Store audit and CRO terms, explained plainly

C

Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are three measurements Google uses to describe how a page feels to a real visitor: Largest Contentful Paint for loading, Interaction to Next Paint for responsiveness and Cumulative Layout Shift for visual stability. A page passes when 75% of real visits score "good" on all three.

L

Lab data and field data

Lab data is a measurement from a single controlled test run on a simulated device and connection. Field data is collected from real visitors over time. They often disagree, and field data is the better guide to what your customers experience.

C

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a goal, usually a purchase. It is orders divided by sessions, multiplied by 100. A store with 10,000 sessions and 250 orders has a conversion rate of 2.5%.

C

Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the work of increasing the share of visitors who buy by removing friction and adding reasons to trust and decide. It starts from evidence about how people use the store, not from opinions about design.

C

Cart abandonment

Cart abandonment is when a visitor adds a product to the cart and leaves without completing the purchase. The Baymard Institute, which tracks published studies, puts the average documented rate at roughly 70%.

A

Average order value (AOV)

Average order value, or AOV, is the average amount spent per order. Divide total revenue by the number of orders in the same period. A store with $50,000 in revenue from 1,000 orders has an AOV of $50.

S

Structured data (schema markup)

Structured data is a standard way of labelling the contents of a page so search engines can understand them, such as a product's name, price and stock status. It is usually written as JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary and sits in the page code, invisible to shoppers.

T

Third-party script

A third-party script is a piece of code your page loads from another company's server: analytics, ads, chat, reviews, popups, A/B testing. Each is useful and each costs download time and processing on the shopper's device.

A

Above the fold

Above the fold is the part of a page visible without scrolling. The term comes from newspapers. On a phone the area is small, often about 390 by 844 pixels, so what you place there decides what most visitors see before they act.

P

Product detail page (PDP)

A product detail page, or PDP, is the page for a single product. It is where most buying decisions are made, which is why audits spend more time on it than on any other template.

A

Add-to-cart rate

Add-to-cart rate is the percentage of product page sessions in which a shopper adds an item to the cart. It sits between viewing a product and buying one, so it shows whether the product page is persuading.

B

Bounce rate

In Google Analytics 4, bounce rate is the share of sessions that were not engaged. A session counts as engaged if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a conversion event, or has at least two page views. It is the opposite of engagement rate.