There is a great deal of data available to e-commerce store owners.
The number of sales by day, week and month. Average value of all items purchased. Cart abandonment. Purchase prices in detail. Withdrawals from the conversion path – on and on the list.
But, you don’t want to get lost in the depths of the information available to you.
These 7 ecommerce metrics will make tracking your store’s success seamless.
1. Sales conversion rate
Your ecommerce sales conversion rate is, simply put, the percentage of people who visit your online store or page who make a purchase.
To calculate your conversion rate, use the following formula:
So, if 1,000 people visit your store this week and only 10 people make a purchase, your conversion rate for that week will be 1%.
Obviously, you want the highest possible conversion rate.
But the truth is, the average US ecommerce conversion rate is much lower than you might think – between 2% and 3%.
to me WordStreamHowever, you may do better with Google Shopping ads.
Screenshot from WordStream, June 2022Now, for the big question: How can I improve my conversion rate?
This is a huge topic in and of itself, but some of the things you can try include:
- Speed up your product pages.
- Upload high quality images of your products.
- Refine your product listings with keywords.
2. Web traffic
Once you’ve tracked and optimized your conversion rate, you can then look at bringing more people to your ecommerce store.
This is where site traffic measurement comes in.
Let’s go back to your conversion rate of 1%, or 10 purchases per 1,000 visits. After optimization, let’s say this rate increases to 5% – 50 sales per 1000 visitors.
We can then conclude that if you were to get 10,000 people to visit your site, you would multiply your sales tenfold.
This isn’t a guarantee, of course, but it’s nonetheless important to make sure people know about your online store or page to increase the likelihood of more sales.
To grow traffic on your website, you can:
- Promote your offers on social media.
- Optimize your website/store for search engines.
- Increase the number of people who subscribe to your newsletter.
3. Email subscription rate
Even in today’s age of social media, email marketing is still one of the most important ecommerce tools, especially when it comes to remarketing and generating repeat business.
Based on more than 3.2 billion sessions, Sumo places the average email signup rate at 1.95%.
Similar to website traffic, the idea is to get as many people on your email list as possible, even if they don’t necessarily buy your products right away.
But, unlike regular website/page visitors, people who subscribe to your newsletter are interested enough in your brand to get updates about your products and services. This means that they are also more likely to become paying customers in the near future.
One way to get people to sign up for your emails is to offer something of value in exchange for your audience’s email addresses and contact information.
For example, you could offer an exclusive deal (eg, a voucher or code) to first-time subscribers on their next purchase.
According to the Director of the Marketing Association (DMA), 2019 Email Marketer Report It revealed that for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42.
4. Customer lifetime value
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) measures the total amount of what you earn from the average customer over its lifetime.
For example, if a typical customer made six transactions, each worth $30, over their lifetime, your CLV would be $180.
Note that you must still deduct your purchase costs from this number, which brings us to our next point.
Your CLV is important because it serves as a benchmark for how much you can spend to acquire customers and how long you have to spend to keep them.
To increase the CLV of your online store, you can work on improving average order value (more on this later) and creating loyalty among your existing customers so that they become repeat buyers.
5. The average value of the order
Obviously, you want your customers to spend as much as possible on your online store.
As the name suggests, average order value refers to the average value of each purchase made in your store.
To calculate your sales value, simply divide the total value of all sales by the number of shopping carts.
Tracking average order value allows you to set benchmarks and see how to get people to spend more on each purchase they make.
Here are some ways to move up this metric:
- Sell complementary items that improve the usability of their base purchase.
- Offer products as a bundle so customers get a small discount on each item instead of buying them separately.
- Offer free shipping on purchases over a certain threshold to entice customers to double their spending.
6. Customer acquisition cost
While growing your customer base is obviously important, it’s also only half of the equation.
If you spend an average of $30 to get each customer but the average order value is only $25, then your business is still operating at a loss.
This is where customer acquisition cost (CAC) measurement comes in.
CAC tracks the average cost of acquiring a single customer, including everything from marketing and sales costs to the cost of paying your employees and hosting your site.
This will give you a total number, but you can also calculate CAC by source (for example, different traffic channels like search engines, social media, or email lists).
To drop your CAC, you can:
- Improve your conversion rate.
- Optimize your ads to reduce spend per lead.
- Invest in organic/organic marketing such as search engine optimization and social media marketing.
- Invest in referral marketing to encourage existing customers to attract new ones.
7. Cart abandonment rate
This metric indicates the percentage of shoppers who add products to their cart but eventually leave your store without completing their purchase.
These are shoppers who are considering a purchase but haven’t made up their minds yet.
Cart abandonment is more common than you might think.
According to the Baymard Institute, 69.82% of shoppers abandoning their carts.
Even if your abandonment rate is roughly equal to this benchmark, it’s a good idea to do everything you can to improve it.
- Simplify the shopping experience, especially the payment process, so that customers can shop seamlessly.
- Use remarketing to bring hesitant shoppers back to your store. This can include targeted ads and follow-up emails.
Final thoughts
Don’t let the information weigh you down.
Follow these 7 ecommerce metrics to keep your head above water and stay on top of your entire business.
More resources:
- 21 must-have features for e-commerce websites
- SEO for Ecommerce Websites: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Ecommerce Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
Featured image: OPOLJA/Shutterstock
Published Images #1, 3, and 4: Paolo Bobetta/Search Engine Journal
