Essential eCommerce Metrics Every Brand Should Track

Choosing and tracking the right eCommerce metrics is crucial for eCommerce retailers, since it helps you understand how your customers interact with your website. Whether you’re scaling a sustainable UK-based brand or optimising for global reach, measuring how well your online store is performing can unlock growth opportunities and improve customer experience.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the most powerful eCommerce website metrics or KPIs you should be monitoring, how to measure them effectively, and the best tools for eCommerce analytics.

What Are eCommerce Metrics?

eCommerce metrics are measurable data points that help us to measure the success of an online business. Every eCommerce business needs to understand key metrics to stay on right track and drive success. Monitoring these metrics helps businesses to gain an understanding of both their overall performance and customer behaviour.

For example, Avery Row, one of WIRO’s clients specialising in high-quality products for babies and toddlers, used targeted metrics to optimise their tech stack. This led to record levels of Add to Cart actions and impressive annual growth.

Why Is It Important to Track Your Store’s Performance?

By tracking sales performance, it provides businesses the actionable insights for boosting your eCommerce analytics and the effectiveness of their marketing and sales efforts. This enables you to make data-driven decisions about how to allocate resources, improve sales processes, and increase revenue, ultimately, you get the data you need for transforming your business.

Tracking metrics allows brands to:

Identify performance bottlenecks in the customer journey.
Optimise for conversion rates and sales performance.
Make informed decisions for long-term scalability.

Top Metrics to Track for eCommerce Success

Here are some of the essential eCommerce metrics that every brand should prioritise:

1. Conversion Rate (CR):

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a purchase. A high conversion rate indicates that your site is optimised for sales, whether through intuitive design, compelling product descriptions, or trust-building elements like reviews. For instance, ensuring a seamless checkout experience can dramatically increase this metric. Optimal conversion rates in an eCommerce website should be around 2% to 5%.

You can calculate your website’s conversion rates by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of website visitors.

CR (in percent) = (Transactions ÷ Leads) × 100

2. Average Order Value (AOV):

The Average Order Value tracks the average amount that customers spend on an order on your site. Increasing AOV can boost your revenue without the need for additional marketing spend. Strategies like bundling products, offering free shipping thresholds, or promoting higher-value items can help increase AOV, driving more revenue without additional marketing spend.

AOV (in €) = Sales ÷ Number of transactions

3. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV):

CLV shows you how much a customer spends on your shop over their lifetime. There are many strategies to boost CLV in eCommerce like focusing on retention strategies like loyalty programs, and personalised offers. Tracking CLV helps you to identify which customers are worth keeping, and whether you’re investing too much (or not enough) to retain existing customers.

CLV=(Average Order Value)×(Purchase Frequency)×(Customer Lifespan)

4. Cart Abandonment Rate (CAR):

This tracks the percentage of customers who add items to their cart and leave your website without converting. High abandonment rates means you just barely missed out on making a sale. If your CAR is high, it’s a good idea to take a close look at your checkout process and optimise the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment.

5. Website Traffic Sources:

This KPI gives you insights into from where your traffic comes from, whether organic search, social media, or paid ads, and this can help optimise marketing efforts. Using tracking tools such as Google Analytics are a big help here. It’s also important to examine what percentage of your visitors are using mobile devices compared to desktops. This data helps you identify the most primary sources of traffic within your target audience. That way, it helps you to make informed decisions about which aspects of your store to improve.

6. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC):

CAC measures how much it costs to acquire a new customer or the profitability of your eCommerce business. This is a critical metric for evaluating how much you spend on marketing and advertising campaigns to reach new customers. A low CAC relative to CLV ensures profitability and long-term growth. To improve this, focus on organic growth strategies like SEO or referral programs.

CAC (in €) = Marketing costs (for one channel) ÷ Number of new customers acquired (via that channel)

7. Bounce Rate (BR):

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave your site immediately without taking any action. For an eCommerce business, the goal is to keep your bounce rate as low as possible. A high bounce rate often signals poor user experience, irrelevant traffic, or slow page speeds. Using tools like Google Analytics and improving site design can help retain visitors longer.

BR (in percentage) = (Visitors who leave immediately ÷ All visitors) × 100

How to Measure Them Effectively

1. Leverage A/B Testing

Experiment with different page layouts, CTAs, or product images to see what improves metrics like conversion rate.

2. Set Benchmarks

Compare your performance against industry standards. For instance, the average cart abandonment rate in the UK is around 68%.

3. Segment Data

Break metrics down by demographics, location, and customer behaviour for targeted insights

Tools for eCommerce Analytics

There are several tools to make tracking and analysing eCommerce metrics more efficient:

Google Analytics 4 (GA4): Provides in-depth traffic and behaviour data.
Klaviyo: Excellent for email and lifecycle marketing metrics like CLV.
Hotjar: Ideal for understanding how customers interact with your website.
Shopify Analytics: Gives a comprehensive view of sales performance and trends.

WIRO recently implemented Shopify Analytics and other advanced tools for our recent clients likes MJ. Johnes, Casa by JJ, For The Creators , Smel and more.

Conclusion

As an eCommerce business owner, you can use various KPIs to track the performance of your online store. With the increasing competition in the eCommerce space, tracking right eCommerce metrics can give businesses a competitive edge and help them stay ahead of the game.

At WIRO, we’ve helped brands like Avery Row and Piglet in Bed leverage Key Performance Indicators to achieve measurable success. By focusing on actionable data, your business can turn insights into impactful strategies.