Metrics glossary

Understand the contact, matter, revenue, advertising, funnel, and return metrics used across Superpractice.

How to use this glossary

The same word can mean different things in an advertising platform, a CRM, and a revenue report. Before comparing two numbers, check:

the selected date range
the date each report groups records by
the active filters
the attribution source
the denominator

A metric without enough data may appear as an em dash rather than zero.

People and funnel

Metric	Meaning in Superpractice
Contact	A person or organization record. A contact is not automatically a qualified lead or client.
Lead	A contact created in the selected period that has a source. See What counts as a lead.
Meeting booked	A scheduled meeting associated with the reporting period and available meeting data. It does not necessarily mean the person attended.
Matter created	A matter record whose creation date falls in the selected period.
Retained matter	A matter moved to a retained or won outcome with the relevant retained date and value. A close date entered as a day counts on that day, so a matter closed on the 1st is in that month. A close with a time counts on its day in the firm's time zone.
Retained client	A distinct contact with at least one retained matter. One client can retain the firm for more than one matter.
Client	A contact with a retained matter, a payment that went through, or the status Converted, or one someone marked with the Client switch. Once a client, always a client, unless someone turns the switch off. See Clients. Check the view's label because some geographic reports let you switch between all contacts and clients.
New clients	Contacts who became clients in the period, by a first retained matter, a payment, or being marked converted or client. Returning clients aren't counted. A client since the 1st is counted in that month.

What counts as a lead

Every dashboard, report, and the AI assistant (typed or spoken) count leads the same way.

A lead is a contact that:

was created in the selected period, using your firm's timezone to decide where each day starts and ends
has a source, meaning Superpractice recorded where the contact first came from

Each lead is counted once, under the channel of its first recorded source.

Question	Answer
Are spam contacts counted?	Yes. A lead is counted on the day it arrives, whatever its status becomes later.
Are disqualified contacts counted?	Yes, except in Sales Intelligence, which leaves disqualified contacts out of its lead figures.
Is a contact with no source counted?	No. A contact with no recorded source, such as an existing client synced from another system, is not a lead.
Do advertising platforms' own lead numbers change the count?	No. Leads from Meta Ads, Google Ads, and every other channel are the contacts in Superpractice with that source. A platform's reported conversions appear separately as platform conversions.
Why does “Today” equal “Month to date” on the 1st?	Both cover the same day, so they show the same count. “Today” compares with the day before.

Channels

Each lead belongs to one channel, based on its first source.

Channel	Leads whose first source was
Google Ads	A Google search or display ad
Google LSA	A Google Local Services ad
Meta Ads	A Facebook or Instagram ad
OpenAI Ads	An ad in ChatGPT
Microsoft Ads	A Microsoft Advertising (Bing) ad
Organic SEO	An unpaid search result
Google Business	Your Google Business Profile or Google Maps listing
Referral	A link on another website
Email	A link in an email
Social	An unpaid social media post or profile
AI	An AI assistant or AI search result
Direct	No referring site or campaign was recorded
Other	A source that does not fit the channels above
Unknown	A source was recorded but could not be identified

Revenue and pipeline

Metric	Meaning
Revenue retained	The value recorded for retained matters in the selected period. This is not necessarily cash collected.
New matter revenue	Retained matter value attributed to newly retained work in the period.
New matter value	The value of matters created in the period, whether or not all have been retained.
Pipeline value	The value of open opportunities or matters still capable of closing.
Average matter value	Revenue or value divided by the qualifying matters in that view. Check whether the view uses created or retained matters.
Median time to close	Half your new clients sign within this many days of first contact; cycles over a year are left out. First contact is the earliest of the contact, the matter, the first marketing touch and the first booked meeting. Each client counts once (their first retained matter), and it needs at least 5 new clients in the window.
Forecast	A planning estimate based on available pipeline and performance information. It is not booked revenue.
Goal progress	Actual retained revenue recorded against the configured goal for the period.

When a matter has service line items, their price multiplied by quantity supplies the detailed matter value. Keep those items, the matter stage, and the close date current.

