Growth Marketing Glossary: 40+ Terms Explained
Growth marketing has its own vocabulary. Some terms are borrowed from product, some from finance, some from engineering. This glossary gives you plain-English definitions for the terms you'll encounter most often — with context on why each one matters.
A–C
A/B Test: Comparing two versions of a page, email, or ad to see which performs better. A/B testing requires statistical significance before declaring a winner. Activation: The moment a new user experiences the core value of a product for the first time. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): Total sales and marketing spend ÷ new customers acquired. If you spend ₹1 lakh and acquire 100 customers, CAC = ₹1,000. Churn Rate: % of customers who cancel or don't renew in a given period. Monthly churn of 3% = 36% annual churn. Cohort Analysis: Grouping customers by when they started (joined in January, joined in February) and comparing their behaviour over time. Conversion Rate: % of visitors who complete a desired action (purchase, form submission, button click). Conversion Rate = conversions ÷ sessions × 100.
D–L
DAU/MAU: Daily / Monthly Active Users. The DAU÷MAU ratio measures engagement — WhatsApp is ~75%, considered exceptional. Funnel: The sequence of steps from awareness to conversion. Each step has a drop-off rate. Funnel analysis identifies where to invest in improvement. LTV (Lifetime Value): Total revenue expected from a customer over their entire relationship. LTV÷CAC >3 is the general benchmark for sustainable growth. MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue): Total predictable revenue in a month. The key metric for subscription businesses. Net Revenue Retention (NRR): Revenue retained from the existing customer base including expansions, minus churn. NRR >100% means expansion revenue offsets churn.
M–P
NPS (Net Promoter Score): Customer loyalty metric on 0–10 scale. Promoters − Detractors = NPS. North Star Metric: The single metric that best captures the core value your product delivers to customers. Optimising everything else to move this metric. OKRs: Objectives and Key Results. A goal-setting framework. Objective = qualitative goal. Key Results = measurable milestones. PMF (Product-Market Fit): When a product satisfies a strong market demand. Indicated by high retention, strong NPS, and organic word-of-mouth. PLG (Product-Led Growth): Growth driven by the product itself — free trials, viral mechanics, in-product referrals — rather than sales-led outreach.
R–Z
Retention: % of customers who continue using the product after a defined period (Day 7, Day 30, Month 3). Retention is the foundation of all other growth metrics. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend): Revenue ÷ ad spend. ROAS of 3x = ₹3 revenue for every ₹1 spent. ROI (Return on Investment): (Revenue − Investment) ÷ Investment × 100. Segmentation: Dividing an audience by shared characteristics (behaviour, demographics, lifecycle stage) to send more relevant messages. Time-to-Value: How long it takes a new user to experience the core value of the product. Shorter = better. UTM Parameters: URL tags that track traffic source, medium, campaign, and content in analytics tools. Viral Coefficient: The number of new users each existing user brings in. K > 1 = viral growth. WoW / MoM / YoY: Week over week / Month over month / Year over year growth comparisons.
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