30 Most Important Ecommerce KPIs to Track for Growth: Essential Metrics for Success

Tracking key performance indicators is essential to measuring the growth of your e-commerce business.

These indicators provide you with valuable insights, enabling you to make data-driven decisions and devise stellar growth strategies. The goal here is to make things quantifiable. So you know what’s working and what’s not.

Running a successful business is a collaborative effort of different domains. Your content, marketing, sales, and customer success teams may be responsible for different deliverables. But they all strive towards a uniform goal.

It’s important to track the key performance indicators representing diverse domains to ensure that you’re growing consistently.

The goal here is to get more eyeballs and build lasting relationships with your customers. To devise stellar strategies to achieve it, you need to know about the performance of all operational domains.

A common mistake many make is that they end up tracking the vanity metrics, which prevents them from seeing a clear picture.

In this article, we will cover the most important e-commerce KPIs that you should track to measure your growth.

So, without further ado, let’s start.

Classification of E-Commerce KPIs Worth Tracking

As said earlier, running a successful e-commerce website is a collaborative effort. Different domains representing e-commerce companies work in close coordination for an e-commerce platform to generate traction and achieve the company goals.

Generally, you can classify e-commerce KPIs into the following categories:

• Content
• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer success

We’ll cover each classification one by one and help you identify the key performance indicators worth tracking to assess the growth of your e-commerce website.

E-Commerce KPIs to Assess Content Performance

Content helps e-commerce businesses generate traction online and engage the right audience. It enables e-commerce store owners to drive relevant traffic and score more conversions.

Creating quality content fuels your SEO performance and makes it easier for you to grow your traffic volume organically.

Online stores generally rely on paid advertising campaigns to increase the purchase frequency, which may make a massive dent in your wallet.

By creating personalized content, you can leverage a variety of traffic sources and engage the intended audience without having to break the bank.

For e-commerce websites that struggle to assess the performance of their content strategy, we recommend the following KPIs.

You can track some of them through Google Analytics. However, you may also want to consider leveraging other tools for deeper insights.

1. Impressions

Just creating quality content isn’t enough to generate traction for your e-commerce website. You have to make the useful information accessible to the relevant audience.

To make it happen, e-commerce store owners leverage social media platforms and online communities to convey their message to the right people.

Different algorithms fuel social media and third-party platforms that you may use to promote content representing your e-commerce business. If your content is of high quality, these algorithms will favor it and show it to more people.

Impressions encompass the number of times your piece of content appears in front of someone on relevant channels.

They indicate the quality of your content and the likelihood of you engaging the intended audience through it.

2. Reach

Reach is another viable e-commerce KPI that helps you assess the performance of your content. It represents the total number of people who saw the message you conveyed.

The quality of the content you produce has a significant impact on your reach. If it generates value, the platforms you use to promote it will make it accessible to more people.

If your content has greater reach, a high percentage of subscribers and followers will likely consider your products or services.

Hence, it’s one of the noteworthy e-commerce metrics to assess your content’s performance that may lead you to acknowledge a boost in conversions.

3. Engagement

Engagement is a crucial metric you should track to assess your content’s performance. It indicates how your audience receives the content you share or the message you convey.

Engagement shows how your target audience interacts with your content and indicates its shareability. It’s one of the key metrics for assessing your promotional efforts and conversion likelihood.

The purpose of creating content is to help people make informed decisions. Sharing personalized content leads you to acknowledge high engagement and boosts organic traffic to your e-commerce website.

4. Website Ranking

Around 68% of online user experiences begin with a search engine query. People explore search engines to find answers to their questions and access relevant information.

So, your website ranking is an important indicator that you should track to assess your growth and ability to engage the intended audience.

The higher your organic search rankings, the easier it is for you to promote your products or services to the right people.

The quality and relevance of the content you create play a major role here. As an e-commerce business, you should consistently create content that offers value, as it enables you to score high organic search rankings.

5. Traffic Volume

A consistent growth of average traffic is a huge win for e-commerce store owners. It indicates that you’re able to convince your audience to consider trying the products or services that you offer.

The quality of the content you create has a massive impact on the traction you generate, which fuels your e-commerce success.

If your content helps people find answers to the questions in their minds, they’re more likely to consider visiting your platform and considering the solutions you offer.

So, it’s viable for e-commerce businesses to consider tracking the performance of their content through the growth of their average traffic volume.

