E-commerce Marketing Glossary

A

AB testing

AB testing (also written A/B testing) is an experiment that shows 2 versions of a page, email or ad to…
Ad Fatigue (Creative Fatigue)

Ad fatigue is the drop in results when the same people have seen the same ad too often: fewer clicks,…
Ad Frequency (Meta Ads)

Ad frequency is the average number of times each person saw your ad over a period, calculated as impressions divided…
Ad Set (Meta Ads)

An ad set is the middle level of a Meta ads campaign: it holds the audience, placements, budget and schedule…
Advantage+ Audience (Meta)

Advantage+ audience (advantage plus audience) is a Meta ads setting that lets Meta's AI pick who sees your ads, using…
Advantage+ Catalog Ads (Meta)

Advantage+ catalog ads (advantage plus catalog ads) are Meta ads that pick which products from your catalog to show each…
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)

The agent payments protocol (AP2) is an open protocol, started by Google, that lets an AI agent pay on a…
Agentic Commerce

Agentic commerce is shopping in which an AI agent does part of the buying work for a person, such as…
Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)

The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is an open standard, first developed by OpenAI and Stripe, that defines how an AI…
Agentic Storefronts

Agentic storefronts is Shopify's feature that lets shoppers discover and buy a store's products inside AI channels such as ChatGPT,…
Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM)

Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) is Meta's protocol for measuring web and app events from people on iOS 14 and later…
AI Agent

An AI agent is software in which a language model decides which steps to take and which tools to use…
AI citation

An AI citation is a link or reference in an AI-generated answer that points to the source page a statement…
AI crawler

An AI crawler is an automated program run by an AI company that fetches web pages, either to train models,…
AI Max for Search

AI Max for Search is a set of AI features inside a standard Google Ads Search campaign that widens which…
AI Overviews

AI Overviews are AI-generated summaries that Google Search shows above the regular results for some queries, with links to the…
AI Product Feed

An AI product feed is a structured file of a store's products, one row per item or variant, that an…
AI referral traffic

AI referral traffic is visits that reach your site by clicking a link in an AI assistant's answer, such as…
AI share of voice

AI share of voice is the share of AI-generated answers, across a fixed set of real buyer prompts, that mention…
AI Shopping Agent

An AI shopping agent is AI software that does shopping tasks for a person, such as finding products, comparing them,…
Answer engine

An answer engine is a search tool that replies to a question with a written answer, usually generated by AI…
API

An API (application programming interface) is a set of rules that lets one program ask another for data or actions.…
Applebot-Extended

Applebot-Extended is a robots.txt token that lets publishers opt out of their content being used to train Apple's foundation models.…
Attribution model

An attribution model is the rule, or the data-driven algorithm, that decides how much credit each ad click or visit…
Attribution Setting (Meta Ads)

An attribution setting is the rule Meta uses to decide which conversions an ad gets credit for: how long after…
Average order value (AOV)

Average order value (AOV) is the average amount a customer spends per order in your store over a period. Divide…

B

Breadcrumb Schema

Breadcrumb schema is structured data, using the schema.org BreadcrumbList type, that describes where a page sits in your site's hierarchy,…
Break-even ROAS

Break even ROAS is the return on ad spend at which ad-driven sales cover their own costs and leave no…
Broad Match

Broad match is the Google Ads keyword match type that lets an ad show on searches related to the keyword,…
Buyer prompt set

A buyer prompt set is a fixed list of real questions your customers ask, phrased the way they'd ask an…

C

Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)

Campaign budget optimization (CBO), now called Advantage+ campaign budget, is a Meta ads setting where you set one budget for…
Canonical Tag

A canonical tag is a line of HTML, rel="canonical", that tells search engines which URL is the main version of…
Cart abandonment rate

Cart abandonment rate is the share of shopping sessions where a visitor added an item to the cart but didn't…
CCBot

CCBot is the web crawler of Common Crawl, a non-profit that builds a free, open archive of web pages. Anyone…
ChatGPT-User

ChatGPT-User is the user agent ChatGPT uses when a person's request makes it visit a web page. It doesn't crawl…
Checkout abandonment

Checkout abandonment is when a shopper reaches checkout but leaves before paying. Shopify measures it 2 ways: as the share…
Checkout Extensibility

Checkout extensibility is Shopify's app-based way to customise checkout and the Thank you and Order status pages. Apps add UI…
Churn rate

Churn rate is the share of customers you had at the start of a period who stopped buying by its…
ClaudeBot

ClaudeBot is Anthropic's web crawler for collecting content that could contribute to training its AI models. Anthropic runs two more…
Click to WhatsApp Ads

