text, and graphics to communicate information clearly and engagingly. Infographics are highly shareable and can help explain complex concepts, making them valuable for content marketing and social media.

Inventory: Products you have on hand and available for sale, whether in your own warehouse, with fulfillment partners, or at retail locations. Effective inventory management balances having enough stock to meet demand while minimizing carrying costs.

JavaScript: A programming language that makes websites interactive, powering features like shopping carts, form validation, and dynamic content updates. Most modern websites rely heavily on JavaScript for functionality beyond basic HTML and CSS.

Landed cost: Refers to all expenses involved in getting a product from the retailer to the customer. This includes suppliers, warehousing, taxes, and insurance

Lead: A potential customer who has shown interest in your products or services by providing contact information or engaging with your brand. Leads require nurturing through marketing campaigns to convert them into paying customers.

Lead magnet: Valuable content or offers provided free in exchange for contact information, like ebooks, discount codes, or exclusive access. Effective lead magnets attract qualified prospects while growing your email list for future marketing.

Logistics: The complete process of moving products from suppliers to customers, including warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment, and shipping. Efficient logistics are crucial for customer satisfaction and operational profitability.

Mobile commerce (m-commerce): Shopping and commercial transactions conducted through mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. With mobile traffic often exceeding desktop, optimizing for mobile experience is essential for eCommerce success.

Net Promoter Score (NPS): A customer loyalty metric based on asking "How likely are you to recommend us to others?" on a 0-10 scale. NPS scores above 50 are considered excellent, while negative scores indicate serious customer satisfaction issues.

Omnichannel analytics: The measurement and analysis of customer interactions and performance across all channels and touchpoints, providing a unified view of the customer journey. This approach helps brands understand how different channels work together and optimize the complete customer experience rather than individual channel performance.

Open rate: The percentage of email recipients who open your messages, though iOS privacy changes have made this metric less reliable. While still useful for trends and A/B testing, focus more on click-to-open rates and conversions for true performance measurement.

Organic traffic: Website visitors who find you through unpaid search engine results or social rather than advertisements. Organic traffic typically converts well because visitors are actively searching for relevant information or products.

PDP (Product Detail Page): Individual product pages that showcase specific items with images, descriptions, pricing, and purchase options. PDPs are crucial conversion points where you must provide enough information and persuasion to drive purchases.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing: Advertising model where you only pay when someone clicks your ads, commonly used for search engine and social media advertising. PPC allows precise budget control and targeting, making it popular for performance marketing.

Profit: What’s left after subtracting all your expenses (like production costs and marketing) from your revenue. It’s essentially the money your business actually keeps. 

Recurring payment: Automated transactions where customers authorize regular charges for subscriptions or repeat deliveries. Recurring payments provide predictable revenue streams but require careful management to minimize churn and payment failures.

Repurchase rate: The percentage of customers who make additional purchases within a specific timeframe. High repurchase rates indicate strong product satisfaction and customer loyalty, reducing dependence on costly new customer acquisition.

Revenue: The total money a business brings in before subtracting expenses, such as marketing and employee salaries.

Shopping cart: The digital equivalent of a physical shopping cart, temporarily storing items customers intend to purchase before checkout. Cart functionality and user experience significantly impact conversion rates and abandonment.

SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): Unique identifier codes assigned to each distinct product variant in your inventory, including differences in size, color, or features. SKUs help track inventory, analyze sales performance, and manage product catalogs.

Third-party data: Customer information purchased from external data brokers or advertising platforms, often used for targeting and audience expansion. Privacy regulations are increasingly restricting third-party data usage, making first-party data more valuable.

Transaction: A complete purchase event, including all associated data like customer information, items bought, payment method, and shipping details. Transaction data provides the foundation for most eCommerce analytics and business intelligence.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator): The web address that identifies specific pages or resources on the internet. Well-structured URLs improve user experience and search engine optimization, helping both customers and search engines navigate your site.

User Experience (UX): The overall experience people have when interacting with your website or app, encompassing usability, accessibility, and satisfaction. Good UX design reduces friction in the customer journey and improves conversion rates.

UTM (Urchin Tracking Module): UTMs are tags you add to a URL (like source, medium, and campaign), so tools like Google Analytics can track where your traffic is coming from.  

