When it comes to launching your subscription business, there are tons of terms you’ll need to become familiar with. Every department, from procurement to customer support, has it’s own set of acronyms, formulas, and terms that when understood, help you better communicate your ideas and execute on operations.
This glossary should help you decode the terminology of subscription businesses. Confused about what a CRM is? Curious how to calculate LTV or ARPU? Find concise, accurate definitions all in one place, easily sortable by alphabetical order, department, or even formula.
The glossary focuses on common terms used across your subscription business:
- Marketing: Learn about things like customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, and niche.
- Customer Support: Common terminology used in customer support platforms.
- Procurement: Terms used when identifying, purchasing, and organizing product for your subscription box
- Operations/General: General business terms and commonly used in operational tasks
- Financial: Key financial terms and formulas, useful for cash planning and understanding the financial nature of subscription businesses
- Shipping: Useful terms to know when dealing with postage and organizing shipments
- Packaging: Includes definitions around custom packaging and product development
- Content: Online content oriented terms, including definitions relating to SEO and blogging
- Cratejoy Specific Terms: Quick definitions of some of the regular words you’ll see on your Cratejoy dashboard and throughout your store
| Word | Definition | Department | Formula |
| A/B Testing | Also called “split testing.” A/B testing is the process of comparing two different versions of a webpage to see which performs better. Both variants (A and B) are live, and are shown to visitors at the same time with the goal to determine the better conversion rate. | Marketing | |
| Active Subscriptions | All subscriptions that actively are shipped boxes and rebilled. | CJ Term | |
| ARPU | Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). A measurement of revenue in terms of subscribers in a given period of time. | Financial | Total Revenue / Number of Subscribers = APRU |
| Automation | Automations take action to modify ticket properties at a specified time after a ticket is updated. | Customer Support | |
| Average Daily Growth | The average rate at which you add customers. | Financial | |
| Average Duration | Average number of period customers stay subscribed to your business. | Financial | Duration = 1 / Churn |
| Average Subscription | Average # of days active for a subscriber. | CJ Term | |
| Best Practice | Best practices are procedures or actions that are considered the most effective or most correct way of doing things in a business or organization. | General | |
| Box Manufacturer | A third-party vendor who produces custom packaging for your subscription service. | Packaging | |
| Brand | A psychological and emotional understanding and perception of a company by customers. The “intangible sum of a product’s attributes.” | Marketing | |
| Bulk Process or Operation | An action that affect multiple orders or customers at once, such as marking shipments as shipped. | Operations | |
| Call to Action | Instruction to a viewer to perform some specific action, such as “Sign up” or “Join today” or “Share this post.” | Marketing | |
| Cancelled | Subscriptions that have been cancelled. Used in Cratejoy dashboard. | CJ Term | |
| Churn | Rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions each month. Also known as Attrition Rate. | Financial | |
| Closing the Box | Phrase used when monthly procurement and/or variations have been finalized. | Procurement | |
| CMS | An acronym for Content Management System. A platform to host and manage your website for non-technical users. Examples include Cratejoy (for subscriptions) and Word Press (for blogging). | General | |
| CoCA | Cost of Customer Acquisition (CoCA). Total cost to acquire a customer as a subscriber. | Marketing | CoCA = Marketing Costs / Total Customers Gained |
| COGS | Cost of Goods Sold (COGS). Sum of product cost and fulfillment cost. | Financial | Product Cost + Fulfillment Cost = COGS |
| Cohort | A related segment or group within an audience that are separated for analysis. | General | |
| Color Psychology | The study of how colors and hue affect human behavior and emotion. | Marketing | |
| Commission | A fee paid to a affiliate or advertiser, usually calculated in %s or flat rates (such as $5 commission per customer). | Marketing | |
| Conversion Rate | The rate at which consumers subscribe to your service once they hit a specific page. | Marketing | |
| Coupon | Any discount or code provided to customers for a special offer. | Marketing | |
