Whether you're using Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud or another ecommerce platform, it's crucial to drive high traffic volume to your site. But important as it may be, it's not the deciding factor between a sale and a cart abandonment. If your traffic doesn't convert, the volume of traffic doesn't matter. Customer attraction is only half the battle — customer engagement, however, is what leads to higher conversion rates, which means more product sales for your store. Conversions are the lifeblood of product marketing. So your main goal is not attraction, but persuasion — collecting an email for lead generation or retargeting, completing customer transactions, getting signups up for your newsletter or anything else of measurable value for your store. As a merchant, you know conversions are the name of the game. You'd think every merchant would have it down to a science. In fact, the data suggests otherwise. What's a healthy conversion rate? While average conversion rates vary by product type, price point, location of sale and other factors, we wanted to find true, reliable industry benchmarks. Just recently, our team surveyed 1,127 stores and found the average conversion rate for stores was just 1.4%. This means a conversion rate above 3.1% would put your store in the 80th percentile, with a rate higher than 4.8% in the 90th percentile. Our test also found an ecommerce conversion rate (all devices) of less than 0.5% would put your store in the 20th percentile, with a rate of below 0.2% ranking your store among the worst-performing: Converting sales isn't getting easier, either — reaching the 1.4% industry benchmark can be a challenge for online stores, especially those that: don't price competitively (with the help of historical data) don't use conversion rate optimisation best practices don't optimise their store to increase customer engagement Speaking of customer engagement, we'll dive into how to boost your ecommerce conversion rates (here are some bonus tips on improving CRO). But first, let's overview what customer engagement really is. [subscribe] What is customer engagement, really? Customer engagement is the strongest indicator of how a customer feels about your brand, your products and your online shopping experience. There are many conduits for measuring customer engagement (e.g. email open rates, page views, landing page clicks, average time spent on page, bounce rates, etc.). With a 500-person sample of marketers, a Marketo survey found the following: 22% of people thought customer engagement was a brand awareness tool 63% considered it customer retention, repeated purchases and renewal rates 78% thought it was something that occurred in the final stages of the marketing funnel In other words, modern merchants don't exactly have a solid definition of what customer engagement really is. Even as data analytics experts (a.k.a. data geeks), we consider customer engagement to be more than a measurable set of customer data or online actions — it's also an emotional connection to a brand as well as a tool for brand awareness, chiefly driven by data, measured by data and optimised by data. See the pattern? Customer engagement isn't just short-term set of actions. It's a strategic, long-term play that informs product sales performance, marketing attribution and customer delight. Without accurate, reliable data to support decision-making, it's difficult to move the needle for your store — and especially hard to optimise your conversion rate. Luckily, our commerce connections for top platforms like Shopify, Shopify Plus, Magento and BigCommerce are available for merchants of all sizes. And of course, you're free to try our smart analytics app free for 14 days, including our top-rated Google Analytics connection (free) and highly-rated Shopify app.

As the most popular recurring billing solution for Shopify stores, ReCharge helps Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants sell subscriptions easily and smoothly. ReCharge's feature set also allows for a variety of subscription types, including single product, mixed cart & entire cart subscriptions. In our last post, we talked about major challenges for Shopify store owners who manage subscription orders. Today, we're outlining a major solution. Why use ReCharge? By installing ReCharge, Shopify merchants can customise subscriptions for their store (including custom promotions via Advanced Discounts API). The ReCharge and Shopify APIs allow developers to customise the checkout experience for customers and personalise how those customers manage their subscriptions. And that's not all — with access to the ReCharge API, Shopify merchants can harness the power of marketing automation. Whether you want to automate product discount codes, order cancellation processes or updated pricing on select items, you can do just that. Installing ReCharge on your store also means orders are processed faster (thanks to an increased API call limit). For Shopify Plus merchants, ReCharge has full compatibility with popular apps like Klaviyo and