E-commerce is hotter than ever, with the industry seeing more than $308 billion in sales in the final quarter of 2024. For e-commerce businesses, though, tracking your success is essential to ensuring you’re getting the most from your marketing efforts.
In e-commerce, metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) are data points that allow you to evaluate how your online store is doing. These metrics can help you monitor customer behavior, sales trends, and marketing performance to better assess the profitability of your marketing efforts. But it’s important to know the right e-commerce marketing metrics to track to make sure you’re optimizing your site for current trends.
Importance of E-commerce Metrics for Your Business
Running an e-commerce business means staying in touch with what customers today want. In addition to making sure you sell products to a defined audience, you’ll want to ensure your marketing efforts are paying off.
Metrics are a great way to gauge exactly how things are going. Using KPIs and analytics, you can measure:
- Shopper preferences.
- Buying behaviors.
- Return on your marketing investment.
- Current sales trends.
- Revenue growth over time.
- Areas that can benefit from optimization.
- Customer retention rates.
“Data doesn’t lie,” says Sophie Musumeci, CEO and founder of Real Entrepreneur Women. “If you’re not tracking key metrics, you’re essentially flying blind in your business. Metrics tell you what’s working, what’s not, and where money is being left on the table, allowing you to make data-driven decisions instead of guessing.”
How To Determine Which E-commerce Metrics Matter for Your Business
One of the most important things to recognize, as you’re measuring your business’s success, is that no two businesses are the same. Before you start tracking, take some time to outline your goals. Do you want to increase website traffic, or make sure you’re getting the most out of your most loyal customers?
For best results, focus on the lifecycle of a customer who visits your site. What brings each customer in? Why do some leave without buying, while others make a purchase and opt in to regular sales emails? Understanding what you want to measure can help you determine exactly what you should be tracking.
6 Basic E-commerce Metrics to Track
As valuable as data can be in general, tracking the exact right metrics is the key to success. Here are some of the most important metrics to track in 2025.
1. Conversion Rate
Bringing customers to your website is only the first step. If you can’t convince customers to take action, you’ll struggle to get a return on investment (ROI) on your money and effort. Conversion rate (CVR) is a metric that speaks to how visitors to your website are helping you reach your goal. Conversions can include:
- Making a purchase.
- Opting in to receive emails.
- Registering for an account.
- Following on social media.
- Sharing on social media.
- Submitting a contact form.
- Completing a poll.
- Reviewing a product.
- Adding an item to a wishlist.
CVRs can vary depending on an e-commerce business’ goals: You may be trying to increase sales with one marketing effort, for example, while another may focus on boosting your email subscriptions. “CVR is your truth serum,” Musumeci says. “If traffic is high but conversions are low, something’s off — pricing, messaging, or the checkout experience. Fixing conversion leaks is the fastest way to increase revenue without spending more on ads.”
2. Customer Acquisition Cost
If you’re actively marketing and advertising, it’s important to track the ROI on your efforts. One way to do this is by monitoring the average cost for each new customer you bring to your site. This metric is known as customer acquisition cost (CAC). But as Toph Daniels, marketing strategist at Firemist Digital LLC, points out, it’s important not to have tunnel vision when it comes to CAC. “Everyone fights over customer acquisition, but the real money is in keeping customers,” he says. “The e-commerce graveyard is filled with brands that spent big on ads but ignored retention. Email, SMS, loyalty programs, this is how you print money.”
3. Returning Customer Rate
As stated above, returning customers are the lifeblood of a successful e-commerce business. For that reason, Colby Flood, founder of Brighter Click, says the two metrics brands should be focusing on most are returning customer rate and customer lifetime value.
“For years, e-commerce brands have obsessed over the return on assets metric and obtaining new customers,” Flood explains. “Both of those things are very important, but to have a sustainable business model, you need repeat purchases. I often see brands overlook retention strategies like email, SMS, and subscriptions, and spend all their marketing budget on paid ads. This is not a sustainable pathway for long-term growth.”