Webhook: Automated messages sent between systems when specific events occur, like notifying your email platform when someone makes a purchase. Webhooks enable real-time data sharing and workflow automation between different business tools.

301 redirect: A way to tell search engines and visitors that a webpage has permanently moved to a new address. When someone visits the old URL, they're automatically sent to the new one. This preserves SEO value and ensures customers don't hit dead ends when they bookmark your pages or find old links.

3PL (Third-Party Logistics): Outsourcing your fulfillment operations to a specialized company that handles inventory management, warehousing, and shipping. 3PLs let you focus on growing your business while they handle the logistics infrastructure, often providing better shipping rates and faster delivery than you could achieve alone.

A/B testing: Comparing two versions of a webpage, email, or ad to see which performs better. You show version A to half your audience and version B to the other half, then measure which drives more conversions. It's the scientific method applied to marketing, helping you make data-driven decisions instead of guessing.

Abandonment: When someone visits your site and shows interest (like adding items to their cart) but leaves without completing their intended action. Cart abandonment is the most common type, but you can also track email signup abandonment, checkout abandonment, and more. Understanding why people abandon helps you optimize their experience.

Address Verification Service (AVS): A fraud prevention tool that checks whether the billing address provided by a customer matches the address on file with their credit card company. This helps reduce chargebacks and fraudulent transactions, protecting both you and your customers.

Affiliate marketing: A partnership where other people or companies promote your products in exchange for a commission on sales they generate. It's like having a sales team that only gets paid when they actually drive results, making it a low-risk way to expand your marketing reach.

Affiliate marketing network (AFN): A service that connects affiliate marketers with brands looking for promotional partners. Networks like ShareASale or CJ Affiliate act as middlemen, making it easier for both sides to find good matches and handle tracking and payments.

Alt tag: HTML text that describes an image for people who can't see it, whether due to visual impairment or slow loading. Alt tags also help search engines understand your images, potentially improving your SEO. They should be descriptive but concise—"woman wearing red dress" rather than just "image."

Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN): The unique 10-character code Amazon assigns to every product. Think of ASINs as Amazon's version of SKUs. Understanding ASINs helps you track product performance, manage inventory, and optimize listings on Amazon's platform.

Autoresponder: An automated email or message that gets sent immediately after someone takes a specific action, like signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase. These help maintain engagement and provide timely customer service without manual effort, improving the customer experience while saving your team time.

Average days in transit: The typical time it takes for products to ship from your fulfillment center to the customer

Average order value (AOV): The average amount customers spend per transaction. If you had $10,000 in sales from 100 orders, your AOV would be $100. Increasing AOV through upselling, cross-selling, or bundling can dramatically boost revenue without acquiring more customers.

Average revenue per customer (ARPC): The average amount of revenue each customer generates over a specific time period, typically measured monthly, quarterly, or yearly. ARPC helps you understand customer value trends and set appropriate acquisition spending limits.

Backorder: When a product is temporarily out of stock but customers can still order it for future delivery. Backorders let you capture sales even when inventory runs low, but they require careful communication about expected delivery dates to maintain customer satisfaction.

Bounce rate: The percentage of website visitors who look at only one page before leaving. A high bounce rate might indicate that your content isn't relevant to what visitors expected, your page loads too slowly, or your site doesn't clearly guide visitors to their next step.

BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later): Payment options that let customers purchase products immediately but pay in installments over time. Services like Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm have made this increasingly popular, especially among younger consumers who prefer spreading payments over time.

Bundling: Grouping related products or services together as a package, often at a discounted price compared to buying items separately. Bundling can increase your AOV, reduce inventory of slower-moving items, and provide more value to customers.

Cart abandonment rate: The percentage of shoppers who add items to their cart but leave without completing the purchase. Most eCommerce sites see abandonment rates of 60-80%, making cart abandonment emails and checkout optimization crucial for recovering lost sales.

Chargeback: When a customer disputes a transaction and their credit card company reverses the payment. Chargebacks can result from fraud, customer dissatisfaction, or processing errors, and they often come with additional fees. High chargeback rates can jeopardize your ability to process credit cards.