Smile.io. Why connect ReCharge with Shopify? As mentioned above, ReCharge helps Shopify store owners easily sell and manage subscriptions. However, without hiring expensive Google Analytics consultants, ReCharge customers don't have a way to access a complete data collection in Google Analytics — until recently. [subscribe heading="Get Littledata's ReCharge connection for your Shopify store" background_color="green" button_text="get the connection" button_link="https://www.littledata.io/connections/recharge"] Wait, why Google Analytics? Arguably the most powerful free tool available to marketers, Google Analytics is a robust data platform that allows for multi-layered tracking, buyer behaviour analysis, segmenting by user characteristics and much more. While GA offers free features and hundreds of metrics for stores of all sizes, it certainly isn't without shortcomings. However, Littledata offers a way to maximise the power of Google Analytics' powerful data platform along with the Shopify ReCharge connection: How to optimise the Shopify ReCharge connection Unfortunately, simply installing ReCharge on your Shopify or Shopify Plus store limits the full power of the connection. That's where we come in. Littledata's Shopify ReCharge connection opens the door to accurate data for recurring transactions through an automated, advanced Google Analytics integration. With Littledata's connection, merchants not only benefit from accurate data — they get more features, automated tools and ways to track their store's performance in GA: 1) Automatically track first-time payments & recurring transactions Shopify reporting is now 10x easier. With Littledata's Shopify ReCharge connection, merchants can enjoy easy tracking of the entire customer journey along with accurate marketing attribution. The best part: you won't need to lift a finger (after granting GA access, of course). 2) Get marketing attribution for subscription revenue Littledata's smart technology automatically connects your ReCharge checkout with Google Analytics for accurate subscription revenue, including first-time payments and recurring transactions. 3) Segment your performance Whether by payment source, subscription plan type or product category, connecting ReCharge with your Shopify store allows you to track performance by segment. Not only does this ensure accurate tracking of your entire ecommerce funnel, but it also frees you to take full advantage of automated Shopify reporting to grow revenue (including report packs designed for subscription analytics). 4) Benchmark your site See how you stack up against other subscription-based Shopify merchants with Littledata's powerful ecommerce benchmarking tool.  Not only will integrating ReCharge allow you to see website benchmarks by industry, but you'll also see which key metrics are succeeding and which of them have room for improvement. The ReCharge connection also offers access to professional-level subscription analytics tools. How the Shopify ReCharge integration works From marketing campaigns to first-time transactions and recurring revenue, integrating Littledata with ReCharge lets you capture the entire subscriber journey and all the crucial data it produces. With Littledata’s magic sauce, your Shopify store and ReCharge data are automatically connected and reeled into Google Analytics. Once the two are integrated, Littledata’s revenue optimisation tools pull straight from your Google Analytics data. Connect the apps you know and love In addition to the ReCharge connection, Littledata lets you loop in the subscription tools and marketing apps you rely on most — Facebook Ads, Google Ads, CartHook, Refersion, and more!. Bottom line: Littledata automates the process to ensure accurate sales data and marketing attribution for your Shopify store. You can view the data directly in Google Analytics, or in the Littledata app.

For merchants who run subscription-based businesses, accuracy is crucial for tracking recurring orders. The problem: popular platforms like Shopify provide merchants with native analytics that are broken. In other words, these platforms don't offer a complete picture (or an accurate one) of data that subscription-based stores depend on. There are many potential blockers for these store owners, but we narrowed it down to three: 1) Customisable orders & levels of membership Many successful subscription-based stores allow shoppers to customise their monthly orders. While this is an effective draw for consumers, it causes all kinds of headaches for the teams that manage the orders. The ability for customers to customise monthly orders adds layers of complexity for teams who manage product inventory, fulfillment and logistics in the back end. Perhaps the best example is from the hugely popular Dollar Shave Club. Known for their humor-driven marketing approach, the brand constantly encourages its subscribers add more and more products to their monthly shipments, which go out at different times each month. Due to the brand's meteoric growth over the past five years, this creates headaches — imagine