Running a successful online store requires a lot of strategy and decision making. But if you don't use the right data and insights to guide those decisions, then it becomes a lot harder to optimize your ecommerce business based on intuition alone.
This is where ecommerce KPIs come into play. By providing a broad range of insights regarding how your ecommerce store is performing, these KPIs can serve as a roadmap to guide your ecommerce strategy and help you meet your business goals.
To help you get started tracking the health and performance of your ecommerce business, let's take a look at the 20 most important KPIs that every ecommerce store should track.
What is a key performance indicator?
A standard performance indicator is a measurement used to calculate a business operation relative to a certain goal.
Sounds too complicated? Here’s a practical example: In ecommerce, most people aim to boost their website traffic by 50% to 100% yearly. Therefore, web traffic growth would be a metric relative to this goal and serve as one of the business's standard performance indicators.
There are many performance indicators, but many of them are irrelevant to your business's success. This is why most serious business managers tend to narrow the selection down to 10 to 20 indicators that significantly impact their business's success. These are known as key performance indicators (or KPIs).
Defining and tracking KPIs for your ecommerce business provides enlightening insights into your business's performance. You can use them to evaluate your business's health and spot issues that need correcting. You can even use them to evaluate the results of changes you make to your ecommerce store and strategy for data-based optimization.
Your business can’t possibly survive on your gut instinct alone. That’s why you need to measure the effectiveness of your business strategy, and the best way to do this is by defining and tracking your business's KPIs.
Different types of KPIs in ecommerce
While there are a few so-called "universal" KPIs, most industries measure success differently.
In the ecommerce industry, several different KPIs are generally considered important to track. More often than not, store owners use the following KPIs to measure their success:
- Monetary KPIs: If you want to get some return on your investment, you need to keep track of your money. In the beginning, you should pick whether to track gross profit, revenue, or both. Other KPIs, such as average order value (AOV), customer acquisition cost (CAC), and customer lifetime value (CLV), can also fall under this category.
- Customer KPIs: The number of new customers, repeat customers, and former customers are a few ecommerce metrics that fall into this category, but any metrics about customer behavior, customer experience, and customer support can be customer KPIs.
- Purchase KPIs: The number of people that have made, tried to make, and abandoned a purchase are all vital KPIs for ecommerce stores to track.
- Conversion KPIs: How many of your visitors actually purchase something? Conversion KPIs provide insights into the performance of your ecommerce sales funnel and are also key to gauging the performance of marketing campaigns.
These different types of KPIs are measured during business operation assessments. You should perform these assessments once a month (if possible) during your store's first six months of operation. Past the six-month mark, you should perform business operation assessments once every three to six months.
Here are two different types of businesses assessment:
- SWOTT Analysis: Assessing your businesses’ Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, and Trends, should be performed twice a year
- GPCT Analysis: Looking at your Goals, Plans, Challenges, and Timeline, should be performed at least once a year
Along with assessing your overall business goals and strategy, these business operation assessments serve as an opportunity to measure and analyze your store's KPIs.
KPIs for ecommerce brands that don't have enough sales
If you would like to grow the sales on your ecommerce site (and what store owner doesn't?), then here are the top five KPIs that you will need to track and improve:
1) Overall sales
The first step to growing your store's sales is tracking how many sales you're already making. You can monitor your sales on a monthly, weekly, daily, and even hourly basis if needed. It all depends on the type of product you're selling and your sales volume. Businesses can easily monitor overall sales in Magento or Shopify. Another option is to set up sales trackers in your Gorgias dashboard and track them directly.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Create an optimized customer experience to drive sales via customer loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising.
- Utilize cross-selling and upselling to increase average order value.
- Use A/B testing to improve your online store's conversion rate.
2) Conversion rates
Conversion rate is the percentage of your website visitors that actually purchase something. Optimizing your conversion rate will enable you to turn a larger number of visitors into paying customers. While conversion rates vary from niche to niche, ecommerce stores usually have a conversion rate slightly above 3%. Unsurprisingly, you should try to get the number as high as possible.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Optimize product pages and other elements of your sales funnel with A/B testing.
- Provide proactive, pre-sale support via Gorgias live chat.
- Improve your cart abandonment rate.
3) Cart abandonment rates
Shopping cart abandonment rate is the percentage of orders abandoned at checkout. In the ecommerce industry, benchmarks for the average cart abandonment rate are incredibly high, with 70% of all online orders being abandoned at checkout. While an alarming figure, this also provides plenty of room for your business to grow its sales simply by reducing its cart abandonment rate.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Make your checkout process quick and simple, and offer a guest checkout option.
- Offer free shipping to encourage checkout completion.
- Target customers who have left items in their cart with abandoned cart recovery email campaigns.
4) Customer lifetime value (CLV)
CLV shows the average amount of money a single consumer will spend on your products throughout your relationship. It's a measure of how much value your store can gain by attracting a single customer, and improving CLV means that each new customer you acquire will lead to more sales for your company. The best way to grow CLV is to encourage customer loyalty and repeat purchases, which will benefit any ecommerce business hoping to grow its sales.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Use a tool such as LoyaltyLion to promote customer loyalty via loyalty programs.
