Jewelry ECOMM Tech

Achievable Online Goals & Metrics For 2019 January 12, 2019 (0 comments)

It’s impossible to start succeeding online without improving certain metrics. Believe in the process and the outcome will be much more achievable. Here are some metrics you should be focused on improving this year, which will ultimately result in more sales. You’re going to notice a trend with these benchmark stats - they’re based on engagement. We have no time for vanity metrics. We care about results.

Increase Email Open & Click Rate

Despite social media and Google, email is still a huge winner in terms of marketing power. It’s also free, unlike Facebook where you really need to pay for visibility. The key metric you’re looking for here is click through rate - how many people click to you site from your email blasts. Naturally, the more people you add to your email list, the more people you’ll have to open and click. You can easily increase your email open rates by testing and changing headlines and subheadlines in your emails. It’s amazing to see how many more opens you’ll get by learning the right subject lines to use. To increase your actual click throughs, however, it really comes down to putting better things in your emails. If you typically only use your email list to blast out the occasional offer, use your email a bit more proactively. Put multiple interesting articles in each email to increase the chances that they’ll see something they want to click on.

Grow Social Engagement

Of course everyone wants to increase the number of followers they have on social media. But let me tell you - I “like” TONS of different brands on Facebook, but I have a lot of them on “unfollow” because I don’t want to see their posts in my feed all the time. In the end, the only thing that REALLY matters on social media is how many people are interacting with your brand, sparking conversation, and causing clicks to your site. How do we increase these numbers? Share better stuff.

Increase Website Metrics

There are a few key metrics I focus on to get a very clear picture of how my sites are doing. I always compare vs. the previous 30 day period. Sessions: The number of unique, individual people who visit your site. Pretty self explanatory. Page Views: The number of individual pages that were viewed over a time period. This is a great metric for e-commerce. Comparing it against number of overall sessions will show you if people are browsing multiple pages. Naturally, websites with more engaging content will generate higher page views. Avg. Session Duration: How long people spend on your site. This is an interesting metric, because the number can fluctuate very much based on how long winded or brief your content is. Still, it’s a great stat to know. Bounce Rate: This stat tells you how many people left after seeing only one page. Meaning, they came to your site to read your article or see whatever you posted, but then left - they didn’t go to any additional pages. A big reason people don’t stay on sites is due to page speed - so make sure you prioritize that. You can also try adding better call to actions throughout your site to encourage more page views. You can also make sure to add “similar articles” or “similar products” on your pages if you don’t already.

Lower cost-per-click on Google Ads

Google still seems to be the best marketing channel - especially for retail. I’ve seen many campaigns where the cost for promoting yourself on Facebook (because you need to pay to boost posts to really reach your audience) is the same as on Google. So if I have a client who has a very small marketing budget, I’m going to tell them to put that into Google. Ideally, your strategy should be social, google, and email, but if you can’t afford paid ads for both Google and Facebook, I think it should probably be Google. The ability to reach people precisely when they’re searching for your product or service (Google) is always going to weigh so much more than trying to reach people who may or may not be interested in buying your product right now (social media). Therefore, it’s really important to get good with Google Ads. If you can lower the cost per click on your Google Ads, your budget naturally stretches further and you’ll reach more people for the same price. This should be a real priority. What are the biggest metrics you’re looking to grow this year? Let me know in the comments!