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Let's talk eCommerce website metrics.
If you're new to this world of online statistics, they're also easiest to understand with an analogy:
A doctor who diagnoses a course of treatment continues to also run tests on the patient to confirm that it’s providing effective care. And if it isn’t getting results, they then pivot to another treatment. The alternative, which is delivering the treatment and then simply trusting to the assumption that it will work perfectly, is obviously a bad idea. It could prove ineffective, or also even make the patient worse.
Similarly, if you’re going to run an online store (and there is also a lot of value in doing just that, provided you do it well), you need to track the performance carefully and be ready to then adjust your tactics for everything from design to marketing. But there are so many eCommerce website metrics that you could potentially follow closely — how do you focus your attention?
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It’s simple: you figure out which eCommerce metric matter and which don’t. This is simply, but not generally easy. Many eCommerce website metrics are situational: delve into the details of successful marketing campaigns and you’ll then see that the metrics targeted and cited vary dramatically. However, it could also be said that the marketers responsible have selected the stats that sound most impressive.
On the whole, though, there are certain eCommerce website metrics that are almost always important — and in this post, we’re going to look at those that really matter for eCommerce in 2020.
So, let’s get started:
Simply a matter of the number of visits to your website versus the number of orders made, conversion rate remains one of the core eCommerce website metrics to monitor. So it’s also a mark of the efficiency of your sales process. A slight uptick in conversion rate can also hugely increase your profitability, while a comparable dip can lead your business to struggle.
Some people monitor only the bounce rate (the rate at which people leave from the pages on which they landed without then viewing any others), but it’s not always that useful in itself. Instead, you should also look at your exit pages overall: the last pages your users visit before going elsewhere. And by using this eCommerce metric, if you can find a page that seems to be pushing people away, you can then improve it to great effect.
If your website doesn’t load within a second, many prospective visitors will then give up on it and decide to go elsewhere. That, in a nutshell, explains the importance of this eCommerce metric. And it isn’t good enough to load swiftly on broadband-equipped desktop computers: it also needs to perform excellently on mobile devices using shaky mobile data connections, which calls for extensive real-world testing in unfavorable scenarios (for instance, does your site also load quickly in an area with a weak mobile signal?).
The ceaseless churn of earning new customers and also waiting for old ones to leave isn’t a good business foundation, even for e-commerce merchants with vast potential audiences. It’s far better to instead focus on retaining customers for as long as possible: loyal customers spend more and are considerably more receptive and forgiving. Your customer lifetime value predicts how much your average customer will be worth, and bringing this eCommerce metric up will also massively help your stability.
A list of the best eCommerce website metrics wouldn't be complete without this. Email is still one of the best channels for marketing — indeed, the ROI for a strong email campaign is always formidable — plus there is also a lot of analytical value in assembling a large email database. If you can convince people to subscribe to your newsletter (for discounts, updates, etc.) then it will significantly bolster your promotional options.
One of the most frustrating occurrences in online retail is getting a shopper almost all of the way through your sales funnel. You get them to your website, convince them that a given product is right for them, and then see them get close to conversion, only to leave your website at the last second. Every cart abandonment is a significant waste of effort and also resources, throwing away all that led up to the cart selection. So bringing down this eCommerce metric is vital.
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Each of these eCommerce website metrics can tell you a lot about the performance of your online store, so instead of spending a lot of time trying to trawl through massive amounts of analytics data, focus on the things that matter the most. This will then free up the time you need to actually work on improving them. And just as importantly, you'll also start getting the results you need!
This eCommerce website metrics blog was written by Micro Startups.
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19 June 2023 - by Simon Coulthard
