Sales Funnel Metrics Dictionary For Internet Marketers

It can be difficult to make sense of online marketing jargon, especially when everyone is using abbreviations that you are not familiar with. 

That’s why we decided to compile a sales funnel metrics dictionary that covers the most important terms that you need to know. 

We recommend bookmarking this page so that you could easily come back to it if you ever need to look something up!

Traffic Metrics

Traffic Sources

Traffic sources is a metric that shows where your traffic is coming from. 

Here are the three most common sources of organic traffic:

• Direct traffic – These are the visitors who typed your website’s address into their browser.
• Referral traffic – These are the visitors who clicked a link to your website on another website. This includes traffic that’s coming from various social media platforms.
• Search traffic – These are the visitors who typed a keyword into a search engine, saw a link to your website in the search results and clicked on it.

Also, if you run paid advertising campaigns, make sure that your analytics app categorizes paid traffic as a separate traffic source that you can then break down and analyze by campaign.

Unique Visitors

Unique visitors is a metric that shows how many individual people have visited your website during a specific time period.

This metric is calculated by looking at the number of unique IP addresses and assuming that each IP address is one person. 

Of course, it’s possible for several people to use the same IP address. Plus, back in 2022, it was estimated that bot traffic accounted for 30.2% of all web traffic. We can probably safely assume that this number has increased significantly since then, especially considering the recent proliferation of AI bots. 

While unique visitors is a helpful metric, it’s far from perfect in terms of accuracy so keep in mind that the real number is likely much lower than what your analytics show.

New Visitors

New visitors is a metric that shows the number of unique visitors who have never been to your website before. 

A visitor is considered to be a new visitor if they don’t have any cookies from previous visits to your website on their device.

Of course, people might delete cookies when clearing their browser history or access your website from different devices, so this metric isn’t completely accurate.

Returning Visitors

Returning visitors is a metric that shows the number of unique visitors who have been to your website before.

A visitor is considered to be a returning visitor if they have cookies from a previous visit to your website on their device.

Again, people might come to your website after having deleted the cookies or they might be accessing your website from a new device, so this metric isn’t completely accurate.

Bounce Rate

“Bouncing” is a term that is used to describe a visitor landing on a page and then leaving it immediately without interacting with it or exploring any other pages on that website. 

The bounce rate shows what percentage of visitors bounce.

Exit Rate

“Exiting” is a term used to describe a visitor leaving the website. 

The difference between bouncing and exiting is that in the case of the former, the visitor leaves immediately after landing on a page.

Meanwhile, in the case of the latter, the visitor leaves after interacting with the page and possibly also checking out other pages on that website. 

The exit rate shows what percentage of visitors exited your website through that page.

Conversion Metrics

Conversion Rates

Conversion rates show what percentage of people who were exposed to a call to action ended up taking that action (“converting”).

Visitor-to-Lead Conversion Rate

The visitor-to-lead conversion rate shows what percentage of people who visited your opt-in page converted into leads by giving you their email addresses.

Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate

The lead-to-customer conversion rate shows what percentage of leads converted into customers by purchasing something.

Customer-to-Repeat-Customer Conversion Rate

The customer-to-repeat-customer conversion rate shows what percentage of first-time customers converted into repeat customers by buying something from you again.

Downsell Conversion Rate

A downsell is an offer that you present to the potential customer after they have rejected your core offer. It’s supposed to be a downgrade from it.

The downsell conversion rate shows what percentage of people who were presented with a downsell ended up purchasing it.

Upsell Conversion Rate

An upsell is an offer that you present to the potential customer after they have accepted your core offer. It’s supposed to be an upgrade on it.

The upsell conversion rate shows what percentage of people who were presented with an upsell ended up purchasing it. 

Cross Sell Conversion Rate

A cross sell is also an offer that you present to the potential customer after they have accepted your core offer, but instead of being an upgrade on it, it’s supposed to be complementary to it.

The cross sell conversion rate shows what percentage of people who were presented with a cross sell ended up purchasing it. 

Sales Funnel Conversion Rate

The overall conversion rate of your sales funnel shows what percentage of people who visited your opt-in page converted into paying customers by purchasing something from you.

Email Marketing Metrics

Open Rate

The open rate shows what percentage of people who received your email opened it. 

Meanwhile, the average open rate shows what percentage of people open your emails on average.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

The clickthrough rate (CTR) shows what percentage of people who opened your email clicked on the call-to-action link within it. 

Meanwhile, the average clickthrough rate shows what percentage of people who open your emails click on the call-to-action links within them on average. 

Email Conversion Rate

The email conversion rate shows what percentage of people who opened your email ended up buying something as a result. 

Meanwhile, the average email conversion rate shows what percentage of people who open your emails end up buying something as a result on average. 

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate shows what percentage of your email subscribers didn’t receive the email that you sent because of a delivery failure. 

Meanwhile, the average bounce rate shows what percentage of your email subscribers on average don’t receive your emails due to delivery failures.

Unsubscribe Rate

The unsubscribe rate shows what percentage of people who received your email ended up unsubscribing from your email list.

Meanwhile, the average unsubscribe rate shows what percentage of people on average end up unsubscribing after they receive an email from you.

Paid Advertising Metrics

Impressions

Impressions show how many times people have seen your ad. 

The way impressions are calculated varies from platform to platform but typically, a substantial part of the ad must be visible on the user’s feed for at least 1 second for it to be counted as an impression.

Cost-Per-Mille (CPM)

Cost-per-mille means cost-per-thousand. It shows the cost of a thousand ad impressions. 

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

Cost-per-click shows the cost of one ad click.

Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

The clickthrough rate shows what percentage of ad impressions converted into ad clicks. 

Customer Acquisition Metrics

Cost-Per-Lead (CPL)

Cost-per-lead shows how much money on average it costs you to acquire one lead. 

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost shows how much money on average it costs you to acquire one customer. 

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV) shows how much money the average customer spends on your products and services throughout their entire lifetime as a customer. 

It’s also common to call this metric lifetime value and abbreviate it as LTV. Make sure to remember that the terms CLV and LTV are synonymous!

Customer Acquisition Cost and Customer Lifetime Value Ratio (CAC:CLV)

The ratio between the customer acquisition cost and the customer lifetime value is arguably the best indication of the overall trajectory of your business. 

Generally speaking, you want it to be as low as possible because the lower the ratio, the more profitable the business. 

For example, if your customer acquisition cost is $1 and your customer lifetime value is $10, your CAC:CLV ratio is 0.1, which is great. You can make a ton of money that way. 

Meanwhile, if your customer acquisition cost is $1 and your customer lifetime value is $1, your CAC:CLV ratio is 1, which means that you are breaking even on customer acquisition. 

And if your customer acquisition cost is $1 but your customer lifetime value is $0.50, your CAC:CLV ratio is 2, which means that you are losing money on customer acquisition.

General Business Metrics

Gross Revenue

Gross revenue shows the total revenue that the company has generated during a specific period of time. 

Net Revenue

Net revenue shows the revenue that’s left after you subtract refunds from your gross revenue. 

Gross Profit 

Gross profit shows the amount of money left after you subtract the cost of products and services sold from your gross revenue. 

Gross Profit Margin

Gross profit margin shows what percentage of your gross revenue is gross profit.

Net Profit

Net profit shows the amount of money left after you subtract the cost of products and services sold, all operating expenses and all taxes from your net revenue. 

Net Profit Margin

Net profit margin shows what percentage of your net revenue is net profit.

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