Metrics for e-Commerce
Recently I have been working with a couple of different clients to determine metrics for their e-Commerce efforts. In each case, the immediate challenge was to provide a more holistic understanding of e-Commerce performance rather than focus on the basic measures. Most organizations make the mistake of using basic web analytics reports as e-Commerce metrics. Instead, they should use a new generation of measurement framework, which augments web analytics reports that would provide more accuracy and predictability in their e-Commerce efforts.
You achieve that predictability through understanding the cause and effect and by tying activities (cause) with the performance, financial results and customer impact (effect). A true measure of e-Commerce performance is a set of metrics that measures across multiple dimensions. The measures across dimensions are:
a. Web Analytics: Web analytics provide information like visitors to site, the source of generating traffic to your site, browsing behavior and overall all bounce rate from the site. The typical metrics are:
- Number of visitors
- Referral source
- Keywords or ad-words used for entry
- Number of cart / session abandonments
- Number of purchases
- Geographic Location
b. Product related metrics: Metrics related to products will provide information on the overall products sold and metrics around product cross-sell. The typical metrics are:
- Items per order
- Products per order
- Number of cross-sell products purchased
c. Financial metrics: Financial metrics allow the measurement of e-Commerce performance based on revenue and profitability. These metrics could come from web analytics systems or from back end systems. Some common metrics are:
- Revenue per order / cart
- Average Order Value
d. Customer related Metrics: Customer related metrics provide a measure of customer satisfaction. These metrics are collected using surveys or feedback provided directly by the customer. A common metric is the customer satisfaction score.
Clearly, it is extremely important to go beyond the surface level of web analytics to measure and truly understand the impact of your e-Commerce efforts.
Recent Comments
From jack on Why does Web Analytics give Marketers fits?: It is really interesting, especially because I was looking for such ideas…
From Sakina Walsh on The Real Cost of Your Facebook Profile: Great perspect6ive, Jennifer. So true once you stop for a moment to think…
From Will on Are You Ready to be a Marketing Apiary?: It's very true that in order to produce true customer value, companies MUST…