Ecommerce businesses have access to a wealth of data to enable better processes, procedures, and strategies. Intelligent eCommerce analytics can help your business make the most of high-traffic sales cycles like the holidays. Understanding the different types of data—and what insights they can provide—is the first step towards a well-rounded eCommerce data strategy.
TYPE OF ECOMMERCE DATA
Let’s start by taking a closer look at some of the most important types of eCommerce data.
CONVERSION
Ah yes, conversion rate: the gold standard of eCommerce analytics. We here at Codal have made this comparison before, but it’s helpful to think of conversion rate as the score at the end of a basketball game. Ultimately, it tells you if you won or lost—which is perhaps the most important statistic—but it reveals little else.
Fortunately, there are a number of other data points associated with conversions that can help tell a more complete story. Tracking average order value (AOV) can reveal your customer’s average price range and give you some insight into which of your products may be overpriced or underpriced. Shopping cart abandonment rate tracks when a customer has items in their cart but leaves your site before completing a transaction. If you have a high abandonment rate, it could point to issues with your checkout process, as well as your overall marketing strategy.
CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR
Having insight into how your customers behave on your eCommerce site is invaluable. Understanding how customers engage with your products and navigate your site can help you continuously refine and improve your eCommerce presence. While conversion data directly informs your marketing strategy and efforts, customer behavior analytics can help you determine what about your eCommerce site itself needs improvement.
Are customers navigating away from certain pages quickly? Your site’s confusing content could be tripping them up, or its UX could use a facelift. If customers are rarely scrolling through a large chunk of your product offerings, perhaps your pages are loading too slow and improving site speed should be a priority. Refining your eCommerce site is going to depend on a lot of trial and error, but customer behavior data is fundamental to understanding where improvements need to be made.
AUDIENCE AND DEMOGRAPHICS
Understanding your target market is fundamental to the success of any business, not just eCommerce companies. In order to effectively develop, produce, market, and sell your products, it’s essential that you fully grasp the nature of your audience. Audience and demographic data can provide you with the baseline-level information—age, location, occupation, etc.—you need to power your entire eCommerce business, from product development all the way through to marketing.
CUSTOMER ACQUISITION
Customer acquisition data lets you know exactly how users reached your eCommerce site. This is perhaps the most important segment of data for your marketing strategy. Using customer acquisition data, you can get a clear picture of what digital channels customers are using to reach your site—and ultimately make purchases. In order to create a comprehensive marketing strategy for your eCommerce business, it’s essential to know which channels are driving the most traffic to your site—and driving sales. With a limited marketing budget, you need to know where to devote your time, resources, and, of course, money. Customer acquisition data lets you know what channels to focus on and what channels may need improvement.
BENEFITS OF COLLECTING ECOMMERCE DATA
Harnessing the power of data analytics can ensure your eCommerce business is set up for long-term success. From product development, to marketing, to customer experience, using insights gleaned from accurate and timely data can help you make improvements to your overall eCommerce presence. Let’s examine some of the key areas where data can provide your eCommerce business with a lift.
CREATE SUPERIOR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
Customer behavior data can help your business understand how customers interact with your brand, allowing you to hone in on what types of content, designs, and outreach appeal to them.
IMPLEMENT A BETTER MARKETING STRATEGY
Marketing analytics can help your team gauge the success of campaigns, understand the values of specific channels, explore omnichannel opportunities, and create a more holistic, unified approach to marketing.
BETTER MANAGE YOUR PRODUCTS, INVENTORY, AND PRICING
Intelligent eCommerce analytics will give you real-time updates on how specific products are performing at certain price points, and how your inventory changes as a result. Data can enable your team to optimize the entire lifecycle of your products, from production all the way through to fulfillment.
HOW TO COLLECT ECOMMERCE DATA
Now that you have a solid understanding of the different types of eCommerce data, it’s time to learn how to collect it. There are numerous tools out there to help brands collect, analyze, and visualize important eCommerce data. Two of the leading platform providers—and Codal partners—Shopify and BigCommerce offer robust analytics capabilities out of the box. But there are many powerful third-party tools available, from tried and true standbys like Google Analytics to more nuanced apps like Optimizely and Woopra.
In order to select the best tool for your business, consider your goals. Do you just need a basic platform to understand traffic and conversion flows? Or do you need something more extensive with visualization functionality? Are you looking for data points around your site’s UX? Content? Images and design? Determine your business’ priorities and then select a tool that will give you what your organization needs most.
YOUR DATA IS OUT THERE, IT’S TIME TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT
The collecting of invaluable eCommerce data helps to inform not just the customer experience of your online store, but your business’ larger marketing, sales, and product development strategies.
Great eCommerce is data-driven. Want to learn more about using data analytics to improve the performance of your eCommerce store? Consult with the experts. Talk to Codal today.
