The ecommerce growth glossary

A controlled experiment that splits traffic between a control (A) and a variant (B) to measure which performs better on a pre-defined metric. Valid tests fix the sample size and primary metric before launch.

Related:MVTStatistical SignificanceMDEA/B vs multivariate testing →

Automated messages sent to shoppers who added to cart or started checkout but didn't buy, typically starting within an hour. Usually one of a store's highest revenue-per-recipient flows.

Related:Cart Abandonment RateEmail Flows

Express payment buttons — Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal — that prefill shipping and payment details so returning shoppers can buy in a tap or two.

Related:Shop PayCheckout Completion Rate

The share of sessions in which a visitor adds at least one product to the cart. A low ATC rate usually points to product-page problems: weak imagery, unclear pricing, missing trust signals, or slow load.

ATC rate = Sessions with add-to-cart ÷ Total sessions × 100

Related:Funnel AnalysisPDP

Meta's automated campaign type for ecommerce that consolidates prospecting and retargeting into one campaign with broad targeting, letting the algorithm find buyers. Creative volume and variety become the main lever.

Related:Broad TargetingCreative TestingDPAMeta Ads services →

Google's AI-generated answer summaries shown above organic results, with links to cited sources. Being cited requires clear, quotable, well-structured content on a crawlable page.

Related:Generative Engine OptimizationSERPFeatured Snippet

UGC-style ad video produced with AI avatars, voices, or editing instead of — or alongside — human creators. It lets brands test many hooks and scripts quickly at lower cost.

Related:UGCCreative TestingUGC & AI UGC services →

The rule for assigning credit for a conversion to the touchpoints that preceded it — last click, first click, linear, time decay, or data-driven. Each ad platform attributes in its own favor, so platform totals usually add up to more than actual sales.

Related:Attribution WindowMERIncrementality

The period after an ad click or view during which a conversion is credited to that ad — for example Meta's default of 7-day click, 1-day view. Changing the window changes reported ROAS without changing real results.

Related:Attribution ModelROAS

The average revenue per order. Raising AOV through bundles, upsells, and thresholds increases revenue without needing more traffic.

AOV = Revenue ÷ Number of orders

Example: $48,000 revenue from 800 orders = $60 AOV.

Related:Upsell & Cross-SellProduct BundleFree Shipping ThresholdRPV

A link from another website to yours. Relevant links from trusted sites remain one of the strongest signals search engines use to judge authority.

Related:KDInternal Linking

In GA4, the share of sessions that were not 'engaged' (under 10 seconds, no conversion, and only one page view). It is the inverse of engagement rate — a different definition from Universal Analytics' single-page-session bounce rate.

Bounce rate = 1 − Engagement rate

Related:Engagement Rate (GA4)Landing Page

The ROAS at which ad spend exactly equals the margin it generates — below it, every sale loses money. It is the floor every campaign target should be set above.

Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ Contribution margin %

Example: At a 40% margin, break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ 0.40 = 2.5×.

Related:ROASContribution MarginPOASBreak-even ROAS guide + calculator →

Running ads with few or no interest or demographic restrictions and letting the platform's algorithm decide who sees them. On Meta and TikTok, broad targeting shifts the job of finding the audience from targeting settings to the creative itself.

Related:ASCLookalike Audience

Payment options (Shop Pay Installments, Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm) that split a purchase into installments. They can lift AOV and conversion on higher-priced products.

Related:Shop PayAOV

How long it takes for a customer's cumulative gross profit to cover what you paid to acquire them. Shorter payback means less cash tied up in growth.

Payback (months) = CAC ÷ Monthly gross profit per customer

Related:CACLTV:CAC Ratio

The prompt that tells a visitor what to do next — 'Add to cart', 'Start free trial'. Effective CTAs are specific, visually dominant, and placed where the decision is actually made.

Related:Landing PageSticky Add-to-Cart

An HTML hint (rel="canonical") telling search engines which URL is the preferred version of duplicate or near-duplicate content. On Shopify it matters because products are reachable at both /products/x and /collections/y/products/x.

Related:Duplicate ContentEcommerce SEO

The percentage of shoppers who add items to a cart but leave without buying. Unexpected costs at checkout, forced account creation, and slow or confusing checkouts are the most commonly cited causes.

Cart abandonment = 1 − (Completed orders ÷ Carts created) × 100

Related:Checkout Completion RateAbandoned Cart FlowCart DrawerCheckout optimization →

A cart that slides in over the current page instead of navigating to /cart. It keeps shoppers in context and is a common surface for upsells, free-shipping progress bars, and trust badges.

