As attractive as it may sound, conversion rates are the most worrying metric for anyone in ecommerce. And, it isn’t comforting when the ecommerce website conversion rates spiral down.

So to help get out of the mess, we have this blog where businesses can see which metrics need focus and how to improve them. Before we dive into understanding various metrics, we need to know how to define a conversion, multiple kinds of conversion rates, which metrics matter the most, and improve them.

What is a conversion(ecommerce)?

For an ecommerce website, conversion means when a customer completes certain goals or takes specific actions. It depends on the purpose of the page on the ecommerce website.

• Complete a purchase
• Add to cart
• Checkout
• Request a free sample
• Create an account
• Book a product demo
• Subscribe to the newsletter
• Enquire via chatbot
• Download a brochure
• Submit the contact us form

For an ecommerce store, the number of purchases matters to an owner. However, conversion is more than just a purchase for the marketing department. For example, take a “Request a Free Sample” landing page. If the free sample requests rise and sales decline, businesses should revise the free sample landing page.

##@ Five ecommerce eebsite conversion rates that matter

Conversion rate is the rate of total visitors that have taken one of the above-mentioned desired actions. For example, during measuring conversion with purchase as the criteria and 100,000 visitors, only 4000 made a purchase. Then the conversion rate is 4%. (Conversion rate = The number of conversions/ The number of visitors * 100%)

However, the conversion rate differs for various pages, customer segments, and marketing campaigns. Here is the list of conversion rates to measure:

• Overall conversion rate
• Landing page conversion rate
• Targeted customer group conversion rate
• Marketing channel conversion rate
• Ads channel conversion rate

Overall conversion rate

Overall conversion rate measures the topmost level measurement of onsite conversions. It gives the big picture of the marketing performance with purchase as the final purpose. Measure all the marketing activities and evaluate the website's general performance through the overall ecommerce website conversion rates.

*Formula: (Total purchases/Total number of website visitors)100

Landing page conversion rate

It is essential to consistently check the landing pages' performance when running multiple landing pages and A/B testing them. It helps in tracking the performance of the best landing pages.

*Formula: (Number of conversions on the landing page/ Number of visitors to landing page)100

Targeted customer group conversion rate

When targeting multiple customer segments and measuring the performance of marketing campaigns for each group, use targeted customer group conversion rate. However, keep in mind that the size of each target group should be roughly equal.

*Formula: (Number of conversions for targeted group/Number of visitors from the targeted group)100

Marketing channel conversion rate

Marketing Channel Conversion rate is essential when running multiple marketing campaigns and evaluating each channel’s performance. It is an effective way to measure the effectiveness of each marketing channel.

*Formula: (number conversions from the marketing channel/number of visitors from the marketing channel)100

Ads channel conversion rate

Ecommerce uses several advertising channels that its customers frequent. So, when using multiple media, ecommerce retailers, brands, and aggregators need to put money into the ads that work for them. These channels have dashboards that calculate the conversion rates.

*Formula:(number of conversions/number of clicks on the ads)100

So these are the various conversion rates that an ecommerce business needs to keep an eye on, and here are a few metrics to keep an eye on to uptick the ecommerce website conversion rates.

20 ecommerce metrics that affect ecommerce Website conversion rates

Ecommerce has a long list of metrics businesses need to keep an eye on. Google Analytics to multiple social media channels are sources of rich quantifiable data ready for interpretation. Here is a list of 20 such metrics ecommerce businesses should consider keeping in mind:

• Impressions.
• Reach.
• Engagement.
• Email click-through-rate.
• Cost per acquisition (CPA).
• Organic traffic.
• Social media engagement.
• Shopping Cart Abandonment rate
• Checkout Abandonment rate
• Micro-to-macro conversion rates.
• Average order value (AOV).
• Sales conversion rates.
• Customer Retention rate.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Repeat customer rate.
• Refund and return rate.
• Ecommerce churn rate.
• Net promoter score (NPS)
• Subscription rate
• Program participation rate

Impression

Every time an ad or piece of content comes in front of the customers is an impression. Ecommerce businesses can generate this impression from paid ads, third-party sites, search results, social media, etc. Each platform calculates its impressions, and it is dependent entirely on the budget businesses allocate to each activity.

Reach

Reach is the number of followers and subscribers who can see the content businesses publish. It includes email opt-ins, social media followers, and loyalty program subscribers. As a result, better-defined brands can run their campaigns more effectively and improve their reach.

Engagement

The intersection between impressions and reach is engagement. It is essentially how many followers and subscribers engage with the content. It includes CTR and also includes activities such as likes and shares. How consistently businesses promote their content can positively or negatively influence engagement.

Email click-through rate

The click-through rate of emails is the number of subscribers who opened and clicked the CTA in emails to reach the website after receiving them. It can be affected by well-crafted email subject lines, designs, and strong CTAs.

