A shared funnel vocabulary across marketing and ops
Disputes about “conversion” often hide mismatched definitions. Align the words before you argue about the numbers.
Marketing may count a conversion as any lead form. Merchandising may count an add-to-cart. Finance counts paid orders net of cancellation. Without a glossary pinned to the funnel map, every weekly meeting becomes a translation exercise.
We keep a one-page vocabulary for each engagement: session, product view, add-to-cart, checkout start, payment success, fulfilled order, and returned order. Each term includes the system of record and any exclusions such as test orders or staff purchases.
Post the glossary next to the chart. When someone says conversion rose, they must point to the step. This habit shortens briefings and keeps cohort retention discussions from drifting into vanity metrics.
In Ho Chi Minh City retail teams that also sell on marketplaces, add channel tags to the same vocabulary. A “paid order” on the own site is not identical to a marketplace order that can still be cancelled by the buyer within a cooling period. Naming the difference early prevents false celebration in sales performance reviews.