13 Important WooCommerce Metrics to Track & Report On

eCommerce metrics provide insights that can make or break a WooCommerce store. But with hundreds of potential metrics to measure, you need clear objectives and data-driven reports highlighting key business performance areas–in a way your clients will easily understand.

If you’re managing multiple WooCommerce sites, having suitable systems will allow you to deliver quality reports at scale consistently, grow your client list, and keep them for good. So what WooCommerce metrics should you care about, and how will you present your success to your clients?

Read on as we discuss the ins and outs of WooCommerce reporting.

In this article, you will learn:

• How to Measure WooCommerce Success
• Why KPIs Are Important for WooCommerce Businesses
• Basics of Metrics vs. KPIs
• 13 WooCommerce Metrics To Track
  • How To Determine Which KPIs to Use
  • Choosing & Tracking KPIs
  • Different KPI Report Types
• KPI Reporting Best Practices: 5 Common KPI Mistakes To Avoid
• Tools to Create Reports for Your Clients’ WooCommerce Metrics

How to Measure WooCommerce Success

The success of a WooCommerce store is measured directly against a client’s goals–success is reached when the store serves its purpose. But to define success, you need to define goals. And to track against your goals, you need to put metrics behind them, so they are measurable.

That’s why measuring WooCommerce success involves multiple steps, including:

• Defining and Tracking KPIs (key performance indicators)
• Optimizing Campaigns
• Clearly communicating results to clients – so they can make better decisions about their business, i.e., stocking up on best-selling products
• Effective WooCommerce Reporting
• Using results to scale a WooCommerce store

Why KPIs Are Important for WooCommerce Businesses

At the end of the day, running a WooCommerce store boils down to profit. To get there, you need to carefully select the metrics and track only what affects the business’ bottom line. And to be successful in a highly competitive eCommerce environment, you need to measure the right digital marketing metrics, and that’s where KPIs come in.

Basics of Metrics vs. KPIs

All KPIs are metrics, but not all metrics are KPIs. And KPIs are defined by your objectives. Sound confusing? Let’s break it down.

What Is the Difference Between Business Metrics and KPIs?

Understanding the difference between business metrics and KPIs will help you laser-focus your marketing efforts to grow your client’s WooCommerce store.

Metrics are quantitative measurements that are used to track the performance of one aspect of a business. In this case, for a WooCommerce store, metrics would be the Sales, Revenue, Return Rate, Lead-to-Conversion Ratio, Acquisition Costs, etc. While these metrics examples are relevant and used daily, they are not always as critical to success as KPIs.

KPIs go deeper, filtering down to the metrics that matter most to the success of a business. They help you make decisions, map business outcomes and serve a strategic purpose. Hence, the key in key performance indicators.

KPIs allow you to:

• Communicate your progress towards your business goals–which involves tracking various metrics, not just one
• Track the success against your business objectives
• Focus on the aspects of the business that you’re trying to improve

So, in essence, every business can measure the same metrics, but each business department will be measuring different KPIs that are directly related to its goals.

13 WooCommerce Metrics and KPIs To Track

Regarding WooComerce stores, here are the most critical metrics and KPIs to track.

1. Sales

This metric can be measured hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. Depending on your client’s business objectives, you’ll want to adequately select the most appropriate period to show sales growth over time.

Sales by day or hour can also give excellent business insights on when to release new products, while the quarterly and yearly sales metrics can be a KPI that helps make future projections and plans.

2. Conversion Rate

In eCommerce, this is one of the most important metrics you can measure. An eCommerce conversion rate is usually between 2-3% depending on the industry. Whether the goal is to gain contact information for a free resource or buy a product, both are conversions–as long as they align with your client’s goals.

Tip: If your conversion rate is low, look at Average Sessions on Google Analytics for deeper insights into your key converting pages. Visitors need to be spending enough time on that page to convert.

3. Cost per Acquisition (CPA)

When running PPC campaigns, you’ll need to keep a close eye on this one. CPA tells you how effective your campaigns are at generating revenue. The calculation is simple, but you’ll need to consider all the platforms you’re spending your ad budget on.

4. Cost of Goods Sold

Also known as COGS, this is how much of your budget you spend to sell an item. To calculate this, you’d need to consider how much online advertising went into the product, manufacturing costs, and sales team commissions.

Typically, COGS only includes expenses related to a product’s production, marketing, and sales. If that sale didn’t happen, that cost would not have been incurred. Overhead, such as admin and rental prices, are omitted, and many companies exclude general advertising and marketing costs.

To calculate the cost of goods sold, you’ll need to know the number of goods sold.

Total # of goods sold = beginning inventory + purchases during the period – ending inventory

Then, multiply this number by the known cost of goods provided by your client, and don’t forget to add your advertising costs, too.

Tip: Create a Custom Metric to add to your WooCommerce reports, as it combines information from multiple sources.

5. Average Profit Margin

To know what portion of a sales price counts as profit and what compensates for the cost of goods. Essentially, it’s the average profit over a period of time.

6. Number of Transactions

Tracking the number of transactions–average order size or total site visitors–can be used to compare your client’s WooCommerce site with others. It’s an important KPI for your clients to know how they’re tracking against industry standards.

7. Revenue per Visitor (RPV)

Conversion rates are one thing–but RPV tells you just how much each visitor is worth. RPV = total revenue, divided by total site visitors. For instance, if your client’s WooCommerce site generated $100,000 in sales last quarter with 5000 visitors, your RPV is $20.