fulfilling dynamic orders each month (different cart sizes, products and membership levels) for hundreds of thousands of customers across America. The 'curated box package' is another common subscription model. StitchFix, a curated clothing company for men and women, surprises its customers each month with a package containing 'personalised' new outfits. While the surprise factor might not be a draw for some, the brand's main appeal is the diversity of its products. Every month, StitchFix's variety is what appeals to its majority millennial market. Whether your store offers dynamic monthly ordering (where customers can change the contents of their cart) or follows a more traditional subscription model, it's crucial to have data you can trust. This means finding an ecommerce solution built to handle both customer changes and increased payload as your store scales. [subscribe heading="Automatically track your subscription orders" background_color="green" button_text="find out how" background_link="https://www.littledata.io/connections/recharge"] Affiliate marketing & partnerships It's common for subscription-based stores to partner with affiliate marketers to generate an additional source of revenue and tap into new customer groups. However, with more customers comes more demand, and the importance of accurate data only increases — this includes tracking sales made through affiliate partners, commission owed on each sale, etc. 2) Customer loyalty & reward programs When done right, effective customer loyalty programs create more loyal customers, boost customer retention and increase sales. These programs aren't used by every subscription-based brand, but for the brands that use them, they really do work, according to LoyaltyLion. However, as high shopper expectations continue to soar, the landscape for rewards programs is getting more competitive. Shoppers know that if they don't absolutely love one aspect of a brand's rewards program, they can easily run to a competitor that offers what they're looking for — whether it be a cheaper price tag, better discounts or more rewards available. Mark Hook, Head of PR and Communications for retail management software Brightpearl, had this to say: Over two-fifths of millennial shoppers (45%) admit to being less loyal to brands when compared to a year ago, and are quicker to abandon buying from companies that don’t meet expectations A great example of a rewards program within a subscription is Nike+. By putting the mobile shopping experience at the top of its priority list, Nike has developed multiple apps that work hand-in-hand with the Nike+ loyalty program by allowing its members to 'take the brand wherever you go.' By offering easy member access to the program, Nike gets higher engagement from community members and increased brand loyalty from repeat buyers. However, for merchants, a successful customer loyalty program hinges on back end analytics and whether or not it's set up properly. For merchants relying on Google Analytics for tracking, do you have custom dimensions set up? Are there parameters to track recurring orders, free trial offers, promo codes or even brand events? 3) Payment security & order changes Ecommerce businesses not operating on a subscription model typically receive credit card information every time a transaction is made. On the other hand, subscription-based businesses store data for recurring purchases, which simplifies the user experience and helps encourage users to continue paying each month. With potentially millions of credit card numbers stored in a database, brands are constantly at risk for large-scale fraud. This forces brands to invest in airtight security measures to protect your own revenue and the sensitive data of your customers. Merchants need to stay prepared for orders with expired credit card info, subscription cancellations and changes to recurring orders — all of which make it tougher to accurately track individual events and transactions. Running a subscription-based store with data you can trust Even with these hurdles, there's a shiny silver lining for merchants who rely on subscriptions. Littledata's plug-and-play ReCharge integration connects with Shopify and Google Analytics to do the following: Automatically track first-time payments and recurring transactions Provide accurate marketing attribution for subscription revenue Segment performance by payment source, subscription plan type and product category Benchmark your site and offer access to professional-level subscription analytics tools With Littledata's Shopify ReCharge integration, there's a better way forward for merchants who manage subscription orders. BullyMax, a popular nutrition and muscle-building supplement for dogs, and Dry Farm Wines, a health-focused natural wine club, are two top subscription brands that have seen great success with Littledata's Shopify ReCharge connection. Read more about our topintegration for subscription analytics. In a follow-up post, we discuss a fool-proof solution for Shopify merchants who manage subscription orders. Check it out!

