“Knowledge is power”, but it’s what online vendors do with the knowledge and insights from customer behavior in order to create better experiences and ultimately increase revenues. The data isn’t powerful if it remains in the deepest, darkest depths of an eCommerce platform with no action taken.
Every nugget of data, be it number of site visitors, page hits, sales or inventory levels can lead to more informed decisions when it comes to targeted marketing and product promotion.
In order to build meaningful customer relationships, online retailers must understand how individual buyers behave in order to maximize opportunity and increase satisfaction. The very nature of online retail means that you don’t get to know your customers face-to-face, but they increasingly want you to know them just as well as if you had served them in store.
How do you know whether to create a bias towards a product category or to promote a certain brand to a customer segment? Are they the kind of customer that will respond to a discount? How do you convert sales? You may be getting potential purchasers to the site through search terms and effective navigation paths, but they go away empty handed and the shopping cart is never utilized. Analyzing the data available may just be the key to unveiling why certain potential customers don’t jump the final hurdle.
Some visitors are simply browsing, but some are looking to buy something specific. You have one shot to convert the ‘sniper’ who knows what they’re looking for and doesn’t hang around, whereas those ‘explorers’ who are browsing will have much more interaction with the site. With every click, a user is more likely to bounce away not having found what they were looking for, but those clicks allow you to gather more information about the customer’s journey and effect change in future. Are you capturing that information? Investing in the right solution to help effectively analyze data will enable you to build meaningful online strategies.
The key metrics we recommend measuring include:
1. Add-to-Cart Rate: The percentage of visitors that place one or more items in their cart during a session. This can help you gauge the success of your search, site usability, product selection and merchandising.
2. Page Views: The number of pages a user visits on your site, including reloads. This number can show you if people are clicking through, looking around and are engaged enough to stay.
3. Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors that take a desired action, such as hitting ‘buy’. Take the average conversion rate in your industry/market as the benchmark to beat.
4. Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors that go to your site and leave before viewing any further pages. This is a red flag that something is turning shoppers off right out of the gate.
5. Average Order Value (AOV): The average dollar amount spent per individual order. This gives you an understanding of customer purchasing habits.
6. Revenue Per Visitor (RPV): The revenue generated each time a customer visits your site. This is useful in estimating the value of gaining unique new visitors.
7. Null Results: The percentage of searches that return zero results. This KPI can show you how data quality affects customer experience. If a shopper can’t find a product, they will abandon the search and likely leave frustrated.
8. Average Searches Per Order: The number of searches carried out per order. This can show you that customers are engaged, finding what they like, searching your recommendations and hopefully adding them to their cart.
9. Cart Abandonment Rate: The percentage of shoppers that exit before purchasing. This could indicate that they’re not ready/able to pay, they’re running out of patience with their search results or even that the steps to check-out are too cumbersome.
10. Search Bounce Rate: The number of customers that leave the site because they’re frustrated with their search results. I don’t think I need to explain why this one is a good KPI for assessing data quality.
What we have to consider in today’s market is that the global pandemic may have made previous buying patterns obsolete. Trends are in flux but the data is a constant source of information you can rely upon. This data updates in real-time, so it is paramount that you invest in effective analysis to take the opportunities as they present themselves.
Analytics are just one tool in the toolbox. Read The 5 Tools All eCommerce Professionals Need In Their Toolbox to learn more. Or schedule a call with one of our experts so we can show you how the GroupBy Product Discovery Suite can boost your revenues.