As the head of the team, you need to focus on metrics that give you an overall sense of direction for the shop.

• Conversion Rate (CR):
  Percentage of website visitors who complete a purchase.
  Tells you in percentage how many people bought from all the visitors on your site.
  
  Calculation:  Transactions / Sessions * 100 (or Total Transactions / Total Users * 100)
  
  
• Average Order Value (AOV):
  Tells you how much jn value people buy with each purchase.
  
  Calculation: Revenue / Number of Orders
  
  
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV):
  Projected revenue from a customer over their lifetime. This helps you focus on your most valuable customers. Also, measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and how much you can spend on customer acquisition.
  
  Calculation: Average Purchase Value x Average Purchase Frequency x Average Customer  Lifetime
  
  Average Purchase Value = Revenue / Number of Orders
  Average Purchase Frequency = Number of purchases a customer makes in a year on average
  Average Customer  Lifetime = Number of years a customer shops with you on average
  
  
• YoY Revenue Growth
  Year-over-year increase in total revenue.
  
  Calculation: Current revenue / Last year’s revenue at the same time – 1

As the head of the team, you need to focus on metrics that give you an overall sense of direction for the shop.

• Conversion Rate (CR):
  Percentage of website visitors who complete a purchase.
  Tells you in percentage how many people bought from all the visitors on your site.
  
  Calculation:  Transactions / Sessions * 100 (or Total Transactions / Total Users * 100)
  
  
• Average Order Value (AOV):
  Tells you how much jn value people buy with each purchase.
  
  Calculation: Revenue / Number of Orders
  
  
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV):
  Projected revenue from a customer over their lifetime. This helps you focus on your most valuable customers. Also, measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and how much you can spend on customer acquisition.
  
  Calculation: Average Purchase Value x Average Purchase Frequency x Average Customer  Lifetime
  
  Average Purchase Value = Revenue / Number of Orders
  Average Purchase Frequency = Number of purchases a customer makes in a year on average
  Average Customer  Lifetime = Number of years a customer shops with you on average
  
  
• YoY Revenue Growth
  Year-over-year increase in total revenue.
  
  Calculation: Current revenue / Last year’s revenue at the same time – 1

The KPI depends on the type of email you are sending (promotional, informational, transactional). 

• (Email) Subscriber Value (SV)
  This metric will help you win any priority battles at your company, as it underlines the importance of email subscribers because it quantifies the value of each subscriber. No one can argue with ca$h
  
  Calculation: Total revenue generated from email marketing / Number of email subscribers.
  
  “I would use data for the last 365 days or the previous year. A shorter time frame will give you a better pulse on current subscriber value.”

   

• Email sign-up rate:
  This helps measure the percentage of website visitors subscribing to your email list. It is a valuable KPI for businesses because it can help them understand how effective their email marketing campaigns are at acquiring new customers and building relationships with existing customers.
  
  Calculation: Number of email signups / Total number of website visitors * 100
  
  

• Click-Through Rate (CTR):
  Percentage of email recipients who click on links within the email. It is a valuable KPI for ecommerce because it can help them understand how effective your email marketing campaigns are at driving traffic to your shop or landing page.
  
  Calculation: Number of clicks / Number of emails sent * 100

   

• Revenue from Email Campaigns:
  Revenue generated from sales from email campaigns. This is obvious, but you must know how much your email campaigns contribute to your bottom line.

   

• Click to Open Rate (CTOR):
  Percentage of recipients who open marketing emails.
  I’ve crossed out open rates, as they are not reliable anymore. Learn more here.

As part of the content team, you bring a lot of traffic from SEO and other sources. These visitors are there for information.

So, expecting them to buy directly after reading an article is unrealistic. That’s why you need to have metrics that contribute to revenue in the long term.

• Engagement Metrics:
  Engagement metrics are used to measure how users interact with your website. These metrics can help you understand how users are using your content and what they are interested in.
  
  For example, Google Analytics 4 has a new metric called engagement rate.
  This metric combines time on a page or visitor viewed more than 1 page or completed a goal.
  
  
• Content Conversion Rate or Micro Conversion:
  Basically, this is a percentage of users who take a desired action after engaging with content.
  I think this metric is underutilized in content teams. However, it is easy to track, and you can create a content strategy to improve it.
  
