How to Measure (and Improve) Your Shopify Store’s Marketing Results
For Shopify merchants, there are a handful of spaces where data could fall through the cracks.
On average, Shopify brands use six apps to run one store, plus additional providers for email, paid media, inventory management, and more.
That’s a lot of data to keep an eye on—and measuring (and understanding) your Shopify store’s metrics are essential to the success of your business.
How do you know what data matters? How do you calculate accurate metrics to help you interpret your store’s marketing results? And, how do you access your data without paying an exorbitant fee?
Read on to learn:
- Ecommerce metrics you should prioritize, and why they matter to the overall health of your store
- Tips to improve your Shopify store’s performance and marketing results
- How to consolidate your store data and tools to create a single source of insight
Once you leverage your analytics, you’ll make better, more informed decisions about your business. Let’s break it down . . .
Ecommerce metrics to prioritize and why they matter to the overall health of your store
To set a foundation, I recommend focusing on four ecommerce metric collections. Consider these stats your new best friends and check on them often! They’ll help you understand how your business is performing as a whole.
1. Key performance metrics
This is your snapshot; The quick picture of how business is going. Stats you should know, off the cuff.
Key performance metrics illustrate a high-level overview of the basics, with predictable trends. Daily spikes can signal that your marketing efforts are working—while dips can flag an issue.
Keep an eye on:
2. Sales Data
Monitor your sales data to get an idea of where revenue is coming from. Be sure to:
- Compare your sales over time (look at specific time frames to draw correlations)
- Map your highest-performing products to your sales—by units or by dollars and get an idea of your best sellers
- Understand the percentage of first-time and repeat orders driving sales
3. Site Performance
Discover who is coming to your site and if they are converting to customers. Low conversions could signal that you’re not bringing qualified traffic to your site. Keep an eye on:
Another key insight you can gain from evaluating site performance is whether or not there are any glaring issues with your store. For example, if you see a big dip in orders or conversion rate, part of your tech stack might be broken. It happens—more than we like to admit!
When monitoring site performance metrics, ask yourself:
- How many orders are being placed?
- Is your traffic converting?
- If you add a new marketing channel, is it bringing in qualified traffic?
- Can you optimize the experience through customized landing pages?
4. Channel Efficiency
Channel efficiency, or what I like to call, the “prove it” point. This is where you get to prove that your paid efforts are making an impact! In order to show which channels are driving the highest ROI, zero in on:
- Ad spend (total and per-channel)
- Conversion by medium
- Channel performance: ROAS, CPA, and attributed sales
Tips to improve your Shopify store’s performance and marketing results
Ready to move the needle? Use your analytics to set measurable, actionable goals. Then implement an action plan.
To set targets based on your store’s data, try Tydo, a free app that combines your Shopify store data with the tools and channels you love to create a single source of insight. Tydo’s interactive data visualizations bring your store to life and unlock new insights and growth.
3 tips to improve Shopify site performance
- Present personalized product recommendations
- Optimize your product detail pages for mobile
- Upsell and cross-sell your products
These three tips only scratch the surface of strategies that improve site performance. Your store speed, CTA’s, repeat order experience, and dozens of other factors come into play. Make incremental improvements (always A/B test!) and monitor your site performance metrics to see which changes make the biggest impact.
3 tips that improve your Shopify store’s marketing impact
1. Create a TikTok marketing strategy
In 2021, TikTok got more search traffic than Google. Why is TikTok an ideal platform for DTC brands? It’s free, easy to use, and anyone can make a TikTok.
TikTok presents a massive opportunity to find new customers and scale—but it’s not a set it and forget it platform.
“We found success expanding beyond our historic top performing products (on platforms like Meta),” says Jeremy Fenderson, of adQuadrant. “Activating an entirely new persona on TikTok allowed us to decrease CPA by 111% and increase ROI. Our lesson? Test a variety of personas, creative, and audiences. Doing this took us from spending $0 to 6 figures a month on TikTok.”
2. Reduce cart abandonment
A whopping 69.82% of shopping carts are abandoned during the checkout process. Simple fixes?
- Make shipping costs crystal clear and consider adding a free shipping bar to your website. According to Privy, 79% of consumers said free shipping would make them more likely to shop online.
- Speed up the checkout process. Enable Shop Pay to increase checkout speed by 4x. How? When a buyer uses Shp Pay for the first time, their info is saved for future purchases. Checkouts going through Shop Pay have an average checkout-to-order rate of 1.72x times higher than those going through regular checkouts. Wow.
- Run abandoned cart email campaigns. These types of emails have a purchase rate 19% higher than typical promo campaigns (and a two-email sequence shows a 54% increase). Here are 15 examples from the team at Sendlane to get you inspired.
3. Leverage user-generated content
Savvy DTC brands get their customers to share user generated content (UGC) about them on social media. Why? It’s all about brand affinity. Half of all consumers look for UGC when making buying decisions and discovering new products.
The pro’s at Junip recommend these 6 methods of encouraging UGC:
- Run contests and giveaways on your social media.
- Use polls and ask questions to engage your audience.
- Have nice packaging! Pictures of thoughtfully designed products get circulated online and are a major trend on social.
- Put your UGC on display via Instagram highlights or create a section on your website to showcase customer content.
- Embedded social sharing buttons on your review requests.
- Ask for product reviews.
- Reward customers who post about your brand with discounts and perks.
Once you’ve built a collection of UGC, leverage it in your social campaigns, and showcase it on your website.
Recap: How to measure and improve your Shopify store’s marketing results
When it comes to measuring your Shopify store’s marketing results—start with the basics: Key performance metrics, sales data, site performance, and channel efficiency. Using a data analytics platform like Tydo will give you a clear picture of these metrics.
Next, use your analytics to set measurable, actionable goals. Then implement, and iterate. Good luck!
About the Author:
Kate calls Philadelphia home and has a passion for building educational marketing content for DTC brands and relationships with Shopify partners. She currently works at Tydo, a Shopify app that connects your brand’s data, marketing sources and tools to solve your biggest problems and uncover your biggest opportunities.