Related:Upsell & Cross-SellFree Shipping ThresholdCart Abandonment RateCartDrawer by Conversion →

The share of shoppers who start checkout and finish an order. Because these users have already shown strong intent, small gains here translate almost directly into revenue.

Checkout completion = Orders ÷ Checkouts initiated × 100

Related:Cart Abandonment RateOne-Page CheckoutAccelerated CheckoutCheckout optimization →

Shopify's upgrade-safe framework for customizing checkout with UI extensions, Functions, and pixels. It replaced checkout.liquid, which Shopify has deprecated.

Related:Shopify PlusShopify FunctionsOne-Page CheckoutCheckout optimization →

The share of customers or subscribers who stop buying in a period. For subscriptions, it's the single biggest driver of LTV.

Churn rate = Customers lost in period ÷ Customers at start of period × 100

Related:Subscription CommerceCustomer Lifetime Value

The share of people who saw an ad or search listing and clicked it. CTR measures how well the creative or snippet earns attention — not whether the click converts.

CTR = Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100

Related:CPMThumb-Stop RateMessage Match

Grouping customers by when they first purchased and tracking their behavior over time. It shows whether newer customers retain better or worse than older ones — something blended averages hide.

Related:Repeat Purchase RateChurn Rate

Optimizing Shopify collection (category) pages to rank for broad commercial queries such as 'women's running shoes'. Collections usually capture far more search demand than individual products.

Related:Ecommerce SEOInternal LinkingShopify SEO services →

Revenue minus all variable costs of fulfilling an order — COGS, shipping, payment fees, and variable marketing. It is the profit each order contributes toward fixed costs, and the right basis for setting ROAS targets.

Contribution margin = Revenue − COGS − Shipping − Payment fees − Variable ad spend

Related:Break-Even ROASGross Margin

The percentage of sessions (or users) that complete a goal. Always check the denominator: session-based and user-based conversion rates can differ substantially for the same store.

Conversion rate = Conversions ÷ Sessions × 100

Example: 120 orders from 6,000 sessions = 2.0% conversion rate.

Related:CROAOVRPVConversion rate benchmarks 2026 →

The practice of increasing the share of visitors who complete a desired action — usually a purchase — by removing friction, clarifying value, and testing changes against real behavior. Good CRO is a research-and-testing loop, not a list of best-practice tweaks.

Related:CVRA/B TestingFunnel AnalysisWhat is CRO? (full guide) →

Meta's server-to-server connection for sending purchase and funnel events directly from your store, alongside the browser pixel. It improves event match quality and therefore ad optimization.

Related:Server-Side TrackingAttribution ModelMeta Ads services →

Google's user-experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (loading), Interaction to Next Paint (responsiveness), and Cumulative Layout Shift (visual stability). Heavy apps and unoptimized images are the usual culprits on Shopify.

Related:Page SpeedShopify development →

Ad spend divided by the number of conversions (purchases, leads, sign-ups) it produced. Compare CPA to contribution margin per order to know if a campaign is profitable.

CPA = Ad spend ÷ Conversions

Related:CACROAS

The average amount paid each time someone clicks an ad. CPC is set by auction competition, bid strategy, and ad quality.

CPC = Ad spend ÷ Clicks

Related:PPCCTRQuality Score

The cost of 1,000 ad impressions. CPM is the core price signal on Meta and TikTok, where you pay mostly for reach rather than clicks.

CPM = Ad spend ÷ Impressions × 1,000

Related:CPCCTR

How many URLs a search engine will crawl on your site in a given period. Large catalogs with faceted filters can burn it on low-value URLs, leaving new pages undiscovered.

Related:Duplicate ContentXML Sitemap

The decline in an ad's performance as the same audience sees it repeatedly — rising frequency, falling CTR, rising CPA. The fix is a steady pipeline of new creative, not just new targeting.

Related:Creative TestingFrequency

Systematically launching new ad concepts, angles, hooks, and formats to find winners and fight fatigue. On algorithm-driven platforms, creative is now the main targeting lever.

Related:Creative FatigueHookASCMeta Ads services →

The average cost to acquire one new customer. 'Blended' CAC divides all marketing spend by all new customers; 'paid' CAC uses only paid-media spend and the customers it acquired.

CAC = Marketing spend ÷ New customers acquired

Related:Customer Lifetime ValueLTV:CAC RatioMER

The total gross profit (or revenue) a customer is expected to generate over their relationship with your brand. Measure it on margin, not revenue, when comparing it to acquisition cost.

