On the Web: Every E-Tailers’ 2011 Wish List
Don't know what to get that e-commerce merchant on your shopping list? Here are a few suggestions (sing along to the "Twelve Days of Christmas"): On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me …
- seven (thousand) new Facebook friends;
- 6 percent boost in average order size;
- five viral videos;
- four tweets today;
- three cool widgets;
- two A/B test winners; and
- an iPhone app for my site.
Delicious, buzzworthy stuff. But what any e-retailer really needs to make 2011 a great year is some way to grow year-over-year visitors by 10 percent to 15 percent.
Three metrics determine e-commerce success year in, year out: conversion rate, average order size and total site traffic. Of these, the last is the most important.
Projects to increase conversion rate and average order size are worthwhile — and can even keep revenue growing for a year or two — but eventually you'll run out of ways to improve your website. You need to get more shoppers into your online store in order to continually grow sales.
For a number of years, growing traffic has been pretty easy. Each year more consumers shop online. Therefore, like magic, more people show up on your site. But as that trend continues to slow, you must make increasing traffic a central part of your planning. Start by tracking the sources of web traffic on your site, including:
- direct — shoppers who type your URL directly into their browser or have your site bookmarked;
- pay per click (PPC) — include Google AdWords, Bing and comparison shopping engines;
- search engine optimization (SEO) — natural search;
- email — both trigger and campaign-based; and
- other — namely, social media and links from sites that aren't search engines.