Reference library

A/B Testing & Statistics Glossary

A practical reference for experimentation, statistics, CRO, product analytics, and data quality. Browse definitions, formulas, examples, and technical concepts by topic.

Fundamentals

The conceptual foundation: what experiments are, how variants are compared, and how a testing program creates evidence.

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A/A Testing

Experiment QA, SRM, instrumentation, false positives, and platform validation.

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A/B Test

Control and treatment, assignment, metrics, result interpretation, and test structure.

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A/B Testing

Definition, design, statistics, MDE, power, pitfalls, and a pre-launch checklist.

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A/B/n Testing

Multiple variants, allocation, sample size, multiple comparisons, and analysis.

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Alternative Hypothesis

The predicted effect, how it differs from the null, and its role in an experiment decision.

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Baseline

Starting metrics, control context, MDE planning, and sample-size assumptions.

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Bucket Testing

Stable assignment, hashing, buckets, allocation, and experiment diagnostics.

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Bucketing

How stable assignment buckets users, supports allocation, and prevents cross-variant exposure.

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Carryover Effect

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Causal Effect

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Control Experience

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Control Group

Baseline, counterfactual, randomization, holdouts, and A/B examples.

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Controlled Experiment

Control groups, treatment, variables, random assignment, and causal design.

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Experiment

Definition, design, causal inference, lifecycle, validity threats, and an expert checklist.

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Experiment Contamination

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Experiment Design

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Experiment Lifecycle

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Experiment Unit

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Experimentation

Continuous learning, methods, program maturity, culture, metrics, and governance.

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Exposure

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Holdout Group

Definition, experimental context, and practical decision considerations.

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Online Controlled Experiment

Architecture, randomization, telemetry, ramping, and safety checks.

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Randomization

Fair assignment, stable IDs, hashing, stratification, and diagnostics.

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Split Testing

Same-URL and split-URL methods, routing, SEO, performance, and implementation.

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Treatment Group

Intervention, variant, exposure, compliance, and treatment-effect analysis.

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Variant

How variants are designed, named, assigned, measured, and evaluated.

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Variation

Single changes, bundles, combinations, and clearer experimental learning.

Statistics

Statistical terms will be published with notation, formulas, worked examples, assumptions, and interpretation warnings.

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Alpha (α)

The false-positive threshold, why it is chosen before launch, and its link to power.

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Alpha Spending

How sequential tests allocate false-positive risk across planned interim looks.

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ANOVA

Comparing group means, interpreting the F-test, and when it fits multi-variant experiments.

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Average

The arithmetic mean, when it can mislead, and how to interpret average experiment metrics.

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Bayesian Inference

How priors and observed data produce posterior estimates for experiment decisions.

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Bayesian vs Frequentist

Different questions, outputs, priors, stopping, and practical choice.

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Bayes’ Theorem

The relationship between prior beliefs, new evidence, and updated probabilities.

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Bernoulli Distribution

The probability model for one binary outcome such as a conversion.

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Beta (β)

Type II error, its relationship to statistical power, and planning trade-offs.

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Beta Spending

Managing false-negative risk and futility boundaries in sequential designs.

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Bias

Sources of systematic error that can distort an experiment estimate or decision.

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Binary Metric

Defining and analyzing outcomes with two states, such as converted or not converted.

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Binomial Distribution

Success counts, assumptions, and why the distribution matters for conversion metrics.

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Binomial Metric

A metric based on successes and opportunities, with a clearly defined denominator.

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Bonferroni Correction

A conservative way to control false positives across multiple comparisons.

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Bootstrap

Resampling observed data to estimate uncertainty when analytic formulas are difficult.

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Causal Inference

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Causation

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Chi-Square Test

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Confidence Bound

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Confidence Interval

Formula intuition, uncertainty, width, and experiment reporting.