Advertising delivery

Metric	Meaning
Impressions	The number of times the advertising platform says an ad was shown.
Clicks	The number of ad clicks reported by the platform.
Click-through rate (CTR)	Clicks divided by impressions.
Cost per click (CPC)	Spend divided by clicks.
Platform conversion	A conversion reported by the advertising platform according to that account's conversion setup. It is not automatically a retained client.
Spend	Advertising cost reported for the selected account and period.
Budget pacing	How actual spend compares with the budget and elapsed portion of the period.

Acquisition cost

Metric	Typical calculation
Cost per contact	On the Home dashboard: all ad spend in the selected period divided by every new contact in it
Cost per lead	For one channel or campaign: its spend in the selected period divided by its leads
Cost per meeting	Spend divided by attributed booked meetings
Cost per retained matter	Spend divided by attributed retained matters
Client Acquisition Cost (CAC)	Spend divided by attributed retained clients
Cost per acquisition (CPA)	Spend divided by the acquisition outcome named in that view; check whether it means a platform conversion, contact, or retained result

Costs become more volatile when the denominator is small. An em dash commonly means there was no valid denominator.

Conversion and return

Metric	Meaning
Conversion rate	The next-stage count divided by the prior or starting-stage count shown in that funnel. Read the labels to identify the denominator.
Close rate	Retained outcomes divided by the qualifying opportunities in that view.
Show rate	Attended meetings divided by meetings included in the view.
Return on ad spend (ROAS)	Attributed retained revenue divided by advertising spend.
LTV ROAS	The clients a channel or campaign brought in during the period, each at what they have paid so far grown by how much more your firm's recent clients kept paying over 3 years, divided by spend. Repeat work from earlier clients counts in ROAS, not here. A projection, not money collected.
New client LTV	On the ad dashboards' practice-area tables: the period's new clients who signed work in that area, each valued the same way as LTV ROAS, averaged. A client who signed in two areas is split between them. A value you save under Settings > Data Model is used when it is higher than what the client has paid.
Prior-period change	The current period compared with the immediately preceding period of equivalent length unless the view states otherwise.

Immediate ROAS answers what retained value is visible now. LTV ROAS answers what the period's spend brought in over the client relationship. It comes from your firm's own history, or from the values you set under Settings > Data Model. It can be lower than ROAS when most of a period's revenue came from returning clients. Don't treat it as cash already collected.

Channel and attribution terms

Term	Meaning
Channel	A broad source category such as Google Ads, Meta Ads, organic search, or referral.
Campaign	The marketing campaign associated with a touchpoint or advertising record.
Attribution	The connection between a contact or business outcome and the marketing source credited in the report.
Practice-area performance	Spend grouped by your campaign mappings, with matters, clients, New client LTV, and revenue grouped by the work clients signed. Those can be different clients, so practice areas show no CAC or ROAS.
Uncategorized spend	Spend that cannot yet be placed in the intended practice-area category, often because mapping is missing.

Attribution reports answer the question defined by that report. They may differ from an advertising platform because the systems use different events, dates, identity matches, and reporting windows.

Operating metrics

Metric	Meaning
Response time	The elapsed time between an incoming lead or activity and the qualifying response recorded by the product.
Sales velocity	How quickly and efficiently qualifying pipeline progresses toward retained revenue.
Pending pipeline	Open matters or opportunities grouped for follow-up and planning.
Operating P&L in Rainmaker	Retained revenue less reported advertising spend for the selected view. It is not the firm's accounting profit-and-loss statement.
Client sentiment	A meeting-analysis indicator for the client side of analyzed meetings; use it for review and coaching, not as a factual statement about a person's intent.
Host talk time	The portion of an analyzed meeting attributed to the host speaking.
Process adherence	A meeting-analysis indicator showing how consistently the expected meeting process appeared in eligible analyzed meetings.

Why two screens may show different numbers

Differences are often legitimate. Check whether the screens:

use different date fields, such as contact created date versus matter retained date
count people, matters, meetings, or platform conversions
use different attribution windows
include different channels, owners, clients, or practice areas
use synced platform data that has not finished updating
count distinct clients versus every retained matter

For a durable correction, update the underlying contact, matter, meeting, service, or mapping. Do not change a record solely to make two unrelated denominators match.