Cost per acquisition(CPA)

An e-mail owner invests in various marketing campaigns like emails, paid search ads, paid ads on different social media platforms, etc., to drive traffic and ultimately show some conversion. However, if the cost of campaigns is more than the number of conversions, there is no point in running these many campaigns. ecommerce stores can only improve CPA through highly targeted campaigns on chosen segments of customers.

Organic traffic

In the long run, everyone expects not to pay for traffic and generate it organically. It is an essential measurement of all the marketing efforts businesses make. Maintaining the proper SEO health and understanding the customer intent is key to driving traffic to the website.

Social media engagement

Social media channels(Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) are vital for ecommerce businesses. These platforms help shoppers show their lifestyle to the world. It also helps ecommerce brands get recognized. In addition, social media platforms help ecommerce businesses measure engagement through KPIs such as likes per post, shares per post, comments per post, and clicks per post.

Shopping cart abandonment rate

Shoppers abandon what they are buying at various stages of the shopping journey. Shopping Cart Abandonment is when shoppers add products to the cart to purchase but do not make the purchase and leave the website. These metrics help the ecommerce brand sort out various glitches between Add to Cart and Buy process.

Checkout abandonment

Checkout Abandonment is a critical metric that helps determine why people abandon whatever they were purchasing before completing the transaction. Though it may be similar to shopping cart abandonment, ecommerce businesses can improve it through intuitive cart management, urgency messaging, saving customer carts, etc.

Micro to macro conversions rates

It helps ecommerce businesses identify and check which activities drive conversions directly or indirectly. Measuring the marketing exercises can help identify activities at various funnel stages and work for the company. For example, the number of visitors checking the product details page or the number of visitors who opt-in for an email subscription are one way to sort the activities.

Average order value(AOV)

Average Order Value is the median price that the shoppers are paying for the items in their cart. ecommerce stores should measure it over time to check its evolution. It relates to the measurement of marketing effectiveness. ecommerce stores selling add-ons. Loyalty programs, and other more fundamental business model queries such as pricing, product quality, etc., contribute immensely to increasing the AOV.

Sales conversion rates

The total number of visitors required to convert into a single sale is called the sales conversion rate. Understanding this metric can help determine the amount of traffic needed to reach the target sales. The blog has already covered it in elaborate detail before.

Customer retention rate

Customer Retention Rate is the number of returning customers over time—the higher this number, the better the ecommerce business is doing with customer servicing. Again, remember to remove the new customers from the list when calculating this.

Customer lifetime value(CLV)

CLV is the approximate amount of value businesses will get from a shopper throughout their association with the brand. It is measured by AOV, repeat transactions, and retention period. Therefore, it helps find underperforming retention and repeat activities.

Repeat customer rate

Repeat customer rate helps measure the percentage of customers who made multiple purchases. It is another way to measure how effective customer service is.

Refund and return rate

Refund and return rates are critical concerns for every ecommerce business. It even threatens the profitability of high-revenue online stores. Based on the industry, the return rates may be more common than the others. However, ecommerce businesses can use returns to drive revenue if return policies are customer-friendly.

Ecommerce churn rate

Churn rate helps track customer turnover. It aids in calculating the number of users ecommerce businesses lose over time. Working on customer delight can help to reduce the customer churn rate. Reselling to an existing customer is more manageable than selling to a new one.

Net promoter score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score measures how well a customer will refer a business. Based on the score, ecommerce businesses can segment customers into three categories – detractors, passives, and promoters. Naturally, the higher the number of supporters, the better the standing of the business. Thus, NPS benefits from the combination of everything a company has to offer. It is an invaluable metric as it measures everything.

Subscription rate

Email remains one channel with the most amount of conversions. A reasonable email conversion rate floats around 15%. Email marketing holds the signals of what the shoppers want and need to hear from a business. Ensuring good email communication through consistent messaging and a strong call-to-action can do wonders for the email marketing program. Do not forget to measure the unsubscription rate. If unsubscription rates are higher and reasonable, it might be a good time to reconsider the email strategy. Aim for an unsubscription rate below 0.5%.

Program participation rate

Ecommerce stores launch many new programs to entice shoppers like loyalty programs, prizes and games, review programs, etc. So if an ecommerce business runs a loyalty program, how many of its customers participate in it. The higher the number, the greater the value of the loyalty program. It increases the CLV, returning customers, etc.

Conclusion

Operating a successful ecommerce business requires attention to detail in many metrics that directly or indirectly affect ecommerce website conversion rates. These metrics guide what action a business needs to take to keep its shoppers happy. The shopping experience helps in building brands. It gives them their own identity or persona. The metrics guide you on how to take care of your shoppers in a better way.

Unbxd is an AI-powered product discovery platform that helps brands exponentially scale online with relevant and personalized customer experiences. Contact us for a free demo!