FYI.. Here's 7 eCom Metrics You Should Be Tracking

Hey 👋

When running an eCom brand, it feels like there are a million things you need to track, and even just opening the Shopify analytics dashboard can be scary at times 😰

But all those graphs and charts mean little when you don’t know what to look out for — and that’s why we’ve picked out the 7 metrics that actually matter, plus a bonus map of just about every metric that exists in eCom at the end 😉 

Let’s get into it!

1. Sales Conversion Rate (CVR) 💰️ 

If there’s only one thing you can track, it should be this. Your sales conversion rate is the Polaris star when it comes to your eCom brand.

Conversion rate (shortened to CVR or CR%) is the percentage of visitors who make a purchase from your website or email list. The formula looks like this:

CVR = # of Purchases / # of Sessions X 100

If you use Shopify, you don’t need to pull out a calculator, it’s all conveniently in your analytics dashboard.

Your conversion rate should always remain consistent & even increase over time, and if it doesn’t — there are a few things you need to check & work on.

When it comes to your website, it needs to be easily navigable on the front end & function well on the backend, here are a few important questions to honestly ask:

• Is the speed of opening the site good?

• Are there any broken links that lead to nowhere?

• Does your store look visually appealing?

• Can you place an order in under a minute?

You have no idea how quick visitors are to click off a tab that loads slowly, let alone RUN away from a difficult-to-navigate site 😭

P.S. — A lot of brands have already perfected their conversion rate, and if you want to see exactly how they did it, check out our post on Why CRO Is Cool & Top Brands Confirming it.

2. Average Order Value (AOV) 📦️ 

AOV is the average amount customers spend at once on your store, and just like your conversion rate, you want this number to be as high as possible.

The formula looks like this:

AOV = Total Revenue / Total # of Orders

Your AOV is a good metric to track since it can help you make realistic goals for sales — let’s say your AOV is $60, and your goal is to bring $12,000 for the month, which would mean you need to attract at least 200 customers in that period.

If your average order value is low, here are two great ways you can increase it:

1️⃣ Bundles

Offering multiple products for a discount in a bundle can seriously increase your AOV, especially if the products “make sense” to buy in a bundle — like shave cream & a razor go hand in hand, for example.

2️⃣ Discount or Free Shipping

Offering a discount or free shipping if another product is added to cart can also be a great way to increase AOV. This meme explains the logic perfectly:

3️⃣ Cross-selling & Upselling

Suggest higher-end products or additional items related to what the customer is already buying, like if someone is buying a laptop, offer accessories like a case or a mouse.

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3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) 🧔 

CLTV is the total revenue your business can expect from a single customer through their lifetime — sounds a bit grim but we can explain 💀

A customer who goes to a coffee shop every day, but only buys a single espresso has a higher LTV than a customer who buys breakfast once a week.

Here’s a pretty long formula to calculate it:

CLV = Avg Value of a Purchase X Number of Times the Customer Will Buy Each Year X Avg Length of the Customer Relationship (in years)

And, sadly, not only Shopify, but most eCom platforms don’t do the counting for you 😭

For that same espresso example, let’s say each espresso costs $3, and a customer buys an espresso every day (365 times a year), assuming they are loyal to your coffee shop for 3 years, that would mean their CLV is $3,285.

This metric is really important — knowing how much a single customer is worth to your business lets you know the minimum you can spend on customer acquisition and still turn a profit, which segues well into the next metric, customer acquisition costs.

4. Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) 💳️ 

This metric tells you the average price of acquiring a new customer, and the formula goes like this:

CAC = Total Marketing & Sales Expenses / # of New Cus tomers Acquired

if you spend $500 on a social media ad campaign and gain 50 new customers, your CAC would be $10 a customer.

Keep an eye on this metric regularly & make sure it stays below your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) — if your CLV is $800 and you’re spending $300 to get just 1 new customer, your CAC is too high and cutting into your profits, and this calls for a new marketing strategy.

5. Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR) 🛒 

At the very end of the funnel, just when a customer is about to buy — they close the tab, and their cart is forever abandoned. Here’s the formula:

CAR = # of abandoned shopping carts / # of initiated checkouts x 100

This metric hurts the most to look at since it typically has a pretty high percentage, but if it’s above 90% — you should try to find the underlying issues & thoroughly investigate the checkout process.

To lower your cart abandonment rate, you can:

1️⃣ Show a Progress Bar

Gamifying the process can really help customers finalize their purchase, even if it’s just a little green bar at the top of their screen, they’ll want to finish it.

2️⃣ Abandoned Cart Emails

Use automated emails that remind customers of items left in their cart — offering a discount, free shipping, or even just an emotional nudge can be enough to make them actually complete the purchase.

And here’s a hilarious (and effective) example of an abandoned cart email:

3️⃣ Exit-Intent Popups

Just before they leave the site (typically when their cursor goes a little too close to the “X”), display a popup that offers a discount.

6. Click-through Rate (CTR) 🖱️

Your CTR is the rate at which someone clicks on your ad, social media post, or email campaign, and actually goes to your website or product page.

The formula is as follows:

P.S. — Impressions can be replaced with views & opens depending on the marketing channel.

Your email marketing or ad platform should show you the CTR of that channel, — and this metric shows the overall success of your digital marketing campaigns.

Click-through rate has been historically low across most marketing channels in eCom, for Google Ads the average is 1.66% for search ads & 0.45% for display ads, while email campaigns see a CTR of about 2.01%

Hold tight — soon we’ll give you a link to the detailed map of 119 eCom Metrics you can use 🔥

7. Store Sessions (by different types) 📱 

Store sessions are split by how people find your store, from which device they visit it, and from what location. In more detail:

1️⃣ By Traffic Source

• Search — from search engine results.

• Direct — by typing your URL directly (usually the lowest %)

• Social — through social media posts;

• Email — from email newsletters & marketing emails;

These stats can help you understand which marketing channels have the highest yield for your eCom store, and which are falling behind, for example, if store sessions by email are low, you should consider building up your email list.

2️⃣ By Device Type

There are only 2 device types — desktop & mobile. For most, mobile is the most popular. If that’s the case for your store, optimizing your site for mobile responsiveness, fluidity, and easy navigation is important.

Just imagine seeing an ad for a cool product & clicking on it, but having to wait 30 seconds for it to load on your phone 😬 

3️⃣ By Location

This metric shows you where your customers shop from, and this can help you concentrate your marketing based on location — if most of your shoppers are from Germany, you can increase your ad spend & adjust your product offerings based on that location for higher revenue.

P.S. — Most of these store session metrics can be found right in your Shopify analytics dashboard.

BONUS — Map of 119 eCom Metrics

As a little thank you for reading this post — here’s a very detailed map of over 119 eCom metrics that can help you understand exactly how every cog in the e-commerce machine works.

Here’s a little sneak peek of what it looks like:

Each metric is sorted by tags, types, and opening any metric gives you a detailed description & the relations to other metrics it has 🔥

You can even make your own copy and edit it as you please, think of it like your own big mindmap of eCom metrics you can directly learn from & apply to your own store — explore the map yourself! 😄 

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Daniil from ECORN