- Increase your average order value (AOV) with cross-sells and upsells.
- Reduce ecommerce churn rate with exceptional customer support.
5) Customer acquisition costs (CAC)
While sometimes overlooked, the amount of money spent on acquiring new customers has to be tracked. If you can reduce your CAC without harming your brand's reach, then your marketing budget will go further, and you will be able to attract even more customers to your store.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Target your marketing efforts to the demographic of customers most likely to purchase your products, defined as your brand's "ideal customer."
- Utilize high ROI marketing tactics such as email marketing.
- Attract more organic traffic to your store via content marketing and SEO.
- Shift your emphasis from marketing to conversion so that the potential customers you target are more likely to convert.
KPIs for ecommerce stores with a lack of brand awareness
Forty-six percent of U.S. customers state that they are willing to pay more for a brand name that they recognize and trust. If you want to boost your store's brand awareness, focus on improving these KPIs.
6) Website traffic
This is the total number of people that visit your ecommerce website during a given time period. Around 53% of your traffic will come from organic search, while the remainder comes from social media, blogs, and referral sources. Your website is the cornerstone of your brand's online presence, so increasing the traffic that it receives is one of the best ways to improve your brand awareness and reach.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Leverage search engine optimization (SEO) to grow organic traffic.
- Direct followers from social media, your blog, or other online profiles to your ecommerce store.
- Invest in paid advertising.
7) Bounce rates
When someone does manage to find your website, you want to keep them there for as long as possible - ideally long enough to learn about your products and make a purchasing decision. However, many of your website visitors will leave or "bounce" after viewing a single page. The rate at which this happens is your website's bounce rate, and you should strive to keep your bounce rate as low as possible.
Home page bounce rate
The home page is the page of your website that most visitors will discover first, making it vital to create a homepage that will capture their attention and encourage them to explore your website further.
Product page bounce rate
If you have a high bounce rate on your product pages, it could indicate that your product descriptions or product images are lacking.
Category page bounce rate
A high bounce rate here could indicate that your category pages are not well-organized and that your ecommerce merchandising strategy (defined as how products are organized and displayed within your store) might need improvements.
Search results page bounce rate
If your ecommerce store includes a search bar that enables customers to search for products, then a high bounce rate on your search results page could indicate that your store's search functionality is not up to par.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Ensure that your web pages are fast-loading and function properly.
- Populate your web pages with eye-catching images and compelling content.
- Engage website visitors with proactive customer service.
8) Mobile traffic
In addition to overall traffic, you need to monitor your mobile traffic closely. That’s because a large chunk of your traffic will come from mobile devices and perhaps a majority of conversions on your website; nearly 60.28% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Ensure that your ecommerce website is optimized for mobile devices.
- Consider offering an app version of your online store where customers can shop in-app.
9) Social followers
One of the best ways to improve brand awareness is to grow your brand's social media reach. Today, more customers than ever are using social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to discover new products and brands. By developing a large audience of social followers, you can make your brand and products more discoverable.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Publish engaging social media posts that your audience will actually enjoy.
- Expand your brand's social media reach with influencer marketing
- Use photos and videos in your posts to make them more eye-catching.
- Invest in social media ads that are designed to grow your social following.
10) Click-through-rate (CTR)
Mainly used to measure the effectiveness of paid advertisements, CTR shows you the ratio of clicks to impressions in your ad campaign. For Google Ads, the average CTR is roughly 4-6%. Anything above that is considered great. By improving the CTR of your advertising campaigns, you can direct more traffic to your site and improve brand awareness.
Email marketing CTR
CTR in email marketing is the number of customers who click the links in your marketing emails. This is often one of the most valuable CTRs for stores to improve since email clicks won't typically cost you anything (unlike PPC ad clicks).
Social media CTR
Social media CTR is the rate at which customers click on the links in your social media posts. These are likewise "free clicks" and should be promoted as much as possible with high-quality social posts and compelling CTAs.
Paid advertising CTR
Paid advertising CTR is the rate at which people click on the paid ads that you publish. In most cases, you will be charged for each one of these clicks, making it especially important to target paid ads only to the demographic of customers most likely to convert.
Landing page CTR
Landing page CTR is the rate at which visitors who have been directed to one of your landing pages click on the links it contains. These could be links to your product pages or links to some other page or piece of content in your sales funnel.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Target your ads and marketing efforts to potential customers who fit your ideal customer profile.
- Create well-polished ads that feature compelling CTAs.
- Use high-quality images and or other visuals to capture attention.
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KPIs for ecommerce brands with negative reviews
For as much value as positive reviews offer to ecommerce brands, negative reviews can do even more harm. If you would like to boost customer satisfaction and start generating more positive reviews, here are the top KPIs to track and improve:
11) Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
Poor reviews and low customer satisfaction go hand in hand. CSAT is a vital metric to track and improve if your store is receiving a lot of negative reviews. CSAT is most often measured using targeted CSAT surveys that ask customers to rate their satisfaction following a customer support interaction.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Gather customer feedback to identify the issues that are harming customer satisfaction.
