E-commerce metrics are crucial tools for absolutely everyone jogging a webshop. They’re the numbers that tell you how your commercial enterprise is acting in critical areas. For example, they can display you the standard quantity customers spend consistent with order, how regularly your website traffic determines your purchase, or how a good deal you are paying to herald new clients.
These metrics are crucial because they give you insights into where your online shop shines and where it might need work.
A wide sort of e-commerce key performance indicators (KPIs) offer a complete assessment of your save’s success. From understanding your client acquisition cost to retaining an eye fixed on your sales increase, those KPIs cover nearly every factor of your commercial enterprise.
We’re here to walk you through the top 20 metrics essential to your e-commerce shop. Monitoring those metrics will assist you in gauging your keep’s overall performance and guide you in making knowledgeable decisions to decorate your business. Knowing which to find and how to interpret these metrics can set your store to extra fulfilment.
What Are The E-commerce Metrics And KPIs?
In online shopping, it’s super important to keep track of specific numbers and signs that tell you how well your store is doing. Think of it like checking the health of your business. Are you getting a lot of visitors? Do people come back to shop more? Or are they leaving stuff in their carts without buying?
You can figure out a lot by paying attention to some essential things or e-commerce business metrics. Even though what matters most can vary from one store to another, there are 20 main things every online shop should watch closely.
These e-commerce performance metrics give you the scoop on which items are flying off the shelves, how often people buy things, and if there are any bumps in the road during checkout that stop folks from purchasing.
In a nutshell, they help you understand what’s hot, what’s not, and what challenges (e-commerce challenges) you might face in making sure your customers are happy and keep coming back for more.
20 Essential Ecommerce Metrics to Track for Success in 2024
Keeping an eye on your online shop’s sales and important numbers is super important. But, which numbers should you be watching? Let’s talk about the 20 Essential Ecommerce Metrics to Track for Success in 2024.
1. Conversion Rate: Buys vs. visits
Understanding how often visitors to your site buy something is crucial and stands out as one of the most important e-commerce metrics. Your conversion rate shows the percentage of visitors who purchase out of everyone who stops by your site.
To put it simply, the conversion rate formula is like this:
Conversion Rate = (Number of Purchases / Number of Visits) x 100
This formula helps you see the rate as a precise percentage. If you’re managing an online store with Shopify, finding this number is a breeze thanks to the e-commerce analytics metrics on your Shopify dashboard.
Shopify also lays out the path a customer might take from entering your store to making a purchase, known as Shopify CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). It’s natural for more people to add items to their cart than those who go through the checkout process.
And of those reaching checkout, an even smaller number will complete their purchase. This full view helps identify if there are snags in the checkout process. For instance, if 25% of visitors add products to their cart but only 1% to 2% buy, the issue might be a complicated checkout process or a technical bug.
Keeping an eye on your conversion rate is vital; it should stay steady or increase over time. A significant drop could be a red flag that it’s time to ensure your website functions correctly, leveraging insights from Shopify CRO practices.
2. Order Value: Spend per order
Your average order value (AOV) shows how much money people usually spend buying from your online shop.
Here’s an easy way to figure it out:
AOV = Total Money Made / Total Number of Orders
Keeping an eye on your AOV is an intelligent move because it’s one of the vital e-commerce marketing metrics. It tells you how much you earn on average and helps you set realistic targets for attracting new shoppers.
For instance, if the average spend in your store is, and your goal is to make,000 in sales for the month, you’ll need to attract at least 222 customers during that period. This is a straightforward way to use e-commerce metrics to plan for growth.
Understanding your AOV is not just helpful; it’s one of the most important e-commerce metrics. It offers a clear photo of your store’s performance and enables you to make choices that could cause extra sales and higher techniques.
3. Lifetime Value: Total customer spend
Customer lifetime value (CLV or CLTV) is a fancy term that tells you how much money a customer will likely spend at your store over the time they stick around.
