The 4 Most Important eCommerce Metrics You Should be Tracking

Metrics play a huge role in the success of an eCommerce store. They tell you everything you need to know about how your store is performing. By using this data, you can learn what you are doing right, and which areas you need to improve. But which metrics should you track, and how can you track them? Well, this article will take you through the most important metrics. There are so many that it is difficult to know which matter the most.

As for how to track your metrics, use Google analytics. We recommend using an eCommerce website builder for your website, as many of these will allow you to connect directly to Google analytics and track the metrics you need.

Once you have access to your metrics, the following are the ones you should pay the most attention to:

• Sale Conversions

Want to know the percentage of visitors who purchase at your eCommerce store? Then your sales conversion rate is the metric to track. If you had 2000 visitors to your store within a month and made 200 sales, your conversion rate is 10%. That rate is actually very high, so it is quite uncommon. Generally, most eCommerce stores will have a conversion rate between 2% and 3%.

There are tons of ways you can improve your conversion rate, so it is difficult to go into too much detail here. You need to find a way to convert your visitors into more sales. You could offer better value, increase the speed of your product pages, or use better quality images of your products.

• Website Traffic

Another key metric is how many people actually visit your eCommerce store. Common logic tells us that the more visitors you have, the more sales you will make. For example, if you had a conversion rate of 3% from 1000 people, that would equate to 30 sales. So, if you could double your website traffic to 2000, you should also double your sales to 60.

Increasing your website traffic takes work but is more than possible. Work on your SEO to improve your organic search rankings, build a following on social media, grow your email list and create email marketing strategies, for example.

• CLV or Your Customer Lifetime Value

The CLV metric is an interesting one as it tells you how much, on average, your customers order and spend at your eCommerce store. Let’s say you sell Nike sneakers, which average $80 a pair and your CLV is $80. This tells you that on average, most customers buy from your store once in their lifetime.

So, in the scenario above, do you focus more on finding new customers, or on turning your previous customers into repeat buyers? Probably a bit of both, but this is the value of this metric, as it shows you areas you might want to improve.

• Cart Abandonment Rate

We have all done it, added products to an online shopping cart and then left without buying them. The shopping cart abandonment rate is exactly that, the percentage of people that put items into their cart but do not go through with the purchase. It is actually very common for people to back out at the last hurdle. According to many studies, as many as 80% of us often abandon our carts.

It basically means that people show interest but are yet to make up their minds. Perhaps they place the items in the cart but go looking elsewhere to see if they can find something better, or the same product cheaper.

Even though it is common for people to abandon their carts, it doesn’t mean you should ignore it. Try to entice them back to their cart via email marketing campaigns or think about how to make the checkout process faster and easier at your store.

• Average Order Value

This metric is self-explanatory and tells you how much your customers spend per order, on average. Obviously, no matter how high this is, the aim of every eCommerce store should be to increase it. You could upsell additional items in the checkout which pair well with the product your customer is trying to buy, or offer a combined discount if a customer buys something additional. Another trick is to set a threshold on how much a customer needs to spend to get free shipping.

You will find many other strategies on how to improve this metric, so take a good look around, test them out, and see what works best for you.

Conclusion

Whether you want to try online selling smartphones, clothing, jewellery, or anything else, understanding which are the most important eCommerce metrics is vital. Of course, we have not covered all the available metrics as there are too many. However, we would definitely class the five above as some of the more important, and they should give you a decent enough starting point.