When you own an ecommerce business, there's no shortage of metrics to track. These metrics can tell you a lot about your online store's performance and can serve as a guide to help you optimize your business and grow its bottom line — but only if you track the right ones and know how to interpret what they're telling you.
In this article, we'll explore 21 key ecommerce metrics that will help you better understand your ecommerce website performance. But we go a step further than throwing a wall of metrics at you: The metrics in this post are organized to tell the full story of the buyer journey — from awareness to repeat purchases and everything in between.
What are ecommerce metrics (vs. ecommerce KPIs)?
Retailers often discuss ecommerce metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) in the same breath. But while all KPIs are metrics, not all metrics are KPIs. Ecommerce metrics are defined as anything that you can track and measure regardless of how important the information actually is.
KPIs, meanwhile, are the ecommerce metrics that you identify as being most closely tied to your core business goals. Once you have built a solid foundation of the ecommerce metrics that you can track, you can then highlight a short list of metrics that have the biggest impact on your ecommerce success (aka, your ecommerce KPIs).
Brand awareness metrics
Brand awareness is the first stage of the customer journey. Several metrics can provide insights into easy it is for new customers to discover your brand, including:
1) Brand impressions
A brand impression occurs anytime a potential customer sees one of your ads, social media posts, or other branded content. This metric tells you the reach of your marketing campaigns.
How to measure brand impressions
This depends on the exact type of ad or other content that you are measuring impressions for. However, most social media platforms and PPC advertising platforms alike make it easy to see the number of impressions that your ad or post has generated.
How often to measure brand impressions
Brand impressions should be measured for each marketing campaign that you launch.
2) Social media engagement
Social media engagement is the rate at which your social media followers engage with the posts that you publish (defined as actions such as commenting, liking, or sharing your posts). This metric tells you how engaging the social media content that you publish is and is especially important since social media platforms tend to show high-engagement posts to more users.
How to measure social media engagement
You can find this information in the analytics section of your social media profiles. Tools such as Sprout Social can also be used for tracking social media engagement and allow you to measure cross-channel social media analytics.
How often to measure social media engagement
Due to its dynamic nature, it's recommended that ecommerce stores measure social media engagement on a weekly basis.
3) Branded search volume
Branded search volume is the number of visitors who arrive at your website via a branded search (such as searching for your company's name). This metric tells you how many customers are specifically searching for your brand and provides insight into how much brand awareness you generate.
How to measure branded search volume
To track your website’s branded search volume, you will need to use a tool such as Google Analytics or Google Search Console.
How often to measure branded search volume
It's recommended that brands track branded search volume on a monthly basis.
Website visit (pre-purchase) metrics
The goal of every ecommerce store is to convert website traffic into paying customers. And the actions that your visitors take pre-purchase can tell you a lot about how effective your store is in this regard. The most important pre-purchase website visit metrics for brands to track include:
4) Store sessions (broken down by...)
Store sessions is the number of people who visit your ecommerce store over a certain period of time. This metric tells you how effective your site is at generating traffic..
Along with looking at your total number of store sessions, it's also a good idea to break down your store sessions further based on the following criteria:
Traffic source
You should break down store sessions based on the source of the traffic (i.e., pay-per-click (PPC) ads, search engine searches (like Google or Bing), links on other websites). This can help you determine where your traffic is coming from so that you can pinpoint which methods for generating traffic are working the best.
Device type
Tracking whether store sessions occur on a PC or mobile device provides a better understanding of how visitors access your website and can help you determine if you need to optimize your site for mobile users.
Location
Tracking store sessions by location can help you identify your ideal customer demographics so that you can better target your email campaigns and other digital marketing efforts.
How to measure store sessions
Store sessions is a metric that can be tracked using either your ecommerce platform or using Google Analytics. For Shopify stores, store sessions is one of the many metrics that you can find on your store’s Analytics page.
How often to measure store sessions
It is recommended that store sessions should be measured on a weekly basis.
5) Marketing click-through rate (social CTR, email CTR, etc.)
Click-through rate is the rate at which customers click on your email links, social posts, and paid ads. This metric tells you how engaging and effective those materials are.
How to measure marketing click-through rate
Click-through rate is a metric that all digital advertising platforms make available — whether it's social media platforms, email marketing platforms, or PPC ad platforms.