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Confidence Level

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Confidence Threshold

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Consistent Estimator

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Continuous Metric

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Correlation

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Credible Interval

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Descriptive Statistics

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Distribution

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Efficient Estimator

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Error-Spending Function

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Estimator

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Expected Loss

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Expected Uplift

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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External Validity

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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False Discovery Rate (FDR)

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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False Negative

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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False Negative Rate (FNR)

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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False Positive

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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False Positive Rate (FPR)

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Family-Wise Error Rate (FWER)

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Fisher’s Exact Test

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Frequentist Statistics

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Holm–Bonferroni Correction

Definition, assumptions, interpretation, and analysis context.

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Minimum Detectable Effect

Business value, sample-size trade-offs, and realistic MDE setting.

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P-value

Correct interpretation, null hypothesis, common misreadings, and examples.

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Statistical Power

Power, beta, sample size, MDE, and underpowered decisions.

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Statistical Significance

Evidence, practical significance, confidence, and decision boundaries.

Metrics

Metric pages will connect formulas to denominators, business outcomes, guardrails, and experiment use cases.

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Absolute Difference

The percentage-point change between variants and why it should accompany relative uplift.

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Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

The recurring subscription-revenue measure and its place in monetization decisions.

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Average Order Value (AOV)

Revenue per order, its formula, and ecommerce trade-offs beyond conversion.

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Average Revenue per User (ARPU)

Revenue normalized by users, denominator choices, and skewed-distribution pitfalls.

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Baseline Conversion Rate

The current conversion estimate used to plan sample size, MDE, and test duration.

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Bounce Rate

What a bounce measures, why tool definitions differ, and how to use it carefully.

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Churn Rate

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Click Rate

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Completion Rate

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Conversion

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Conversion Funnel

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Conversion Rate

User, session, funnel-step, and qualified conversion formulas.

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Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Customer Retention

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Delta

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Drop-off Rate

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Effect Size

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Engagement Rate

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Feature Adoption

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Funnel

Definition, calculation context, and use in experiment decisions.

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Guardrail Metric

Protecting performance, quality, trust, and long-term outcomes.

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LTV / CLV

Lifetime value, acquisition economics, and experiment trade-offs.

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Retention Rate

Cohorts, time windows, churn, and long-term experiment outcomes.

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Revenue per Visitor

Why conversion rate alone can mislead ecommerce decisions.

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Uplift

Absolute difference, relative uplift, percentage points, and business impact.

Design

Plan tests that can answer a useful question without creating avoidable validity risks.

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Adaptive Experimentation

Changing allocation or design as evidence arrives while preserving valid inference.

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Adaptive Sequential Design

Planned interim analyses and adaptations that maintain statistical guarantees.

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Always-Valid Inference

Methods designed for continuous monitoring without invalid optional stopping.

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Before-and-After Analysis

What change-over-time comparisons can show and why they rarely establish causality alone.

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Blocking

Grouping similar units before randomization to improve precision and balance.

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Cluster Randomized Experiment

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Cluster-Level Randomization

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Conversion Lift

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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CUPED

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Difference-in-Differences

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Experiment Duration

Business cycles, seasonality, novelty, and stopping rules.

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Factorial Design

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Fixed-Horizon Test

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Fractional Factorial Design

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Full Factorial Design

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Geo Experiment

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Geo Lift Test

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Group Sequential Design

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Heterogeneous Treatment Effect

Design choices, assumptions, and practical guidance for experiments.

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Hypothesis

How to write falsifiable, mechanism-based product hypotheses.

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Multiple Testing

Bonferroni, Holm, FDR, variants, metrics, and segments.

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Sample Size

Baseline, MDE, power, alpha, allocation, and duration.

Data quality

Checks that determine whether an experiment result can be trusted before it informs a decision.

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A/A Test for QA

A controlled check of assignment, exposure logging, metrics, and platform reliability.

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Aggregation

How rollups and analysis units can change a metric or obscure meaningful variation.