4. Average Order Value
Getting a customer to make a purchase is only part of the battle — you’ll also want to increase the amount of each purchase. This is measured as the average order value (AOV), which is simply the average amount a customer spends when making a purchase. “You want people to spend more?” Daniels asks. “Make them feel foolish for not buying more. Bundles, upsells, volume discounts — every major e-commerce brand does this because it works. If you’re not increasing AOV, you’re working twice as hard for half the money.”
5. Cart Abandonment Rate
We all have abandoned items sitting in a cart somewhere online. Every e-commerce site deals with unfinished purchases, but excessive shopping cart abandonment can be a problem. For that reason, it’s important to track your website’s cart abandonment rate (CAR) and strive to improve it.
“If people are ditching their carts, your checkout process is either too complicated or too boring,” Daniels says. “Offer one-click checkout, throw them a discount on exit, and follow up with a FOMO-driven email. Make them feel like walking away is a mistake.”
6. Return on Ad Spend
Advertising can be pricey, but it’s an essential part of reaching new customers. By tracking the success of each advertising campaign, you can ensure you’re making the most of every dollar. This metric is known as return on ad spend (ROAS), and as Daniels explains, it’s an important KPI. “If your ROAS is under 2.0, kill the campaign,” he says. “If your CPC is bleeding you dry, fix your targeting. If your ad gets clicks but no sales, your landing page is garbage. Every dollar wasted on bad ads is money you’ll never get back. Be ruthless.”
How Often Should I Check My E-commerce Metrics?
Keeping an eye on your metrics is important, but how often should you check them? Musumeci recommends the following intervals:
- Daily: Sales and traffic trends.
- Weekly: Conversion and AOV insights.
- Monthly: Deeper strategy shifts.
“If you wait too long, you risk missing red flags that could have been fixed before impacting revenue,” Musumeci explains.
How To Track Key E-commerce Metrics
Tracking the most important e-commerce metrics is essential to boosting your e-commerce sales. The list of tools below will help you find the right solutions, whether your store is hosted on an e-commerce platform or your own website.
Google Analytics
One of the best e-commerce tools is available at absolutely no cost. Google Analytics integrates seamlessly with marketplaces like Shopify, and starting an account takes just a few minutes. Using Google Analytics, you can see the most visited pages and most viewed products on your website, which pages bring the most revenue for your business, how your marketing efforts impact website visits, conversions, and much more.
“Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a non-negotiable for deep insights, but pairing it with heat mapping tools like Hotjar and AI-driven platforms like Triple Whale can give a full picture of what’s driving conversions,” says Musumeci.
E-commerce Platforms (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento)
If you’re selling on an established platform rather than on your own site, the data you need is likely right there on your dashboard. You may have to add a third-party tool to expand your analytics, but here’s what you’ll get with the top platforms:
- Shopify: All plans include metrics on sales and returns, checkout behavior, and customer retention. For custom reports, you’ll need to upgrade to Advanced Shopify or Shopify Plus.
- WooCommerce: Basic analytics are available with your WooCommerce plan, but you can also expand those capabilities with WooCommerce’s Google Analytics integration.
- Adobe Commerce (previously Magento): For analytics with your Adobe e-commerce site, you’ll need to use one of the extensions available in the Adobe Marketplace.
Marketing Analytics Tools
There’s no shortage of analytics solutions on the market, but the best tools are often built into your marketing software. The Facebook Ads Manager, Google Ads, and most email marketing platforms give you valuable information on how your campaigns are performing.
Built-in tools can be limiting, though, so many brands choose to use freestanding solutions. Web advertising solutions can directly connect you with your customers, and freestanding analytics platforms can help when you need unbiased data. “Triple Whale or Northbeam are great tools to uncover poor attribution through GA4 or platforms like Meta and Google Ads,” Flood says. “They provide insights into the entire customer journey, which helps marketers and brand owners better understand the blended efficiency of their marketing spend.”
How To Improve Your Key E-commerce Metrics
Measuring your e-commerce store’s performance is an ongoing effort. Once you’ve begun monitoring and using data, here’s what you can do to improve some of the most important e-commerce metrics.
Optimize your conversion funnel
Conversions can be tricky, but understanding the actions taken by your website visitors is essential to improving your results. Metrics can help you identify when your checkout process needs to be simplified or if your payment options are too limited.