To figure out CLV, you need to multiply a few things: how much they usually spend in one go, how often they buy stuff each year, and how long they stick with your shop.
Let’s say you sell candles. If your customers buy around 15 candles yearly and stick with you for about ten years, you’d multiply 20 by 15 by 10 to get a CLV of 000.
Shopify won’t just hand you this number on a silver platter. You’ll need to do a bit of digging to figure it out. But once you do, it’s super helpful.
Knowing how much a customer is worth can help you decide how much money you can spend to get new customers while still making a profit. Plus, it can show you which products are real winners for your business—like the fancy candles people love splurging on.
Now, onto e-commerce business metrics. These are just fancy words for tracking how well your online store is doing.
Then, there are e-commerce performance metrics. These numbers tell you if your online store is doing well or not.
And lastly, Shopify email marketing. This is all about using emails to get people to buy stuff from your Shopify store. It’s like sending out virtual invitations to your online shop but to make sales.
4. Acquisition Costs: Cost to attract customers
Your customer acquisition costs (CAC) show you how much money you spend, on average, to get a new customer. It’s like keeping tabs on the price tag to gain new shoppers for your online store.
Important eCommerce metrics encompass various aspects of your online business, and customer acquisition costs (CAC) are among the key figures to track. To figure out your CAC, you divide your marketing amount by the number of new customers you reel in.
E-commerce analytics metrics play a crucial role in understanding the performance of your online store. One significant metric to monitor is your customer acquisition costs (CAC). For example, if you splurge,000 on a monthly ad campaign and bring 100 fresh faces to your store, your CAC would be per customer.
In addition to being essential e-commerce metrics, customer acquisition costs (CAC) are vital to e-commerce analytics metrics. It’s super important to keep an eye on this number regularly. You don’t want it to shoot past your customer lifetime value (CLV) or get too close.
Shopify email marketing is another essential tool in your e-commerce arsenal. When evaluating your marketing efforts, consider how email campaigns contribute to customer acquisition costs (CAC). If your CLV is, say,000, and you’re shelling out big bucks to snag one new shopper, your CAC is gobbling up your profits.
When this occurs, it’s time to reconsider your consumer-getting game plan and locate methods to get extra bang for your buck.
5. Abandonment Rate: Unfinished checkouts
No matter how fantastic your online store is, some shoppers might still need to finish buying what they put in their cart. This is called shopping cart abandonment, when someone adds stuff to their cart but still needs to finish checking out.
E-commerce metrics help you understand how your online store is performing, and one of the most important e-commerce metrics to watch is your shopping cart abandonment rate. It enables you to spot any issues with your checkout process.
E-commerce marketing metrics like the shopping cart abandonment rate are crucial for understanding customer behaviour on your website. To figure it out, divide the number of completed purchases by the total number of shopping carts created, then multiply by 100.
Don’t stress too much if your abandonment rate is high. But if it’s hovering around 95% to 100%, it’s a sign that something might be up with your checkout process. Time to roll up your sleeves and investigate!
6. Returning Customers: Repeat buyers
E-commerce business metrics like your returning customer rate show how many customers come back to shop with you again. It’s like tracking how many familiar faces return to your store for more goodies.
We provide this service to help you understand how well your online shop is doing. The returning client fee is a crucial e-commerce performance metric that tells you if humans love your products sufficiently to come again for extra.
You can easily find this info in your Shopify analytics dashboard or calculate it yourself using a simple formula: divide the number of customers who’ve shopped with you more than once by the total number of customers, then multiply by 100.
Investing in a solid Shopify digital marketing strategy can help boost your returning customer rate. If yours is low, try retargeting ads to remind past customers about your excellent products and encourage them to return for another round of shopping fun.
Getting repeat purchases means you’re doing something right. So, if you need help to improve your returning customer rate, closely examine your overall customer experience. There may be something you can tweak to make it even better and hold the customers coming back for more.
7. Bounce Rate: Quick exits
Bounce rate is a crucial metric for any website, not just e-commerce. It tells you how many people visited your site but left without doing anything, like clicking on another page or checking out a product.