  Here are some ideas:
  Email subscription rate – Imagine you can continue communication with the visitor even after they leave the site. Priceless!
  
  Product view – Not only did they read through your content, but they also viewed a product and got awareness about your brand.
  
  Social share rate – You managed to convince them to share your content with others. Free marketing!
  
  Related articles click – You provide so much value that they keep reading your other content. This could be beneficial in the long run
  
  
• SEO Performance:
  Together with the SEO specialist, you can keep track of organic search rankings and search click-through rates (CTR). Doing this well will bring more visitors to your site where you can engage them & make them micro-convert.

• Click-Through Rate (CTR):
  It measures the percentage of people who click on a link in an advertisement after seeing it. This is also what ad platforms use to determine how well your ads perform.
  
  Calculation: Number of clicks / Number of impressions * 100
  
  
• Landing Page Conversion Rate:
  Percentage of users who complete a desired action, such as a purchase or sign-up on a landing page.
  
  Calculation:  Transactions from landing page / Sessions on landing page * 100
  
  
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA or CAC):
  Measures the average amount of money spent to acquire a new customer through online advertising.
  
  Calculation:  (Total marketing costs / Number of customers acquired)
  
  
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS):
  Measures the amount of revenue generated per dollar spent on online ads. Probably the most important metric for online marketers and their managers. Tells you if you generate more revenue than spend on ads.
  
  Calculation: (Total revenue / Total ad spend)

The KPIs heavily depend on the company and industry you are in. But as an online merchandiser, you control what’s happening on Lister & Product pages. 

You must give visitors enough data to shortlist products on the PLP (Product Listing Page). Then, convince visitors to add a product to their cart on the product detail page (PDP).

• Add to Cart Rate
  Out of all people who had a chance to add a product to their basket, how many did it?
  For more accuracy, only include visitors who actually saw an add-to-cart button.
  
  Calculation: Number of products added to carts / Number of visitors * 100
  
  

• PLP to PDP rate
  Measures if people who saw a product on a product lister page (PLP) clicked to see the product details page (PDP). This can be calculated for one product or all products.
  
  Calculation: Product views on PDP / Product views on PLP – 1
  
  
• Buy-to-detail rate
  Measures the percentage of website visitors who purchase a product after viewing its product detail page. It is a valuable KPI for businesses because it can help them understand how effective their product detail pages are at converting visitors into customers.
  
  Calculation: Number of purchases / Number of product detail page views * 100
  
  
• Category AOV
  Same as Overall Average Order Value, but break it down by product categories. This will give you more insights into what products you can upsell or cross-sell.
  
  Calculation: Category revenue / Number of orders with product from category
  
  
• Average item per order (AIPO)
  Measures the average number of items that customers purchase in a single order. It is a valuable KPI for ecommerce because it helps you understand how much customers are buying at once and how you can increase the number of items that customers purchase ( and boost that AOV!)
  
  Calculation: (Total number of items purchased / Number of orders)

• Campaign Click-Through Rate (CTR):
  It measures the percentage of people who click on campaign links after seeing them. So this is not the clicks on the campaign page, but use this on the home page or any other page where the campaign banner appears.
  
  Calculation: Number of clicks on the campaign / Number of impressions of the campaign * 100
  
  
• Campaign Micro Conversion:
  Basically, the same idea as for the content team, this is a percentage of users who take a desired action after engaging with your campaign page.
  I think this metric is underutilized in campaign teams. Yet, it is easy to measure and compare to other campaigns.
  
  Make sure you compare similar campaigns to each other. So don’t compare informational campaigns) vs product launch. These have very different goals.
  
  Here are some ideas:
  Campaign link clicks – Did the visitor on your landing page click on what you wanted them to click? Great, that’s a micro-conversion!
  
  Product view – Not only did they read through your campaign page, but they also viewed a product and got exposed to your product selection.
  
  Email subscription rate – Imagine you can continue communication with the visitor even after they leave the site. Priceless!
  
  Related articles click – You provide so much value that they keep reading your other content. This could be beneficial in the long run
  
  

• Return on Investment (ROI):
  Revenue generated relative to the cost of the campaign. I know many companies don’t measure the ROI of a campaign.
  
