Glossary
Marketing glossary
Plain-language definitions of the attribution, tracking and paid-media terms marketing teams run on. Written for practitioners, not textbooks.
A
Attribution Window
The period after an ad click or view during which a conversion is still credited to that ad. The setting that quietly decides which campaigns get credit for revenue.
Read the definition8 min read
Attribution Model
The rule set that decides how much credit each marketing touchpoint gets for a conversion or a deal. It turns a recorded customer journey into a channel report, and the choice of model can change that report more than the campaigns did.
Read the definition7 min read
C
Conversion Tracking
The process of measuring the user actions that complete a business goal (form fills, calls, purchases, signed contracts) and attributing them back to the marketing source that drove them.
Read the definition7 min read
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
How much a business spends on advertising to acquire a single lead: total ad spend divided by leads generated. Useful only once 'lead' means more than a form fill.
Read the definition6 min read
Click ID (gclid, fbclid, msclkid)
A unique identifier an ad platform appends to the landing page URL when someone clicks an ad. It is the key that lets a conversion, even one that happens weeks later in a CRM, be matched back to the exact click.
Read the definition7 min read
Cookieless Tracking
Measuring visits and conversions without depending on third-party cookies, and increasingly without depending on any cookie the browser can shorten or block. In practice: first-party collection, click IDs and hashed identifiers matched on a server.
Read the definition7 min read
Conversions API (CAPI)
Meta's interface for sending conversion events from your own server straight to Meta, alongside or instead of the browser pixel. Each event carries hashed customer details so Meta can match it to the person who clicked the ad.
Read the definition7 min read
Customer Journey
The full sequence of touchpoints a person passes through on the way to becoming a customer, in the order they happened: ads, searches, visits, the form, the call and the closed deal. Analytics tools show the last step; the journey is everything before it.
Read the definition6 min read
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total sales and marketing cost of winning one new customer: everything spent on acquisition in a period divided by the customers gained in it. The cost that CPL and CPA lead up to.
Read the definition6 min read
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Advertising spend divided by the number of conversions it produced. Which action counts as the acquisition decides whether the number means anything.
Read the definition5 min read
Consent Mode
Google's mechanism for telling its tags how a visitor answered the cookie banner, so tags adjust what they store and send. Consent Mode v2 has been required for EU audiences in Google Ads since March 2024.
Read the definition6 min read
Call Tracking
Giving each marketing source its own phone number, so every inbound call can be traced back to the ad, campaign, keyword or listing that produced it.
Read the definition6 min read
Cross-Device Tracking
Recognising that a visit on one device and a conversion on another belong to the same person, so the journey and the credit are not split in two.
Read the definition5 min read
M
Multi-Touch Attribution
A measurement approach that distributes credit for a conversion across every touchpoint a customer interacted with, not just the last click before the sale.
Read the definition6 min read
Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER)
Total revenue divided by total marketing spend over the same period, across every channel at once. The blended return that does not depend on any attribution model.
Read the definition5 min read
S
Server-Side Tracking
Capturing conversion events on a first-party server and forwarding them to ad platforms via API, instead of relying on browser pixels that iOS, ad blockers and consent banners strip away.
Read the definition7 min read
Self-Reported Attribution
Asking the lead directly how they found you, usually with an open text field on the form, and reporting that answer as a source. It sees word of mouth and podcasts that click tracking cannot, and it is biased in ways click tracking is not.
Read the definition6 min read
F
First-Click Attribution
An attribution model that gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the first recorded touchpoint in the customer's journey. It answers one question well: which channel started this.
Read the definition6 min read
First-Party Data
Data a business collects directly from its own audience through its own properties: website visits, form fills, calls, CRM records, purchases, email engagement. The party that collects it is the party that uses it.
Read the definition7 min read
First-Time Deposit (FTD)
The first real-money deposit a newly registered player makes with an operator. It is the event most iGaming CPA deals pay on, and the one an affiliate most needs to tie back to the click.
Read the definition7 min read
L
Last-Click Attribution
An attribution model that gives 100% of the credit for a conversion to the last touchpoint before it. Simple, universal and consistently generous to brand search, retargeting and direct traffic.
Read the definition6 min read
Linear Attribution
A multi-touch attribution model that splits the credit for a conversion equally across every recorded touchpoint. Four touches, 25% each.
Read the definition5 min read
Lead Source
The CRM field that records which channel or campaign a lead came from. It is what every revenue-by-channel report groups on, and in most CRMs it is filled by whatever touched the record first, which is why it so often says Direct or Website.
Read the definition7 min read
P
Position-Based Attribution (U-Shaped)
A multi-touch attribution model that gives 40% of the credit to the first touchpoint, 40% to the last, and spreads the remaining 20% across everything in between. Named for the U its credit curve draws.
Read the definition6 min read
Postback URL (S2S Postback)
A URL on your tracker that another system calls, server to server, when a conversion happens, filling in the click ID and the conversion details. It reports a sale, a deposit or an install without anything running in the visitor's browser.
Read the definition7 min read
E
Event Match Quality (EMQ)
Meta's 0 to 10 score for how well the customer information on your Conversions API events matches them to Meta accounts. A low score means leads Meta cannot attribute, so campaigns look worse than they are and optimise on less.
Read the definition6 min read
Enhanced Conversions (Google Ads)
A Google Ads feature that adds hashed first-party data (email, phone, name, address) to your conversions so Google can match them to the ad click even when the click cookie is gone. It comes in two forms: for web and for leads.
Read the definition6 min read
R
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Revenue generated by advertising divided by the amount spent on it, written as a multiple (4x) or a percentage (400%). The number every platform reports, and the one whose meaning depends entirely on where the revenue figure came from.
Read the definition6 min read
Revenue Attribution
Crediting closed revenue, rather than clicks, leads or platform conversions, to the marketing and sales touchpoints that produced it. The deal amount from the CRM is divided across the journey by an attribution model, so every channel and campaign reports the money it helped close.
Read the definition6 min read