Churn rate: The percentage of customers who stop purchasing after a given timeframe. While often discussed in subscription contexts, churn applies to any business—if a customer hasn't bought in 12 months, they might be considered churned. Understanding churn helps you identify when to launch winback campaigns.

Click-to-open rate (CTOR): The percentage of email recipients who click on links after opening an email, calculated as unique clicks divided by unique opens. CTOR is often more reliable than open rates for measuring content effectiveness, especially since iOS privacy changes made open rate tracking less accurate.

Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your site, whether that's making a purchase, signing up for emails, or downloading a resource. It's calculated as conversions divided by total visitors. Even small improvements in conversion rate can significantly impact revenue.

Cost per acquisition (CPA): How much you spend on average to acquire one new customer through advertising. If you spend $1,000 on ads and get 50 new customers, your CPA is $20. CPA focuses specifically on advertising spend, while customer acquisition cost includes broader acquisition expenses.

Cross-selling: Offering complementary products that enhance or relate to what a customer is already buying. "Would you like a case with that phone?" is classic cross-selling. Done well, cross-selling increases AOV while providing genuine value to customers.

Customer acquisition cost (CAC): The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including not just ad spend but also the cost of marketing tools, creative development, and team time. CAC gives you a more complete picture of acquisition efficiency than CPA alone and is essential for calculating LTV:CAC ratios.

Customer lifetime value (CLV/LTV): The total revenue you can expect from a single customer throughout their entire relationship with your brand. LTV helps determine how much you should spend to acquire customers and which segments are most valuable. The higher the LTV, the more you can invest in acquisition.

Discount code: A phrase, word, or alphanumeric code that customers can enter at checkout to receive a percentage or dollar amount off their order. Discount codes are powerful tools for driving conversions, rewarding loyalty, and tracking the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns.

Drip marketing: Sending a series of automated emails or messages based on specific triggers or time intervals. For example, a welcome series might send three emails over a week to new subscribers, each providing different value. Drip campaigns nurture relationships without constant manual effort.

eCommerce platform: The software foundation for your online store, like Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce. Your platform handles everything from product pages and checkout to inventory management and customer accounts. Choosing the right platform is crucial for scalability and functionality.

Email marketing: Using email to communicate with customers and prospects through newsletters, promotional campaigns, and automated sequences. Despite being one of the oldest digital marketing channels, email consistently delivers high ROI—often $40+ for every dollar spent.

Fulfillment: The complete process of receiving, processing, packaging, and shipping orders from your online store. Efficient fulfillment is crucial for customer satisfaction and can be handled in-house, through 3PLs, or via services like Amazon FBA.

Gross margin: Your revenue minus the direct costs of producing or acquiring your products (COGS). Gross margin tells you how much money you have left to cover operating expenses and generate profit. It's a key metric for pricing decisions and business sustainability.

Landing page: A standalone webpage designed for a specific marketing campaign or purpose, where visitors "land" after clicking an ad or email link. Good landing pages are focused on a single goal and remove distractions that might prevent conversions.

LTV:CAC ratio: The ratio between your customer lifetime value and customer acquisition cost. A 3:1 LTV:CAC ratio means customers generate three times what you spend to acquire them. This ratio helps you understand the long-term profitability of your marketing efforts and set sustainable acquisition budgets.

MER (marketing efficiency ratio): Measures the overall performance of your marketing campaigns: total revenue divided by total spend. It is also known as marketing efficiency rating, blended ROAS, or ecosystem ROAS.

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): The predictable revenue generated by subscription products or services each month. MRR is crucial for subscription businesses but also applies to any recurring revenue streams like membership programs or automatic shipments.

Multi-touch attribution: Modeling that determines which marketing touchpoints along the customer journey deserve credit for a sale. Instead of giving all credit to the last interaction, multi-touch attribution recognizes that customers often engage with multiple channels before purchasing, helping you optimize your marketing mix.

Omnichannel: Providing a seamless, integrated experience across all customer touchpoints—your website, social media, email, physical stores, and customer service. Customers should have a consistent experience regardless of how they interact with your brand, with data flowing between all channels.

