Glossary
This glossary provides terms and definitions for the Acoustic Digital Analytics software and products.
The following cross-references are used in this glossary:
- See refers you from a nonpreferred term to the preferred term or from an abbreviation to the spelled-out form.
- See also refers you to a related or contrasting term.
A
- Action Ready report
- A defined package of reports containing information on key performance indicators (KPIs), top performers, search results, geography, and more delivered by means of an Excel attachment.
- alert
- A message or other indication that signals an event or an impending event that meets a set of specified criteria.
- API
- See application programming interface.
- application programming interface (API)
- An interface that allows an application program that is written in a high-level language to use specific data or functions of the operating system or another program.
- attribution
- In Digital Analytics, the process of assigning credit to marketing initiatives that contribute to a downstream objective. There are three dimensions: direction, time, and credit logic.
- average sessions before first purchase
- The average number of sessions that a unique visitor has before making the first purchase. It is calculated by dividing the number of sessions before first purchase by the number of unique buyers.
C
- calculated metric
- A metric that can be defined using a formula that is constructed from one or more existing metrics, operators, or constants. For example, users can create a metric named Repeat Visitor % using a calculated metric of [(Unique Visitors –New Visitors)/Unique Visitors].
- clickstream
- In web advertising, the sequence of clicks or pages requested as a visitor explores a website.
- color depth
- The number of screen colors that are available to visitors that are accessing a website.
- conversion event
- A non-monetary action that a visitor can accomplish such as downloads, registrations, sign-ups, and store locator views. A conversion event is a non-commerce business objective.
- cross sold product
- A product that was purchased with one or more other products in a single order.
D
- dashboard
- A collection of key reports in a visual format that is designed for various user functions. All frequently used reports can be monitored in a single page using a dashboard.
- date annotation
- An annotation associated with a date range that is used to provide highlights about key events on a trend graph so that users can understand inclines or declines in the trend.
- direct load
- A session for which there is no referral information and no marketing program. Direct loads are started by a user typing in the URL directly, bookmarking the website, or by means of a local referral (a page internal to the website).
E
- element
- An interactive component, such as a portlet, online video, or Web 2.0 interaction, of a traditional page view . Element tags are used to collect element data.
F
- filter
- A means of querying report data and returning only the rows that match specified criteria.
I
- inbound link
- A link that is defined by a referring website and a destination URL, used in the Inbound Link Analysis reports. See also referring site.
- invalid marketing program
- A marketing program (cm_mmc= value) that is missing a parameter, contains a string that is not valid, or has a cm_mmc code on a page that lacks a page view tag.
L
- LIVEview Click Overlay
- A Digital Analytics browser plug-in that automatically overlays site traffic and conversion data over web pages to highlight which links are most active and which drive the most value.
M
- marketing channel
- The highest level of marketing source categorization. By default, there are four channels: Direct Load, Natural Search, Referring Sites, and Other MMC Sources.
N
- natural search engine
- A search engine that links organic (non-paid) traffic to a website.
- natural search keyword
- A keyword that is entered by users who link to a website through an organic (non-paid) link on a search engine.
- natural search session
- The number of sessions that result from visitors clicking through from a search engine link such as Google. Since this is a raw metric, it can only be viewed as a percentage comparison against another time period.
- new users
- The total number of new users (Registration ID values that have not been seen previously).
O
- onsite link
- A link that is defined by a referring URL, which is internal to a website, and a destination URL that is used in the Onsite Link Analysis reports.
P
- page category
- The hierarchy of categories that groups website pages. The lowest-level category is defined in the page view tag. Parent level categories are defined by administrators using the category definition file (CDF).
- profile segment
- An analysis of visitors using selected criteria. The analysis can span sessions through the specification of a segment date range and a report date range. For example, users can analyze the pages that were viewed in April by visitors who came at least twice in March.
R
- real estate
- In Digital Analytics, a region or an amount of space on a web page. Real estate is used to analyze the performance of particular pages, different versions of a page (for example, in an A/B test), sub-sections of a page, and individual links within a page. Real estate values are collected using cm_re= parameters.
- referring site
- The domain that is gathered in the session's referring URL for sessions that are not sourced through a marketing program (cm_mmc) or a natural search engine. See also inbound link.
- repeat users
-
The total number of users making a second or subsequent visit (Unique Users minus New Users). Registration IDs that have been seen previously.
- report segment
- A set of criteria that limits report results to a subset of visitor sessions. See “profile segment”.
S
- search engine session
- See natural search session.
- server call
- A client-tagged, visitor-initiated event that passes data to the Digital Analytics data warehouse, typically the execution of an Digital Analytics tag.
T
- tracking code
- A code appended to destination URLs to track marketing program, real estate, site promotion, and marketing impression parameters.
- TruePath Funnel
- A custom visitor path scenario that can be defined using the TruePath Builder within the Digital Analytics Tools Browser plug-in. Users can measure the success of visitors navigating through online processes such as check-out, registration, and online applications; or of visitors completing calls-to-action on specific marketing landing pages.
U
- unique users
- The number of unique visitors who have been identified with a Registration Tag.
W
- workbook
- A collection of reports. As reports are launched, they appear in the open workbook as tabs.