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The best performance metrics for online sellers – and the tools to monitor them
Tracking your progress as an e-commerce seller involves more than just counting sales. You need to track key performance indicators to help you scale up your brand.
You may not realise it, but a lot of our behaviour is driven by numbers. How many steps do you walk in a day; how many hours of sleep do you get at night etc? As humans, we consciously optimise our daily activities with these numbers to improve our wellbeing over time.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) for e-commerce work in the same way. The number of orders and site visits we have tell us how well we’re doing. The key to making the most of these numbers is to track them all using KPI analysis tools –– and then to improve based on what the KPI analysis software recommends.
However, it can be difficult for those just starting in online selling to know which KPI numbers are meaningful to track to promote growth. You may also have information coming in from numerous different sources (such as Google Ads, Google Analytics, Amazon Marketplace etc), so you might find it time-consuming to gather all of these data points in one place.
This article will outline some of the best KPI analysis tools for online sellers. We’ll also provide some tips to help you optimise the process of selecting and checking your site’s key performance indicators.
What are KPIs and why are they important?
KPIs are data points that tell you how well your site is performing. But not all KPIs are useful in helping you grow your business. For instance, when you are just beginning to establish your e-commerce site, you may be very interested in checking how many site visits you get. But this number alone will not tell you how many of these visitors will turn into paying customers –– there is another part of the equation missing.
So, which data points would an e-commerce seller find the most useful to track in the beginning stages of business?
The KPIs online sellers should track
- Conversion Rate (CR): This central KPI metric compares the number of site visits you get to the number of sales, and it is expressed as a percentage. CR can be measured across your whole site, or for individual product pages.
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): A vital KPI that divides the total operational cost of running your brand by the total amount made in sales. You can measure CPA across all or individual channels, depending on the areas you are looking to optimise.
- Average Order Value (AOV): This data point tells you how much the average customer spends when they visit your online shop. The aim is to increase AOV using marketing techniques that offer customers incentives to spend more money.
- Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR): This metric is the percentage of site visitors who place items in their shopping carts and then click off your site without completing their purchases. To improve CAR, you can provide customers with incentives to convert through retargeted ad campaigns.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): This metric calculates how much a customer spends with you over a long period. Working out CLV can help you figure out your CPA and can be useful in planning long-term advertising budgets. CLV will also indicate how loyal customers are to your brand.
You can use many more KPIs; however, these are the most important to e-commerce brands. From these five KPIs, you can create actionable goals to drive growth and stay focused –– without getting bogged down in measuring data sets that make no meaningful impact on your brand’s revenue.
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Best KPI analysis tools
The best KPI analysis software will provide you with live KPI data pulled from all of your marketing channels in one central dashboard. You want to see, at a glance, how well you are doing on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Once you have this data, you can then drill down into the specifics –– using KPIs to measure as you test out new ad copy or social media channels etc.
Here is some excellent KPI analysis software you might want to check out:
Google Data Studio
Google Data Studio is free and lets you build unique KPI dashboards to suit your needs. There is no coding required, and you can learn how to make a custom dashboard from scratch by following simple tutorials. If you want a head start on creating your KPI dashboard, there are thousands of free and paid-for KPI analysis templates to choose from.
Once you have selected the e-commerce KPI tracker that’s right for you, you can customise it, input your data and begin tracking instantly. If you can’t find a data point you want to track in the templates gallery, don’t worry – you can edit your dashboard and link your raw data from Google Sheets.
Grow
If you want an easy-to-use KPI analysis tool that you can set up in just a few minutes, Grow could be the service for you. Create your KPI analysis dashboard using drag and drop icons and integrate all of your data points seamlessly. Grow’s clean interface is also available on mobile.
Domo
Domo allows e-commerce sellers to merge KPI analysis tools with automation from one dashboard. Not only will this paid-for business intelligence tool track your business’s KPIs, but it can also provide you with relevant data insights and trigger actions via a wide range of integrated marketing automation tools.
Geckoboard
Geckoboard has a simplified dashboard that lets you assign tasks and track progress if you want to share your KPIs with team members. Geckoboard integrates over 70 data sources, including sales funnel automation apps like Zapier and social media scheduling tools. It also has a mobile app, so you can check on your site’s KPIs wherever you are.
Plan for the future
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