Recently, Smart Goals in Google Analytics have resurfaced as a helpful feature for ecommerce merchants, but particularly Shopify merchants. In a previous post, we outline what Smart Goals are and why some ecommerce businesses use them. However, a lack of trust (and lack of endorsement) with the Google Analytics feature has turned away ecommerce merchants, particularly Shopify merchants. Like we discussed in the previous post, Smart Goals is a goal-setting users can enable in Google Analytics. Unlike other goals, Smart Goals uses both behavioral data and contextual (shared) data to predict which of your web sessions will result in a conversion. The pitfall here is that the data is not your data, which would naturally be the best predictor of future conversions. Instead, Google's algorithm seeks highly-engaged visitors and then uses that data to conclude the likelihood a given web session ends with a conversion. Google puts it this way: To generate Smart Goals, we apply machine learning across thousands of websites that use Google Analytics and have opted in to share anonymized conversion data. From this information, we can distill dozens of key factors that correlate with likelihood to convert: things like session duration, pages per session, location, device and browser. We can then apply these key factors to any website. The easiest way to think about Smart Goals is that they reflect your website visits that our model indicates are most likely to lead to conversions. Are Smart Goals a good idea? There's a big hitch in the original concept. Smart Goals was designed for merchants using Google Ads who don’t use conversion tracking. Smart Goals was to help optimise their Ads campaigns by collecting important metrics of user engagement. In theory, it sounds brilliant and helpful for ecommerce merchants and business owners of all scales. But here's how it breaks down in real life: Advertise, measure, repeat As a rule of thumb, ecommerce merchants with stores of all sizes should be measuring their advertising performance. Even if you're creating a "set it and forget it" Google Ads campaign, it's still crucial to track product views, page views, user engagements, cost per click, etc. If you're advertising your products without measuring, you're likely wasting your time and your budget. So how do you ensure you're making good use of ad dollars? Properly set up conversion tracking. Littledata's Google Ads connection is a great place to start. With the connection, you can be confident in your data reporting and that you're tracking the metrics that matter. [subscribe heading="Get Littledata's connection for Google Ads" background_color="grey" button_text="Get the connection" button_link=https://blog.littledata.io/2019/02/28/link-analytics-to-adwords-with-our-new-google-ads-connection/] With conversion tracking, you can follow a shopper's journey and see how many ad clicks lead to purchases, contacts, downloads, signups and more. This data will help you better optimise your campaigns and adjust the ad copy, visuals and calls-to-action to what performs best. Unfortunately, there are thousands of ecommerce merchants who advertise their products without proper conversion tracking. This sets them up for underperforming campaigns and stalls their online store from scaling. Can you really trust anonymous data? The short answer is a resounding no, and for a few reasons: Using other people's data to make crucial product and marketing decisions around your campaigns, your website and your customers isn't a good idea. Only your own customer behavior trends will guarantee you're making optimal business decisions for your product marketing campaigns and your online store. How does Google's algorithm determine likely conversions? If conversions aren't defined and conversion tracking isn't properly set up, how can likely conversions be determined? Google basically assigns each web session a score, with the top sessions made into Smart Goals. That begs the question, "what defines top sessions?" Google scans anonymous data (such as session duration, pages per session, location, device, and browser) to select the users that are "most engaged" in your online store. For example, let's say Shawna the Shopify merchant. Shawna uses Google Analytics to track her product sales and other "big data" figures. However, Shawna has never set up goals in GA. For someone like Shawna, Google would use engagement metrics in place of conversion metrics, since Shawna has no conversion tracking for her Shopify store. This is not necessarily problematic. What is problematic is that other important metrics are left untracked. This includes metrics like: Average order value Customer lifetime value Cost of engaged users Sales increases Google Ads campaign optimisation If conversion tracking was set up (rather than Smart Goals), Shawna would easily be able to trace the online journeys and user engagements on her Shopify store. Littledata's Shopify connection with Google Analytics would also provide Shawna with curated reports and analytics to help make sense of her GA data stream. What's the verdict? While even Google advocates for conversion tracking, there is a better way to track the metrics that support better decisions for your ecommerce business. When advertising, especially with Google Ads, it’s incredibly important to use your own data to make decisions for the positive growth of your campaigns.