This important e-commerce metric can be found in your website’s Google Analytics. Go to your GA4 dashboard, select Reports, choose a customised report, and add “Bounce rate” as a Metric. Easy peasy!
E-commerce analytics metrics like bounce rate are essential for understanding how visitors interact with your online store. By tracking the bounce rate, you can identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to keep visitors engaged.
To lower your bounce rate, ensure your website is easy to navigate, looks good, and clearly shows what you’re selling as soon as people land on it. This is crucial for optimizing the user experience and encouraging visitors to explore further.
8. Impressions: Views count
Impressions are like the number of times your ad or content pops up on people’s screens, whether they click on it or not. It’s a key e-commerce marketing metric that shows how many eyeballs your stuff catches.
In the world of e-commerce metrics, impressions are essential. They give you a sense of how widely your ad or content is being seen, which is crucial for boosting brand awareness.
Let’s say you’re running a PPC campaign on Google for your online clothing store. If your ad pops up 1,000 times on users’ screens, that’s 1,000 impressions. It doesn’t tell you if anyone looked at it or clicked on it, but it shows how much exposure your ad is getting.
9. Reach: Unique viewers
In contrast to impressions, which can count multiple views by the same person, reach shows how many different people have seen your content. It’s like counting the unique individuals who lay eyes on what you share online.
Reach is a crucial e-commerce business metric that tells you how many distinct individuals have come across your content. It’s an important part of e-commerce performance metrics because it shows the diversity of your audience.
Imagine you post a promotional video on your business’s Instagram page. Over a few days, 1,200 unique users see your post. This is the reach of your post. Even if these users see your post multiple times, they are counted once in the reach metric.
If you have an excessive attain, you are efficiently distributing your content material to a target market, which is essential for attracting new customers. It’s one of those e-commerce tips to broaden your reach and connect with more capacity customers.
10. Engagement: Interactions
An audience’s engagement measures how much they interact with your content. It includes clicking, commenting, liking, sharing, and how long they are on your page.
Engagement is an important e-commerce metric that shows how nicely your content resonates with your audience. It’s part of e-commerce analytics metrics that help you understand how people respond to what you put out there.
Let’s say you launch a new product and share it on TikTok. Your post gets 200 likes, 50 comments, and 30 shares. Plus, lots of users click on the link to visit your website. All of these actions count as engagement.
Generally, excessive engagement charges imply you are doing something proper with your content material method. It indicates that you’re connecting nicely at the side of your goal marketplace, which is fundamental for constructing a sturdy online presence.
11. Promoter Score: Willingness to recommend
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a metric that measures how much your customers like your brand and how likely they are to recommend it to others. It’s one of the most important e-commerce metrics for gauging customer loyalty and satisfaction.
To calculate NPS, you ask customers one question: “On a scale of 1–10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or family member?” Based on their responses, customers fall into three categories: Promoters (9–10), Passives (7–8), and Detractors (6 or less).
Your NPS is then determined by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the rate of Promoters. The higher the score, the better. A score of over 0 is considered “good,” over 50 is “excellent,” and over 75 is “world-class.”
For instance, if you have 80% Promoters, 15% Passives, and 5% Detractors, your NPS would be 80 – 5, resulting in a score of 75. It’s rare to have a score of 100, but even a score of 75 is considered extremely high.
So, if your NPS is around 20, don’t worry! You’re still doing great. It’s all about continuously improving and maintaining a positive customer relationship.
12. Click-Through Rate: Ad/link clicks
Click-through rate (CTR) measures how often people click on an email, ad, or social media post and end up on your website. It’s one of those e-commerce business metrics that show how effective your digital marketing efforts are at driving traffic to your site.
To figure out your CTR, divide the number of clicks by the number of views or impressions, then multiply by 100. Your email marketing platform or ad platform usually provides this info in your web analytics, making it easy to track the success of your campaigns.
