RetentionX Glossary – RetentionX

We know, RetentionX is packed with so many reports and so much data! But no worries, we've compiled a glossary with all our most important calculations and definitions--allowing you to quickly scan through for more information on key metrics.

Of course, you can also find a brief explanation of each metric within the application by hovering over the i.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

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Accepts Marketing

A Shopify-specific property that is determined when a customer checks or leaves unchecked the "Accepts Marketing" box during checkout. This consent does not affect their actual subscription status for receiving emails (e.g., from Klaviyo). For example, if a customer who is already subscribed to your newsletter goes through checkout and leaves the "Accepts Marketing" box unchecked, their "Accepts Marketing" value would be set to false. However, they would still receive emails unless they unsubscribed.

Add-On

Add-ons are supplemental features that allow you to customize your RetentionX plan to fit your specific needs. Learn more here.

Add-to-Basket Rate

The percentage of product views in the last 30 days that resulted in a product being added to a basket, calculated by Add-to-Baskets / Views x 100. To evaluate performance, the rate of a specific product is compared to the basket rates of all products in the collection. This metric becomes available once collection tracking for Merchandise Optimization is set up.

Administrator

There are three types of RetentionX users: Owner, Administrator, and Collaborator. Admins have the privileges to customize RetentionX accounts, including access to the Company Settings and the ability to create customer segments. Learn more here.

Ad Spend

The amount you spend on advertising. This amount is imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts.

Attribution

Attribution determines which marketing channel or touchpoint should be credited for a conversion, such as a sale or lead. It involves analyzing whether the success of a conversion is attributed to the first interaction, the last interaction, or distributed across multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey. RetentionX offers both first-click and last-click attribution models. Learn more here.

Attribution Rate

The attribution rate quantifies the proportion of conversions reported by your connected ad accounts that were also captured by your eCommerce platform, calculated by Purchases / Conversions x 100. Learn more here.

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

The amount of money you can expect to earn from product subscriptions over a year, calculated by 12 x Sum of Monthly Gross Revenues. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX.

Average

The average is the arithmetic mean of a set of numbers. It's most recommended for normal number distributions, which have a low amount of outliers and is calculated by adding up all the values and dividing the sum by the total number of values.

Example Normal Distribution: 2, 3, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11
Average = (2+3+3+5+8+10+11)/7 = 6
Example Skewed Distribution: 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 130
Average = (2+2+3+3+5+7+8+130)/8 = 20

Average Days to Activation

The average number of days it takes for non-subscribers to become subscribers after their purchase in the month being considered. By grouping your one-time purchasers into cohorts, this metric helps you understand how long it took for non-subscribers, e.g. from September, to start their subscription. Note that the September purchase does not necessarily have to be the customer's first or last one-time purchase. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX.

Average Order Value

AOV refers to the average amount of money a customer spends on each order placed with your store, calculated by Sum of Gross Revenue / Number of Orders. Learn more here.

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Campaign

The name of your marketing campaigns. To track your customers' marketing journey, it's essential to set up UTM parameters. This ensures that campaign data is accurately captured and available for analysis in RetentionX. To easily identify campaigns in RetentionX’s marketing reports and automatically map imported campaign data from your ad accounts, we recommend using dynamic placeholders that assign the campaign name as the UTM campaign parameter, e.g., utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}.

Channel

Sales channels are the platforms or marketplaces where you sell your products. These can include your online store ("web"), point-of-sale ("pos"), mobile apps ("app"), social media platforms, online marketplaces like Amazon, and even wholesale. For POS orders, RetentionX also processes the Location ID, allowing you to differentiate between your store locations.

Churn

Churn represent the MRR lost when existing subscribers cancel their last active subscription, RetentionX. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX. Learn more here.

Churn Risk

As soon as you add Forecast Plus to your plan, RetentionX calculates a churn probability for each individual customer. This prediction is powered by machine learning, which identifies data twins to assess the likelihood that a customer will not return for another order. Learn more here.

Clicks

The number of times the ad is clicked. This metric is imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts.

Click-Through-Rate (CTR)

The CTR is available in RetentionX's marketing reports as well as in the collection reporting once you have set up Merchandise Optimization.

Marketing reports: The percentage of ad impressions that resulted in a click. This metric is imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts.

