WooCommerce analytics terms, as we count them.

Definitions in this glossary are the ones FCAnalytics uses in its dashboards. Last reviewed 12 November 2026. The methodology page lists the same rules in the order they are applied.

On this page: Orders and revenue · Costs and profit · Funnel and carts · Customers · Attribution and data

Paid order

An order whose status is processing, completed or refunded. For a refunded order the refund amount is subtracted from its total, so a fully refunded order contributes zero revenue but still counts as a paid order. Pending, failed, cancelled, on-hold and checkout-draft orders are not paid; they count as checkout started and feed the abandoned-cart screens.

Paid revenue

The sum of order totals of paid orders in the period, minus refunds recorded against those orders. This is the revenue figure on every FCAnalytics dashboard. It includes shipping charged to the customer and tax, because the order total does; costs are subtracted later, when net profit is calculated.

Average order value (AOV)

Paid revenue divided by the number of paid orders in the same period. Watching AOV next to the order count tells you which lever moved: more orders at the same AOV means acquisition is working, while the same order count at a higher AOV points to merchandising, bundles or shipping thresholds.

Checkout started

A shopper who reached the checkout. In FCAnalytics every imported order that is not a trashed or auto-draft record counts as checkout started, whatever its status, plus any checkout event sent by the tracking snippet. It is the fourth funnel step and the base for the checkout-to-purchase rate.

Reporting period

The date range a dashboard shows: the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days. A period starts at midnight in the store's time zone on its first day and ends at the current minute, so the last day is always partial. The comparison period is the same number of days immediately before it.

Product cost (COGS)

What the store paid for the items in an order: the cost of goods sold. In FCAnalytics it is entered once per product, in a table or by CSV upload, and multiplied by the units on each order line. It should include inbound freight if you know it and exclude tax, shipping to the customer and payment fees.

Payment fee

The processor's charge for taking a payment. FCAnalytics models it as a percentage of the order total plus a fixed amount per order, both set by the store owner in Settings, Costs. It is applied to every paid order and shown as its own line in the profit waterfall.

Shipping cost

What it costs the store to ship an order, as opposed to what the customer was charged. FCAnalytics takes it either from the shipping lines on each order or as a flat amount per order, whichever the owner selects. It is a cost line in net profit, not a revenue line.

Ad spend

Money paid to advertising channels. In FCAnalytics it is entered per channel per month in Settings, Costs, and prorated to the days of the reporting period: a month's amount is spread evenly across that month, and only the days inside the period are counted. Direct ad-platform connections are planned, with no date announced.

Net profit

Paid revenue minus product costs, payment fees, shipping cost and ad spend for the same period. Written out: net profit = (order totals minus refunds) minus product costs minus (order total multiplied by fee percent plus fixed fee) minus shipping minus ad spend. It is the headline figure of the Profit dashboard and the monthly report.

Margin

Net profit divided by paid revenue, expressed as a percentage. FCAnalytics calculates it for the whole store, per product and per category. A product with a margin under 15 percent is flagged as low margin on the Products and Overview screens, which usually means its cost needs checking or its price needs raising.

Profit waterfall

A chart that starts at paid revenue and subtracts each cost in turn, product costs, fees and shipping, then ad spend, until net profit remains. It shows where the money goes in one picture and makes the largest cost obvious. The Profit dashboard pairs it with a daily net-profit line.

Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Revenue from a channel divided by the ad spend entered for that channel in the period. FCAnalytics also shows profit per channel after that spend, because a channel can return more revenue than it costs and still lose money once product costs, fees and shipping are counted.

Conversion funnel

The sequence of steps from a visit to a paid order: session, product view, add to cart, checkout started, purchase. The funnel shows the share of shoppers who continue at each step and where the largest number leave. In FCAnalytics the first three steps come from the tracking snippet and the last two from WooCommerce orders.

Session

One visit to the store as recorded by the tracking snippet, identified by a random session id rather than by a cookie tied to a person. Sessions are the first funnel step and the base for the store conversion rate (paid orders divided by sessions). Without the snippet there are no sessions and the funnel starts at checkout.

Conversion rate

Paid orders divided by sessions in the period, as a percentage. FCAnalytics also shows the rates between steps, such as add-to-cart rate (sessions that added an item divided by all sessions) and checkout-to-purchase rate (paid orders divided by checkouts started), because a single store-wide rate hides where the problem is.