How often to measure marketing click-through rate
You should measure the click-through rate of each new marketing campaign that you launch. You can also measure CTR for social posts to measure their effectiveness in directing visitors to your website/landing pages.
6) Bounce rate (especially on product pages)
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your website without taking any action (such as filling out a form or making a purchase). You can track the overall bounce rate for your website, but it's especially important to track the bounce rate of individual product pages.
This can speak to the value of the content on the page. For example, if a page contains valuable or engaging information, the site visitor will spend more time on it. If it contains irrelevant or unhelpful information, they’ll probably click away pretty quickly.
How to measure bounce rate
Bounce rate is a metric that can be measured using Shopify or Google Analytics. For Shopify stores, you can view the bounce rate of any page on your Analytics page.
How often to measure bounce rate
It is recommended that you measure the bounce rate of your website and individual product pages on a monthly basis.
First purchase metrics
This is a vital stage of the customer journey: when customers decide whether to purchase. As such, it's also a key stage of the customer journey to optimize. The following metrics can help you determine whether or not this final section of your sales funnel is performing as it should:
7) Shopping cart abandonment
The average shopping cart abandonment rate for ecommerce sites is about 70%. Most of the common issues that prevent customers from completing their purchases occur during the checkout process.
Improving your cart abandonment rate by optimizing your checkout process could help your store generate a lot more ecommerce sales. Your business should make it as easy as possible for your customers to purchase.
For example, requiring a customer to create an account to complete their purchase is frustrating, and may lead them elsewhere. Similarly, a long checkout process with multiple steps can also be a turnoff.
To learn more about creating a checkout process that is designed for reducing cart abandonment rates, check out these 12 strategies for reducing cart abandonment.
How to measure shopping cart abandonment
You should be able to track your cart abandonment rate using Shopify Analytics (or your ecommerce platform of choice).
How often to measure shopping cart abandonment
Given this metric's importance, you should track your cart abandonment rate weekly or bi-weekly.
8) Average order value (AOV)
One effective way to grow your store's revenue without requiring you to attract any new customers is to increase your average order value (AOV). AOV measures how much the average customer spends on a single order. Once you start measuring your AOV, you can increase it via upselling and cross-selling strategies.
How to measure AOV
AOV is a metric that is calculated by dividing your total revenue over a given period of time by your total number of orders over the same period. You can find this section in your Shopify Analytics Dashboard overview.
How often to measure AOV
You should track your store’s AOV on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
9) Sales conversion rates
The conversion rate measures the percentage of website visitors (or email recipients, or people who view your ads, etc.) who convert into paying customers. Ecommerce stores should strive for a conversion rate of about 3%.
How to measure sales conversion rates
For Shopify stores, this metric can be found on the Analytics page. You can also measure the conversion rate of your marketing campaigns using tools such as Klaviyo (for email marketing campaigns) or your PPC platform (for PPC campaigns).
How often to measure sales conversion rates
Your website’s conversion rate should be measured on a monthly basis. You should also measure the conversion rate of each marketing campaign.
10) Average number of sales per day
This is a pretty self-explanatory metric and an important one for ecommerce stores to track.
How to measure average number of sales per day
Shopify tracks this automatically. Take your total sales over the time period that you are measuring and divide it by the number of days in the period.
How often to measure average number of sales per day
Average number of sales per day is a metric that should be measured on a monthly or quarterly basis.
11) Revenue generated by customer support
Exceptional customer support can directly generate revenue in several effective ways, including promoting customer loyalty, generating sales via upsells, cross-sells, and product recommendations, and nudging website visitors toward a conversion via proactive customer support.
How to measure revenue generated by customer support
Revenue generated by customer support is one of many customer support metrics that a high-quality helpdesk such as Gorgias will help you track. For example, our platform enables you to evaluate customer support performance based on multiple factors, such as the number of converted tickets.
How often to measure revenue generated by customer support
Revenue generated by customer support is a metric that you should measure on a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
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First 30 days post-purchase metrics
The customer journey doesn't end when they buy. You want to encourage retention and repeat purchases — as return customers generate about 300% more revenue than first-time shoppers.
To promote customer loyalty and maximize the value of each customer that you acquire, then it's essential to create an optimized post-purchase experience. In fact, 73% of all customers point to customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions.