In a nutshell, Smart Goals measure the most engaged visits to your website and automatically turn those visits into Goals, even if you don't have conversion tracking or ecommerce tracking. Those Goals are then used to improve your Google Ads bidding. Not only are Smart Goals one of our favorite features of Google Analytics, but also a helpful resource for ecommerce merchants of all sizes. How do Smart Goals work? The Smart Goals feature in Google Analytics is the result of machine learning algorithms and configured at the view level. These algorithms scan dozens of signals within your website sessions to determine which signals are most likely to result in a conversion. Each session is assigned a score, with the "best" sessions being translated into Smart Goals. So what are these "signals"? Session duration, pages per session, location, device and browser type are among the most popular. To determine the best sessions, Smart Goals establishes a threshold by selecting approximately the top 5% of the traffic to your site coming from AdWords. Once that threshold is set, Smart Goals applies it to all your website sessions, including traffic from channels other than AdWords. After enabling Smart Goals in Analytics, they can be imported into AdWords. What do I need before setting up Smart Goals? If you're an online store owner interested in using Smart Goals, you'll need to have an existing Google Ads account linked to Google Analytics. You'll also need edit permissions at the view level in order to complete the setup. Before setting up Smart Goals, your linked Google Ads account must also have sent at least 500 clicks to the selected Analytics view over the past 30 days (if the linked account falls below 250 clicks over the past 30 days for the selected view, Smart Goals will be deactivated until the clicks rise again to 500 or more). Google Analytics recommends that Smart Goals be used when you aren't measuring conversions. In other words, they're an easy way to use your best sessions as conversions. You can then use Smart Goals to optimise your Google Ads performance based on the best sessions pattern. [subscribe heading="Try Littledata free for 14 days" button_text="Start your free trial" button_link="https://littledata.io/app/get-free-trial"] How to set up Smart Goals If your user permissions are eligible, you can enable Smart Goals by selecting the goal type when following the regular goal setup flow: Sign in to Google Analytics. Click Admin, and navigate to the desired view. In the view column, click Goals. Click + New Goal. Select Smart Goal (if available). Give your Smart Goal a name and click Save. No additional configuration or customization is required (they're called "Smart" for a reason!) How to import Smart Goals into Google Ads After you've activated Smart Goals in Google Analytics, sign in to your Google Ads account, click the Tools tab, and select Conversions. Click Analytics in the left-hand menu. Check the boxes next to the goals or transactions you want to import. Click Continue. On the next page, you'll see settings that will apply to all of the goals or transactions you selected. Make your choices, then click Import goals. Click Close, or to import more goals, click Import more. Google Ads will begin importing the data from your Analytics account. Historical data prior to your import will not be included. Your Smart Goals report To see exactly how Smart Goals perform, use the Conversions > Goals > Smart Goals report. This report shows how Smart Goals traffic differs from other traffic to your website. You can also include the Smart Goals Completed dimension in custom reports. The Smart Goals report also shows how Smart Goals would perform even before enabling them in your view. This helps you determine if Smart Goals will be a useful feature for your ecommerce business. Interested in getting help with any of these features? Littledata's enterprise plans include complete support, a dedicated account manager, data analytics experts and ecommerce Google Analytics consulting. We covered what Smart Goals are, but are they actually beneficial? Next, we cover the why (or why not) behind Smart Goals. 

Shopify is a terrific, industry-leading platform that continues to see success with its variety of in-app features and integrations for merchants. One of the ways it hasn't been successful? It's native reporting platform. In a recent post about popular brands using the Segment app for their Shopify store, we outlined what the Segment platform is, and why top brands are choosing to use Shopify and Segment together. In this post, we'll run down the three best benefits for merchants using Shopify and Segment in tandem. First, let's start with the problem: What’s wrong with Shopify reporting? Shopify’s native reporting is simplistic and incomplete, missing key steps in the customer journey. This makes it difficult for Shopify merchants to get accurate data on sales and marketing efforts for their store. The situation is even worse if you want to push that data to Segment, as previously this had to be done manually (i.e. you'd need to hire a developer and a consultant just for the setup). The good news: Littledata's new Segment connection (available in the Shopify app store) fixes this automatically. [subscribe heading="Use your store as a Segment source" background_color="green" button_text="Get the app" button_link="https://apps.shopify.com/segment-com-by-littledata"] How does the Segment connection work? Once the data is tracked within your Shopify store, it's then sent to Segment. By adding Shopify to your Segment sources, it's easier to push your Shopify dataset to Segment destinations so you can report and act on ecommerce behavior. Plus, our app fixes the tracking automatically - so you can make data-driven decisions with peace of mind, knowing that the Shopify data is accurate when you push it to Segment destinations. Tracking for Shopify & Shopify Plus To recap from our post a few weeks ago, Littledata's Segment connection sends the following events from your Shopify or Shopify Plus store to Segment. These events will show up as tables in your warehouse, and as regular events in your other destinations like Google Analytics, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Heap and more. Among all Shopify apps, the Segment connection offers benefits unique to Shopify partners. Check out our help center for additional questions on the Segment integration. 