Nine Metrics Useful for Measuring Ecommerce Success

In an article recently published on Mashable’s website, several successful ecommerce entrepreneurs were asked what data they rely on to develop and monitor strategies. The following is a list of the nine metrics these entrepreneurs deemed most valuable along with a brief summary of why.

1. User Acquisition Costs
This metric can be used to determine the success rate of your PPC campaigns. How much does it cost you each time a user lands on a web page in relation to conversions?

2. Abandoned Carts
Monitor this metric to ask customers who bailed on their shopping carts why they did not proceed through to checkout. Was it something with the checkout process itself? Were shipping costs too high? There are a number of reasons why shopping carts are abandoned. This is a good metric to watch in order to gain insight on possible improvements that could lead to a higher conversion rate.

3. Google Analytics Experiments
This is a tool accessible from your Google Analytics account. It can be used for split testing. Use experiments to test different web pages against each other to determine what is working and what is not. For more information on experiments, follow this link.

4. Visitor Value
Determine how much revenue each one of your visitors generates. From here, you can come up with a strategy in regards to how much you want to spend to draw new traffic to your website.

5. Lifetime Value
Yet another important metric to consider is the lifetime value of a customer. Consider why some customers return and spend more than others and then think about how to market old and new products to both new and return customers.

6. Traffic
Look at where your traffic is coming from and what the bounce rate is. Information like this can be viewed from your Google Analytics account. This entrepreneur suggests that the best money making opportunity comes from non-branded, organic traffic.

7. Lead Source ROI
Monitor the ROI of each different advertising method to determine which ones are most effective.

8. Purchase Funnel
Analyze the purchase funnel to understand where and when a customer drops off the sales process.

9. Percentage of Mobile Visits
With the use of mobile devices on the rise, having a site optimized for this type of shopper is crucial. 

The original article post on Mashable can be viewed in its entirety here.