Tracking post-purchase metrics can help you deliver the quality of experience that your customers expect, and the most impactful post-purchase metrics to track include:
12) Return visitors
Return visitors is a metric that tells you either the total number or percentage of visitors who return to your website multiple times. It provides insights into how well you can build and retain an online audience, which is a key part of how ecommerce stores promote customer loyalty.
How to measure return visitors
You should be able to track this metric using Shopify or a tool such as Google Analytics. For Shopify stores, this is a metric that can be viewed on the Analytics page.
How often to measure return visitors
You should consider tracking your return visitors rate on either a monthly or quarterly basis.
13) CSAT score
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score is a metric gathered via CSAT surveys sent out to customers following either a purchase or a customer service interaction. These surveys ask customers to rank their satisfaction with your brand and allow you to calculate your overall CSAT score by dividing the number of satisfied responses by the total number of responses.
How to measure CSAT score
A high-quality helpdesk such as Gorgias will enable you to both send CSAT surveys and track your average CSAT score.
How often to measure CSAT score
CSAT surveys should be sent out following any customer service interaction, and your average CSAT score should be measured quarterly.
14) Net promoter score (NPS)
Like CSAT, net promoter score (NPS) is another metric that offers insights into how happy existing customers are with your brand. NPS tells you how likely customers are to recommend your brand to their friends, family, or colleagues. This metric enables you to gauge customer satisfaction from a different angle than CSAT score and also enables you to evaluate how much value word-of-mouth advertising is delivering for your brand.
How to measure net promoter score
You can collect this information via NPS surveys sent out following a purchase. NPS score is then calculated by determining the average response to these surveys over a given period of time. We recommend Delighted as an excellent tool for sending NPS surveys and other customer feedback requests.
How often to measure net promoter score
NPS surveys should be sent out following every purchase, and your brand’s average net promoter score should be measured on a quarterly basis.
Check out our guide on NPS survey best practices.
15) Customer service contact rate
You want to make it as easy and convenient as possible for customers to contact your support team. But at the same time, having a high customer service contact rate could potentially indicate issues with your store, products, or post-purchase process that need to be addressed.
How to measure customer service contact rate
Gorgias Statistics allows you to track your customer service contact rate and also provides helpful insights regarding the specific issues that customers are having. This information can be highly valuable for optimizing your store's post-purchase experience.
How often to measure customer service contact rate
Customer service contact rate is something that you should track monthly or quarterly.
Repeat purchase and brand loyalty metrics
The final stage of the customer journey is retaining the customers that you acquire and maximizing their value. Ideally, this stage will last for the rest of the customer's life.
Repeat purchase and brand loyalty metrics provide insights regarding how much value each new customer you acquire is providing, and the most important repeat purchase and brand loyalty metrics to track include:
16) Repeat purchase ratio
Repeat purchase ratio is the ratio of customers who make multiple purchases from your store compared to those who only make a single purchase. With current customer acquisition costs being as high as they are (more on that in a bit), it's now more important than ever for ecommerce stores to generate as many repeat customers as possible.
How to measure repeat purchase ratio
To see how effective your store is at creating repeat customers, you can divide your total number of customers over a time period by your total number of repeat customers to calculate your repeat purchase ratio.
How often to track repeat purchase ratio
Repeat purchase ratio is a metric that should be tracked on a quarterly basis.
17) Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a measure of how much a customer spends with your brand over the course of their lifetime. You can calculate this metric for individual customers, but it's most useful for ecommerce brands to track their average CLV.
How to measure CLV
This is a metric that Shopify tracks automatically, allowing you to view CLV across customers, products, and channels.
How often to measure CLV
CLV is a metric that your ecommerce business should measure on a quarterly basis.
18) CLV/CAC ratio
From 2013 to 2021, customer acquisition costs (CAC) for ecommerce stores rose 222%. This makes it vital for brands to maximize the CLV of each new customer they acquire while also making efforts to lower CAC when possible. CLV/CAC ratio is arguably the most critical ecommerce metric for brands to track since it ultimately determines your store's bottom line.
How to measure CLV/CAC ratio
Start by determining your average CAC: Divide your total marketing spend over time by the total number of new customers you acquired. You can then divide the average CAC you calculate by your average CLV to determine your brand's CLV/CAC ratio.
How often to measure CLV/CAC ratio
You should calculate this metric quarterly and aim for a CLV/CAC ratio benchmark of 3:1.
