Important eCommerce Metrics You Should Track to Ensure Success

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Metric #1: Website Traffic Volume

Website Traffic Volume refers to the number of people visiting your website. It is perhaps one of the primary metrics when it comes to SEO. You can record it using a lot of tools, and is not difficult to keep track of.
Website Traffic Volume indicates the popularity of your website with your users. Here, higher numbers indicate better brand coverage. Of course, there are other aspects that you need to consider along with high traffic.

Metric #2: Website Traffic Source

Talking about other metrics, this is another one that gets linked with traffic volume. It shows where the web traffic originates from, and it is as important as the traffic volume. The reason is that when it comes to ranking, the source is crucial.
Getting a lot of traffic from a mediocre website won’t do your website any good. On the other hand, getting traffic from authority websites can be great for your eCommerce SEO.

Metric #3: Organic Acquisition Traffic

Organic Acquisition Traffic is essential to categorize your web traffic for easier understanding. It is nothing but the number of people who visit your website organically. Meaning, they do not click on ads to get to your website.
Organic Traffic Acquisition can help you assess the strength of your SEO campaign. It can also give you insights into traffic differences based on rankings.

Metric #4: Sales Conversion Rate

Sales conversions are the number of people who have bought a specific product. For many companies, this is one of the top KPIs in their SEO campaign. It is for a good reason because this directly influences their ROI. It also reflects the success of the whole SEO campaign.
The higher the conversions are, the better the SEO campaign is. Conversion rates depend heavily on the product or service. There is no fixed number for good conversions.

Metric #5: Email Click-through-rate

You can measure this as the number of people who clicked on the link inside the email. It can be an image, hyperlink, or a CTA. The higher this number is, the more successful your email strategy. It also gives you some idea of what people aren’t clicking so you can optimize that.
For example, let’s say your CTAs have more clicks than images. You might need to optimize your images or choose different ones. It can help A/B testing for your brand.

Metric #6: Email Opt-in Rate

Opt-ins are how many visitors subscribe to your email list on your website. If 250 people subscribe to your list out of 1000 visitors, your opt-in rate is 25%. The more people opt-in to your email list, the better are chances they become customers. It stands to reason that a high opt-in rate is desirable for any company.
To improve opt-in rates, you need to make it worth people’s time. That is where you can incentivize their efforts through contests or free downloadables. Here as well, there is no ‘good’ opt-in rate.

Metric #7: Time Spent On-Site

Time spent on site is the average time a visitor dwells on your website or page. The more time they spend on your website, the better are the chances you can sell. Also, people only spend time on your site if it is worth it.
The general rule was 15 seconds before they decided to click away. But these days, it’s a much shorter period. It is important to improve dwell time for your website. And if people are clicking away, it could mean something is wrong.

Metric #8: Pages Per Session

Pages Per Session is the number of pages a visitor views in a session. You can obtain this by calculating the number of pages viewed by the total number of sessions.
Like dwell time, this is a measure of how engaging your pages are to the reader. The more pages and time visitors spend on your website, the more revenue you make. Pages Per Session is especially relevant when you have Ads and affiliate marketing.

Metric #9: Impressions

Impressions are nothing but the number of times an advert or content piece is presented to a viewer. You can calculate these using social media platforms and third-party websites. It is anywhere where you can share content or display ads.
As a metric, a company has direct control of this. The number of impressions depends on the amount of budget allocated for advertising. You should also note that impressions are not the same as clicks.

Metric #10: Reach

Reach is the number of people who can see your content on a platform. It can be exclusive to a particular platform or even the web. And this includes your email list subscribers and people enrolled in loyalty programs. Although this is a simple metric, you have to work hard to improve it.
Consistent posting is one way to improve reach. You also need to share high-quality content with your feed. The better your reach is, the more effective your branding becomes.

