Here’s the second and final post in our series on 4 core ecommerce goals and their associated Key Performance Indicators.
In the first post in this series we covered boosting sales and increasing conversion rates. This series came about from content we published a few years ago and which we’ve updated for the here and now. Establishing and analysing your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) gives you an important insight into how actual performance is comparing with target performance in your core areas. Here are the remaining two core goals and their associated KPIs to keep your business moving forward.
Grow site traffic. Associated KPIs: Site traffic, traffic sources, promotional click-through rates, social shares and bounce rates.
These KPIs above aren’t always the best ones for every company, but they’re a good starting point for most. It’s really important that you segment your data as much as possible. Sites like Google Analytics allow you to see what countries visitors are from and what pages they’re looking at. There’s more on examining and isolating segments of your data here. Try not to get too caught up looking at averages, as this can often skew your perception of reality.
The product data you base your listings on is often information inherited from your suppliers, which might leave you with inferior and inaccurate information that hasn’t been written with website or marketplace-specific SEO in mind. Start by analysing your sales by supplier to see where the gaps or problems are, then address them and your expectations with individual suppliers so your information is more consistent and more buyers find you. When it comes to peppering in keywords to boost your SEO, try using tools like Keyword to find out what your audience is looking for online.
Of course, pay-per-click (PPC) by using search engine advertising to help generate clicks to your website is the alternative to – or can complement – your organic growth efforts. You can optimise your campaigns to target the most relevant audiences to your platform, and the good news is that the better your ads perform, greater your click-through-rates and the lower your costs.
Mobile now accounts for over 55% of retail ecommerce site traffic, with desktop not far behind and tablet in single figures. Make sure your website is fully optimised across all devices to keep customers on your site for longer.
Boost customer service ratings. Associated KPIs: Overall customer satisfaction levels, customer retention rates, Net Promoter Score (‘NPS’), average resolution time and number of active issues.
Customer service is a cost centre, not a profit centre, for your business. The more people you have in customer service, answering phones, reading and sending emails, locating orders, checking their status, processing refunds and returns, the higher your costs and the more pressure on your margins. But it’s no use hiring so many customer service staff that you lose money on every transaction you make. At the opposite end of the spectrum, an under-resourced team means a seemingly unending stack of customer issues to resolve, slower response times, disgruntled customers and poor ratings. Your alternative is to invest in better processes and technologies that automate some of the areas for you, save your staff time and make them more productive.
Whether you have a well-equipped customer service team or not, online reviews left by your customers are the lifeline of your business. A whopping 92% of shoppers read online reviews before making purchase decisions, and positive reviews definitely produce an uplift in sales. Keeping a close eye on your customer service ratings will show you what areas you are doing well in and where you might need to work on improving the overall buyer experience.
What can you do to solicit more positive reviews from customers? Your customers will have a lot of the same questions for you, so why not start aggregating FAQs so customers can serve themselves for everyday queries. For the more specific questions, make it your policy to respond within 24 hours (including weekends and holidays) to limit any negative or damaging feedback. Orders with messages responded to more quickly are bound to receive less negative feedback than those messages responded to more slowly.
When it comes to getting more product reviews via email campaigns and improving your online reputation, there are product review management tools out there like FeedbackFive for Amazon to help you manage feedback across the marketplaces where you sell. Review platforms like Trustpilot and Feefo are also worth checking out, to help you boost reviews and ratings.
To talk to us about your ecommerce growth goals, please get in touch here.
