Measuring your success online is all about your ROI (Return On Investment). All the decisions you make in terms of product development, marketing, and everything else will be based on what kind of returns your business will get based on what you put in (your investment). To accurately track ROI, you need to identify what your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will be. The different metrics that will be the most important to you will vary depending on the specific goal you’re trying to measure. However, if you’re just getting started, these 11 KPIs are a good place to start:
1. Site traffic
Once you start paying attention to this KPI, you’ll be able to identify natural trends in your traffic and also potential problems that are worth looking into further.
2. Product page visits
If you run an ecommerce site, you want people to visit your product pages. Keeping an eye on this KPI will allow you to track performance of individual product pages as well as identify potential problems. For example, if several users bounce from product page to product page before converting (or not converting at all), maybe they’re having trouble finding what they want. Further analysis could indicate an issue or opportunity for improvement with your site search, navigation, filters, and more.
3. Page views and time on site per session
These two KPIs, especially when viewed on a per session basis, provide a good idea of how people are engaging with your site. The more pages they view and the more time they spend on your site, the more engaged with your site they usually are. By the same token, a lot of pages views with a smaller time on site could indicate an issue, like thin content, complex navigation, irrelevant site search, etc.
4. Exit pages
Keeping an eye on the pages on which your customers exit your site will allow you to identify potential problems with those pages and with your conversion pathways. If too many users are exiting on pages they shouldn’t be, you’ll know you need to review those pages for issues and do some testing for optimizations to make them better.
5. Referral sources (email, search, social, etc.)
You want to know where your visitors are coming from and how they’re finding you; your referral sources can give you an idea of that. Plus, you’ll be able to see which sources are booming and which are underperforming. Once you know that, you can make adjustments in your marketing strategy to compensate.
6. Conversion rate
Your conversion rate is your revenue-generator, so you definitely want to keep an eye on it. It’ll vary naturally as your traffic increases and decreases, but any changes you can make to your site to improve your conversion rate will be good for you and for your customers. That being said, don’t be afraid to make a list of potential optimizations and start working through A/B tests on them.
7. Average order value (AOV)
You put a lot of work into setting up your site to encourage transactions, so make sure you’re getting the most out of every single order. If your AOV is a little lower than you would like, it could be a good indication that your up-sells and cross-sells need some work. You could also increase it by offering irresistible product bundles.
8. Cart abandonment
If someone goes through all the effort to put your products in their shopping cart and head to checkout, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to complete the process. Keeping an eye on your cart abandonment rates can help you identify whether or not your checkout is giving users issues and when it’s time to work on improving it.
9. Number of transactions
This KPI is relatively straightforward and doesn’t usually offer a complete picture on its own. However, using it and drilling down by product or by category can alert you to potential issues on certain pages, natural trends in your customers’ buying process, and opportunities for promotions, like a coupon, clearance sale, or product bundle.
10. Revenue
Tracking your revenue over time can give you a great overview of where your business is and, if you have enough data built up, predictions on where it is heading. Sudden drops can indicate issues while sudden growths can indicate what is working well for you and customers, so you can do more of it. It’s also a great starting point from which to drill down further to see things like: which of your products drives the most revenue, which drives the least, and more.
11. Bounce rate
The bounce rate is the rate at which visitors leave your site without moving to another page. At times, this number can be misleading. After all, if a visitor lands on a page and spends time engaged with the content on that page, but leaves without moving to another, it still registers as a bounce. So, it’s usually better to take this number with a grain of salt, keeping in mind that a high bounce rate on a page could indicate a disconnect between what your visitors expected and what is actually on the page. A high bounce rate usually indicates some issue with engagement on that page, so it’s worth tracking and trying to identify opportunities for improvement.
Once you have a handle on these, you’ll start to see which ones matter more for certain goals. The KPIs that matter the most for increasing email signups will be a bit different from the ones for decreasing cart abandonment. From there, you’ll have no problem getting a picture of ROI and what changes to make to increase it, which is good for you and for your customers.