The 5 main performance indicators for an e-commerce site (1 of 2)
After long weeks of waiting, I am back with the rest of my series on the main performance indicators by business model. I previously covered the topics of performance indicators for sites intended for lead generation as well as content sites or blogs . I am now tackling e-commerce sites.
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1- Income by source
When we track income by source, we can easily determine which sources are most profitable to us and which are not. We are not talking about visits or conversion rates. We therefore want each visit to the site to bring us a sale. I recommend that you dig deeper into your analysis and calculate ROI by source. You will surely have some surprises.

Visits can also be used to calculate the average revenue per visit for each source. In other words, we can express the following sentence: income from source X / Y number of visits for source X = average income per visit for source X. If we take for example the results from the organic source present in the table above, we get an average revenue per visit of $1.84 unlike the referrer source who gets $2.70. This additional comparison encourages us to invest more resources in referring sites. However, the acquisition cost of each visit must be considered.
2 – the completion rate of the shopping cart checkout process
I would tell you that this is the most important ergonomic process on an e-commerce site. It influences the volume of purchases and the loyalty of your customers. However, one question burns your lips. Should I include all the steps in my process? Ah! good question. What insight! I would tell you that the only step not to include is that of adding to cart. We have noticed over time and our many customers that users use this step as an estimator or reminder of potential purchases. However, this behavior artificially reduces the completion rate and biases the actual performance of the process.

The analysis of the rate of each step will have to be deepened by other tools like Clicktale . It allows you to visualize the clicks and mouse movements of a user at each stage of their purchasing process. The two analyzes combined give you enough food for thought for your next optimizations.
*** Update ***
Here is the second part on the main performance indicators for an e-commerce site
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We are often asked THE question by our clients/partners/colleagues/bosses: What are the main performance indicators to check in the management of my website? However, their selection is greatly influenced by the vocation of the website, because each has a unique strategy and objectives of its own. In order to answer this fundamental question as humbly as possible, I will publish a series of posts that will identify the 5 main performance indicators for 3 types of business model on the Internet.
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