Click to WhatsApp ads are Facebook and Instagram ads whose button opens a WhatsApp chat with the advertiser, not a…
Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click through rate (CTR) is the share of ad impressions that led to a click: clicks divided by impressions. Google…
Cohort analysis

Cohort analysis is a way of reading customer data by group: customers who share a starting point, such as the…
Consent mode

Consent mode is a Google tag feature that passes each visitor's cookie-consent choice to Google Analytics and Google Ads, so…
Contribution margin

Contribution margin is the share of each sale left after the variable costs of making that sale: product cost, shipping…
Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the share of visits, or ad interactions, that end in a conversion such as a purchase, shown…
Conversion window

A conversion window is the period after someone clicks or views an ad during which a conversion, such as a…
Conversions API

The Conversions API is Meta's way to send website, app and offline events from your server or store platform instead…
Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are Google's three metrics for how a page feels to real visitors: Largest Contentful Paint for loading,…
Cost per acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the average amount you pay in ad spend for one conversion, usually a purchase for…
CPM (Cost per Mille)

CPM (cost per mille) is the average cost of 1,000 ad impressions: amount spent divided by impressions, multiplied by 1,000.…
Crawl Budget

Crawl budget is the set of URLs Google can and wants to crawl on a site in a given time.…
Cumulative Layout Shift

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) is the Core Web Vital for visual stability: it adds up the unexpected layout shifts in…
Custom Audience

A custom audience is a Meta ads audience made from people who already know your business: visitors tracked by the…
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is what you spend, on average, to win one new customer. Add up a period's acquisition…
Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV, also LTV) is the total a customer is worth to your store over their relationship with…
Customer Match (Google Ads)

Customer Match is a Google Ads feature that lets you upload customer data you collected yourself, such as emails and…
Customer Service Window

A customer service window is the 24-hour period, opened each time a WhatsApp user messages or calls a business, in…

D

Data-driven attribution

Data driven attribution (Google writes data-driven attribution) is a Google Ads and GA4 attribution model that splits the credit for…
Direct Checkout (AI Channels)

Direct checkout is a way of buying in which the shopper completes the purchase inside an AI channel, such as…
DKIM

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method in which the sending server adds a cryptographic signature to each…
DMARC

DMARC is a DNS TXT record at _dmarc.yourdomain that tells receiving servers what to do with email that claims your…
Dynamic Search Ads (DSA)

Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) are Google search ads that use your website's content instead of keywords to decide which searches…

E

EEAT (E-E-A-T)

EEAT is short for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, written E-E-A-T by Google. It's the yardstick Google's search quality raters…
Engagement rate

Engagement rate is the percentage of sessions in Google Analytics 4 that count as engaged: they last longer than 10…
Enhanced Conversions (Google Ads)

Enhanced conversions is a Google Ads feature that adds hashed first-party customer data, such as an email address, to your…
Event deduplication

Event deduplication is how an analytics or ad platform recognises the same conversion sent twice and counts it once. It…
Event Match Quality

Event match quality (EMQ) is a score out of 10 in Meta Events Manager that shows how well the customer…

F

Faceted Navigation

Faceted navigation is the set of filters on a listing page, such as color, size or price, that let shoppers…
Final URL Expansion

Final URL expansion is a Google Ads setting that sends a click to whichever page on your domain Google predicts…
First party data

First party data (also written first-party data) is information a business collects directly from its own customers, site visitors and…
Free shipping threshold

A free shipping threshold is the order value a shopper has to reach before shipping becomes free, as in free…

G

GA4 channel groups

GA4 channel groups are rule-based buckets, such as Paid Search, Organic Social and Email, that Google Analytics 4 sorts every…
GA4 ecommerce events

GA4 ecommerce events are the 14 recommended Google Analytics 4 events, such as view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout and purchase, that an…
GCLID

GCLID (Google Click Identifier) is a URL parameter that Google Ads adds to each ad click when auto-tagging is on.…
Generative engine

A generative engine is a search system that uses a large language model to gather information from several sources and…
Google AI Mode

Google AI Mode is a separate, conversational search mode in Google Search that answers complex questions with an AI-generated response…
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google Analytics 4 is Google's current analytics platform, which records every website and app interaction as an event and reports…
Google Merchant Center

Merchant Center is Google's free tool for uploading and managing product data, so a store's products can appear across Google…
Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a tag management system from Google that lets you add and manage tracking tags, such as…
Google-Extended

Google-Extended is a robots.txt product token that controls whether content Google crawls may be used to train future Gemini models…
GPTBot

GPTBot is OpenAI's web crawler for collecting content that may be used to train its generative AI foundation models. Blocking…
Grounding

Grounding is connecting an AI model's answer to specific, verifiable sources, such as live search results or a company's documents,…
GTIN (Global Trade Item Number)

A GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is the number under a product's barcode that identifies that exact product worldwide, such…

H

Headless Commerce

Headless commerce is a way of building an online store in which the frontend shoppers see is separate from the…
Helpful Content

Helpful content is Google's term for content made first for people, to answer their question or help them choose, rather…
Hook Rate (Video Ads)

Hook rate is the share of a video ad's impressions that turned into a 3-second video play: 3-second video plays…
Hreflang

Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language or country each version of a page is for,…

I

Impression Share (IS)

Impression share is the percentage of impressions your ads received out of the total they were eligible to receive. Google…
Interaction to Next Paint

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is the Core Web Vital for responsiveness: the time from a click, tap or key…

J

JSON-LD

JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a format for writing structured data as a block of JSON inside…

K

Knowledge graph

A knowledge graph is a database of entities, such as people, places, organizations and products, plus the facts and relationships…

L

Large language model (LLM)

A large language model (LLM) is an AI model trained on huge amounts of text to predict the next token,…
Largest Contentful Paint

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is the Core Web Vital that times how long the largest image, video or text block…
Learning Phase (Meta Ads)

The learning phase is the period after you create a Meta ad set or make a significant edit, while Meta's…
Liquid

Liquid is the template language Shopify created for its themes: HTML with placeholders that pull in store data, such as…
llms.txt

llms.txt is a proposed Markdown file at a site's root that gives AI agents a short summary of the site…
Lookalike Audience

A lookalike audience is a Meta ads audience of new people who resemble a source list you provide, called the…
Loyalty program

A loyalty program is a scheme that rewards customers for buying again, usually with points, member prices, free shipping or…

M

Make Automation

Make automation is workflow automation built on Make.com's visual platform, where each workflow is called a scenario. A scenario chains…
Marketing efficiency ratio (MER)

Marketing efficiency ratio (MER) is your store's total revenue divided by your total marketing or ad spend over the same…
Measurement Protocol (GA4)

The Measurement Protocol is a Google Analytics 4 API that lets a server send events straight to GA4 over HTTP,…
Messaging Limits

Messaging limits are the cap on how many unique WhatsApp users a business can reach with template messages outside a…
Meta Pixel

The Meta Pixel is a snippet of JavaScript on your website that records what visitors do, such as viewing a…
Metafields

Metafields are custom fields that add your own data to Shopify objects such as products, variants, customers and orders. Each…
Metaobjects

Metaobjects are custom record types in Shopify, such as a size chart, an FAQ or an ingredient, each with its…
Model Context Protocol (MCP)

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source standard for connecting AI applications such as Claude or ChatGPT to outside…

N

n8n

n8n is a workflow automation tool you can run on your own server or use as n8n's cloud service. A…
Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are words or phrases you add in Google Ads to stop your ads showing on searches that contain…
Noindex

Noindex is a rule, set in a meta robots tag or an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header, that tells search engines not…

O

OAI-SearchBot

OAI-SearchBot is OpenAI's crawler for ChatGPT search. If your robots.txt blocks it, your pages aren't shown in ChatGPT search answers,…
Offline conversion import

Offline conversion import is a Google Ads feature for uploading sales that close away from your website, such as phone…
One Click Unsubscribe

One click unsubscribe is an email standard (RFC 8058) that lets a mailbox provider like Gmail or Yahoo unsubscribe a…

P

Partnership Ads (Meta)

Partnership ads are Meta ads that include a creator's or other partner's handle alongside the brand's, run with the partner's…
Performance Max (PMax)

Performance Max is a Google Ads campaign type that runs one campaign across all Google Ads inventory, from Search and…
PerplexityBot

PerplexityBot is Perplexity's crawler for surfacing and linking websites in its search results. Perplexity says it isn't used to crawl…
Pinterest Tag

The Pinterest tag is a piece of code you add to your website that lets Pinterest track visits and the…
Product Disapproval (Merchant Center)

A product disapproval is Merchant Center's ruling that a product doesn't meet Google's requirements, so it stops showing across Google…
Product reviews schema

Product reviews schema is structured data that tells search engines a product page carries customer ratings, usually as an AggregateRating…
Purchase frequency

Purchase frequency is the average number of orders each customer places in a set period, found by dividing the period's…

Q

Quality Score (Google Ads)

Quality Score is a 1-10 rating Google Ads gives each keyword, comparing your expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing…
Query fan out

Query fan out (also written query fan-out) is a technique Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode can use to split…

R

Repeat purchase rate

Repeat purchase rate is the share of customers who have placed 2 or more orders, out of all customers, measured…
Retargeting

Retargeting is advertising to people who have already interacted with your store, such as visitors who viewed a product or…
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)

Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) is a method where an AI system first retrieves relevant passages from a document collection or…
Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is the revenue your ads bring in for every dollar you spend on them. Divide…
RFM segmentation

RFM segmentation is a way of grouping customers by 3 scores: recency (days since the last order), frequency (number of…
Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a plain-text file at the root of a site that tells crawlers which URLs they may request. It…

S

Search Terms Report

The search terms report is the Google Ads report that lists the actual searches that triggered your ads, with the…
Server side tagging

Server side tagging is a Google Tag Manager setup in which the browser sends measurement data to a tagging server…
Shopify Catalog

Shopify Catalog is Shopify's structured database of product information from eligible products sold by Shopify stores. Shop, AI platforms such…
Shopify Custom App

A Shopify custom app is an app built for one merchant's store, or for the stores of one Shopify Plus…
Shopify customer events

Shopify customer events are the shopper actions, such as product_viewed, product_added_to_cart and checkout_completed, that Shopify publishes to the pixels in…
Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow is Shopify's free automation app. A workflow starts from a trigger, such as an order being created, checks…
Shopify Functions

Shopify Functions are small WebAssembly programs, shipped inside an app, that Shopify runs on its own servers during cart and…
Shopify Hydrogen

Shopify Hydrogen is Shopify's toolkit for building headless storefronts: it adds the Shopify parts, such as the Storefront API client,…
Shopify Knowledge Base

Shopify Knowledge Base is an app from Shopify that lets a store review the facts Shopify generates about it and…
Shopify Markets

Shopify Markets is the part of Shopify that lets one store sell to different groups of buyers, usually countries or…
Smart Bidding

Smart Bidding is the group of Google Ads bid strategies that use Google AI to set a bid in every…
Social proof

Social proof is evidence that other people already buy or recommend a product: star ratings, review counts, bestseller badges, customer…
Spark Ads (TikTok)

Spark Ads is TikTok's native ad format that runs organic TikTok posts, your own or a creator's with their permission,…
SPF Record

An SPF record is a DNS TXT record, starting v=spf1, that lists the servers allowed to send email for a…
Statistical significance

Statistical significance is the verdict that a test result is unlikely to be chance: with no real difference, a gap…
Storefront API

The Storefront API is Shopify's GraphQL API for buyer-facing experiences outside or alongside the theme: headless sites, mobile apps, games…
Structured Data

Structured data is code added to a page, usually JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary, that labels what the page is…
Supplemental Feed (Supplemental Data Source)

A supplemental feed, now called a supplemental data source in Merchant Center, is a secondary file, Google Sheet or API…

T

Target CPA (Cost per Action)

Target CPA is a Google Ads Smart Bidding strategy where you set the average cost you want to pay per…
Text Customization

Text customization is a Google Ads setting that writes extra headlines and descriptions for your responsive search ads from your…
Theme App Extension

A theme app extension is the way a Shopify app adds features to a store's theme without editing its code:…
TikTok Pixel

The TikTok Pixel is a piece of code on your website that shares visitor actions with TikTok, such as product…

U

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

The Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is an open-source standard, developed by Google with Shopify and large retailers, that lets AI…
User Generated Content (UGC)

User generated content (UGC) is content made by customers or creators rather than the brand, such as reviews, photos, videos…
UTM parameters

UTM parameters are tags such as utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign added to the end of a link, so Google Analytics…

V

View-Through Conversion

A view through conversion is a sale or other conversion credited to an ad that someone saw but didn't click,…

W

Web Pixel

A web pixel is JavaScript that Shopify runs in a sandbox on a store's pages to collect customer events, such…
Webhook

A webhook is an HTTP request that one system sends to a URL you choose as soon as an event…
WebMCP

WebMCP is a proposed web standard, in early preview in Chrome since February 2026, that lets a website register tools…
WhatsApp Business Platform

The WhatsApp Business Platform is Meta's API-based way for businesses to message customers on WhatsApp at scale, through the Cloud…
WhatsApp Message Template

A WhatsApp message template is a pre-approved message format that a business must use to start a conversation on the…
WhatsApp Quality Rating

A WhatsApp quality rating is Meta's score for how recipients respond to a business's messages, shown per template as high,…
Workflow Automation

Workflow automation is software running a repeatable business process by itself. A trigger starts it, such as a new order…

X

XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the URLs you want search engines to find, with optional details such…

Z

Zapier

Zapier is a hosted automation service that connects thousands of apps through workflows called Zaps. A trigger in one app,…
Zero party data

Zero party data is information a customer deliberately gives a brand, such as preferences, purchase plans or personal context, usually…
Zero-click search

A zero-click search is a search that ends without the user clicking through to any website, because the answer was…