Tip: If your RPV is low, look at your bounce rate in Google Analytics to ensure there aren’t any key pages getting higher-than-average bounce rates.

8. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Because it’s harder to get a new customer than to keep one, CLV is essential to a business’s long-term success. That’s why the customer journey of your WooCommerce store should be tracked. You’ll need to:

1. Identify top pages where the customer creates value (i.e., shopping cart)
2. Integrate their history to create a customer journey (i.e., have them create an account)
3. Measure revenue at every touchpoint
4. Add up the lifetime value of the customer

CLV = customer revenue per year x duration of the relationship in years – the total costs of acquiring & serving the customer

A low CLV could indicate that there is a problem with customer care and fulfillment, in your onboarding process, in the quality of the products sold, or the lack of a program that entices customers to come back (i.e., loyalty program, special deals, email marketing, or social media engagement).

9. Returning Customer Rate

This metric is closely tied to the CLV–and is therefore very important. It refers to the percentage of shoppers who purchase from a specific WooCommerce store more than once.

10. Gross Profit

Gross profit is total sales minus the total costs of sold goods. This financial metric essentially tells you whether the business has earned a profit.

11. Add to Cart

This is a highly intent-focused metric as it tells you the percentage of people who add at least one item to their cart when visiting your WooCommerce site. It means whether your marketing efforts and site user experience, combined with your client’s product selection, are working harmoniously.

12. Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

This metric is due to many factors you’ll need to consider carefully. From time to checkout, slow load times, or complicated payment methods, users abandon shopping carts about 60-80% of the time.

To calculate the shopping cart abandonment rate: Divide the total number of completed purchases by the number of shopping carts created. Subtract the result from 1, then multiply by 100.

13. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A bonus metric to calculate for your clients is their NPS. It’s a quantitative way to track customer satisfaction and benchmark against it. You can add this to their WooCommerce store to ensure the business continuously improves its customer experience.

With all this to measure, and more, you might be wondering:

How Do I Determine Which Metrics to Use As KPIs?

Determining which KPIs to use will rely on your client’s WooCommerce store goals. Is it to increase sales by 30% YoY or to acquire 500 new customers by the end of next quarter? You likely won’t have this answer without speaking closely with your clients and understanding just what they hired you for.

Choosing & Tracking KPIs

Whichever your KPIs, you’ll want to have them ready at your fingertips whenever your clients need them. Once you’ve chosen your KPIs with your client, you’ll need a reliable way to track them.

Different KPI Report Types

Just as there are various KPIs to choose from, there are also three types of KPI reports.

Analytical KPI Reports

• Used across all areas of a WooCommerce business
• Granular detail that answers questions on specific peaks and troughs in the KPI data
• Interactive dashboards can be used to investigate this data
• Static periodic reports can be used to highlight historical values that show changes over time

Operational KPI Reports

• Focused on the day-to-day activities of a WooCommerce site
• Provide actionable insights on account managers to optimize campaigns

Strategic KPI Reports

• Provide a clear picture of the WooCommerce business’ health
• Projects the direction the business is heading
• Show stakeholders how you’re performing against goals and objectives

KPI Reporting Best Practices: 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid

For every KPI you stray off course, you risk missing your objective by a mile. That’s not an actual stat, but you get the point.

1. Not connecting KPIs to the objectives.

If they can’t be measured, they cannot be reached. Every business goal for your clients’ WooCommerce sites should have a clear KPI; otherwise, you cannot decide the KPIs for your WooCommerce clients.

2. Measuring too many metrics.

Bogging down your busy clients is the last thing you want to do. Track what needs to be tracked, and keep it on a need-to-know basis to extract the most essential and valuable data that will add value to their WooCommerce site and business operations.

3. Not differentiating between types of KPI data.

As mentioned in the section above, there’s a time and place for analytical, operational, and strategic KPIs. You wouldn’t want to send a CEO the day-to-day metrics–but report on what they can glean actionable business advice from.

4. Not adapting the KPIs.

The goal of tracking WooCommerce metrics is ultimately to grow your client’s business. And a growing business has changing objectives, goals, and needs. Set up quarterly reviews to reassess whether you’re tracking the right KPIs next quarter, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

5. Not acting on the KPIs.

Miscommunication is the number one cause of not acting upon data. If the KPIs are unintelligible, little will be done to learn them. Ensure your WooCommerce KPI reports are going to the right people, at the right time, and in the proper format. Use data visualization tools to explain how your KPI reports are structured.

Tools to Create Reports for Your Clients’ WooCommerce Metrics

While WooCommerce has an analytics dashboard that tells you total sales, average order value, and top products sold, tracking it becomes a lot when running multiple WooCommerce sites for clients. You’ll need a live marketing dashboard that auto-populates your latest live metrics.

Features to look out for are:

• Connections with multiple integrations like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Instagram, MailChimp, and Rank Tracker to give full-picture visibility of your client’s marketing campaigns
• Customization with easy drag-and-drop functionality to highlight what matters most to each WooCommerce site
• White-labeled dashboards and reports to personalize your results with your–or your client’s–branding
• Automated reporting capabilities that send out reports with the latest KPIs on a set schedule that you can later add more detailed comments and annotations to

You don’t need to spend all day logging in and out of your clients’ WordPress accounts. AgencyAnalytics’ WooCommerce Reporting dashboard allows you to monitor your clients’ WooCommerce metrics. Designed for agencies to show how you increase profits and grow your WooCommerce stores. Give mobile updates for your clients to glean actionable insights.