Further Reading: The Ultimate Guide to SEO for eCommerce Websites

6. Blog Traffic

You must be wondering why we need to track blog traffic separately if we are to monitor the overall traffic volume.

Well, there’s a reason you should do so.

To grow your organic traffic, you have to produce content around relevant keywords that align with your niche.

You can cover a limited number of queries through your standard website pages. Publishing blogs is a viable approach to target the rest.

As a matter of fact, businesses that publish blogs are likely to generate 67% more prospects compared to the ones that don’t.

So, blogging not only helps grow your organic traffic, but it also serves as an efficient way to boost your e-commerce sales.

Hence, it’s best to consider blog traffic a standalone metric to assess your content’s performance.

7. Average Website Session Duration

This e-commerce KPI indicates the average time individuals spend on your website during their visits. It’s a viable metric to assess your content’s performance because it shows your capability to engage the intended audience through the information published.

If your content offers value, your audience will likely spend more time exploring it. The more time your visitors spend on your website has a significant impact on your e-commerce sales.

You can convince some of them through published information, whereas others may likely end up making impulsive buying decisions.

In either case, it’s a win for you. A high average session duration may lead to a boost in conversions and enable you to score more online sales.

Further Reading: How To Build An Ecommerce Website: A Step-by-Step Guide

E-Commerce KPIs to Assess Marketing Performance

Efficient marketing ensures sustained success for e-commerce businesses. It enables you to facilitate your audience’s access to useful information and showcase the products or services you offer.

It takes time for your search engines to crawl your content and your pages to start dominating organic search.

You need to devise a stellar e-commerce marketing strategy to engage the right people to make your content accessible to your target audience.

The goal here is to deploy well-thought-out marketing campaigns and generate traction through relevant traffic sources to fuel your e-commerce sales.

The following are a few critical metrics that we recommend tracking to see that your marketing initiatives align with your business goals.

8. Referral Traffic

The growth in referral traffic showcases your ability to generate traction through relevant third-party platforms.

It shows the effectiveness of your marketing efforts as you leverage diverse traffic sources to engage the intended audience.

The rise in referral traffic indicates that you have an active presence on relevant platforms and share useful information there.

As an e-commerce professional, you are marketing your products or services effectively, which has a significant impact on your ability to score more conversions.

9. New Visitors

New visitors are people who visit your e-commerce store for the first time. It’s one of the essential e-commerce KPIs you should track to assess your marketing efforts.

If your new visitors are growing consistently, it means that your marketing initiatives are paying off.

The growth representing new visitors increases your likelihood of acquiring new customers and increasing your conversion rate.

Hence, the metric serves as a fitting indicator to help you assess the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns and see if they drive the desired results.

10. Referral Sources

Another e-commerce KPI you should track to assess your digital marketing campaigns is referral sources.

The growth of referral sources indicates the increase in the number of third-party platforms through which people discover your platform.

It shows that you’re consistently engaging the right audience through diverse channels and generating traction for your website.

The referral sources may be relevant social media platforms or online communities where your audience may prefer to explore relevant information prior to making a purchase.

An increase in referral sources fuels your average traffic and may lead you to acknowledge a boost in conversions.

Further Reading: 15 Important Ecommerce Tools You Need to Know in 2024

11. Mobile Site Traffic

Did you know that mobile traffic comprises 58% of all web traffic?

People may have diverse preferences when it comes to exploring your products or services. Some of them may use their desktops, whereas a majority may go with mobile devices

So, tracking mobile traffic may also be a fitting metric to assess the impact of your marketing initiatives.

Not only does it indicate the compatibility of your platform, but it also shows how well you have optimized your marketing messages for different screens.

12. Newsletter Subscriber Count

Well-thought-out email campaigns serve as an excellent way to generate traction online and engage your target audience.

However, for your email marketing strategy to give you the desired results, you need to grow your email list.

Newsletter subscribers represent the number of people who opted into your email list and agreed to receive email messages from you.

It serves as a viable indicator to assess the effectiveness of your marketing initiatives, as people are generally reluctant to share their personal information.

The growth of your newsletter subscribers indicates that you have built a strong connection with your audience over time using clever marketing tactics.

13. Email Open Rate

Email open rate is an e-commerce KPI that helps you assess your marketing effectiveness when it comes to engaging the intended audience via email. 

Email marketing may be an effective way to drive relevant traffic to your platform and fuel your e-commerce sales.

However, you can’t expect to engage the intended audience if they don’t even open the messages you send.