Simple LTV = AOV × Purchase frequency × Gross margin × Customer lifespan

Related:CACLTV:CAC RatioRepeat Purchase RateRetention & lifecycle services →

Substantially identical content at multiple URLs — variant URLs, filtered collections, manufacturer descriptions copied across stores. It splits ranking signals and wastes crawl budget.

Related:Canonical TagCrawl Budget

Catalog-powered ads that automatically show each person the products they viewed or similar items, pulled from your product feed.

Related:Product FeedRetargeting

Optimizing an online store's collection pages, product pages, and content so they rank in organic search. It leans heavily on site architecture, faceted-navigation control, structured data, and commercial-intent keywords.

Related:Collection Page SEOStructured DataCanonical TagShopify SEO services →

Triggered email or SMS sequences sent automatically based on behavior — welcome, browse abandonment, abandoned cart, post-purchase, win-back. They run continuously, unlike one-off campaigns.

Related:Abandoned Cart FlowWelcome SeriesWin-Back FlowRetention & lifecycle services →

The share of sessions that lasted 10+ seconds, had a conversion event, or had two or more page views. It replaced bounce rate as GA4's headline quality metric.

Engagement rate = Engaged sessions ÷ Sessions × 100

Related:Bounce Rate

A highlighted answer extracted from a page and shown at the top of Google results. Short, direct definitions and step lists right under a matching heading earn them most often.

Related:AI OverviewsSERP

The minimum cart value that unlocks free shipping. Set slightly above current AOV, it nudges shoppers to add one more item; set too high, it becomes an abandonment trigger.

Related:AOVCart Drawer

The average number of times each person in your audience has seen an ad over a period.

Frequency = Impressions ÷ Reach

Related:Creative FatigueCPM

Measuring how many users progress through each step toward purchase — typically session → product view → add to cart → checkout → order — to find the step with the largest avoidable drop-off.

Related:Add-to-Cart RateCart Abandonment RateCheckout Completion RateShopify CRO services →

Optimizing content so AI assistants — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews — find, trust, and cite your brand in their answers. It favors concise definitions, original data, and consistent brand mentions across the web.

Related:AI OverviewsStructured DataSEO & AI search services →

Product listing ads that show an image, price, and store name directly in Google results, generated from a product feed in Google Merchant Center rather than from keywords you write.

Related:Product FeedPMaxPPCEcommerce PPC services →

The share of revenue left after the direct cost of the goods sold. Gross margin sets the ceiling on how much you can spend to acquire a sale.

Gross margin = (Revenue − COGS) ÷ Revenue × 100

Related:Contribution MarginBreak-Even ROAS

Separating the storefront (front end) from the commerce engine (back end) and connecting them by API. It allows fully custom, fast front ends at the cost of more engineering.

Related:Shopify Hydrogen

A visual overlay showing where users click, move, or scroll on a page. Heatmaps reveal what visitors actually notice — and ignore — and are a common input when forming test hypotheses.

Related:Session RecordingFunnel Analysis

The first one to three seconds of a video ad, designed to stop the scroll. Testing new hooks on a proven ad body is one of the cheapest ways to extend a winning creative.

Related:Thumb-Stop RateCreative Testing

The sales that would not have happened without a given campaign. Measured with holdout or geo-lift tests, it separates ads that cause purchases from ads that merely take credit for them.

Related:Attribution ModelMER

Links between pages on your own site. They help search engines discover pages, understand topical relationships, and distribute authority to the collections and products you most want to rank.

Related:Collection Page SEOBacklink

A tool-specific score estimating how hard it is to rank in the top 10 for a keyword, mostly based on the backlink strength of pages already ranking. Scores aren't comparable across tools.

Related:Search IntentBacklink

The first page a visitor sees from a campaign or search result. High-converting landing pages match the promise of the ad or query that sent the visitor, keep one primary call to action, and answer objections above the fold.

Related:Message MatchCTALanding page CRO for paid traffic →

An audience the ad platform builds from people who resemble a seed list, such as your best customers. Useful for prospecting, though broad targeting has replaced it in many accounts.

Related:Broad TargetingRetargeting

Compares what a customer is worth to what it cost to acquire them. It tells you how aggressively you can afford to spend on acquisition while staying profitable.

LTV:CAC = Customer lifetime value ÷ Customer acquisition cost

Related:Customer Lifetime ValueCACCAC Payback Period

Total store revenue divided by total marketing spend. Also called blended ROAS, MER sidesteps platform attribution disputes by looking at the whole business.

MER = Total revenue ÷ Total marketing spend

Related:ROASAttribution Model

How closely a landing page's headline, offer, and visuals repeat what the ad or email promised. Poor message match makes visitors feel they landed in the wrong place and is a common cause of paid traffic bouncing.

