eCommerce KPI to Track ROI and Conversion Rates

There are 10 mandatory KPIs used to track performance, return on investment and conversion rates for ecommerce websites. Known as eCommerce KPI – these ratios and percentages are used in addition to traditional conversion rates and return on investment calculations. These KPI need to be trended over time ideally month after month, but can be as granular as weekly measurements. Once there is a year’s worth of data, seasonal fluctuations will become apparent, as well as site performance measurement indicators. When analyzing performance and overall ecommerce health, these KPI need to be compared against the same time last year. This takes seasonality out of the equation and factors for sustainability.  

 

AVERAGE ORDER VALUE (AOV) = total revenue divided by orders

 

BUYING SESSIONS = visitor sessions with a purchase divided by total sessions

 

NEW VS RETURNING VISITOR % = new visitors divided by all unique visitors

 

RATIO NEW to RETURNING VISITORS = new visitors divided by returning visitors

 

CUSTOMER RETENTION RATE = previous unique buyers divided by previous unique visitors

 

ORDER CONVERSION RATE = orders divided by visitors

 

BUYER CONVERSION RATE = buyers divided by visitors

 

SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT RATE = percent of sessions where item was added to cart but the order was not completed

 

ORDERS PER SESSION = orders divided by sessions

 

ITEMS PER ORDER = items divided by orders

The ratios and measurements for these KPI vary from site to site, and are highly dependent on the industry and online business model. The ideal way to set these markers, is to either select a time range where the site was performing at optimal capacity, measure the ecommerce KPI and use the ratios as targets. A secondary option is to back into these ecommerce KPI ratios. This can be achieved by setting the ideal or needed web revenue, identify all the segments that make up traffic (such as direct load, search engines, email marketing, etc), identify the conversion rates for each traffic segment, project the volume of traffic it would take to generate the desired revenue based off of know conversion rates, and then work out each Targeted eCommerce KPI based on this ideal traffic projection. When making projections, it is better to sandbag results, rather than being overtly optimistic. Set realistic goals, that can then be matched under know conversion rates. Thus the focus shifts to increasing traffic for the known segments, while potentially adding new tactics to the online marketing mix.

MAIN TAKEAWAY: eCommerce KPI are goals/markers for optimal revenue generating website traffic measurement. 

eVar SiteCatalyst Custom Conversion s.eVar1 setup and configuration

When using Omniture SiteCatalyst™ to capture custom traffic data the eVar is one of the most effective and easy to use variables. This field in the SiteCatalyst™ tracking code needs to be set once a prospect has completed a form, entered some data into the website or performed some conversion event that has some specific attributes.

Example: eVar1 to capture Lead State

• eVars are custom commerce variables used to capture & track user data
• only similarity to s.props is that they pass custom data
• used to segment visitors on how they complete success events
• coded as s.eVar1="your-data";
• can have upto 50 custom eVars in a Omniture SiteCatalyst™ implementation
• captured data is visible in Omniture SiteCatalyst™ Report Suite under Conversions then Custom eVars 1-10 etc depending on how many eVars are utilized

Set-up: Report Suite Manager -> Edit Settings -> Conversions -> Conversion Variables -> Add New eVar

1. Log into Omniture SiteCatalyst™ Admin Console and select Report Suites.

2. Select the appropriate Report Suite, then click on Edit Settings, then on Conversion, then select Conversion Variables.

3. If there are no current eVars available select Add New eVar.

4. eVars are assigned in the order they are created. Need to set the user friendly name (which will later be used as the report name in SiteCatalyst™), set the Allocation or how the data will be captured, set when the cookie will expire, set the type of data (numer, text etc), and set the Relation Status.
5. For this example we are using Lead State for eVar1 to capture the prospects State upon form completion.

6. Omniture SiteCatalyst™ implementation can have upto 50 eVars.
   
7. The captured data can be viewed in the Omniture SiteCatalyst™ report suite under Custom Conversion, eVars are broken down in sets of ten depending on how many are created.

8. The code on page should look similar to the following. With your own data populated in the appropriated eVar upon form completion or at any time that user data can be captured on infered.

s.pageName="Homepage"

s.server="The-big-server"

s.channel="Home"

s.pageType=""

s.prop1="highest-level"

s.prop2="sitemagnify"

s.prop3="lead"

s.prop4="landing-page-experts"

s.prop5="webanalytics"

/* Conversion Variables */

s.campaign=""

s.events="event4"

s.products="KPI-package"

s.purchaseID="888-528-8688"

s.eVar1="Munich"

s.eVar2="KPI"

s.eVar3="Lead-gen"

s.eVar4="Omniture"

s.eVar5="Web-analytics"