Across all industries, the average open rate is 17.6%. If you want to reach this or even exceed it, you need to learn how to capture your subscribers’ attention.

Email open rate showcases the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and your ability to make your messages stand out from the rest. 

14. Email Click-Through Rate

Tracking email click-through rate is even more important than keeping an eye on your email open rate.

It represents a percentage of email recipients who not just opened your email messages but also clicked on the enclosed link.

The recipients who click on the link in your email are the ones who will eventually land on your website and explore your products.

When you consider that 80% of people are more likely to engage with personalized content, it’s clear that grouping your subscribers based on goals, interests, and pain points and sending relevant emails can dramatically improve your click-through rate.

15. Clicks

The number of clicks is a viable e-commerce performance metric that you should monitor to assess the performance of your marketing team.

The indicator encompasses diverse operations, be it email marketing, paid advertising, social media marketing, and so on.

The metric represents the number of times an individual clicks on the links you shared with your audience through relevant platforms.

These links may facilitate your audience’s access to relevant information or route them to the solutions you offer.

16. Average Click-Through Rate

This indicator represents the percentage of users who end up visiting a particular page after clicking on a link.

Not everyone who clicks on the shared links in relevant channels and communities ends up visiting your platform.

So, tracking the average click-through rate is important, as the indicator shows you a clear picture. Plus, it helps you assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

17. Follower Growth

The growth of your followers on social media or relevant communities online showcases your marketing performance.

A growing number of people following you on different platforms indicates that they consider you a credible source of relevant information.

The more followers you have, the easier it will be to promote your offerings to the right people.

You can cast a wider net and convey your message to the intended audience with ease. It significantly improves your website traffic and brings you a step closer to achieving company goals.

18. Cost Per Click

Another e-commerce KPI you should monitor to assess the effectiveness of your paid marketing initiatives is cost per click, as it has a significant impact on your average revenue. It tells you how much it costs when an individual clicks on your ad.

When a person clicks on your ad, it shows that you successfully grabbed their attention with your message and the way you presented it.

Low cost per click indicates that you have an efficient marketing team, as you could come up with attention-grabbing ad campaigns for different channels.

19. Customer Acquisition Costs

Reaching out to your audience and conveying your message costs a certain amount. Your marketing campaigns require a budget for you to engage the intended audience.

Tracking customer acquisition costs enables you to utilize your budget and assess your marketing performance effectively.

It’s a key performance indicator that tells you the cost that you had to bear in order to acquire a new customer.

Keeping an eye on this metric not only helps you improve your marketing performance but also ensures the stability of your business in the long run.

20. Return on Ad Spend

As a growing e-commerce business, you may have long-term and short-term goals. Organic marketing efforts may help you acknowledge sustained success in the long run. However, you may want to consider leveraging paid advertising to get quick results.

One critical indicator you should monitor is the return on ad spend to gauge the performance of your paid marketing campaigns.

It’s an e-commerce metric that tells you about the revenue you generated for every dollar you spent on your ad campaigns.

Whether you leverage search engines or social media for paid advertising, return on ad spend showcases your revenue growth when you leverage paid advertising to promote your products or services.

Further Reading: 9 Killer Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategies for Maximizing ROI

E-Commerce KPIs to Assess Sales Performance

Sales teams of an e-commerce business play an important role in helping them generate quality leads and ensure high conversions.

It’s the responsibility of your sales team to ensure customer satisfaction and help you acknowledge high retention.

Moreover, the sales professionals in your team enable you to reach out to your potential customers and grow your customer base.

Through their strategies, you offer a seamless customer experience and acknowledge lasting relationships with them.

The following are a few noteworthy KPIs that you should track to assess your sales performance.

21. Total Sales

It goes without saying that monitoring your sales is essential to tracking the growth of your e-commerce business.

It showcases the effectiveness of your sales team and enables you to assess your performance as an online business.

Your total sales give you an estimation of your profit. It showcases your sustainability as a business and helps you plan the future course of action.

Based on your sales figures, you can consider potential business opportunities and devise an efficient growth plan.

22. Gross Profit

Tracking your gross profit gives you a more clear picture of your performance and growth as an e-commerce business. You can easily deduce your gross profit by subtracting the costs from total sales in a given period.

A steady rise in gross profit indicates that you have been consistent in meeting customer expectations and effectively leveraging available resources.

This key performance indicator not only reflects the performance of your sales team but also showcases your operational efficiency.