Abandoned cart

A cart or checkout that was started but did not become a paid order. FCAnalytics counts an unpaid order as abandoned once it is more than an hour old, and, with the snippet installed, a session that added to cart but never reached checkout. Carts are grouped by hour, by the step where the shopper stopped and by product.

Abandonment step

Where a shopper stopped: cart (added an item, never reached checkout; needs the snippet), shipping (a checkout-draft order from the block checkout, abandoned before payment) or payment (a pending, failed, cancelled or on-hold order). The step tells you whether the leak is price, delivery or the payment form.

Recovered cart

A paid order placed by an email address that had an unpaid, checkout-started order in the seven days before it. FCAnalytics counts those orders and their revenue as recovered, whatever brought the shopper back. It measures recovery; it does not send recovery emails.

Customer lifetime value (LTV)

In FCAnalytics, the average total spent per customer across all their paid orders, with refunds subtracted. It is the simplest version of lifetime value and needs no assumptions. The planning formula used for forecasts, average order value multiplied by average orders per customer multiplied by gross margin, is explained in the lifetime value article.

Repeat rate

The share of customers who ordered in the period whose first order was before the period began: returning customers divided by all customers who ordered in the period. A customer is identified by the billing email on paid orders. A rising repeat rate means the store is building a base rather than renting customers from ad platforms.

Cohort

A group of customers who placed their first paid order in the same month, followed month by month to see what share orders again. The Customers dashboard shows a cohort grid: each row is a first-order month, each column a later month, each cell the share of that cohort that bought again.

VIP customer

In FCAnalytics, a customer with five or more paid orders. The segment is listed on the Customers dashboard with its count and can be exported as CSV, so you can see who your most loyal buyers are and how much of the period's revenue they produce.

At-risk customer

In FCAnalytics, a customer whose last paid order is between 90 days and one year old. They bought, then went quiet. The Overview flags the count as something that needs attention, and the Customers dashboard lists them so a win-back campaign can be aimed at them before they lapse completely.

Order attribution

WooCommerce's record of where an order came from, captured at checkout since WooCommerce 8.5: source type, UTM source, medium and campaign, referrer and device. It is last-click, so the last visit before the order gets all of the credit. FCAnalytics reads this meta for every imported order and maps it to a channel.

Channel

The label FCAnalytics gives an order's attribution. UTM source and medium decide first: Google Ads, Organic search, Facebook Ads, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Bing Ads, Email or the capitalized source name. Without UTMs, WooCommerce's source type decides: organic, referral (Social when the referrer is a social site), admin as Manual, and everything else as Direct.

UTM parameters

Tags added to a link so that the visit it brings can be identified: utm_source (where), utm_medium (how, such as cpc or email), utm_campaign (which effort), plus utm_content and utm_term. WooCommerce stores them on the order; FCAnalytics uses source and medium for the channel and campaign for the campaign table.

Sync

The scheduled job that keeps FCAnalytics current. Every 15 minutes it asks the store for orders and products modified since the last run and recalculates the dashboards. After three failed attempts in a row the store is marked as in error, the owner is emailed and the last good numbers stay on screen until Retry now succeeds.

Tracking snippet

A single script tag placed in the store's head that reports sessions, product views, add-to-cart and checkout steps to FCAnalytics with a random session id, device type and traffic source. It is optional: without it the funnel shows checkout and purchase only, and the carts screen shows checkout abandonment only.

Read-only connection

WooCommerce REST API keys with read scope, created when the store administrator approves access on their own site. FCAnalytics stores them encrypted at rest and uses them to fetch orders, customers and products. Read keys cannot create, change or delete anything in the store, and disconnecting deletes the keys and every imported row.

Where each term is used

• Paid order, paid revenue, average order value, net profit, margin and the profit waterfall: the Overview and Profit dashboards.
• Conversion funnel, session, conversion rate and checkout started: the Funnel dashboard, which needs the tracking snippet for its first three steps (how it works).
• Abandoned cart, abandonment step and recovered cart: the Abandoned carts dashboard and the cart-digest email.
• Lifetime value, repeat rate, cohort, VIP and at-risk: the Customers dashboard and the customers CSV export.
• Order attribution, channel, UTM parameters and return on ad spend: the Attribution dashboard.
• Sync, tracking snippet and read-only connection: the Stores screen and the FAQ.