BI & Analytics Vocabulary
Master the language of dashboards, metrics frameworks, funnels, and attribution — essential for data analysts, PMs, and anyone who presents data to stakeholders.
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Exercise 1 of 5
Multiple choice
The head of product says: "We track dozens of KPIs, but leadership wants us to align every team around a single metric that best captures the value we deliver to customers — something like 'weekly active users who complete a core action'."
What term describes this single unifying metric?
A north star metric is the single metric a company uses to focus the whole organisation on the core value delivered to customers. KPIs are broader measurements; guardrail metrics set safety boundaries; lagging indicators measure past outcomes.
Exercise 2 of 5
Fill in the blank
The analyst explains: "Daily sign-ups tell us what is happening right now and help us predict future revenue — that makes sign-ups a _______ indicator, whereas monthly revenue itself is a _______ indicator because it reflects past activity."
A leading indicator predicts future outcomes (e.g. sign-ups, feature adoption). A lagging indicator confirms what has already happened (e.g. monthly revenue, annual churn). Good metrics frameworks combine both.
Exercise 3 of 5
Multiple choice
The growth team reviews a report: "We have 10,000 users visit the pricing page, 2,000 start the checkout, but only 400 complete the purchase. The biggest drop-off is between checkout start and payment confirmation. We need to run experiments to improve that step."
What practice describes systematically improving the percentage of users who complete each step?
CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) is the practice of increasing the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action. The scenario shows a classic funnel (pricing → checkout → payment) with a large drop-off at the final step. The conversion rate here is 400 / 10,000 = 4%.
Exercise 4 of 5
Definition match
A user sees a Facebook ad on Monday, clicks a Google search ad on Wednesday, and buys on Friday after clicking an email link. Which attribution model gives all credit for the sale to the Facebook ad?
First-touch attribution assigns 100% of the conversion credit to the first touchpoint (Facebook ad). Last-touch would credit the email. Multi-touch (including linear) distributes credit across all touchpoints. Each model tells a different story about which channels drive value.
Exercise 5 of 5
Multiple choice
The data analyst presents to the board: "I'd like to walk you through the dashboard. As you can see here, our D1 retention dropped from 42% to 36% last month, which is driving up churn. If we look at the cohort of users who signed up in April, they show stronger D7 numbers — 28% versus the 21% we saw in March. This suggests the onboarding changes we shipped in late March are working."
What does "D7 retention of 28%" mean in this context?
D7 retention measures what percentage of users from a given cohort are still active exactly 7 days after their first session. D1, D7, and D30 are standard checkpoints. High D1 with falling D7 suggests users return once but do not form a habit. Churn rate is the inverse — the proportion who stop using the product over a period.
Results
Vocabulary Reference
Key BI & Analytics terms used in this exercise and in day-to-day data work.
- KPI (Key Performance Indicator)
- A quantifiable measure used to evaluate progress towards a business objective. Teams track multiple KPIs; not every metric is a KPI.
- North star metric
- The single metric that best captures the core value a product delivers to customers, used to align the whole organisation around one goal.
- Guardrail metric
- A metric set as a boundary condition — an experiment may optimise its primary metric only as long as guardrail metrics (e.g. latency, error rate) do not degrade beyond an acceptable threshold.
- Leading / lagging indicator
- A leading indicator predicts future outcomes (e.g. sign-ups, feature adoption rate). A lagging indicator confirms past results (e.g. quarterly revenue, annual churn).
- Cohort
- A group of users who share a common characteristic within a defined time period — typically the week or month they first signed up. Cohort analysis tracks how behaviour changes over time for that group.
- D1 / D7 / D30 retention
- The percentage of users from a cohort who are still active on day 1, 7, or 30 after their first session. Standard benchmarks for measuring product stickiness and habit formation.
- Churn rate
- The proportion of users or customers who stop using a product within a given period. High churn undermines growth — acquiring new users cannot compensate for losing existing ones.
- Funnel & drop-off
- A funnel maps the sequential steps users take towards a goal (e.g. visit → sign up → activate → pay). Drop-off is the percentage of users who leave the funnel at a given step.
- Conversion rate & CRO
- Conversion rate is the percentage of users who complete a desired action. CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) is the practice of running experiments and UX improvements to increase that percentage.
- Attribution (first-touch, last-touch, multi-touch)
- Attribution assigns credit to marketing touchpoints for a conversion. First-touch credits the first interaction; last-touch credits the final one; multi-touch distributes credit across all touchpoints in the customer journey.