Merchandise Optimization: The percentage of clicks on a product relative to all collection views over the last 7 days. To calculate the Performance Score, RetentionX compares the actual CTR to the expected CTR based on the product's specific grid position. Learn more here.

Collaborator

There are three types of RetentionX users: Owner, Administrator, and Collaborator. Collaborators have read-only access to your RetentionX account and cannot make changes to an account that will affect other users such as access the Company Settings, create segments or export customer-specific data. In addition, Collaborators can only see the dashboards that they created, not the ones created by other users within the same company. Learn more here.

Collections

A collection is a grouping of your products to make it easier for shoppers to find what they’re looking for. RetentionX imports the collection data exclusively for Shopify brands. Once you have set up Merchandise Optimization, you can monitor the daily performance of your collections in the Collection Development report.

Contribution Margin 1

Contribution Margin 1 is a profitability metric that represents the difference between sales revenue and a product's variable costs. It is calculated as Sum of Net Revenue – Sum of COGS. Learn more here.

Conversions

A conversion refers to the completion of a desired action on your website by a user. While it is commonly used to describe a product purchase, for lead generation websites, it could also mean completing a contact form. This amount is imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts. The reported conversions are based on the attribution model set in the respective platform, such as 7-days views.

Conversion Rate

The Conversion Rate is available in RetentionX's marketing reports as well as in subscription reports once your Recharge account is connected.

Marketing reports: This metric represents the percentage of clicks that result in a conversion. It is imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts.

Subscription reports: This metric tracks the percentage of one-time purchasers who sign up for a subscription afterward. It is calculated by dividing the number of converted subscribers by the number of all one-time purchasers. Learn more here.

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

The total cost required to bring an item into inventory and prepare it for sale. COGS is a crucial component in LTV calculations, as it helps assess profitability at the Contribution Margin 1 level.

Customer

Your transactional data serves as the foundation for all RetentionX analyses. Based on this data, a golden record is created for each customer. That said, RetentionX only processes customers who have placed at least one order—prospects are not included. To associate orders with customer profiles, the unique customer ID is used. If you’d like to exclude specific customers, such as team members, you can do so easily in your Company Settings specifying the respective customer tags or customer IDs. Learn more here.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

CAC calculates the average cost you incur to gain a new customer in order to understand how effective your marketing campaigns are. It's calculated by (Ad Spend / Conversions) x New Customer Share. "Ad Spend" and "Conversions" are imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts while "New Customer Share" is calculated based on your first-party data.

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Downgrade

Downgrades represent the MRR lost when existing subscribers downgrade to a cheaper subscription or cancel subscriptions while keeping at least one active. If a customer cancels their last active subscription, RetentionX classifies the cancellation as Churn. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX. Learn more here.

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Existing MRR

Existing MRR represents the MRR generated from existing product subscriptions, indicating no change compared to the previous time period. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX. Learn more here.

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Follow-up Orders Including the Product

This metric tracks the number of orders that include a product, which led to a subsequent purchase of the same product. It helps measure how effectively a product encourages customers to return and buy it again, indicating strong customer preference and loyalty. This metric is available at the variant, category, and brand levels. Learn more here.

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Gender

RetentionX automatically determines the gender of your customers by considering two parameters: first name and country. The combination of these parameters helps account for local differences. Both parameters are then matched against extensive datasets containing individuals whose gender is known with absolute certainty. Based on this matching, RetentionX provides the following gender predictions: Female, Male, Likely Female, Likely Male, Uncertain. This predicted gender allows you to analyze customer behavior by gender and use it for customer segmentation. Learn more here.

Gross Margin

Gross Margin is available at the order, product, and customer levels, and it measures the percentage of revenue that represents profit. This metric is calculated as [(Sum of Net Revenue - Sum of COGS) / Net Revenue] x 100. In eCommerce, gross margins between 50-70% are typically considered "good." Learn more here.

Gross Revenue

Gross revenue represents the total revenue generated. By default, gross revenue excludes sales tax, shipping fees, and is calculated after discounts. Learn more about revenue definitions and how to change them here.

Please note, that in RetentionX’s marketing reports, gross revenue generated from each channel or campaign is calculated as: Purchases x AOV.