E-commerce performance metrics are vital for assessing the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategies. For example, Google ads in the e-commerce industry typically have a CTR of around 1.66% for search ads and 0.45% for display ads. However, the CTR is higher for email campaigns, around 2.01%. Keep in mind that ecommerce email open rates are usually around 15.68%.
Click-through rates are on the lower side. If you see a 2% or higher CTR, pat yourself on the back! Your Shopify CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) efforts are paying off, and you’re doing pretty well at getting people to click through to your website.
13. Traffic Sources: Visitor origins
Your online store sessions by traffic source report tell you how many people visit your website and how they got there.
The report breaks down visitors into four main categories:
- Search: People who found your site by clicking on search engine results.
- Direct: Visitors who type your website’s address directly into their browser.
- Social: Folks who click on your site from social media platforms.
- Email: Users who landed on your site from clicking links in email newsletters.
Checking out these stats helps you notice which marketing channels are bringing within the most site visitors. It’s one of those essential e-commerce metrics that can manual your advertising and marketing efforts.
For example, if you notice that most of your traffic comes from search engines, you should improve your SEO. If email is bringing in a few visitors, you could work on growing your email list to boost those numbers.
You can find this info right in your Shopify analytics dashboard. It’s part of e-commerce analytics metrics that come up with insights into how your keep is performing and where your traffic is coming from.
14. Device Types: Visitor devices
This section of your Shopify analytics shows who’s visiting your store and what devices they’re using.
Visitors are grouped into three categories based on their devices: mobile, desktop, or tablet.
If you notice many people browsing your site on mobile devices, ensuring your website looks and works great on smaller screens is crucial. A mobile-friendly site can significantly boost your mobile sales, making this an important aspect of e-commerce metrics and e-commerce marketing metrics.
15. Locations: Where visitors are from
This metric is simply available on your Shopify analytics dashboard. It displays the primary places of your clients, permitting you to tailor your marketing strategies and product services to shape their places. It’s a valuable factor in e-commerce commercial business and e-commerce performance metrics.
16. Top Products: Bestsellers
You’ll spot “Top products by units sold” on your Shopify dashboard. This handy metric reveals your best-selling items so you can stay ahead by stocking up or making more of what’s flying off the shelves. It’s a vital part of important e-commerce metrics, giving you insights to keep your business thriving.
17. Inventory Snapshot: Month-end stock
Your Shopify dashboard offers a helpful feature known as the monthly inventory snapshot. This tool gives you a clear picture of how much of each product variant you have left at the end of each month. It’s like taking a snapshot of your inventory, aiding in understanding the overall value of your stock.
This information is crucial for managing your inventory effectively, ensuring you’re always prepared to meet customer demand and avoid running out of popular items, making it one of the important e-commerce metrics.
18. Daily Sales: Items sold daily
Another helpful metric provided by Shopify is the daily average inventory sold. This metric shows the average number of items sold per product variant daily. It’s like having a window into your daily sales performance, allowing you to track trends and patterns in your sales data.
By monitoring this metric, you can identify which products are selling well and adjust your inventory management strategies accordingly, an essential aspect of e-commerce performance metrics.
19. Returns Rate: Refunds/returns
Understanding customer satisfaction is vital in e-commerce; the refund and return rate metric helps you achieve that. This metric tells you the percentage of products returned or exchanged by customers. A high refund and return rate may indicate product quality concerns or discrepancies between customer expectations and the product received.
By closely monitoring this metric, you can identify areas for improvement and take steps to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, an essential part of e-commerce analytics metrics.
20. Churn Rate: Customer loss
In subscription-based services, churn rate is crucial for evaluating customer retention. It measures the percentage of customers cancelling their subscriptions over a period. By analyzing churn rate data, you can gain insights into customer loyalty and identify factors contributing to customer attrition.
With this information, you can develop strategies to reduce churn, improve customer retention, and drive business growth, highlighting the significance of e-commerce marketing metrics.
