Glossary
The SaaS attribution glossary.
Plain-English definitions of the metrics, attribution models and tracking concepts that matter for subscription businesses — each with a formula or example, and why it matters for measuring real revenue. Written for SaaS marketers, founders and RevOps teams.
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Start with the essentials.
MRR
Monthly recurring revenue definition
CAC
Customer acquisition cost definition
ROAS
Return on ad spend definition
Marketing attribution
Coming soon
Category
SaaS revenue metrics
TermDefinition
Monthly recurring revenue — the core SaaS revenue metric
Annual recurring revenue (MRR × 12)
The share of customers or revenue lost over a period
Revenue kept and expanded from existing customers
Extra recurring revenue from existing customers
Category
Unit economics
TermDefinition
Customer acquisition cost
Customer lifetime value
Lifetime value relative to acquisition cost
Months to recover acquisition cost
Time to recoup any investment
Category
Ad performance
TermDefinition
Return on ad spend
Total revenue ÷ total ad spend, across all channels
The revenue an ad truly caused
Category
Attribution concepts
TermDefinition
Marketing attributionSoon
Crediting revenue to the marketing that earned it
Multi-touch attributionSoon
Splitting credit across every touch in the journey
First-click attributionSoon
100% of the credit to the first touch
Last-click attributionSoon
100% of the credit to the last touch
Attribution windowSoon
The lookback period for crediting touches
Category
Tracking & data
TermDefinition
Conversions API (CAPI)Soon
Sending conversions to ad platforms server-side
Server-side trackingSoon
Recording events on your server, not the browser
First-party cookieSoon
A cookie set by your own domain
Event match quality (EMQ)Soon
How well conversions match to users
UTM parametersSoon
Tags that identify a link's campaign source
Offline conversion importSoon
Uploading conversions from your server
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