| CRM | Stands for Customer Relationship Management. For procurement, a CRM is used to keep track of contacts and schedule emails/follow-ups to aid in product sourcing. | Procurement | |
| Culture | A set of behavior, actions, and beliefs that define a group of people or company. Can be used as “Company Culture,” which references the standards, mission, and best practices of a company. | General | |
| Curation | Curation is the process of carefully selecting products for your subscription box, traditionally around a monthly theme or focus. | Procurement | |
| Current | “Current” shipments are open shipments that require shipping for the current period. | Shipping | |
| Custom Domain | A unique domain or URL used for your website, such as “Example.com.” | General | |
| Customer Experience | Customer experience is the sum of the interactions between your company and your customer over the duration of your relationship. | General | |
| Customer Support Platform | A third-party service that provides a system to organize and execute customer relationship management tasks, like answering emails, phone calls, or other requests from customers. | Customer Support | |
| Cutoff date | The cutoff date is the last day for your customers to subscribe to your box. | Marketing | |
| Delivery Confirmation | A service provided by a shipping carrier that informs you of the time and date your package is delivered. | Shipping | |
| Expired | Subscriptions that have expired due to payment failing over a 10 day period. | CJ Term | |
| FAQ | An acronym for Frequently Asked Question. FAQ Pages help empower the customer by providing resources and answers to common customer inquiries. | Customer Support | |
| Financial Planning | A comprehensive review of a business’ financial state, including analysis of core financial metrics, like Cost of Goods, Average Revenue per User, and Churn or Attrition rate. | Financial | |
| Fulfillment Center | A third-party vendor who accepts deliveries and provides a workforce to package your products in your subscription box. | Fulfillment | |
| Fulfillment Cost | The total cost of packing and shipping a shipment to a customer. This includes postage and packing costs (ie. fulfillment center or labor). | Financial | Postage Cost + Packing Cost = Fulfillment Cost |
| Gamification | The act of gamifying or adding game-like elements to your business or a feature of your business. For example, providing tiers, points and/or prizes for referrals or product reviews provided by customers. | Marketing | |
| Gross Profit | Total profit after COGS is subtracted from your revenue. | Financial | Revenue – COGS = Gross Profit |
| KPI | An acronym for Key Performance Indicator. KPIs differ from department to department, and are core metrics that help define success or failure for operations. Examples include CoCA, Average Ticket Response Time, and Replacement/Damaged Box Rate. | General | |
| Launch Page | A single page used during a prelaunch campaign to gather presubscribers and early adopters. Usually contains a single call to action, like subscribing to a wait list. | Marketing | |
| Lean-Testing | Refers to the process of testing assumptions while maintaining the lowest possible cost to the business. | Marketing | |
| LTV | Lifetime Value (LTV). The gross revenue a customer generates over the life of their subscription. This is the average dollar amount a customer spends on your product over time. Average across customers for an average LTV (Sometimes referred to as Customer Lifetime Value, abbreviated as CLTV). | Financial | ARPU * Retention = LTV |
| Macro | A message and/or set of actions that is applied with a single click. | Customer Support | |
| Meme | An easily sharable or “mimic-able” piece of content, usually in the form of a photos, that spreads quickly on the internet. | Marketing | |
| Mission/Mission Statement | The formal values, aims and purpose of a company. The business goals and philosophy. | General | |
| Momentum | The force that keeps your growth moving forward and upward. Momentum describes the nature of the growth of your business – for example, more momentum means faster growth. | Marketing | |
| Net Profit | Total profit after working expenses not included in Gross Profit have been subtracted. (Sometimes referred to as Net Income, Net Earnings, or Bottom Line). | Financial | Gross Profit – All Other Expenses = Net Profit |
| Niche | A small, identifiable, and easily definable set of particular interests or needs. | Marketing | |
| Organic Traffic | Visitors who come to your website via search engines unpaid search results. | Marketing | |
| Past Due | Subscriptions where the most recent payment has failed. Used in Cratejoy dashboard. | CJ Term | |