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Impressions

Impressions represent the number of users who have seen a specific ad or collection. For RetentionX's marketing reports, this metric is imported directly from the advertising platform once you have integrated with Meta, Google, and TikTok Ads accounts. Additionally, once you have set up Merchandise Optimization, RetentionX's pixel tracks the impressions of your collections as well.

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Last Ticket Tags

The "Last Ticket Tags" are all tags associated with a customer's most recent support ticket and can be used for customer segmentation. As soon as Gorgias is connected to your RetentionX account, all support tickets and their tags are imported and available in individual customer profiles under "Tickets." Learn more here.

Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer Lifetime Value (also referred to as LTV, CLV or CLTV) is one of the most important metrics for any consumer brand. It measures the total value a customer brings to your brand throughout their lifetime. LTV is calculated by (Sum of Net Revenue - Sum of COGS) per customer. In addition to the overall LTV, RetentionX provides breakdowns at 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, 2 years, and 5 years. Learn more here.

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Marketing Channel

Marketing channels represent the different platforms or sources through which your campaigns are run. To easily identify these channels in RetentionX’s marketing reports, it's essential to set up UTM source parameters (e.g., utm_source=Meta). This ensures that channel data is accurately captured and available for analysis in RetentionX.

Marketing Journey

The marketing journey tracks events leading up to and occurring before a purchase is completed. To fully capture your customers' marketing journey, it's essential to set up UTM parameters. This ensures that all touchpoints are tracked and available for analysis within RetentionX.

Median

The median is a numeric value that separates the higher half of a set from the lower half. It's generally used to return the central tendency for skewed number distributions and is calculated by listing all numbers in ascending order and then locating the number in the centre of that distribution.

Example Normal Distribution: 2, 3, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11
Median = 5
Example Skewed Distribution: 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 130
Median = (3+5)/2 = 4

Median Days to Activation

The median number of days it takes for non-subscribers to become subscribers after their purchase in the month being considered. By grouping your one-time purchasers into cohorts, this metric helps you understand how long it took for non-subscribers, e.g. from September, to start their subscription. Note that the September purchase does not necessarily have to be the customer's first or last one-time purchase. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

The total amount of money earned from product subscriptions within a month. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX.

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Net New MRR

Net New MRR represents the additional MRR generated from new subscriptions and expansions (Reactivations and Upgrades), minus Churn and Downgrades. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX. Learn more here.

Net Revenue

Gross revenue represents gross revenue generated after product returns. RetentionX automatically attributes returns back to the original order date, regardless of when the refund was processed. In addition, by default, both gross and net revenue exclude sales tax, shipping fees, and are calculated after discounts. Learn more about RetentionX's revenue definitions and how to change them here.

Please note, that in RetentionX’s marketing reports, net revenue generated from each channel or campaign is calculated as: Purchases x Net AOV.

New Customer Share

New Customer Share represents the proportion of new customers among the total Purchases, calculated at the Channel and Campaign level. To track your customers' marketing journey and determine whether a purchase was made by a new or repeat customer, it's essential to set up up UTM parameters.

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Order Extras

RetentionX allows you to define products that are added to your customers' baskets as add-ons, such as samples, gift wrapping, or package protection. While it's important to track the revenue from these SKUs and identify, for example, customers who made gift purchases, these order extras shouldn't skew your reporting—such as cross-selling or basket analysis. Learn more here.

Order ID

An Order ID is a unique identifier generated by your eCommerce platform for each transaction. It’s a long string, invisible to customers, primarily used for API calls and back-end operations, including as the identifier in RetentionX. In contrast, the Order Number is what customers see. It follows a sequential format and is mainly used for customer service and order referencing within the admin interface.

Order Value

Order Value refers to the Gross Revenue from a single order. It helps identify customers who make higher-value purchases compared to others. Order Value differs from Average Order Value, which calculates the average gross revenue across all orders.

Orders Leading to a Follow-Up Purchase

The number of orders that include a product which led to a subsequent purchase. It helps measure how effectively a product encourages customers to continue shopping with your brand, even if they buy different products on their next purchase. It indicates that the product plays a role in strengthening overall customer loyalty to your brand. This metric is available at the variant, category, and brand levels. Learn more here.

Owner

There are three types of RetentionX users: Owner, Administrator, and Collaborator. Owners have access to the Company Settings and can make changes to a RetentionX account which affects all users. Additionally, they are the only ones who can add Administrators. Learn more here.

