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How to Measure the Success of Your eCommerce Website

 

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measure ecommerceThe concepts behind measuring the success of an eCommerce website don't stray too far from those necessary to measure a website focused on lead generation. But what tools should you be using? And how can you make sure you're measuring the correct things?

Here are 3 steps to make sure you are successfully measuring your eCommerce progress.

1. Measure your total number of customers in addition to revenue. It's easy to say, "Oh! I made $X,000 this week, month or year." But how many people led to those sales? Is it three repeat customers? A large network? You should consider your customer base as important as a B2B marketer's lead database. How is it growing over time? Were there specific events that led to an influx in new customers? What caused it?

2. Evaluate where your customers are coming from. Now that you are tracking people coming through the proverbial door as opposed to cash-flow only, you should measure where your best customers are coming from. Is it via Twitter? A specific referral source? A co-marketing venture?

Those eCommerce companies using HubSpot can track this by integrating their lead tracking with a third-party shopping cart like Paypal. Parallel created a tool to sync Paypal and HubSpot, using HubSpot's lead API to 'close the loop'. Now you can see where specific customers are coming from and their path through your website, helping you understand what's working and what's not! So where are your best customers coming from?

3. Evaluate the number of people who start the checkout process but don't complete a sale. Oh no! So close! Do you notice that a lot of people add things to their shopping cart but decide not to commit? What should you do with these people? Well, how about nurture them?

By following up with customers who have not completed their purchase, you can encourage the close. Perhaps you can set up automatic emails to those individuals. Maybe you could set up a lead nurturing campaign. You already know specifically what they're interested in, so use that knowledge to lasso them back in and get the digits.

What do you think? What other ways could you measure the success of your eCommerce website?

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Posted by Rebecca Corliss on Fri, Jun 03, 2011 @ 11:00 AM

COMMENTS

My concern is the number of people that phone and cancel their internet order. Is there any standard % of cancellations that is "acceptable" in the industry?

posted on Friday, June 03, 2011 at 12:59 PM by John Metzer


Hey John, That's an excellent question - I think we'll write up a future blog post on it, in fact. A bit of Googling didn't turn up much, so I might have to tap some HubSpot resources to answer the question more completely and create some new thoughts on the subject. 
 
Anecdotally, I imagine it is extremely variable based on business type and product price point, among other things. For instance, Zappos is purported to have a return rate of 35% - hardly a phone cancel rate mind you,, but that's a very high rate. If most businesses had that they would be very worried about defective product - not Zappos, because they are predicated on easy returns and high levels of customer happiness. 
 
Watch this blog for more sooner rather than later :)

posted on Friday, June 03, 2011 at 2:09 PM by Michael Redbord


In most cases the customers do not complete their check out because of the lack of transparancy about the shipping rates, which are shown only at the end of the ordering process and were not specified earlier.

posted on Monday, June 06, 2011 at 4:03 AM by Olga Zhdan


tell me some more tools in which i can have some ways of getting my site online publicity .

posted on Monday, June 06, 2011 at 4:16 AM by shruti


Get A Traffic Business is a new site that says it guarantees more CONVERTING web visitors and online advertising with very little effort or cost. So I decided to put it to the test... 
 
My first impression was the site looks professional and clean, with an attractive look and feel. It is easy to read and understand. Joining the site was easy and painless--they do offer 2 upgrade options but they are not required to gain the benefits. 
 
The Members Area is very well laid out and intuitive--I could figure out what to do after only a few minutes and was able to get up and running in less than 5 minutes. Inside the site, you create links and ads--the links you simply enter any URL links you use into the generator and it transforms them into "Get A Traffic Business" links. You create ads for anything you want to promote using the Get A Traffic Business Ad Generator, which is very easy to use. You can create as many links and as many ads as you like. And they are organized in a logical way--links are displayed in the order you create them but also your 5 most recent links appear on the main page for quick reference. Also, since the link generator is the tool you'll use most, it is also right at the top of the main page when you login. Very smart! 
 
After you've created at least 1 link and 1 ad you can start to generate traffic. Just use and promote the new Get A Traffic Business link instead of the original source link you had. Every time the Get A Traffic Business link is clicked, the page loads followed by a cool slide-up ad window at the bottom. It displays an ad PLUS an image with your affiliate link that goes back to Get A Traffic Business. So if anyone clicks the Get A Traffic Business image they see the site, and if they signup they become your referral. It's a great viral feature because you can build referrals without even trying to just by using the site. 
 
Now every time the ad window displays (your Get A Traffic Business links get clicked) you earn credits that get YOUR ad displayed in the ad windows when other members' links get clicked. So the more clicks, the more times your ads get displayed. 
 
And this works virally--meaning as you make referrals into Get A Traffic Business (either by promoting it or just using it and visitors click the Get A Traffic Business image on the ad window to join) you also earn ad credits on THEIR link clicks. And this works up to 5 levels deep. So you can create a massive amount of free ad views and web traffic by referring others to Get A Traffic Business also. 
 
I didn't get to test the full effect of a big downline yet (I just got the tool) but I can tell you the rest of the site works exactly as stated--my links got clicked, I earned credits, and my ads got displayed. Get A Traffic Business even tracked my results so I know how many clicks and how many ad displays. That was an impressive unadvertised extra feature. 
 
There is one more benefit and feature which might be the best of them all--downline emailing. You can email your downline with offers, promotions, or whatever you like, and here is where Get A Traffic Business really shines. They took time to make the emailing often enough that it's valuable as a user, but no so often that it's a burden to your downline. But the best part about this feature (and actually the credit earning too) is that it tells you exactly how long until you can mail again. Now THAT's cool. 
 
Overall, I have to say I am impressed with Get A Traffic Business. It is simple yet powerful, and delivers on its promises. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to increase traffic and advertising. 
 
See it and join here: 
 
http://getatrafficbusiness.net/aff/2202 

posted on Monday, June 06, 2011 at 7:06 AM by Product Review: Get A Traffic Business


This article came out just at the right time. Just considering starting an ecommerce website and your advice will be very helpful.

posted on Thursday, June 09, 2011 at 3:05 AM by VIP Security Services


Comments have been closed for this article.