| Payment Processor | A third-party assigned by a seller (you) to handle transactions from various channels, such as debit and credit cards. Cratejoy offers access to several of these processors. | Financial | |
| Period Churned Customer | Number of customers lost during a specific period. Includes Cancellations and Expired subscriptions. | Financial | |
| Period Total Active Subscribers | Total number of subscribers that were active during a specific period of time. | Financial | |
| Positioning | Where your product stands in the market and in the mind of the consumer in relation to other brands. |
Marketing | |
| Power Editor | A ad campaign and ad set manager used in Facebook advertising. | Marketing | |
| Prelaunch | The early phase of launching a product, before it reaches market. Involves beta-testing and consumer feedback to sure-up product offerings. | Marketing | |
| Price Sensitivity | How the price of a product affects consumers’ purchasing behaviors. Differ from product to product and from consumer to consumer. | Marketing | |
| Printing Die/Die Cut | A large cutting tool used to shape your packaging from a sheet of cardboard. | Packaging | |
| Printing Plate | Used to transfer images onto paper or cardboard. Similar to a large rubber stamp. | Packaging | |
| Procurement | The operation of sourcing, purchasing, and ordering products to be included in your subscription box. | Procurement | |
| Product Cost | The total cost of all products in a shipment to your customers. Includes cost of products, tissue paper, and any additional inserts. | Financial | |
| Rebilling | Rebilling is the practice of renewing active subscribers on a set time table. Your monthly “rebilling” is the date at which your renew all your subscribers. | General | |
| Referral | The action of acquiring new customers through referrals made by existing customers or brand evangelists, usually through word of mouth. Relates to Customer Referrals and Referral Programs. | Marketing | |
| Retained Profit | The profit you make every month from the subscribers you’ve already acquired. This is the profit realized from your built in subscriber base. | Financial | |
| Retention | Rate at which customers remain active with subscriptions on a monthly basis. | Financial | |
| SEO | An acronym for Search Engine Optimization. Related to strategies and methods to increase the amount your website is seen on search engines “organic” and unpaid search results. | Content | |
| Shipment | Any order that requires shipping to a customer. | Shipping | |
| Shipped | A shipment that has been successfully shipped to a customer. | Shipping | |
| Skipped | Subscribers that have skipped their upcoming renewal date. Used in Cratejoy dashboard. | CJ Term | |
| Social Marketing | Using social media to market your product or service to potential customers. Included normal activities on social media as well as paid advertising and sponsored posts. | Marketing | |
| Social Presence | A brand or company’s activity on social media, including how often they post, interact with users, and proactively make touches via social tools (likes, follows, etc). | Social Media | |
| Subscribe Flow | The subscribe flow is the steps by which customers become subscribers. It is the process that leads to a completed sign up, marked by first experience, investigation, and ultimately subscribing. | Marketing | |
| Target Audience | A specific group of people served by a product or service. The intended group targeted by marketing campaigns. Also called Target Customer. | Marketing | |
| Template | A file or document that serves as a starting point for new projects. These include premade work or formatting that helps reduce workload overtime. | Design | |
| Ticket | An email that is managed via a Customer Support Platform. | Customer Support | |
| Transactional Email | Transactional emails are based on specific actions (or inaction) taken by the customer, and are usually automatic and not ‘bulk’ type messages. | Marketing | |
| Trigger | Triggers automatically perform and action when a ticket is created or a ticket status updated. | Customer Support | |
| Value Proposition | A promise or selling point used with vendors or consumers. | Marketing | |
| Variations | Variations are different builds for your subscription box, defined by different products. For example, you may offer one subscription plan, but provide variations in products, where subscribers received different items in their boxes. | Procurement | |
| Vendor | A third-party who provides goods for your subscription box. | Procurement | |
| View | A filtered collection of tickets based on specific parameters set by the users. For example, views may illustrate tickets of certain age, type, tag, or assigned agent. | Customer Support |