  It’s just something they’ve always done without ever questioning if it’s profitable and if it improves customers’ experience if there is a new home page every week.
  
  Calculation: Revenue from campaign / Cost of campaign

• Organic Search Traffic:
  Monitoring the number of visitors from organic search to your store. And tracking that it’s not going down. Together with the content team, you can influence organic traffic by creating new content and updating existing.
  
  
• Keyword Rankings:
  Tracking the website’s ranking for targeted keywords because some keywords are more valuable than others. For example, ranking high for a purchase intent keyword means the searcher is already ready to buy, thus in the right mind set to purchase from you.
  
  
• Click-Through Rate (CTR):
  Percentage of users who click on search results in search engines. You can influence this by making more exciting titles and meta descriptions.
  
  However, it’s not guaranteed that Google will show your page title & meta description, as it may decide to use text from your content.
  
  Calculation: Number of clicks on your link in search results / Number of impressions of your link in search results * 100
  
  
• Backlink Profile:
  Monitoring the number and quality of inbound links. This is more advanced, and as you dive deeper into SEO this will make more sense. Having a good backling profile is essential for SEO success.
  
  
• Organic Conversion Rate:
  Same principle as for the content team.
  
  Basically, this is the percentage of users who take a desired action after engaging with SEO content.
  I think this metric is underutilized in content teams. However, it is easy to track, and you can create a content strategy to improve it.
  
  Here are some ideas:
  Email subscription rate – Imagine you can continue communication with the visitor even after they leave the site. Priceless!
  
  Product view – Not only did they read through your content, but they also viewed a product and got awareness about your brand.
  
  Social share rate – You managed to convince them to share your content with others. Free marketing!
  
  Related articles click – You provide so much value that they keep reading your other content. This could be beneficial in the long run

As an affiliate manager, you need to make sure your affiliates are delivering a return on investment and track which affiliates have the highest revenue & conversion rate. 

PRO TIP: Keep an eye on referral traffic that is driving revenue without them being part of your affiliates. This can be a goldmine for finding new affiliate partnerships to go after. 

• Earnings Per Click (EPC)
  This measures the average earnings generated for every click on your affiliate link. EPC tells you how much you can expect to earn for each click. This helps with assessing if your affiliate program is worth it.
  
  You can calculate EPC by dividing the total earnings from an affiliate program by the total number of clicks. For example, if you earned $300 from 1000 clicks, your EPC would be $0.30.
  
  
• Revenue per affiliate:
  Revenue generated from sales from affiliates. This is obvious, but you must know how much your affiliates contribute to your bottom line.
  
  And you can encourage your top affiliates to promote your products more with higher commissions or exclusive offers.
  
  
• Affiliate Conversion Rate (CR):
  Percentage of visitors who completed a purchase and came from affiliates.
  Tells you in percentage how many people bought from all the affiliate traffic on your site.
  
  Calculation: Affiliate transactions / Affiliate Sessions * 100 (or Affiliate Transactions / Affiliate Users * 100)
  
  
• Number of New Affiliates
  Tracking the number of new affiliates helps you see if your program is growing and if the is higher interest in your products over time.
  
  
• Cost per Affiliate Sale
  Cost per Affiliate Sale measures the total cost of generating a sale through your affiliate program. This cost should include affiliate commissions, program management fees, software costs, and more.
  
  Calculation: Affiliate program costs / affiliate program revenue.

• Task success rate
  Success rate shows the percentage of visitors who were able to complete certain tasks and helps designers identify usability issues.
  
  This can be measured during user tests or with web analytics, using custom events to indicate when the task begins and ends.
  
  Calculation: Number of correctly completed tasks / Number of attempts
  
  
• Conversion Rate (CR):
  Percentage of website visitors who complete a purchase.
  
  Tells you in percentage how many people bought from all the visitors on your site. In the end, CR is one of the north star metrics, the better experience a user has, the more likely they will buy.
  
  Calculation:  Transactions / Sessions * 100 (or Total Transactions / Total Users * 100)

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT):
  This score measures how satisfied users are with their experience on the website, often collected through surveys.
  
  High customer satisfaction indicates that the users find the website pleasant and easy to use, which can lead to repeat visits and recommendations.