Fishhook has created a guide to give you some quick insight into digital metrics and what they mean for you and your church.

Every field has its own language and terminology to go along with it, whether we realize it or not. Sports bring us terms like, “goaltending” and “offsides”. Government throws around words such as, “legislature” and “filibuster”.

And the medical world will pepper us with phrases such as, “intravenous” or “sutures” ... let’s try and avoid those last ones if we can.

Now, we may be able to infer what some of these terms mean, but it would be difficult to fully understand without the help of someone from the inside. We often need someone to teach us the language in a simple, relatable way so we can understand without years of schooling or watching ESPN and C-SPAN 24/7.

And that’s what Fishhook is here for! 

Today, we’re unpacking some common digital analytics terms you might hear and what you need to understand about them to have good conversations..

So, without further ado, let’s start defining some terminology! 

Website Analytics

Here are some common terms in web analytics and what they mean.

  • Sessions or Visits - quantity of people that have visited your site.
  • Traffic - number of visits your website gets over a given time period (weekly, monthly, annually or over the course of a campaign).
  • Page views - the amount of views a single web page receives, a single user could account for multiple views if they revisit a page.
  • Bounce rate - someone visits your website and leaves after viewing just one page, with a lower percentage being better. This correlates to the lack of a clear next step.
  • Source - how someone found your website, including Google, social media, email, etc.
  • Entrances - number of users that got on your site from a specific page. It’s the page they start their user journey on!
  • New user - user not recognized as previously visiting your site from a specific device.
  • Returning user - user who has engaged with your site previously from a specific device.
  • Session duration - length of time a user was active on your site.

Social Analytics

Social media has its own terminology as well! Let’s dive into some important ones.

  • Reach - the number of people who saw your content.
  • Impression - the number of times your content was seen. A single person could account for multiple impressions if they saw your post more than once.
  • Engagements - amount of likes, comments and shares content received. This can vary based on the platform.
  • Click-through rate - the rate at which users clicked a link in your social content (typically, to your website).
  • Followers - refers to the number of people who “like” or “follow” your page. 

Don’t be afraid to ask questions!

Hopefully this quick guide empowers you in any digital analytics conversation. While you don’t need to be an expert to ask good questions and have good conversations, an understanding of the language can certainly help! 

While these terms and analytics can seem un-churchy, they exist to reflect your people’s activity and engagement online. So, it’s important to know what’s working and what isn’t so you can meet them where they are! 

Now that you've got the basics down, check out this article on social media strategy. Data helps inform an effective strategy, so let's use our time and resources wisely!