Related:Landing PageCTR

Custom data fields attached to products, collections, customers, and more (metafields), and reusable custom content types (metaobjects). They power size charts, ingredient lists, and comparison tables without hard-coding.

Related:PDPShopify development →

The smallest relative lift a test is designed to reliably detect. Lower MDEs need much larger samples, which is why low-traffic stores should test bold changes rather than button colors.

Related:Statistical SignificanceA/B Testing

A test that changes several page elements at once and measures every combination to find which elements — and which interactions between them — drive results. It needs far more traffic than an A/B test to reach significance.

Related:A/B TestingStatistical SignificanceA/B vs multivariate testing →

A checkout that collects contact, shipping, and payment on a single screen instead of separate steps. Shopify now uses a one-page layout by default.

Related:Checkout Completion RateAccelerated Checkout

How quickly a page loads and becomes usable. On Shopify, the biggest drags are usually unused app scripts, oversized images, and render-blocking third-party tags.

Related:CWVTheme App ExtensionShopify development →

An ad model in which you pay only when someone clicks. In ecommerce it usually refers to Google Search and Shopping, Microsoft Ads, and Amazon Sponsored Products.

Related:CPCGoogle ShoppingPMaxShopify PPC services →

A Google Ads campaign type that serves across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Gmail, Maps, and Discover from one set of assets, letting Google's automation choose placements and bids. It needs clean conversion data and brand exclusions to avoid cannibalizing branded search.

Related:Google ShoppingProduct FeedPPCEcommerce PPC services →

A one-click offer shown after payment but before the thank-you page. Because payment details are already captured, accepting doesn't put the original order at risk.

Related:Upsell & Cross-SellCheckout Extensibility

Two or more products sold together, often at a small discount. Bundles raise AOV and help move slower inventory alongside bestsellers.

Related:AOVUpsell & Cross-Sell

The individual product page. It carries most of the persuasion load — imagery, price, variants, reviews, shipping info, and the add-to-cart button.

Related:Add-to-Cart RateSticky Add-to-CartSocial ProofShopify CRO services →

A structured file of your catalog — titles, prices, images, GTINs, availability — that powers Shopping ads, Meta catalog ads, and marketplaces. Feed quality (especially titles) directly affects which searches your products show for.

Related:Google ShoppingDPA

Gross profit from ad-driven sales divided by ad spend. Feeding profit instead of revenue into bidding pushes budget toward high-margin products.

POAS = (Attributed revenue − COGS) ÷ Ad spend

Related:ROASBreak-Even ROAS

Google's 1–10 diagnostic rating of a keyword based on expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page experience. Higher relevance tends to lower your CPC for the same position.

Related:CPCLanding PageMessage Match

The share of customers who have ordered more than once in a given period. It's the clearest early indicator of product-market fit and lifetime value.

Repeat purchase rate = Customers with 2+ orders ÷ Total customers × 100

Related:Customer Lifetime ValueCohort AnalysisRetention & lifecycle services →

Migrating a store from one ecommerce platform to another — for example WooCommerce or Magento to Shopify. The riskiest parts are URL redirects, data integrity, and preserving SEO rankings.

Related:Canonical TagEcommerce SEOShopify migration services →

Showing ads to people who already visited your site, viewed a product, or added to cart. Retargeting audiences convert well but are small and heavily over-credited by last-click attribution.

Related:DPAIncrementality

Revenue attributed to ads divided by what those ads cost. ROAS is a revenue ratio, not a profit measure — a 3× ROAS can lose money if margins are thin.

ROAS = Attributed revenue ÷ Ad spend

Example: $15,000 attributed revenue on $5,000 spend = 3.0× ROAS.

Related:Break-Even ROASMERPOASEcommerce PPC services →

Revenue divided by visitors. RPV combines conversion rate and AOV into one number, making it a better primary metric for many CRO tests than conversion rate alone.

RPV = Revenue ÷ Visitors (or Conversion rate × AOV)

Related:CVRAOV

Scoring customers by Recency (last purchase), Frequency (number of orders), and Monetary value (spend) to target VIPs, at-risk buyers, and lapsed customers differently.

Related:Cohort AnalysisWin-Back Flow

Enhanced search listings — star ratings, price, availability, breadcrumbs — powered by structured data. They don't directly improve rankings but often improve click-through rate.

Related:Structured DataCTR

The page a search engine returns for a query. Modern ecommerce SERPs mix organic links, Shopping ads, free product listings, AI Overviews, and 'People also ask' boxes.

