Conversion By Traffic Source
This is an incredibly powerful metric that is, unfortunately, often passed over by Business Owners. When considered however, it can help you to identify the very best place you should be investing your Marketing Dollars and driving your traffic to, whether that be Google, Bing or Facebook.
You could spend lots of time and money on trying out various traffic sources, but if you’re not analysing this metric, then there’s no way of knowing which is the most effective at increasing your revenue.
This data is easy to find if your Ecommerce has been set up correctly with Google Analytics. Once you assess the data, the best way to maximize your chances of Online success are to stop investing in the channels that aren’t delivering results for your Business. Once you’ve done this, you can then put those funds into the most popular channels, meaning that you’ll be investing more in the most effective traffic sources to drive paying customers to your Store.
Conversion By Device Type
Online Shopping from mobile devices is not just a passing trend, it’s a way of life in our Digital day and age. In fact, according to Yotpo, mobile accounts for more than half of all Ecommerce traffic. For this reason, if you’re Online Store isn’t correctly optimized for the right devices, you’re practically throwing money down the drain.
This makes it absolutely imperative for you to track this data and discover where most of your visitors are coming from. For example, if you discover that you’re only receiving 2% of your sales from iPhones, then you need to look at your Store’s mobile capabilities. If the numbers seem strangely low, then it could be fair to say that your Ecommerce Store isn’t well-optimized for these hand-held devices.
Conversion By Product
If you only have a few products on your Online Store, then this is perhaps a less significant metric to track – though it still is helpful! But if you have a larger number of products, then this is a data source you need to be regularly monitoring.
This metric will tell you exactly which of your products are top selling, and which are possibly underperforming. This is invaluable information. Knowing this allows you to heavily promote the products that appeal most to your customers (think using them in your Facebook Ads), or discontinue products that could be harming your bottom line.
Looking at the Conversions by Product can also help you to identify other barriers that could potentially be impacting your sales. These could include your price point, product descriptions, product images and more. Once you’ve identified the problem through assessing your data, you’ll know where you need to make strategic adjustments.
Cart Abandonment
Cart abandonment is a fairly common metric that’s tracked by Online Stores – and for good reason! Ecommerce platforms are even designed to help you keep up on cart abandonment with built-in autoresponders to help win back abandoned carts.
Looking at this metric allows you to see where customers are falling out of your ‘sales funnel’, that is, which part of the Website they stop shopping and decide to click back to Google.
For example, maybe you own an Online clothing shop that sells Women’s Fashion, and your data tells you that 18% of your customers make it to the checkout and then abandon their shopping cart. This gives you the chance to re-assess your checkout page to find the problem. Maybe the page is too slow to load, or perhaps the form is too convoluted and long. Whatever it is, by finding the problem you can potentially increase your sales by that 18%!
Average Order Value
Average Order Value is the average dollar amount a customer spends when they make a purchase from your Website, making this a necessary metric for every Small Business Owner to keep an eye on.
Imagine this:
There are 2 Online Stores. Store A receives 1,000 Site visitors a day, while Store B only gets 100 per day. Both Stores have a 1% Conversion Rate, so both make 1 sale per day. However, Store A’s customer spends only $20 (that’s the Order Value), while Store B’s customer drops a whopping $350. So, even though Store A received more traffic, Store B is the one that comes out on top.
This example demonstrates why you can’t just take your Online Store traffic into account. It’s great to have lots of potential customers flooding onto your Site, but if none are buy, what’s the point?
One of the best ways to increase your average order value is to upsell, which will encourage your customers to spend more than they originally intended. This can come in the form of offering free shipping if they spend over a certain amount, or else creating a ‘package deal’ where they can get 40% off the third item purchased.
Like it or not, analysing your key metrics of your Online Store are absolutely crucial when it comes to maximizing the success of your Ecommerce Store. These metrics only just scratch the surface, but they’re a great place to start for any Small Business Owner.
By keeping an eye on the data that matters, you’ll get key insight into what’s working, and what’s not, which allows you to make needed adjustments that will help your Business grow and thrive Online.