Metric #11: Bounce Rate

The percentage of visitors who click away from your website is the bounce rate. It is critical for eCommerce because high bounce indicates various problems. These problems include improper web design.
Apart from these high load times, improper layout and navigation issues are also crucial. You should also focus on other technical issues like poor targeting and bad product placement.

Metric #12: Customer Engagement

The number of times your customers interact with your service/product is called engagement. It could be through multiple methods, including sharing, playing, liking, and buying.
Engagement is an important metric for eCommerce SEO and branding. Higher the engagement for the brand, more it is relevant to its audience. So it’s important to keep track of people visiting your webpage. Also, keep track of the people sharing your content across platforms. It can help brands find out how loyal their followers are.

Metric #13: Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost is the total cost involved in acquiring customers through your marketing funnel. While it was not popular earlier, now people use it more today.
With advancements in technology, you can track this more accurately today. It can give businesses an accurate view of their profitability.
For example, let’s take an area where you want to sell pool cleaners. On research, you find that a specific area does not have many people owning pools. It makes acquisition costs higher than profit. So, it makes CAC an effective part of the strategy.

Metric #14: Customer Lifetime Value

It is the ratio of the annual profit from the customer to the lifespan minus CAC. It can become a bit difficult to calculate. But it can give eCommerce businesses valuable insights into long-term relationships.
A high CLV also depends on your retention rate and discounts offered. For a business to turn a profit, the lifetime value needs to be high. And this is especially important for eCommerce businesses because most of them are in it for the long run.

Metric #15: Customer Retention Rate

It is nothing but the ability of a brand to keep its customers. Naturally, this needs to be high for a business. You also need to factor in the customers that you are losing to attrition. It is a metric that is directly affected by customer loyalty and satisfaction.

• You can get higher numbers by making your brand more engaging.
• You can do this by offering discounts and conducting contests.

The ultimate aim of any eCommerce brand is to lose fewer customers while gaining more.

Metric #16: Customer Survey Feedback

Customer survey refers to the data obtained through surveys run by the brand. And this is a critical part of your marketing pipeline. It can tell you what your customers are thinking about your brand.
Most brands find a lot of value in this because it is cost-effective. But you may have to spend some time sifting through the responses.
You can also have a multi-functional team as part of your social media operations. These members can address issues when people reach out on social media.

Metric #17: Average Order Value

Average Order Value is a metric that reflects the monetary value of the average order on your website. It is an invaluable tool for an eCommerce business as there are many product price variations on an eCommerce website.

• It helps to calculate the average costs involved in your orders.
• It gives you the right picture, despite price differences.
• It can help you improve your brand revenue, and
• It makes your business ROI-positive.

Metric #18: Add To Cart Rate

Add To Cart Rate denotes the number of items added to a cart by the average user on the eCommerce website. While this only came about in the last few years, it is an important metric nonetheless. This number can help you find out a few important things in your business.
For example, if you are getting the right audience. Or if the products you sell are up to your customer’s expectations. You can obtain this by the ratio of the number of cart sessions to the website sessions multiplied by 100.

Metric #19: Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

Like adding to the cart, abandonment also needs to be calculated. Abandonment refers to the item not being checked out for payment during a session. It happens to any eCommerce website and can hurt revenue.
There are several reasons why this happens to a customer.

• A popular reason is because of the high price or delivery fees.
• It can also include payment security issues or bad UI.

You need to divide the completed checkout by the total number of carts loaded to get the Abandonment Rate. Then multiply it by 100 to get the percentage.

Metric #20: Revenue By Traffic Source

Revenue By Traffic Source is categorizing the source of traffic on your website based on several factors. There are several channels through which an eCommerce website drives traffic. Some of them are searches, referrals, and social media.
You can use this data to calculate and optimize which channels give the best results for your brand. And based on this, you can customize your content and website to better match your channel. It can cut down wasteful effort on non-performing channels in your marketing pipeline.