Reduce cart abandonment rate
Cart abandonment is an unavoidable part of having an e-commerce shop. Abandoned cart reminders, limited-time discounts, and allowing guest checkouts can all help ensure customers finalize their purchases.
Increase average order value
Getting your existing customers to spend a little more can boost your revenue. Bundled products and upsells, free shipping thresholds, and personalized recommendations can boost your AOV.
How To Optimize Your Online Store With This Data
Metrics are meant to be an important first step. Once you have the information, though, you’ll want to use it to improve your site. Here’s how to boost the performance of your online store.
Enhance Website User Experience
User experience (UX) is an important part of converting website visitors to buyers and ensuring they come back. If customers are frustrated by slow load times or complicated, messy design, your marketing spend may continue to lack the ROI you expect. Today’s advanced marketing analytics solutions can give you up-to-date insights into the user friendliness of your site.
“Study bounce rates, session recordings, and time-on-page to identify friction points,” says Lyndsay Handlos, founder and fractional CMO for Vella Handlos Consulting. “Simplify navigation and streamline checkout to remove roadblocks. Also, analyze regional trends related to city size, weather, or current events to tailor the experience for specific audiences.”
Personalize Marketing Strategies
In 2025’s competitive landscape, one-size-fits-all marketing approaches are less effective than ever. Today’s tech tools make it possible to personalize your marketing efforts at the click of a button. But in order to do that, you need to fully understand your audience, and metrics can help with that.
“Segmentation is key,” insists Musumeci. “Track behavior like repeat purchases and cart additions to tailor email and ad campaigns. Personalization is no longer optional — customers expect brands to know what they want before they do.”
Leverage A/B Testing
Also known as split testing, A/B testing lets you try different strategies and monitor their effectiveness. It’s an especially valuable tool for e-commerce businesses since it allows you to see exactly how customers are interacting with your website and the products sold there.
“Test small tweaks like button colors or headlines, track click-through rate and CVR, and double down on what converts best,” Handlos says. “It’s also a great opportunity to leverage AI to predict winning variations and optimize faster.”
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment rates have climbed dramatically over the past couple of decades, but these days they hold steady at around 70%. That means seven out of 10 customers leave items in an online shopping cart without completing the purchase. But that rate isn’t identical across all businesses: By monitoring customer activity on your site, you can identify pain points and take measures to do something about them.
“If your cart abandonment rate is high, look at checkout friction,” Musumeci reiterates. “Simplify the process, offer multiple payment options, and send reminder emails with incentives. To increase AOV, bundle products, add upsells, and test pricing psychology. Small tweaks can create big wins.”
Key Takeaways
Building an e-commerce shop is only the first step: You’ll also need to work to bring in new customers and retain existing ones. By monitoring the cost to bring in new customers, how often those customers take action, and whether those customers stick around, you can identify pain points and work to improve them. With so many tools available to track e-commerce marketing metrics, you can remain on top of what’s happening in your store and make the most of each dollar you spend on marketing and advertising.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the e-commerce metrics tree?
An e-commerce metrics tree is a visual representation of the KPIs used in tracking a site’s performance. By looking at the tree, a business can easily determine which areas need improvement. “Think of it as a hierarchy — revenue at the top, with layers like conversion rate, traffic, and retention feeding into it,” Musumeci says. “Every small change affects the bigger picture, so understanding the tree helps you make strategic optimizations.”
What is the CVR metric for e-commerce?
Conversion rate (CVR) is the rate at which a website visitor takes a desired action on your website. For e-commerce stores, often the goal is to convert visitors to buyers, but businesses also seek conversions in the form of email signups, survey participation, social media follows, and more. The CVR metric is calculated as:
(Total Conversions / Total Visitors) × 100.
“CVR is the ultimate efficiency check,” Handlos says. “Low CVR? It’s time to optimize your product pages, offers, or CTAs.”
Is there a customer stage which is more important for SMBs?
For a new business, Flood says new customer acquisition is the single most important stage, as it’s tough to keep a business running if new customers aren’t steadily streaming in. But as a business grows, priorities shift. “Brands can easily fall into the trap of keeping focus there and not building out the retention side of the business,” he cautions. “Acquisition starts the business and gets it off the ground, but retention keeps the doors open long-term.”
