It is impossible to drive ecommerce strategy without an objective analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) and business metrics. If you are running an ecommerce store, chances are that you are already using some kind of basic data analysis tools to keep track of your sales and operations.

The question is – Are you using right tools and technologies? and are you leveraging them to get the maximum return on investment possible?

The good part is that ecommerce, as a business, inherently generates loads and loads of operational and customer data that can be leveraged for generating rich actionable insights. Smart e-retail enterprises are already deploying state of the art technologies to leverage this data as a sustainable competitive advantage.

hese technologies are focused on generating, aggregating, visualizing and analyzing data generated across devices, channels, and touch points. Irrespective of the scale at which your ecommerce store operates, it is worth exploring some of these technologies that have the potential to deliver stupendous ROI for your ecommerce store within a short span of time.

1. Analytics

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As an ecommerce store owner, you are empowered to track each and every click that defines your customer journey in real-time. This click stream data can provide huge insights for improving store design, customer engagement levels, and product assortment.

To take a simple example, consider the kind of rich analytics that can be delivered across your sales funnel.

• You can track the cost per impressions (CPM) and cost per click (CPC) metrics to gauge the ROI of your online marketing tactics. You can identify the most effective referral sources and focus on them for maximum traffic.
• Once a potential customer is on your website, customer journey maps can deliver extremely compelling visuals with a detailed account of the click streams, bounce rates, session durations, cart additions and more. Ecommerce analytics can even help you identify bottlenecks in the shopping experience and fight cart abandonment and exit intent very effectively.
• Even after conversion, analytics helps you track important strategic parameters such as Cost per Acquisition (CPA), Average order value and even Customer Lifetime value (CLV). These metrics drive your long term sales strategy and branding initiatives.

It is now possible even for small businesses to deploy ecommerce analytics with low upfront costs using cloud based DIY analytical tools. It is possible to test the waters with basic analytics modules and scale up the usage to more advanced statistical techniques as your business scales up.

2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

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From lead acquisition to conversion and beyond, it is important to deliver a consistent customer experience across the lifecycle.  CRM tools allow you to manage customer interactions across online and offline customer touch points for sales, marketing, and service and enable to you to aggregate this customer data for further processing using ecommerce analytics tools.

CRM allows you to understand your customers’ shopping behaviors and tune your store strategy accordingly. It enables you to segment your customer base and tailor your offerings to the most profitable segments to drive margins. It also empowers to you to design the most impactful real-time pricing and promotional offers that boost conversions.

With CRM, you can drive cross-sell and upsell opportunities which in turn drive up revenues and push down the cost of sales. After all, the cost of retaining and growing an existing customer is drastically lesser than the cost of acquiring a new customer.

3. Social Engagement

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Social media has completely redefined the way customers interact with brands. Ecommerce stores, based on the nature of their offerings and target customer segments, can choose to be present on multiple social media portals as part of their overall branding strategy.

While social media is a very powerful channel for marketing as well as service, it also has the potential to disrupt your branding initiatives if negative word of mouth escalates.

It is important to have your ears to the ground at all times and that is precisely what social media analytics enables you to do. By tracking engagement analytics such as net promoter score (NPS), positive/ negative sentiment values, No. of interactions (Shares, Likes), it is possible to gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty levels. It is also possible to identify influencers who can be leveraged to drive positive word of mouth and ultimately conversions on your ecommerce website.

Conclusion

When it comes to deploying ecommerce analytics, it is essential to have in place, a holistic analytics strategy that combines CRM data, social engagement data, and store data for generating effective business insights. We help our clients drive their analytics initiatives in line with their long-term growth strategy and branding vision. For inquiries, please email us at rpa@comtecinfo.com.