Metric #21: Revenue On Advertising Spent

Revenue on ad spend is the amount of revenue you can generate per dollar. It lets you calculate how much you need to spend on ads to earn revenue. It is useful for forecasting long-term trends for your marketing funnel.
Revenue On Advertising Spent is a metric that you need to improve. Because higher revenue on ad spends means better ROI for eCommerce, it can help choose between the right advertising methods.

Metric #22: Email Open Rate

Email Open Rate is a simple but powerful metric used in email marketing. It is the ratio of emails opened to the total number of emails sent multiplied by 100.
As you can see, this highlights problems with your email marketing methods. It could be something as simple as a bad subject line. Or sometimes if the body is too long to be read quickly.
Email is an important part of the eCommerce marketing process. So, you need to make sure this number is high. Better copywriting can usually solve this problem.

Metric #23: Net Promoter Score

Net Promoter Score is a metric that has become popular in recent times. It is the percentage chance of how likely your customers are going to recommend your brand. You can usually collect these data via surveys by the brand.
These surveys are either run by third parties or in house. This process creates three categories - promoters, passives, and detractors.

• Promoters are people who score high.
• Detractors are people scoring low, and
• The rest are passives.

NPS is a percentage of the difference between detractors and promoters.

Metric #24: Average Profit Margin

Average Profit Margin is a straightforward metric that calculates a company’s average profits over a period of time.
You can calculate it by dividing the gross profit by total revenue. It is one of the earliest metrics, even in traditional marketing methods. But it has persevered so long, meaning it is one of the more important ones.
Average Profit Margin is crucial for eCommerce because of the nature of the business. There are so many expenses in the eCommerce market that people lose track of it. This metric helps keep expenses in focus.

Metric #25: Refund And Return Rate

Refund & Return Rate is perhaps one of the more popular metrics in eCommerce. The return rate is the number of returned products versus items sold. You cannot bring down the return rates to zero, but you can minimize it. Apart from the product’s quality;

• You need to look at the way of advertising it.
• Make sure that the right people are looking at it.
• Display reviews prominently, and
• Always ask for the reason for the return. It can help you find the root cause of the issue.

Metric #26: Support Rate

Support Rate tells brands how many people needed to talk to support before the purchase of a product. A high support rate is going to be a problem for you. It can tangle up your support lines and staff. It prevents people from actual problems from getting help.
To address this problem, you need to figure out what is missing on your product page. It could be anything from the wrong product model to missing important specifications. It’s a good idea to get feedback from the support staff to understand the problem.

Metric #27: Social Media Engagement

Social Media Engagement is the rate at which your social media platforms can generate engagement. It’s almost the same as the engagement metric but focused on the social media aspect. Again, it is important to have a higher number here.
The top eCommerce brands like Amazon, boast of really high social media numbers. To improve your numbers, opt for better eCommerce SEO. Also, influencers can help gain traction when it comes to engagement.

Metric #28: Blog Engagement

Here, instead of your social media account, the effort is focused on your blog. Blog engagement rates should be high enough for eCommerce to be successful.
Creating long-form content is good for branding and SEO. The key is to keep your blogs interesting enough for your audience. You can calculate it using the number of user interactions by the number of blogs published.

Metric #29: High-Value Product Categories

For an eCommerce business to be successful, it needs to identify its high-value products. As a metric, an eCommerce brand needs to have a lot of high-value products. It takes into account their future value to the customer as well.
Growing your high-value products can help get better ROI. There are also fewer problems with these products. Meaning the sales funnel is a lot smoother, and fewer customer support problems.

Metric #30: Micro To Macro Conversion Rate

The predetermined steps that occur before a sale is called a micro-conversion. As an example, you can classify the email collection and feedback analysis as micro conversions.
Macro conversions are actions that end in sales. The key for businesses is to convert these micro-conversions to macro conversions.
In other words, the better a business can convert processes into sales, the more profit they’ll make.