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Payback Period

The payback period represents the number of months it takes for LTV to be equal to CAC, calculated at the Channel and Campaign level. To track your customers' marketing journey and determine the LTV, it's essential to set up up UTM parameters.

Performance Score

The overall product performance indicator (0-100), calculated by considering the four metrics Click-Through Rate, Basket Rate, Purchase Rate, and Product LTV. The score reflects both the immediate appeal of the product and its long-term profitability. This KPI is exclusive for brands who have enabled the Merchandise Optimization feature.

Pixel

To enhance your Google Analytics tracking for Merchandise Optimization, RetentionX provides a custom pixel that you need to add to your Shopify store. This pixel feeds your Google Analytics account with additional data, including product impressions and clicks. It is implemented in a sandbox environment to ensure that it does not affect your storefront, shop performance, or any other tracking.

Position

The average position of a product across all collections to which it is assigned. This KPI is available exclusively to brands that have set up RetentionX's Merchandise Optimization.

Product Lifetime Value

The average LTV (up to 90 days) of all customers who purchased a specific product in their first order, calculated as (Sum of Net Revenue - COGS). This metric is used to calculate a product's Performance Score and incorporates factors like gross margins, product returns, and customer retention rates. Learn more here.

Product Return Rate

The product return rate represents the percentage of products sold that are subsequently returned by customers. This metric is available at the variant, category, and brand levels. Since product returns impact net revenues, RetentionX automatically attributes returns to the original order date, regardless of when the refund was processed. Learn more here.

Purchase Frequency

The purchase frequency shows the percentage of all purchases that include a specific product. This helps you understand its relative popularity and how widely it is distributed across customer orders. The metric is available at the variant, category, and brand levels.

Purchase Rate

The percentage of products added to the basket in the last 30 days that were ultimately purchased. Performance is measured against the purchase rates of all products in the collection. This metric is used to calculate a product's Performance Score and factors in its conversion rate. Learn more here.

Purchases

The number of orders tracked by your first-party marketing data, including both UTM information and referrers. The attribution model you choose determines which Channel and Campaign the purchases are credited to.

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Reactivation

Reactivations represent the MRR gained from customers who were previously classified as Churned. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX. Learn more here.

Refund

A refund occurs when you return all or part of a payment to a customer who placed an order in your store. Unlike product returns, refunds are not attributed back to the original order date but are tracked based on their processing date. This helps you monitor the cash flow impact caused by returns. Learn more here.

Repeat Purchase Rate

The percentage of customers who make additional purchases after their initial order. This metric helps measure customer loyalty and the effectiveness of retention strategies. Learn more here.

Replenishment Time

The median number of days it takes for a customer to repurchase the same product. This metric helps you understand the typical time gap between purchases and can be used to set up replenishment flows. It is available at the variant, category, and brand levels. Learn more here.

Revenue

Revenue (also known as sales or turnover) is the total sum of money from sales of all goods and services for a set period of time. By default, both gross and net revenue exclude sales tax, shipping fees, and are calculated after discounts. Learn more about RetentionX's revenue definitions and how to change them here.

Revenue Per Mille (RPM)

Revenue Per Mille (RPM) is a key success metric calculated by RetentionX that allows you to compare the revenue generated per collection based on the same number of views. It is calculated by dividing the Gross Revenue generated by a collection by the number of views, then multiplying by 1,000. This KPI is available exclusively to brands that have set up RetentionX's Merchandise Optimization.

RFM Score

The RFM score represents how a customer ranks for each variable used in an RFM Analysis: Recency, Frequency, and Monetary Value. For each variable, customers are assigned a score from 1 (best) to 4 (lowest) based on their purchasing behavior. The RFM score is a combination of these three scores; for example 111, identifying customers who rank the highest in all three factors—those who shopped most recently, placed the most orders over time, and contributed the most net revenue in total.

RFM Status

In the RFM Analysis all customers are assigned to an RFM Score. This results in up to 64 distinct RFM score combinations (4x4x4). To make the results of the analysis as easy to use as possible, RetentionX pre-identifies six customer groups and assigns an RFM status to them: Top Customer (RFM = 111), Loyal Customer (Frequency = 1), High Potential (Monetary Value = 1), Small Buyers (Frequency = 1 and Monetary Value = 3 or 4), Dormant Customers (Recency = 4 and Frequency = 4) and Worst Customers (RFM = 444).

