5 Essential Metrics to Measure the Performance of Your e-Commerce
To properly audit your website, including following your conversion tunnel, it is important to have the right indicators. Which metrics to follow to have the right information? Here is our selection of five key metrics to properly optimize your conversion tunnel.
The bounce rate and the refusal rate
First key indicator is the bounce rate, which you must follow if you have an e-commerce site but more generally on any website. The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who visit only one page of your site. They therefore make a rebound. Look at this rate page by page. The higher it is, the more it means that the content of your page does not match the expectations of visitors … or that you must target other users.
According to a study by Captain Commerce, the average bounce rate differs across sectors. For Travel, Tourism and Sport it is 36.6% while for Services to Companies it reaches 52.3%.
This rebound rate may even have gaps between brands in the same sector. It was found that for most sectors the rebound rate was between 35 and 45%.If your bounce rate is above 50%, it is generally considered too high.
In the same vein, monitor the refusal rate. This is the percentage of visitors who, once on your site, are not going to initiate an order process. No matter the number of page views, they do not engage in a purchase. For calculation, consider only out-of-rebound visitors.
The dropout rate
This is the part of visitors who put products in their basket…but give up the purchase. With this indicator, you can understand if the last stages of your conversion tunnel seem to pose difficulties (registration, validation, payment). Consider your e-commerce site as a physical store. You may have the right products and the right way to sell them, but the checkout is problematic (waiting time, misunderstanding).
According to Business to Community, 11 main causes explain the abandonment of the consumer basket:
- You are not breaking the checkout process into bite-sized steps
- You are not capturing the intent
- You are making check out a pain
- You are not offering enough incentive
- You are including a poor mobile checkout experience
- You are not pointing out the exits
- You are inducing promo code regret
- You are not offering free shipping
- You are not looking trustworthy
- You are not reducing friction to overcome buyer remorse
- You are not implementing a Live Chat
Enhanced e-commerce is a good source of information for how often the product has been added and/or removed from the cart.
The conversion rate of your command tunnel
You must monitor your conversion rate. But go further than the gross conversion rate offered by Google Analytics. Measure the conversion rate of your purchase tunnel. How? by dividing the number of orders by the total number of visits in your conversion tunnel. The first step in your conversion tunnel can be visiting a product page or shopping for a product.
The conversion rate into a page
To measure the effectiveness of your sales tunnel, consider how many steps you need before placing an order. Is it four, five or 10 or more interactions before an order? On the contrary, do you have commands that only require one interaction? If this is the case, then identify the channels that brought these visitors. Since they are quick to order and are already convinced, try to maximize these profiles.
The average basket
Last key indicator to watch for is the average basket. The average value of the purchased basket is not to follow instantaneously, but rather in the long term. Try to evolve its value over time to strengthen your sales without increasing your efforts. An average basket that increases means more money, but not necessarily more orders/preparations.
