If you run an e-commerce website, then tracking statistics like sales, total sessions, bounce rate, and acquisition channels is vital for your business. In this beginners’ guide, you will learn what is e-commerce tracking, how it works, and how your business can benefit from it.
Analyzing customer data allows you to personalize your website, accommodate directly to your target audience, and create effective campaigns that are statistically likely to succeed. With these changes come a higher conversion rate, larger customer AOV, and improved customer LTV.
Long story short, data is your business’ superpower.
There’s a reason that the big data market is expected to be worth $229.4 billion – yes billion with a ‘b’ – USD by 2025. Data allows businesses to make informed decisions about their websites, ensuring they can cultivate statistically backed landing pages, sales funnels, and product pages.
But how exactly does a business obtain and manage its data? That’s where e-commerce tracking comes in.
What is eCommerce Tracking?
E-commerce tracking is the name given to the process of recording and collecting customer data.
The majority of e-commerce platforms, like Shopify, will offer some level of e-commerce tracking. Another method of obtaining this data is by integrating Google Analytics into your store.
However, where both Shopify Analytics and Google Analytics fall short is what they do with the data they track. While they may give you figures that represent certain metrics about your store, they won’t run analysis to explain what to do or how to use that data.
That’s where the data-driven marketing platform Verfacto comes in.
By integrating data from many different sources, such as Google Tag Manager, Verfacto will then run statistical analysis on each data point. Not only does this give you a whole array of precise statistics, but it will also then demonstrates what to do with this data.
Verfacto’s automatic calculations will constantly run on your site, keeping you up to date with everything that’s going on in your store. Yet, it goes one step further, using past data to then calculate predicted behavioral patterns and recommend changes to optimize your on-site marketing.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
What Data Can eCommerce Tracking Reveal?
ECommerce data analytics softwares will be able to track a whole host of data, relaying detailed marketing insights about your eCommerce business.
Effective e-commerce tracking will give you an insight into vital sales data and customer behavioral tracking. Here are just a few metrics an e-commerce tracking platform like Verfacto can reveal:
- Total revenue
- Total revenue by product
- Conversion rate
- Average order value
- Customer lifetime value
- Engagement
- Time spent on page
- And more!
Data is vital for your business in a myriad of ways. By obtaining and analyzing these statistics, you’ll be able to understand how to improve your business in quantifiable terms.
What can you do with eCommerce tracking data?
By integrating the data you receive into a CDP (Customer Data Platform) like Verfacto, you’ll then be able to utilize the data to improve your business.
By understanding customer data habits, you’ll be able to build up a profile of what your user base likes. You can then accommodate to their personal tastes, improving your revenue, increasing the AOV, and boosting your customer lifetime value.
Let’s take a look at some direct applications of e-commerce tracking.
User Segmentation
Customer segmentation is the process of grouping your users based on shared qualities. Although some base data points like gender, location, and age are fairly easy to come by, when user segmentation is combined with e-commerce tracking, this practice comes to life.
The advanced level of data that customer data platforms like Verfacto can provide allows you to see specific events on your site with even higher precision. You’ll be able to:
- See which device a user enters your site from
- Track and make a note of the customer journey as they move from page to page
- Record the amount of time a customer spends on a page
- Analyze purchase behavior to make deductions about their psychological profiles
The great extent of data that e-commerce tracking platforms uncover will allow you to segment your users with a higher level of specificity. This makes accommodating and carrying users through the sales funnel easier than ever!
Behavioral Targeting
Building from user segmentation, this is the practice of harnessing a user’s data to then more accurately display on-site content and advertisements to them.
By targeting a user based on what their data reveals they actually enjoy, they will feel as if your content is directly personalized for them. Considering that over 89% of users prefer when content is customized, this will help you connect and satisfy your userbase.
Behavioral targeting has transformed the way in which companies do business. Just take a look at these 5 data-driven marketing examples – they’ll blow your mind!
Our favorite of these is the ingenious viral video by Olay. By tracking their user’s interests outside of skincare, Olay realized that the majority of their customers had a common interest in horror movies.
By then creating a marketing campaign that targeted this data overlap, they produced a hit video that garnered millions of views and resulted in a huge PR boost for the company.
Skincare and horror movies – who would have thought!
Chart Your Progress
Over time, e-commerce tracking will generate a landscape of data you can look back at. Right from your first sale up to any customer purchases this very day, you’ll be able to visualize your business’ data history.
Having this backdated log of data allows you to calculate if your business is moving in the right direction. By using an e-commerce tracking tool, you’ll be able to track, measure, and smash your goals.
What’s more, a tool like Verfacto even fills you in with actionable steps you can take to achieve those goals. It has never been easier to transform the way your business handles data management (by the way, you might like the article we’ve written about customer data management).
Final Thoughts
It’s no secret that data may well just be the most vital tool an e-commerce business has at its fingertips.
If you want to begin to harness the rich data your site produces, then you should start using an e-commerce tracking tool today. And you’re in luck! Verfacto is currently offering a one-month free trial to their userbase – letting you download the software and get started within the hour!
