One of the most daunting, yet rewarding, task to take on is that of launching an e-commerce site. In the first six months of launching a site you are going to track different metrics then you would after the site is well-established. Having had the opportunity, and in many cases task, to launch a number of websites there are a few issues that pop up in every case:

1. Creating an easy-to-use payment process is unique every time.
2. No matter how much revenue is coming in, even if surpassing expectations, it always seems like opportunities are being missed.
3. Data, Data, Data...with so much information coming at once it is impossible to dissect and act on all of it.

Although more data is always better than less, the overwhelming amount can frustrate and confuse even the most seasoned analyst and create a feeling that pivots need to be made without looking at the big picture. Aligning focus on specific data metrics is your only chance at extrapolating the relevant information necessary to make adjustments regarding your strategy. A few metrics can get you through the first couple months of most e-commerce sites, and set you up for more thorough analysis when the initial launch phase is complete.

1. Percentage of New Visits

Total traffic can be good, but really with any new e-commerce site you want to continuously attract new visitors to the site and have it seen by a wide audience. Whether this is organic driven, campaign driven or other this is your best bet for getting the site off the ground and to begin gaining traction in the market. With new e-commerce sites I shoot for new visits to make up 75% or more for the first few months.

This can all be found on the standard report page of Google Analytics and requires no manipulation to reports.

Knowing that new people are coming to the site every day will give you confidence that you are not lagging on your launch marketing efforts, and ensure that the pipeline is growing every day.

2. Pages Per Visit | Average Visit Duration | Bounce Rate

I lumped all these together for the simple reason that they all track mainly the same thing: Site Engagement. The users that are visiting your site should be exploring it to its fullest being that they are probably there for the first or second time and are not yet familiar with what it holds. These triggers can tell you whether or not this is occurring.

Low pages per visit, low average visit duration or high bounce rate are all signals that something is wrong and that a glitch exists in the user flow. This glitch can be remedied by viewing exit pages, UI, heat maps to help target the reason for the low user engagement.

3. Landing & Exit Pages

Where visitors are entering and exiting your site will not only give insight into the most relevant search queries associated with your site, but will inform you if there are certain pages within your site that people are getting frustrated with or perhaps have left off to return at a later time. A concentration on either a landing or exit page can speak volumes as to how people are finding you and why they are abandoning you.

Many times newer sites, that are well indexed, will begin appearing in long tail search results. This should be the goal especially at the beginning as the chances for organically competing for highly searched keywords are slim. By tracking your landing pages, you can see what queries your site is being associated with and even use that information for promotional or testing purposes.

If you are a new site, and your "/cart" is a high exit page, don't fret. For most e-commerce sites, especially new sites, a user is not normally going to buy the first time there. This is just a sign that your site is user friendly and people are finding their way to the purchase stage. If your cart is not being utilized and conversions are low, it is time to dig into your visitor flow and find out what is happening.

4. In-Page Analytics/Event Tracking

You have people coming to your site every day, what are they doing on it? In-Page Analytics and event tracking can give you insight into everything that occurs on your page.

Everyday you should be setting aside time to look at the analytics of your site and draw conclusions. In-Page analytics is great at showing the percentage of clicks on any specific portion versus the rest of the page. Use this tool to see if they are making it below the fold, to see if your clicks are concentrated on any specific area, if the clicks are lacking in the places that you want them or just to get an idea of the normal use of your site.

That being said, you will not always be watching analytics so it is important that you also see how many times important aspects of your site are being utilized. Event tracking will allow you to not only track how many times an event occurs, but will allow you to set value to a specific click. They will also allow you to label the events for easy organization, setup conversion metrics for things other than checkout and give you the full user flow for that specific event. See what and where your users are focusing on, and iterate as you go.

Knowing how users are interacting with the site is the most important piece of information for making pivots regarding layout and usability.

5. Multi-Channel Funnel Marketing

Marketing attribution is one of the hottest buzz words in the online marketing and analytics spectrum right now. Companies are scrambling to figure out what their specific model should look like, how to weigh what is important and which tracking metrics really matter. When just starting an e-commerce site, marketing attribution is not something that you will be able to really come up with a great strategy on because you just don't know enough about YOUR specific business yet to set out a formal plan.

However, the multi-channel funnel is setup pretty well to accommodate most e-commerce sites and to track what should be important to you as a new site. In order to take advantage of this, you have two options:

1. Set up e-commerce tracking for your site
2. Set up a conversion goal to track so you can see the visitor flow

For starters, I would always recommend setting up e-commerce tracking. That being said, if you are not familiar with Google Analytics this can be a burdensome task. Setting up a goal is much easier and will still allow you to track the user funnel. When setting up the goal, make sure to not only add the goal URL for the "confirmation" page, but also add a goal gunnel with the "checkout" page as this will give you more detailed information on abandoned carts. If done correctly, you should be able to see the conversion path for your visitors.

Knowing how many visits it takes, on average, before a conversion occurs is a very powerful metric. Knowing how many visits it takes, in conjunction with the most commonly traveled path, as well as the average day lapse and specific keyword/PPC/direct/search engine details, this is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The multi-funnel conversion can give you the formula for how people convert on your site, and for any e-commerce site if the primary goal is not conversion, well, you won't be around for long.

Conclusion

Starting a new e-commerce site can be overwhelming; especially from a data standpoint, but by focusing your efforts on some key metrics you can get a good idea of what is working and what is not working. Changes to the site will be frequent and sometimes frustrating, but with some basic information you can make sound decisions that will help conversion and overall user satisfaction.