- Make sure that your support team is equipped with the right tools and training to offer exceptional customer support.
12) Net promoter score (NPS)
NPS showcases how likely customers are to recommend your brand to their friends, family, and colleagues. Like CSAT, NPS is most commonly measured via customer feedback surveys that ask customers to rate their willingness to recommend your brand on a scale of 1-10.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Prioritize improvements to the customer experience.
- Utilize customer feedback to identify issues that are harming NPS.
13) First response time (FRT)
When customers have a question for your customer support team, they expect it to be answered as quickly as possible. FRT is a measure of how long it takes your support team to initially respond to customer support tickets and is one of the most important customer support metrics to track. While what constitutes an acceptable FRT varies from channel to channel (for example, customers will have much more patience waiting for an email response than waiting on hold on the phone), having an average FRT higher than industry benchmarks creates the risk of dissatisfied customers.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Use a helpdesk such as Gorgias to ensure support reps can efficiently respond to tickets.
- Create automated responses to common customer questions for instant responses and resolutions.
- Offer live chat support.
14) Resolution time
While FRT is a measure of how long it takes you to first respond to customer queries, resolution time is a measure of how long it takes, on average, to actually resolve a customer's issue. Swift responses and resolutions are equally important when boosting customer satisfaction. This means you'll want to optimize your customer support services to resolve customer issues as quickly as possible.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Use automation features such as Gorgias Quick Answer Flows to immediately resolve common customer questions like "where is my order?"
- Offer customers self-service options.
- Prioritize customer support tickets so that more complex/important tickets receive your team's attention first.
15) Active problems (shipping delays, faulty products, etc.)
Last but not least, you need to know how many problems have been solved during a particular period of time. Whenever there are many unsolved problems, satisfaction rates take a dive. Any active customer issues that have not been addressed should be resolved as swiftly as possible to ensure customer satisfaction.
How Gorgias can help
If your support team is struggling to keep up with your store's active issues, there are numerous ways that Gorgias' industry-leading helpdesk can assist. By both deflecting support tickets via automation and self-service options as well as improving the efficiency of your support team via a broad range of helpful tools, Gorgias empowers improved FRT and resolution times and helps your team stay on top of active problems.
KPIs for ecommerce businesses whose profitability ebbs and flows
Every ecommerce store experiences some degree of ebbs and flows in profitability. However, your goal should be to create a business that brings in a consistent and reliable revenue stream. When it comes to keeping a store profitable on a consistent basis, these are the most important metrics to track and improve:
16) Average order value (AOV)
AOV measures how much customers purchase, on average, with each transaction. By improving your store's AOV, you can generate more profit for each customer you attract and transaction that you process, improving your store's profitability.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Present customers with cross-sell and upsell opportunities at checkout.
- Focus your marketing and merchandising efforts on promoting high-value products.
- Offers discounts or promotions to encourage larger orders (i.e., free shipping on orders over $100).
17) Customer retention rate
Customer retention rate is a KPI that tells you how many customers remain loyal to your brand versus the number of customers who leave your brand. When creating consistent revenue for your store, nothing is more important than customer retention.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Utilize Gorgias' intent and sentiment detection features to identify customers who are upset or at risk of leaving your brand.
- Promote customer loyalty with rewards and loyalty programs.
- Prioritize creating an exceptional customer experience.
18) Average profit margin
Average profit margin measures how much you profit, on average, for each item that you sell. While raising the pricing of your products is one way to improve this metric, it comes with the risk of decreased sales. The good news is that this isn't the only way that ecommerce stores can raise their average profit margin.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Use your marketing and ecommerce merchandising efforts to promote products with high profit margins.
- Reduce your costs of goods sold (see the next section for more on this).
- Consider eliminating low-margin products from your inventory.
19) Cost of goods sold (COGS)
COGS is the direct cost of producing or acquiring the goods that your ecommerce store sells. Lowering your COGS can improve the profit margins of the products you sell and ultimately improve your store's profitability.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Eliminate products from your inventory that are not selling well.
- Negotiate with suppliers.
- Reduce waste and inefficiency in your supply chain.
20) CAC/CLV ratio
Customer acquisition costs (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV) are metrics we've discussed already. Combined, though, these metrics can provide a ratio that is arguably one of the most vital for ecommerce stores to track. If your CAC/CLV ratio is greater than one, your customers are spending more than it costs to acquire them, and your store will be profitable. If it's lower than one, you're spending more to acquire new customers than those new customers spend — meaning you're losing money.
Tips to improve this KPI:
- Grow CLV by promoting customer loyalty, growing AOV, and utilizing the other tips we've covered for boosting CLV.
Reduce CAC by targeting your marketing efforts, emphasizing conversions, and utilizing the other tips we've covered for reducing CAC.
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