Metric #31: Repeat Customer Rate

A customer that has made more than one purchase from your eCommerce store is a repeat customer. This metric denotes how many of your total customers are repeat customers. It is the ratio of people who’ve made two or more purchases to the total number of purchases.
Repeat Customer Rate is heavily niche dependent, and so it might vary. For example, a company that sells coffee mugs might have higher repeat customers. You cannot compare this to a brand selling diamonds.

Metric #32: Subscription Rate

The subscription rate is the number of people who have opted for a service to pay repeatedly at regular intervals. It usually refers to email list subscriptions. But it can also mean other types of services.
Getting more people subscribed to your email list can build more clients. Bigger companies also offer a varied amount of services.
Giving people more services can get better subscription numbers over time. You can calculate it based on the number of subscribers to the total number of people.

Metric #33: Program Participation Rate

Ecommerce brands are always looking for an advantage over their competition. They’ve started offering advocacy and loyalty programs to their audience. You can calculate the number of people who have opted for this loyalty program using PPR.
The higher the metric, the more people are happy with your services. Make sure that there are benefits to joining your loyalty program. A good example of this is the Prime service through Amazon. A lot of people subscribe to this because they find it a good value.

Metric #34: Gross Margin

Gross margin is simply the sales minus cost of sold goods. It is a simple but critical metric. It is one of the key KPIs when it comes to eCommerce SEO. It is overlooked by smaller brands when focusing on more volume-oriented funnels.
Usually, an eCommerce brand operates between 25 - 50% gross margin. It depends on the goods and the brand, of course. The bigger brands can afford a lower gross margin because of the volumes they sell.

Metric #35: Device Type

With people gaining high-performance devices, eCommerce has a lot of exposure today. The result is that it needs to run on multiple platforms without problems—the device type metric deals with your audience’s type of device.
The key is to make sure that they have a consistent experience across devices. Also, it is important to track this because it can offer you important insights.
For example, let’s say there are a lot of people logging in from iPhones. You can analyze this data to find out why other platforms don’t have the same results.

Metric #36: Website Speed

Load time and page speed is a metric that has become pivotal for eCommerce these days. How fast a website can load for a user is directly connected to rankings. And therefore, this is one of the highest priority issues to set right.
Usually, Pages that load faster rank higher than the rest of the websites. It means web design has to be efficient and effective.
Customer expectations are higher than ever today. If load times exceed 10 seconds, they are more likely to click away. For an eCommerce website, getting this right should be high on their to-do list.

Metric #37: Review Recording And Analysis

Every eCommerce website has a mechanism to display reviews. But just that is not enough to get more business. You need to analyze reviews and find out how you can improve your product. Or get in touch with the sellers.
Reviews can give a brand lot of insights when dealing with a crisis. It can help remedy slow sales or refund issues. The key here is to make effective changes to the product line. It also helps to get in touch with the reviewers to find out more about their product issues.

Metric #38: Average Ticket Resolution Time

Ticket resolution time is the time taken between the creation and resolving of the issue. As an eCommerce brand, you will get tickets regardless of how good you are. It is just the nature of the business.
While every brand gets tickets, the key is to resolve them quickly. Amazon is a great example when it comes to ticket resolution. Their email response time is an hour or so, and they resolve most issues in 24 hours or shorter. It is one reason why their brand value is so high in the market.

Metric #39: Valid Email Collection Rate

Valid Email Collection Rate is the number of valid emails you can collect from your audience. It provides you a metric of how interested people are in your eCommerce service. It is especially difficult today because not everyone prefers to share their email.
You can use the data for several purposes on your website. It includes recovering lost orders, abandonment, and remarketing. Valid emails provide a lot of flexibility when it comes to client retention.

Metric #40: Onsite Activity Metrics

Activity metrics track what the user does after they log on to your eCommerce website. This metric can help you with many things. For example,

• It can show what they were looking at when they clicked away from your site.
• It can record their last visited product page.
• It can also record the products they clicked on.
• It highlights problem areas for an eCommerce website.