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Bot Traffic

How automated activity distorts metrics and consistent ways to detect or exclude it.

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Concurrent Experiments

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Data Drift

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Data Leakage

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Data Quality

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Data Validation

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Deduplication

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Denominator

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Eligibility

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Event

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Event Property

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Event Tracking

Event schemas, identity, properties, missingness, and governance.

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Experiment Overlap

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Experiment QA

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Exposure Bias

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Exposure Logging

Definition, diagnostics, and safeguards for trustworthy data.

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Instrumentation

Assignment, exposure, events, denominators, and data QA.

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Sample Ratio Mismatch

Expected versus observed allocation, chi-square checks, and root causes.

Implementation

The delivery and measurement foundations behind reliable product and web experiments.

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Anti-Flicker Script

Reducing visual flashes in client-side tests while managing page-performance costs.

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API Experimentation

Testing API behavior with appropriate assignment, exposure, and latency safeguards.

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Application Programming Interface (API)

The delivery contract behind systems that can be measured and experimented on.

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Asynchronous Loading

Non-blocking delivery, timing risks, and exposure gaps in web experiments.

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Audience Eligibility

Pre-treatment rules that define who belongs in an experiment denominator.

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Audience Targeting

Selecting an experiment population and documenting the scope of valid conclusions.

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Canary Release

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Client-Side Rendering (CSR)

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Client-Side Testing

Rendering, flicker, scripts, performance, and use cases.

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Custom Audience

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Data Layer

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Experiment Trigger

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Experimentation Platform

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Feature Flag

Delivery control, rollout, experiment support, and technical debt.

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Feature Toggle

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Flicker Effect

Technical context, delivery considerations, and experiment risks.

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Server-Side Testing

Architecture, consistency, latency, and backend experiments.

Product analytics

Concepts for understanding user behavior, product value, and the outcomes experiments are meant to improve.

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Activation

The meaningful value milestone that turns a new user into an engaged one.

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Activation Rate

Defining first value, activation events, and leading indicators.

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Active User

A user definition based on meaningful activity rather than a generic visit.

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Adoption Curve

How feature uptake develops over time and how to separate novelty from durable use.

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Behavioral Analytics

Using product events to understand actions, journeys, and experiment outcomes.

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Behavioral Cohort

Grouping people by shared actions to compare retention, conversion, or adoption.

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Behavioral Targeting

Targeting based on observed actions while accounting for privacy and experiment bias.

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Cohort Analysis

Behavioral cohorts, retention curves, and experiment segments.

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Customer Effort Score (CES)

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Customer Journey Analytics

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Daily Active Users (DAU)

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Engagement

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Event-Based Analytics

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Feature Rollout

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Growth Loop

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Heatmap

Definition, behavioral context, and product-analysis applications.

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Product Analytics

Events, users, features, funnels, cohorts, and product decisions.

Privacy

Responsible measurement concepts for experimentation, marketing, and product analytics.

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Anonymization

Removing or transforming identifiers, re-identification limits, and experiment-data use.

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Attribution

Source, touchpoints, causal experiments, and marketing measurement.

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Attribution Model

Rules for assigning credit across touchpoints and their limits for causal decisions.

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Consent Management

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Consent Management Platform (CMP)

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Consent Mode

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Customer Data Platform (CDP)

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Data Governance

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Data Minimization

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Data Residency

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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Data Sovereignty

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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First-Click Attribution

Definition, governance context, and responsible measurement considerations.

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First-Party Data

Consent-aware measurement, identity, and durable analytics.

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GDPR

Experimentation, analytics, consent, minimization, and lawful measurement.

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How this glossary is built

Definitions for quick clarity.
Guides for deeper decisions.

Each published term is an in-depth reference with definitions, examples, formulas where useful, limitations, FAQs, and related concepts. We add new articles in deliberate batches so the catalogue remains useful instead of becoming a directory of thin pages.