23. Average Margin

When you own an e-commerce business, things aren’t always the same. Sometimes, you may acknowledge a high profit, whereas other times, the numbers may not meet your expectations.

Hence, tracking your average margin is important. This metric indicates your average profit over a particular period.

Monitoring it gives you a clear idea of your current financial standing, as the KPI factors in the peak and off-season performance.

24. Conversion Rate

As an e-commerce business, tracking your conversion rate is extremely important. It represents the percentage of visitors on your e-commerce website who end up purchasing your products or services.

The conversion rate may serve as a key performance indicator for multiple domains, as increasing it is a collaborative effort. However, if we are to pick one, the indicator would be best suited to reflect your sales performance.

Monitoring your average conversion rate helps you assess your growth as an online business and evaluate your efficiency in pitching your products or services to your target audience.

25. Customer Retention

Customer retention rate is an essential KPI that represents the loyalty and satisfaction level of your customer base.

It helps you assess the effectiveness of your customer retention strategies and see if they enable you to ensure long-term success.

Tracking customer retention informs you about your ability to prevent your customers from considering other alternatives in the industry.

It indicates the likelihood of your customers continuing to purchase their preferred products or services via your e-commerce platform.

26. Average Cart Abandonment Rate

Cart abandonment refers to an incident where your potential customers add their preferred items to the carts but do not complete the transaction.

Tracking the average cart abandonment rate makes it easier for you to generate more revenue online and grow your e-commerce business.

There may be a number of reasons that may contribute to the average cart abandonment rate and cause it to go high, such as a complicated checkout process, high shipping costs, long delivery time, and so on.

Your goal as a growing e-commerce business is to offer a seamless purchase experience to your customers, enabling them to complete their orders without any problems.

Simplifying your complex checkout process may work wonders for you. Plus, you need to look into other causes that may lead to a high average cart abandonment rate.

Further Reading: 15 Proven Abandoned Cart Email Templates To Win Back Lost Sales

E-Commerce KPIs to Assess Your Customer Success

Just acquiring new customers is not enough to help you grow your e-commerce business. It’s 25 times more costly to acquire new customers compared to retaining your current customer base.

Your goal as a growing online business should be to focus on cultivating loyalty and ensuring lasting relationships with your customers.

Customer success plays a major role here. By resolving the concerns of your customers, you establish a strong bond with them and take customer satisfaction off the charts.

The following are a few key performance indicators that you should track to assess your customer success performance.

27. Hit Rate

The hit rate showcases the efficiency of your customer service representatives and their ability to help you score more conversions.

To calculate the hit rate, you take the total sales for a particular product into account and divide it by the number of times your audience reached out to your customer service representatives to inquire about the said product.

A team of competent customer service representatives can help you grow your conversions by effectively catering to the inquiries of your target audience.

28. Average Issue Resolution Time

People don’t just reach out to your customer support representatives to inquire about the products or services you offer. They also reach out to you when they struggle to make the most of their purchases.

Your effectiveness in resolving the issues encountered by your customers has a significant impact on customer satisfaction. Thus, it’s essential to track the average resolution time for your customers’ concerns.

This indicator tells you the average time your customer support representatives take to resolve your customers’ issues.

29. Satisfaction Score

Your customer satisfaction score indicates the happiness of your customers based on the overall experience you offer.

It’s one of the important indicators that you should track to ensure the growth of your business, as it helps you identify the room for improvement when interacting with your customers.

You can simply ask your customers to rate you on a scale of 1 to 10 and request customer feedback that can help you improve the experience you offer.

30. Lifetime Value

Retaining your customers is not as easy as it sounds. Customer success teams often come up with special offers for loyal customers just to prevent them from considering other alternatives.

Whether it’s BOGO offers, special discounts, or free shipping, it’s you who bears the cost of making such offers. So, it’s important to know if investing in a particular customer is worth it.

The customer lifetime value tells you about the worth of your customers based on their buying history and purchase preferences.

These insights help you come up with special offers that strengthen your customer relationships and enable you to acknowledge undying loyalty.

Final Words

A common mistake e-commerce business owners make is that they evaluate the growth of their business based on sales figures.

Your ability to score conversions tells you a lot about your performance, but it doesn’t tell you everything that you need to know.

In this article, we covered the most important e-commerce key performance indicators to track for evaluating your growth potential.

The KPIs recommended will provide you with the relevant insights that you may need to assess your current standing in the competitive landscape and devise stellar growth strategies.