E-commerce has been growing at an incredible pace over the last decade. According to Statista, global retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach nearly $7.5 trillion by 2025. With over 26 million e-commerce websites in operation, the competition is fierce. In order to stand out, online businesses need to utilize data and analytics to optimize their stores.
In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the key e-commerce metrics to track, the top analytics tools on the market, and the tangible benefits leveraging analytics can provide.
Key E-commerce Metrics and KPIs
When it comes to e-commerce analytics, there are a few vital metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that online stores should be tracking. Monitoring these metrics provide crucial insights into the health and performance of an e-commerce business.
Average Order Value
The average order value (AOV) indicates how much customers are spending per order on average. This metric is calculated by dividing total revenue by the number of orders. Monitoring AOV is critical for assessing profitability. If the AOV is less than customer acquisition cost, adjustments need to be made.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors that convert into paying customers. By tracking conversion rates over time, stores can identify issues leading to drop-offs and optimize pages and funnel.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
The shopping cart abandonment rate measures what percentage of users placed items in their carts but did not complete the checkout process. Monitoring this helps identify checkout friction areas.
Customer Retention Rate
Calculating the customer retention rate shows what percentage of customers return to make repeat purchases. This is key for showing brand loyalty and satisfaction levels.
Sales Revenue
Total sales revenue and number of products sold is the bottom line for e-commerce profitability. Tracking this weekly, monthly and annually provides insight into growth and product demand.
Customer Lifetime Value
This calculates how much revenue a customer will generate over their relationship with the brand. High lifetime value indicates sustainable business from loyal customers.
Customer Acquisition Cost
Knowing how much is spent on average to acquire a new customer is paramount for analyzing marketing return on investment. This determines budgets for campaigns.
Return on Ad Spend
Similar to acquisition cost, return on ad spend measures revenue driven specifically from advertising channels like paid search and social media ads. This identifies high-performing platforms.
Now that we have covered the key metrics online stores should be monitoring, let’s explore some of the top e-commerce analytics tools on the market to track this data.
Top E-commerce Analytics Tools
Supermetrics
Supermetrics is one of the leading analytics aggregation tools. It pulls in data across social media, search, and display advertising channels into one unified reporting dashboard. Users can connect Supermetrics to their business intelligence or spreadsheet software.
Key features:
- Connects 100+ data sources
- Automated report generation
- Advanced segmentation capabilities
- Affordable pricing starts at $99 per month
SavvyCube
SavvyCube specializes in aggregating e-commerce sales data specifically from platforms like Shopify and PayPal. It provides unified reporting on sales, customers metrics, marketing analytics, and geospatial data.
Key features:
- Tailored specifically for e-commerce data
- Advanced segmentation tools
- Easy-to-use dashboard
- Starts at $49 per month
Woopra
Woopra takes a customer-centric approach to its analytics. It focuses specifically on the user journey through websites and apps. This allows businesses to pinpoint drop-off pages leading to lost conversions.
Key features:
- Customer journey mapping
- Campaign tracking effectiveness
- CRM and marketing automation integrations
- Free plan up to 500K actions per month
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is a robust mobile and web analytics platform tracking user engagement across devices. Businesses can analyze behavior through cohorts and funnels to enhance applications and conversion rates.
Key features:
- Cross-platform app and web analysis
- Funnel visualization
- Retention and engagement reporting
- 100K monthly users free forever
Google Analytics
As one of the most widely adopted analytics platforms, Google Analytics provides a wealth of reporting on site traffic, conversions, shopping behavior and more. It’s free to use and integrates with other Google products.
Key features:
- Free and simple to set up
- Reporting on site traffic sources
- Monitoring goals and conversions
- Custom dashboards and segments
Semrush
While better known for its SEO and competitor analysis, Semrush also provides robust analytics for assessing marketing channels holistically. Users can quantify organic and paid search, social media and display performance.
Key features:
- Analysis of organic and paid search
- Tracking rankings and link building
- Competitor visibility comparison
- Starts at $99.95 per month
Amplitude
Amplitude takes an analytics approach optimized specifically for digital products and ecommerce. It allows product managers and marketers to analyze conversions, engagement metrics and behavioral cohorts.
Key features:
- Behavioral analysis tools
- Real-time data monitoring
- Segmentation and personalization capabilities
- Starts at $299 per month
Glew
Glew is a business intelligence platform purpose-built for ecommerce analytics use cases. It connects data from ecommerce platforms, ERP tools, marketing channels and more into unified reporting.
Key features:
- Ecommerce focused metrics and pipeline generation
- Unified cross-channel reporting
- Starts with free 20 metric plan
- Upgraded plans start at $79 per month
Benefits of Leveraging E-commerce Analytics
Implementing ecommerce analytics tools to regularly monitor performance metrics and KPIs provides a multitude of benefits to online businesses:
Optimize Marketing Campaigns
By connecting analytics from advertising channels like Google and social platforms, businesses can identify the highest converting platforms and reallocate budgets to those driving the most profit.
Enhance Customer Experiences
Analyzing customer behavior through lifecycle and journey mapping allows stores to quickly identify pain points losing conversions and optimize experiences.
Manage Inventory
With analytics on which products are driving the most revenue, stores can better plan inventory levels and re-order points for their most in-demand items.
Pinpoint Conversion Issues
Leveraging funnel visualization helps highlight drop-off pages that are leading visitors to abandon carts and fail to convert.
Implementing an analytics strategy takes time but pays dividends across e-commerce stores in the form of higher revenues, conversion rates and repeat business from loyal customers. Monitoring performance metrics provides the visibility needed to continually optimize and improve over time.
