Glossary
Marketing metrics, in plain language.
The terms you’ll see in ad platforms, analytics and agency reports — what they mean, how they’re calculated, and why they matter.
- Attribution
- The method used to assign credit for a conversion to the marketing touchpoints that preceded it. Different models (last click, data-driven, position-based) can give very different answers.Related →
- Average order / job value(AOV)
- The average revenue from a single purchase, job or case.Revenue ÷ number of orders
- Booked appointment rate
- The share of leads that book a consultation, estimate or appointment. One of the most useful early indicators of lead quality and follow-up effectiveness.Booked appointments ÷ leads
- Break-even cost per lead
- The highest cost per lead at which gross profit from resulting customers still covers ad spend.Booking rate × close rate × customer value × gross marginRelated →
- CASL
- Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. Regulates commercial electronic messages (email, SMS and similar), requiring consent, sender identification and a working unsubscribe mechanism.Related →
- Click-through rate(CTR)
- The share of people who click an ad or search result after seeing it.Clicks ÷ impressions
- Consent Mode
- A Google framework that adjusts how Google tags behave based on a visitor’s consent choices for analytics and advertising storage.
- Conversion rate(CVR)
- The share of visitors or clicks that complete a desired action, such as submitting a form.Conversions ÷ visitors (or clicks)
- Conversions API(CAPI)
- Meta’s server-side method for sending conversion events directly from your server or CRM, complementing the browser-based Pixel.
- Cost per acquisition(CPA)
- The advertising cost of acquiring one conversion. Make sure you know which conversion — a lead, an appointment or a customer.Ad spend ÷ conversions
- Cost per click(CPC)
- The average amount paid for each ad click.Ad spend ÷ clicks
- Cost per lead(CPL)
- The average advertising cost of generating one lead.Ad spend ÷ leads
- Customer acquisition cost(CAC)
- The total cost of acquiring a new customer. A complete CAC includes ad spend, agency or staff costs and tools; ad-only CAC is a narrower view.Acquisition costs ÷ new customers
- Enhanced conversions
- A Google Ads feature that uses hashed first-party data (such as email) submitted with a conversion to improve measurement accuracy.
- GA4
- Google Analytics 4, Google’s current analytics platform. It is event-based: page views, form submissions and clicks are all events.
- Google Tag Manager(GTM)
- A tool for deploying and managing tracking tags without editing website code for every change.
- Key event
- An event marked as important in GA4 (formerly called a conversion in GA4). Key events can be imported into Google Ads as conversions.
- Lead-to-customer rate
- The share of leads that become paying customers.New customers ÷ leads
- Lifetime value(LTV)
- The total gross profit (or revenue) a customer generates over the relationship. Useful for deciding how much you can afford to acquire a customer.Average value × purchase frequency × retention period (× margin)
- Offline conversion import
- Sending outcomes that happen outside your website — such as a booked job or retained client in your CRM — back to an ad platform so it can optimize toward them.
- Performance Max(PMax)
- A Google Ads campaign type that uses automation to serve ads across Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps from one campaign.
- Return on ad spend(ROAS)
- Revenue generated per dollar of ad spend. ROAS ignores margin and non-ad costs, so a ‘good’ ROAS depends on your economics.Revenue ÷ ad spend
- Show rate
- The share of booked appointments that actually take place.Attended appointments ÷ booked appointments
- Speed to lead
- The time between a lead submitting an enquiry and the first meaningful response from your business.
- UTM parameters
- Tags added to a URL (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content) that tell analytics where a visit came from.Related →
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