Related:AI OverviewsSearch IntentFeatured Snippet

The goal behind a query — informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional. Ranking requires matching the page type Google already rewards for that intent; a product page rarely ranks for a 'how to' query.

Related:SERPKD

Sending conversion events from your server to ad platforms (e.g. Meta Conversions API, Google enhanced conversions) instead of relying only on the browser pixel. It recovers events lost to ad blockers and browser privacy limits.

Related:CAPIAttribution Model

A replay of an individual visitor's clicks, scrolls, and taps. Watching recordings of users who dropped off is one of the fastest ways to spot broken UI, confusing copy, or rage clicks.

Related:Heatmap

Shopify's accelerated checkout that stores a shopper's details across every Shopify store using it, and offers installment payments via Shop Pay Installments.

Related:Accelerated CheckoutBNPL

Native wholesale features on Shopify Plus: company accounts, customer-specific price lists, quantity rules, payment terms, and net invoicing within the same store.

Related:Shopify PlusShopify B2B development →

Custom backend logic that runs inside Shopify's infrastructure to change discounts, shipping, payment options, and cart validation — the replacement for Shopify Scripts.

Related:Checkout ExtensibilityShopify PlusShopify app development →

Shopify's React-based framework for building headless storefronts, typically hosted on Shopify's Oxygen platform.

Related:Headless CommerceShopify Hydrogen agency →

Shopify's enterprise plan, adding checkout extensibility, Shopify Functions, B2B features, expansion stores, and higher API limits for high-volume merchants.

Related:Checkout ExtensibilityShopify FunctionsShopify B2BShopify Plus pricing guide →

Video content with tagged products that shoppers can view or buy without leaving the video — on-site, in social feeds, or in live streams.

Related:UGCSocial CommerceWhat is shoppable video? →

Selling directly inside social platforms — TikTok Shop, Instagram and Facebook Shops — where discovery and checkout happen in the same app.

Related:Shoppable VideoSocial commerce on Shopify →

Evidence that other people bought and liked a product — reviews, star ratings, UGC photos, customer counts, press logos. It reduces perceived risk, especially for first-time buyers of an unfamiliar brand.

Related:UGCTrust Signals

How unlikely a test result would be if there were truly no difference between variants. A 95% significance threshold means accepting a 5% chance of a false positive. Stopping a test the moment it 'hits significance' inflates that error rate.

Related:A/B TestingMDE

An add-to-cart bar that stays visible as the shopper scrolls a product page, most often on mobile, so the buy action is always one tap away.

Related:Add-to-Cart RatePDP

Code (usually JSON-LD using Schema.org vocabulary) that labels page content for machines — Product, Offer, Review, FAQ, Breadcrumb. It enables rich results such as price and star ratings in search.

Related:Rich ResultsEcommerce SEO

Selling products on a recurring schedule (subscribe-and-save, replenishment, memberships). It smooths revenue and raises LTV when churn is controlled.

Related:Churn RateCustomer Lifetime Value

The way Shopify apps add blocks to Online Store 2.0 themes without editing theme code, so apps can be removed cleanly without leftover code slowing the store.

Related:CWV

The share of impressions where viewers watched at least the first three seconds of a video ad — a direct measure of how well the hook works.

Thumb-stop rate = 3-second video views ÷ Impressions × 100

Related:HookCTR

Page elements that reassure shoppers the store is legitimate and the purchase is safe: clear return policies, secure payment badges, recognizable payment methods, contact details, and reviews.

Related:Social ProofCheckout Completion Rate

An upsell offers a higher-value version of what the shopper is buying; a cross-sell offers a complementary product. Both are common on product pages, in cart drawers, and post-purchase.

Related:AOVProduct BundlePost-Purchase Upsell

Photos, videos, and reviews made by customers or creators rather than the brand. In paid social, 'UGC' usually means creator-made ads styled to feel native to the feed.

Related:Social ProofAI UGCCreative TestingWhat is UGC video? →

The first flow a new subscriber receives, introducing the brand, delivering any sign-up offer, and handling objections before the first purchase.

Related:Email Flows

Messages aimed at customers who haven't purchased in longer than your typical repurchase cycle, designed to reactivate them before they lapse for good.

Related:RFM SegmentationChurn Rate

A file listing the URLs you want search engines to find, with optional last-modified dates. Shopify generates one automatically at /sitemap.xml.

Related:Crawl Budget

Information customers intentionally share — quiz answers, preferences, birthdays, product interests. It enables personalization without relying on third-party tracking.

Related:RFM SegmentationEmail Flows