Personalization: Tailoring the shopping experience to individual customers based on their behavior, preferences, and purchase history. This might include personalized product recommendations, customized email content, or dynamic website experiences that adapt to each visitor.

ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): How much revenue you generate for every dollar spent on advertising. A 4:1 ROAS means you make $4 for every $1 spent on ads. ROAS helps you evaluate which campaigns and channels are most profitable and where to allocate your advertising budget.

Segmentation: Dividing your audience into groups based on shared characteristics like demographics, behavior, or purchase history. This allows you to send more relevant, targeted messages that typically perform much better than generic communications sent to your entire list.

SMS marketing: Using text messages to communicate with customers about promotions, updates, and reminders. While SMS has higher open rates than email, it requires more careful consideration of frequency and relevance since messages are more intrusive and personal.

Subscription: A business model where customers pay regular fees (like monthly or yearly) to keep receiving products or services. Think Netflix, meal kits, or software—customers pay automatically and stay subscribed as long as they find value. This creates steady, predictable income for businesses but means you need to keep customers happy to prevent them from canceling.

Subscription analytics: Tracking the key numbers that matter for subscription businesses, like how much money comes in each month, how many customers cancel, and how much it costs to get new subscribers. These metrics help subscription companies figure out the right pricing, reduce cancellations, and understand if their business model is working.

Time between orders: A metric that shows the duration between a customer's orders, and in effect, how long it will likely take customers to place their next order

Upselling: Encouraging customers to purchase a more expensive version of what they're already buying. This might mean suggesting a larger size, premium features, or a higher-quality option. Upselling increases AOV while potentially providing more value to the customer.

Winback campaign: A series of messages designed to re-engage customers who haven't purchased recently and might be at risk of churning. These campaigns often include special offers or incentives to encourage repeat purchases and can be highly effective for recovering otherwise lost customers.

Retail & Market Intelligence

AUR (Average Unit Retail): The average selling price of individual items at retail, calculated by dividing total retail sales by units sold. AUR helps brands understand pricing effectiveness and compare performance across different retail channels and time periods.

ACV (All Commodity Volume): A weighted measure that shows what percentage of total category sales occur in stores that carry your product. Unlike simple store counts, ACV gives more weight to high-volume retailers, providing a better picture of your distribution's revenue potential. 80% ACV means your product is available where 80% of category sales happen.

Average number of items: The average number of different SKUs from your brand that each retail location carries. This metric helps identify opportunities for expanding your product assortment within existing retail partners—stores carrying only one of your items might be good candidates for additional products.

Backorder rate: The percentage of customer orders that can't be fulfilled immediately due to insufficient inventory. High backorder rates indicate demand forecasting issues or supply chain problems that can damage customer satisfaction and retailer relationships.

Base sales: The sales volume you would expect without any promotional activities—your baseline performance. Understanding base sales helps you measure the true incremental impact of promotions and marketing campaigns, separating normal demand from promotion-driven spikes.

Case pack sizes: The number of individual units packaged together for wholesale distribution. Retailers typically order in case packs rather than individual units, so understanding optimal case pack sizes helps balance retailer convenience with inventory efficiency.

Category management: The strategic approach to managing product categories as individual business units to maximize overall category performance for retailers. Brands use category insights to demonstrate their value and secure better shelf placement by showing how they contribute to total category growth.

Competitive intelligence: Market insights about competitor performance, pricing strategies, promotional activities, and market positioning. This information helps you make informed decisions about your own strategy and identify market opportunities, often gathered through syndicated data sources.

Distribution: How widely available your products are across retail locations. This includes both breadth (number of stores carrying your products) and depth (number of different items each store carries). Strong distribution is essential for retail success—you can't sell where you're not present.

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange): The standardized electronic communication system retailers and suppliers use to exchange business documents like purchase orders and invoices. While technical, EDI issues can impact inventory management and sales reporting, making it important for retail partnerships.

Fill rates: The percentage of ordered products that are successfully delivered to retailers on time and in full. High fill rates are crucial for maintaining strong retailer relationships and avoiding out-of-stock situations that hurt both sales and brand reputation.

Forward buying: When retailers purchase more inventory than they immediately need, often to take advantage of promotional pricing or trade deals. This can create artificial spikes in wholesale data that don't reflect actual consumer demand, making it important to understand when analyzing sales trends.

