The Modern Digital Marketer’s Guide to eCommerce Performance Metrics

1. Impressions

Impressions measure the number of times your creative has popped up on an internet user’s screen. More granularly: 

• Organic impressions refer to how often non-promoted content is displayed (e.g., a blog post that picks up steam on social or a popular tweet). 

• Paid impressions refer to how many people see your sponsored campaigns. 

• Viral impressions refer to how often your content is displayed because other users interact with it.

Generally speaking, the more impressions you get, the better. You can’t expect great results from your campaigns if no one is seeing your creative in the first place. If your impression metrics aren’t as high as you’d like, here are some tactics that can improve them:

• Invest in better creative, PR, and influencers

• Increase your paid budget

• Use SEO and SEM to boost site rankings

• Test other niche audiences

2. CPM

CPM measures how much a brand needs to pay a publisher for 1,000 impressions. If the publisher charges $1.25 CPM, then you will need to pay $1.25 for every 1,000 impressions.

On its own, CPM tells you how much you spend per thousand impressions. But you can also use CPM to determine how many users are engaging with your creative. If you pay a publisher for 10,000 impressions, and 500 people end up clicking on your ad, you would know your campaign was effective for at least 5 percent of the audience. Keep in mind that just because someone didn’t click on your ad right then and there doesn’t mean they won’t engage with your brand in the future.

You can improve your CPM metrics by:

• A/B testing ads

• Targeting your audience more specifically

• Engaging a new audience

3. CPC

The CPC metric measures the performance of your pay-per-click campaigns with Google Ads or on social media platforms by identifying how much money you spend every time someone clicks on your ads.

While Google uses your maximum bid, ad rank, and quality score to arrive at your CPC, social networks use bid amounts, ad relevance, and ad placement, with different platforms charging different prices per click.

You can improve your CPC metrics by:

• Bidding on long-tail keywords

• Testing different ad placement positions

• Improving your quality score

4. Video views

When you launch campaigns with video ads, it’s important to keep track of metrics like video views that describe how many users have seen your videos. Other metrics you might want to track include average view duration, average completion rate, click-through rates, and total watch time.

If you’re not happy with your video views metrics, you can:

• Create more compelling content

• Promote your videos with a budget

• Encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel or feed

5. Frequency

Frequency measures how often your audience comes across your creative during a given period. For example, someone might see your ad three times in a 24-hour period, giving you a frequency score of three.

Getting the best results from your campaigns starts with casting a wider net and making sure you don’t drown specific users with too much exposure.

You can optimize this metric by:

• Setting frequency caps to prevent ad fatigue

• Creating multiple ad variations

• Targeting existing leads

6. CTR

The click-through rate refers to how many members of your audience click on your ads, emails, and links that you publish on social media. Very broadly, the higher your click-through rates are, the more effective your campaigns will be.

To improve your CTR, you can:

• A/B test calls to action (CTA)

• Write more persuasive copy

• Implementing creative best practices

• Targeting qualified audiences

1. Average basket size

In the world of eCommerce, average basket size refers to how many items the average consumer buys during one transaction. To some extent, every marketer should be interested in boosting this metric, although it plays a larger role at some companies than others.

You can increase the average basket size by:

• Encouraging consumers to buy more with a free shipping promotion

• Launching a customer loyalty program

• Embracing product bundling

2. Average order value

The “average order value” metric refers to how much money the average transaction is on your site. Though this metric will matter more to certain organizations than others, what brand doesn’t want to increase the overall value of every order?

Improve the average order value by:

• Incentivizing customers to buy more items per order

• Offering time-sensitive deals

• Giving product discounts at certain thresholds

3. Average unit price

The average unit price refers to how much a single product sells for, on average, over a specific time period (e.g., one month, six months, or one year). This metric can help you determine how much your audience is comfortable spending on certain items so you can optimize around profitability.

To increase your average unit price:

• Raise your prices if you haven’t in a while

• Leverage upselling and cross-selling opportunities

• Promote bigger-ticket items

4. Total reported revenue

Total reported revenue describes the amount of money you’ve generated for sales over a specific period of time. As long as you’re able to keep your margins intact, your business will be healthier as your revenue increases.

Improve this metric by:

• Investing more in paid campaigns

• Enticing consumers to spend more with promotions

• Launching a customer loyalty program

5. Total reported units sold

Similarly, “total reported units sold” refers to the number of products you’ve sold during a specific time period.

To increase this metric:

• Launch more sales

• Bundle your products

• Use a free shipping promotion

6. Retailer metrics

If you are a multichannel brand driving shopper traffic to multiple retailers, you can deepen your understanding of your consumers at an individual retailer level. Use these metrics to refine your campaigns and strengthen retailer positioning. 

These retailer metrics include but isn’t limited to:

• Retailer views show the number of times a retailer was loaded inside a Where to Buy experience

• Retailer preferences show the number of shoppers who have clicked to shop by retailer

• Retailer add to cart rate shows the ratio of add to carts to retailer views.