You are likely looking at your ecommerce website metrics at least monthly. However, if you are a data nerd like me, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the seemingly endless amount of data – much less know what you are looking for.
As the reporting specialist at Groove, I measure several reach, engagement, and conversion metrics each month. These ecommerce metrics are critical to maintaining your website’s health as well as reaching your engagement and conversion goals.
3 critical metrics to monitor monthly:
Reach: Who is Your Audience?
Google Analytics can confirm we are reaching the right people at the right time. There are several behavior metrics I recommend evaluating each month to confirm you are attracting your most qualified users. These metrics include:
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Language
- Device
Once you understand who is looking at your site, determine where your users are coming from. Channel data is a great way to see which sources and marketing efforts are driving the most users. For example, are most of your users coming from organic traffic, but you put the majority of your marketing resources into email? It may be time to revise your email marketing strategy.
Figure 1: Who is visiting your eCommerce website and where are they coming from?
Engage: What Are They doing on the site?
Now that we know more about our users and where users are coming from, it is important to assess those users' on-site behavior. Engagement metrics including bounce rate, time on site, and average page views will reveal how users are engaging with your ecommerce website. These on-site metrics uncover where your website is working and what content is relevant to your user.
For example, if the majority of your users are spending less than a minute on your site and reviewing one or two pages on average, you are either attracting the wrong audience or not keeping them engaged once they enter your website.
Figure 2: Do you know what users are doing once they enter your ecommerce website?
Convert: Are they making a transaction on the site?
Lastly, you will need to analyze your website’s conversion metrics - after all, this is an ecommerce site and your main goal is to make money. To start, investigate your top converting landing pages (Google awards conversions to the first page a user engages with). These pages are attracting your most qualified traffic.
Are any of your pages attracting high volumes of traffic, but have lower than average conversion rates? This would indicate several website issues to address immediately including poor on-site experience, technical errors, and low user quality.
Additionally, viewing revenue by channel will reveal your return on investment for marketing efforts.
For example, if you are investing in paid media, ROAS (return - investment) / investment) will clarify how much revenue you are receiving for your investment.
ROAS = (Return - Investment / Investment)
Figure 3: What is your return on investment?
Reach, engagement, and conversion metrics provide a holistic view of your ecommerce website. Monitoring these metrics monthly gives insight into what efforts are most effective and what efforts you will need to adjust to reach your goals for the following month. These metrics are an importance piece to consider in an inbound marketing for eCommerce strategy.
If you are looking for help with analyzing your website’s data or adjusting your marketing efforts to better serve your ecommerce goals, sign up for a FREE ecommerce website assessment.
