You
know that it's important to monitor the performance of your store,
using solid, reliable data. But what's the best way to do it? Which
numbers are really important? Everywhere you look, there are metrics,
charts, facts and figures, and you'd probably drive yourself crazy
trying to track everything
-
so which ones are the 'key' key performance indicators, the ones that
you can't afford to miss out on measuring? Here are the 5 we'd plump
for above all others...
Conversion
Rate
Conversion
rate refers, very simply, to the proportion of your visitors who take
the action you want
them
to. Whether it's signing up for your newsletter, downloading a file,
creating an account, or – most commonly for us Ecommerce people –
buying your products.
This is a vitally important metric because it reflects
on the practicality of your page – how easy is it for customers to
find what they're looking for? How many 'get what they came for?'
Generating traffic is hard work – how much of that traffic is being
capitalised on?
Of course, 'conversion rate' alone – however useful –
is just one number. Digging slightly deeper, it'll also help to
consider stuff like:
-
Bounce rate – the percentage of people who leave
after viewing a single page
-
Exit rate – each page has an 'exit rate' which is the
number of people who leave after viewing that page
-
Average time on site – how long the user's spending
on your site
-
Average page views – how many pages they're viewing
before leaving.
Evaluating
these factors means you not only build an accurate picture of your
conversion rate – you can build an understanding of why visitors
aren't
converting, which helps you address those areas of weakness.
Remember,
conversion rate can always be better, so while you can use benchmarks
to judge your performance, follow the old saying; just try to be
better than you
were yesterday!
Cart
Abandonment
Cart abandonment rates are enough
to give many Ecommerce merchants nightmares; you've attracted a
potential customer to your store, sold them on a product sufficiently
for them to add it to their basket – only for them to quit the
process without completing their purchase. It's pretty frustrating
when you stop to think about it!
But
abandoned carts may actually be more common than you think. A number
of different studies have been carried out into the percentage of
carts that are subsequently abandoned, with the numbers fluctuating
wildly all the way from 55% to a whopping 80.30% - with an average of
67.91%. [source]
A pretty remarkable number!
There's
a number of different
reasons
customers may abandon their cart – unexpected costs, lengthy,
complicated processes and simple indecision can all play a part.
Perhaps, some
argue,
visitors are simply 'saving' their products for later, and have no
real intention of buying at that precise moment.
Try and see things through your
customer's eyes, and isolate any potential reasons why they might not
follow through with their purchase. Are you expecting them to jump
through too many hoops? Is the process time-consuming and cumbersome?
One feature you may be interested
in is AmeriCommerce's Abandoned Cart Recovery function. This feature
allows you to see all abandoned carts, along with a host of visitor
data, and then send an automated email to attempt to convert it into
a sale. It's pretty cool!
Average
Order Value
Average Order Value is calculated by dividing your
overall revenue by the number of orders taken, and (as you might
expect) refers to how much, on average, your customers spend in each
transaction.
We all know it can be hard work to generate high volumes
of 'new' customers, so if you're looking to grow your revenue (who
isn't?!) then maybe the best approach is to extract the maximum value
out of each and every order.
There are all manner of things you can do to increase
this figure; intelligent up selling, cross-selling, volume discounts
and promotions such as free shipping are always helpful. Why not A/B
test to see which strategies work best for you in increasing this
number?
Related reading:
8
Ways to Increase Ecommerce Average Order Value
Repeat
Purchase Rate
Again,
the common consensus has always been that keeping customers is much
easier than acquiring new ones. Customers who have bought your
products before already knowabout
your store and have experience of shopping with you, so it's often
more efficient to encourage them to shop again than to speculate on
new leads. After all, they've already (hopefully) had a positive
engagement with your brand.
Again, more than just a 'number,' you can scratch the
surface to reveal quite a lot of valuable and actionable insight
here. Are customers just shopping with you once or twice? If so, why?
Is there a noticable 'drop-off' point that you might be able to
address with a campaign and/or promotion? Where do your most 'loyal'
repeat customers come from? What did your 'churned' customers
purchase, how were they targeted and why did they not come back? How
can you target 'about to churn' customers to stop it from happening
again?
There's plenty to think about here and, it goes without
saying, even modest increases in repeat business can really help give
your business a boost!
Lifetime
Customer Value
This
has been described as one of the most
overlooked and least understood
metrics in business. It simply refers to the expected profit you'll
make from a particular customer in the future – and, by definition,
it should be a major consideration in several major decisions you'll
make, particularly your marketing budget. How much are you willing to
'spend' to acquire a new customer – needless to say, if you spend
more than you expect to recoup, there's little point in pursuing that
relationship.
Using the example from the article above, if we take a
gym member, paying $20 per month for 3 years, you're looking at $720
in revenue ($240 per year.) In this instance, you can see why gyms
are often willing to forego an initial joining fee (say, $20) to help
drive traffic, as, over time, that discount will more than pay for
itself.
Take a look at your existing customer base – how much
do they spend? How often? Make sure that, in attempting to drive
traffic to your store, you always bear this number in mind so you
don't pay over the odds to attract new customers!
The
Numbers Game
So,
hopefully you found our list interesting and thought provoking. We'd
love to hear which numbers are important to gauging your
store's
success – why not head over and discuss this on our Facebook
page?
Don't forget, AmeriCommerce gives you a comprehensive
suite of reporting tools which lets you track these, and many other,
important metrics!