Incremental sales: Additional sales generated specifically because of promotional activities, calculated by comparing promotional period performance to baseline levels. True incremental sales represent new revenue that wouldn't have occurred otherwise—not just timing shifts of purchases that would have happened anyway.

Inventory to sales ratio (I/S ratio): Represents your inventory as a percentage of total sales. It indicates how much of your inventory converts to sales. 

Inventory turnover: How many times you sell through and replace your inventory over a specific period. High turnover indicates efficient inventory management and strong demand, while low turnover suggests excess inventory or weak sales performance.

Market share: Your brand's percentage of total category sales within a specific market or time period. Market share growth often becomes more important than absolute growth as brands mature and markets become more competitive. Syndicated data providers typically measure market share.

Maximum ACV: The highest level of distribution coverage your brand could theoretically achieve, similar to percentage of stores selling but weighted toward larger retailers. Understanding maximum ACV helps set realistic distribution goals and identify expansion opportunities.

Out-of-stock (OOS) rate: The percentage of time or locations where your products are unavailable when customers want to purchase them. High OOS rates directly impact sales and can damage relationships with both customers and retailers. Most successful brands keep OOS rates below 10%.

POS data (Point-of-Sale): Transaction-level data that captures what products are selling at individual stores, including details like price, quantity, and timing. This real-time sales data is crucial for understanding retail performance and consumer behavior patterns, often provided by retailers through data portals.

Priority SKU: Products you've identified as most important to keep in stock, often your best-sellers or highest-margin items. Prioritizing certain SKUs helps focus inventory management efforts and ensures your most critical products maintain high availability.

Promotional lift: The percentage increase in sales during promotional periods compared to baseline performance. Understanding lift helps optimize promotional frequency, timing, and depth for maximum impact. Strong promotional lift indicates effective trade promotion strategies.

Retail buyers: The decision-makers at retail companies who determine which products get shelf space, negotiate terms, and evaluate ongoing brand performance. Building relationships with retail buyers requires compelling data stories that prove your products will drive incremental sales for their categories.

Sell-through rate: The percentage of inventory that sells during a specific period, calculated as units sold divided by units available. High sell-through rates (typically 80%+ is considered good) indicate strong consumer demand and efficient inventory management.

Shelf space: The physical or virtual real estate allocated to your products in retail locations. Securing and maintaining prime shelf space requires demonstrating strong sales performance and category contribution. Limited shelf space makes this a zero-sum competition between brands.

Stores selling: The total count of retail locations where your products are available, giving you a clear picture of your retail footprint. This metric helps track distribution expansion and identify geographic or channel gaps in availability.

Syndicated data: Market research data collected by third-party companies like Nielsen, SPINS, and Circana, then sold to multiple clients. This data provides insights into category performance, competitor sales, market share, and consumer trends across retail channels—essential for competitive intelligence.

TDP (Total Distribution Points): The sum of ACV across all your items, measuring both breadth and depth of distribution. TDP helps you understand your total retail presence and identify expansion opportunities, whether through new stores or additional items in existing locations.

Trade promotion: Promotional activities and discounts offered by manufacturers to retailers, including temporary price reductions, display allowances, and volume incentives. Effective trade promotion drives incremental sales while maintaining profitability and strengthening retailer relationships.

Velocity: The average sales rate of each item per point of distribution, typically measured as dollars or units per store per week per item. Strong velocity performance is often the key to securing expanded distribution and better shelf placement—retailers want products that sell quickly.

Weeks of supply (WoS): An estimate of how many weeks your current inventory will last based on recent sales rates. Most brands target 6-12 weeks of supply, balancing the need to avoid stockouts while minimizing carrying costs and cash tied up in inventory.

Wholesale data: Information about product shipments from manufacturers to retailers or distributors, including order volumes, timing, and pricing. While different from consumer sales data, wholesale data provides insights into supply chain performance and retailer purchasing patterns.

Retail analytics: The practice of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting sales and performance data from retail channels to make strategic business decisions. This includes analyzing POS data, syndicated market data, inventory levels, and promotional effectiveness to optimize distribution, pricing, and product strategies across retail partners.

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