Web Analytics Glossary

ACTIONABLE -Refers to information that allows a decision to be made or action to be taken. One of the main purposes of analytics to is provide this type of data which allows business to make improvements.

ANALYSIS - A detailed examination of data and facts to understand how they are related to each other, and provide a basis for problem solving and decision making.

ANALYTICS - Analytics is the study of data to understand the effects of certain decisions or events, to predict how they might turn out in the future and to influence future behaviours. This allows businesses to evaluate and improve their performance.

• For example, if a business holds a promotional sale, they can use analytics to understand whether the promotion caused their sales to increase and by how much, and what the effect might be of holding sales for other products.

BENCHMARKING - An established point of reference against which something can be measured in order to compare performance or reliability.

• ' INTERNAL BENCHMARKING ' is setting expectations based on your own historical performance, and this historical data can be used as a point of reference to create KPI targets.

• ' EXTERNAL BENCHMARKING ' is adding context to your data by comparing it with data from the competitors in your industry. This allows businesses to understand how well they are performing and recognise areas that may need improvement.

BIG DATA ANALYTICS - Big data analytics is the process of examining large amounts of data in volume or range containing a variety of data types i.e. big data, to uncover hidden patterns, correlations, trends, customer preferences and other useful business information.

BRANDING - The process of creating a unique name, image or logo for a business or product/service in the consumer’s mind. Branding aims to create a presence in the market that attracts and keeps loyal customers. Branding is used with the aim of increasing awareness, engagement and loyalty.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER (CEO) - The person in charge of managing a company.
A CEO is largely responsible for the success or failure of a company and often makes decisions relating to various aspects of a business such as hiring/firing employees, marketing, finance and public relations. Client A person or organisation paying to use the services of another professional person or company.

CLOUD COMPUTING - Cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the Internet in a server (large computer) that’s located somewhere else instead of your computer's hard drive. Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive and Apple iCloud are all examples of cloud computing solutions.

CONTENT PUBLISHING - Producing your own content for users to access as part of a content marketing strategy.

• For example, using your market data better to produce and display videos/ blog posts/ slideshows on websites or by using adverts.

CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENT PROCESS - An ongoing effort to improve products, services or processes.

• It consists of: collecting and measuring data, reporting data in an understandable format, analysing data, testing solutions and overall improvement by repeating learnings from previous stages.

CONVERSION - The point at which an audience that receives marketing messaging completes a desired action.

• For example, a website conversion could be a measure of the number of visitors that make a purchase on your website.

CONVERSION RATE - The conversion rate is the percentage of users who take a desired action.

• For example, website visits divided by the number of conversions. If the site is visited by 100,000 people during the month of January and 5,000 users purchased something, the sites conversion rate is 5,000/100,000 = 5%.

MACRO CONVERSION - The completion of an activity which is important to the success of the business as measured against their main objective. Most websites tend to focus on tracking and optimising their primary conversions point, which is the macro conversion.

• For an ecommerce site, this might be an order completion. For an acquisition site, this might be a completed contract.

MICRO CONVERSION - The completion of an activity which is of less importance than the primary, macro conversion. This may include activities such as account creations or signups for your email newsletter.

• For example, a visitor to a website may complete a micro conversion such as creating a new account before they complete a macro conversion such as ordering a product.

MISSION STATEMENT -A formal written summary of the core purpose, focus and values of a company, organisation, or individual.

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS - The process of using statistics and forecasting techniques to get information from existing data in order to recognise patterns and predict future outcomes and trends. This form of analytics aims to answer the question “What could happen?”. Predictive analytics provides companies with actionable insights based on data. It is important to remember that no statistical algorithm can “predict” the future with 100% certainty since the analytics is based on probabilities. This is important as business decisions need to be based on predictive analytics and not purely on gut instinct or experience