Inventory and stock metrics
Finally, let's look at a few metrics regarding a side of the business that customers never see — but one that significantly impacts their experience nonetheless. To ensure that you always have the right amount of inventory on hand to meet demand, here are three inventory and stock metrics to track:
19) Average inventory sold per day
Average inventory sold per day shows how much is flowing in and out of your business and can help manage inventory levels. It's also a metric that can indirectly tell you how your ecommerce store is performing.
How to measure average inventory sold per day
You can track this metric using Shopify Reports or using inventory management software such as NetSuite.
How often to measure average inventory sold per day
Average inventory sold per day is a metric that you should track on a monthly basis.
20) Monthly inventory levels
Tracking monthly inventory levels tells you how much of each product you have available at the end of each month and is another key metric for optimizing inventory management.
How to measure monthly inventory levels
Your inventory management software or Shopify can track this metric, so you don't have to do it manually.
How often to measure monthly inventory levels
As the name suggests, this is a metric that you should track each month to ensure that you don't have products accidentally go out of stock.
21) Inventory turnover (days on hand)
Inventory turnover tells you how many days before a product is likely to go out of stock and is also known as "days on hand.”
How to measure inventory turnover
This metric can be calculated by dividing your current inventory level by the average daily inventory sold.
How often to measure inventory turnover
After checking your monthly inventory levels at the end of each month, you should calculate your inventory turnover to determine when you should place orders for new stock.
Shopify analytics: What your ecommerce platform can (and can't) track for you
You can track many (if not most) of the metrics we've discussed using Shopify's reporting and analytics features. However, there are also several highly important ecommerce metrics that you can't track using Shopify alone. This includes any metrics based on customer feedback, such as CSAT and NPS scores.
Other specialized metrics like revenue generated by customer support and certain stock and inventory metrics may also require third-party tools to measure and track.
Other top tools to measure ecommerce metrics
If you want to access all of the important metrics an online business needs to track, you may need to utilize a few third-party tools in addition to your ecommerce platform. This includes tools such as:
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics collects data from your website to provide a broad range of insights regarding the people who visit it, including key ecommerce metrics such as bounce rate, store sessions, and return visitors.
- Helpdesk: A high-quality helpdesk software such as Gorgias can provide detailed customer support analytics, including revenue generated by customer support. Helpdesk software can also collect customer feedback for NPS and CSAT scores.
- Inventory management software: Inventory management software (like Zoho) can help keep your inventory levels optimized and enables you to track a wide range of inventory and stock metrics.
- Email marketing software: Email marketing software (like MailChimp or Constant Contact) will provide metrics that enable you to track the performance of your email marketing campaigns, including your unsubscribe rate, your open rate, and your email click-through rate.
Ecommerce metrics FAQ
Why are ecommerce metrics important?
Tracking key ecommerce metrics provides businesses with numerous advantages, including:
- Monitoring the performance of their online store
- Using metrics to guide budgeting and prioritization
- Improving forecasting and predictive models
- Uncovering insights regarding ways to improve the customer experience and grow your store's total revenue
What's the most important ecommerce metric?
While every metric on our list is important in its own right, CLV/CAC ratio is perhaps the most important. If this ratio is less than one, your store is spending more per customer than it is gaining and isn't profitable. If it's greater than one, you're in the black and can focus on optimizing customer lifetime value even further.
What's the difference between ROI and conversion rate?
Return on investment (ROI) compares how much a marketing campaign (or anything else you invest in) earns versus how much it costs. If you spend $1,000 on an ad that generates $3,000 in profit, then your ROI for that ad is 3:1, or 300%.
Conversion rate, meanwhile, is the rate at which a marketing campaign, ecommerce website, or product page converts visitors into paying customers. For example, if your website gets 10,000 visitors and 500 of them purchase a product, then your site's conversion rate is 5%.
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Measure detailed customer service metrics with Gorgias
Along with providing all the tools and features you need to offer exceptional customer support, Gorgias' comprehensive support platform also makes it easy to evaluate customer service quality and track key customer service metrics:
- Revenue statistics to see how customer support impacts your store's bottom line
- Live statistics for monitoring support performance of live chat agents and other representatives in real-time
- Automated CSAT surveys for collecting customer feedback and tracking your CSAT score
...And a wide range of other metrics and insights that Gorgias places at your fingertips.
To get started utilizing the best customer support platform on the market today to measure, track, and improve the quality of your brand's customer service, sign up for Gorgias today!