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

ROAS represents the amount of revenue earned for every dollar spent on a marketing campaign. It is calculated by (LTV / CAC) x 100. RetentionX provides breakdowns of ROAS at 30 days, 90 days, 1 year, 2 years, and 5 years. For DTC brands, a 300% ROAS after 1 year is considered good, meaning that for every $100 spent on marketing, you generate $300 in LTV from your customers' first year. Learn more here.

Run Rate

If a time period is not yet complete (e.g., the current week or month), RetentionX extrapolates based on actual values to estimate the final outcome. For example, if today is January 4th and gross revenue generated so far is $3k, RetentionX first calculates the average revenue per day (in this case, $1k). It then extrapolates the total revenue for the month by multiplying the average daily revenue by the number of remaining days in the month (28 days in this case). The calculation would be: 28 days x $1k + $3k = $31k. Learn more here.

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Sales Velocity

This metric measures the speed at which a product is sold over a specified time period. It’s calculated by Items Sold in last X days / X. By default, the time period is set to 7 days, but this can be easily adjusted in your Company Settings. Learn more here.

Segment

Customer segments allow you to group your customers based on common characteristics, including performance metrics and purchase behavior. Please note that customer segments do not act as an order filter. For example, if you create a segment for customers who placed at least one POS order and apply this segment to a report, all orders from these customers will be considered, not just the POS orders. Learn more here.

Shipping Revenue

The price you charge customers for shipping their order. By default, these charges are not considered a revenue component, as they typically cover the shipping cost rather than serving as an additional revenue stream. Learn more about RetentionX's revenue definitions and how to change them here.

Source

This is often used interchangeably with "Marketing Channel" as the UTM source tag describes the marketing channel as a conversion that is coming from (e.g., Meta). See Channel.

Swap Order

RetentionX automatically detects product exchanges and does not count them as repeat purchases. An order is identified as a "Swap" when a customer repurchases a product after the same or a different variant of the product has been returned within the last 30 days. Learn more here.

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Total Items

Total Items represent the count of SKUs purchased within an order or by a customer. Unlike Unique Items, if a SKU is purchased multiple times, the quantity is taken into account, meaning each instance of the product purchased is counted individually.

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Unique Items

Unique Items represent the count of distinct SKUs purchased within an order or by a customer, regardless of quantity. The number of unique items per customer helps you understand whether your shoppers are loyal to a single product or exploring your entire product assortment. By default, the calculation excludes Order Extras.

Unprofitable Customers

A customer is considered unprofitable when their net revenue (after product returns) is lower than the cost of goods sold. RetentionX provides the share of unprofitable customers grouped into cohorts, allowing you to track the proportion of unprofitable customers from all customers acquired within a specific time period. Learn more here.

Upgrade

Upgrades represent the MRR gained when an existing subscriber upgrades to a more expensive subscription or subscribes to an additional subscription. This metric is available for all brands using Recharge for their subscriptions and that have connected their Recharge account to RetentionX. Learn more here.

UTM Parameter

A UTM parameter is a small piece of code added to the end of a URL to track clicks and measure the performance of marketing campaigns: https://fashionstore.com?utm_source=meta&utm_campaign= spring_sale&utm_content=video&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=runningshoes

Within the UTM code, there are five main parameters:

UTM Source: Identifies where the traffic originated (e.g., Google, Facebook, or a Klaviyo).
UTM Campaign: Tracks a specific marketing campaign (e.g., spring_sale or black_friday).
UTM Medium: Indicates the type of traffic source (e.g., CPC for paid ads, email for email marketing, or organic for unpaid search traffic).
UTM Content: Differentiates multiple links within the same campaign, allowing you to track which specific ad, button, or version of an email drove the click.
UTM Term: Primarily used for paid search ads, this parameter tracks the exact keyword a visitor clicked on in a search ad (e.g., running shoes).

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VAT

Value-Added Tax (VAT) or sales tax applied to all goods and services in an order. By default, these charges paid by customers are not considered a revenue component, as they are collected on behalf of the government rather than serving as an additional revenue stream. Learn more about RetentionX's revenue definitions and how to change them here.

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