It can be hard to track with other methods. You can use this data to optimize the page further.

Metric #41: Spam Complaint Rate

Spam Complaint Rate is the number of spam complaints to the total emails sent out. Something that all eCommerce brands need to take care of is spam.
It is customary to send out informative emails to their audience. But, you should make sure that you do not overload their inbox. And once the users treat your emails as spam, it can be tough getting in touch with them because they’ve just shut down one mode of communication.

Metric #42: Referral Conversion Rate

RFC is the percentage of people who have been referred to and interact with your brand. It could be anything from purchase to signing up for a service. But most companies tend to think of this as a number of sales. So this gives us the equation, the number of sales divided by referred visitors multiplied by 100.
A low number here suggests that you have a few problems. Make it easier for people to refer to their friends and family. You also need to make sure to encourage referrals. An incentive goes a long way to getting motivation.

Metric #43: Early Repeat Rate

Another new-age metric refers to first time buyers who make an extra buy within a specified period. This metric is desirable for eCommerce websites as it reinforces purchase intent. It can help you with insights on how you can make your products more attractive to buyers.
You can reverse engineer this for your other services as well. It can help you build better marketing funnels and improve your eCommerce ROI.

Metric #44: Gross Profit

Gross profit is a metric that reflects the total profit your eCommerce company has made. You can calculate it by the total cost of goods sold minus the total number of sales.
The gross profit metric has been around for a long time. Even traditional marketing methods use this calculation.

• It gives you the true picture of your profit margins.
• It can help you regulate your processes accordingly.

A high gross profit means a healthy eCommerce business.

Metric #45: Cost Of Sold Goods

Cost of Sold Goods is a traditional metric - the cost of sold goods is an effective method to get reliable numbers.
You can calculate it by adding all the costs of creating your products or services. You should not include the cost of transportation to this as it only covers your end costs. It helps you find out if there are high costs involved with your goods. Focusing on these helps reduce overheads when it comes to product costs.

Metric #46: Customer Churn Rate

Something inevitable with any business is customer churn. And this effect is even more pronounced in the eCommerce domain. It is the number of people who have stopped using your services.
Retaining customers is the key to ensure long-term profitability for a business. Keeping customers is 6-7 times cheaper than getting a new one. But high customer churn reflects a problematic approach. The best method to solve this is to approach it systematically.

Metric #47: Customer Satisfaction Score

Perhaps one of the most important metrics today is the customer satisfaction score. Today, the customer satisfaction index has been dropping every year. The reason is that customers have more number of choices. And they are not happy with just buying mediocre products.
When you couple this with the choices available in the market, it has made customers discerning. Ecommerce brands will have to work extra hard to keep them happy. Improving product quality and customer service is a good start. Customer service is where most brands lack quality. ECommerce brands must succeed.

Metric #48: Pay Per Click Metrics

Pay per click ads has been around for as long as internet marketing has been. And eCommerce brands are still dependent on it. Here, the key is to make sure that you have all your PPC related metrics figured out.
PPC metrics include CPA, CTR, CPC, and Conversion Rate, to name a few. You need to calculate these specifically for your PPC campaign. Keeping track of all this can give you a substantial boost to your ROI.

Metric #49: Cost Per Conversion

Cost Per Conversion is a popular metric used in marketing circles for some time now. It deals with the expenses incurred to gain a conversion. It is different from the cost per click used in PPC advertising. It is the total cost of generating traffic divided by total conversions.
Cost Per Conversion metric can help you reduce costs from your marketing funnel. It can also help set the budget for a particular service.

Metric #50: Referral Sources

While getting a lot of referrals is good for your business, it should be from the right places. There are benefits to Categorizing your referral sources according to their quality. It can give a brand more insights about their brand value.
More eCommerce brands divide them based on their quality levels. It helps you gauge the kind of brands that they are associated with. You can use this data to leverage other brands to form partnerships with. Keeping track of sources can help reduce flat spots when it comes to ROI.