3 benefits of connecting Segment with Shopify 1) Capture every customer touchpoint Our Segment connection lets you use Shopify as Segment source. In other words, merchants can now automatically track every ecommerce touchpoint on your Shopify store, including: User/browsing behaviour Checkout steps Sales & refunds Customer lifetime value (CLV) Marketing metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC) When merchants integrate Segment with Shopify, no touchpoint in the customer journey will go untracked. This includes multiple checkout steps, sales conversion data and customer lifetime value (CLV), one of the most crucial metrics for any store owner to track. 2) Server-side tracking for 100% accuracy Speaking of tracking, Littledata's server-side tracking approach within Google Analytics beats out Shopify's native reporting, which is riddled with inaccurate numbers. Server-side tracking ensures each data metric is 100% reliable, empowering merchants to make better, data-driven decisions for their store. 3) Set up in minutes for any Shopify store Quick integrations should never be undervalued. Within minutes, Shopify merchants can have their stores armed with a steady data flow. Sound too good to be true? That's the power of next-gen tracking and reporting. Which events are tracked? Littledata's Shopify app for Segment users automatically tracks key events in the ecommerce journey. These currently include: From your Segment workspace, you can then push this data to hundreds of Segment destinations, such as: Reporting and visualization tools like Mixpanel and Google Analytics Sales and marketing apps like Hubspot and Salesforce Email marketing like Drip and Klaviyo And the list goes on and on...check out this master list of Segment destinations. Enterprise plans for Shopify Plus stores The Segment integration for Shopify captures every stage in the customer journey, empowering you to do more for your store with an accurate dataset. The best way to get started? Littledata enterprise plans are a popular option for Shopify Plus merchants and other stores set on major growth. Enterprise plans offer reliable customer support, a dedicated account manager, help from our Google Analytics consultants, data analytics experts and ecommerce growth hackers.

It's no secret that Google Analytics is the bedrock of modern analytics. For data analytics experts in all verticals — not only ecommerce — Google Analytics is the primary tool for setting goals, tracking results, ecommerce benchmarking and optimising campaigns for peak performance. But GA is no walk in the park. It's a complex platform with a robust dashboard, unique features like Enhanced Ecommerce and dozens of helpful tracking features for merchants big and small. Because GA can be a learning curve for inexperienced users, many merchants opt to work with a Google Analytics consultant or Google Analytics consulting group to help them navigate the waters of GA and fully optimise their product campaigns. [subscribe heading="Get the best Google Analytics consultants for ecommerce" background_color="green" button_text="get started" button_link="https://www.littledata.io/app/enterprise"] Before you go hunting for a GA consultant for your online store, make sure they check all the important boxes: Coding experience: from UTM parameters to more complex bug fixes, a respectable GA consultant should be comfortable messing around with code. While troubleshooting and custom implementations are the most common calls for coding experience, Google Analytics experts should be well-versed in coding within GA. Segmenting aptitude: As the old adage goes, averages always lie. In other words, the insight of data reports goes beyond the average numbers that GA shows. To better understand the data, an experienced GA consultant should know how to segment the data. If you hire a GA consultant who shows you plain GA exports exactly as Google shows it to the user, he/she is providing your store no value. Data without a plan of action is just a collection of reported numbers — nothing more. Deliver insights, not reports: Not every store owner understands bounce rates, but most understand the type of person that finds their website, don't take any on-site action, and leave the site right away. In other words, a good GA consultant should not be interested in exports from GA, but insights from GA. They should be able to extrapolate data from GA, explain to store owners what it means and communicate the impact for ecommerce business owners. Typically, store owners are not interested in complex GA data, and they don't have time to read comprehensive reports — they need guidance, translation and plain english to turn data into actionable insights. There's no getting around it — highly effective (and affordable) Google Analytics consultants are difficult to come by. Luckily, there's a better way for merchants to track data they can trust and build their strategy around reliable reporting from GA. Littledata's enterprise plans offer all the benefits of a personal Google Analytics consultant along with better insights, the experience to address complex issues, and dashboards to visualise the KPIs that matter to your store. [subscribe heading="Try Littledata free for 14 days" background_color="grey" button_text="start my free trial"] Why store owners choose Littledata enterprise plans 1) Start with an audit, sail to higher revenue After all, Littledata was started as a next-gen audit tool, so it's no accident that enterprise plans begin with an audit review.   During the audit, we review your store's data gaps and tracking issues keeping you from data you can trust for actionable insights. Our audits extend across marketing channels, mobile app performance and user behaviour on your storefront and product pages.   Our Google Analytics-certified account managers ensure a smooth process through strategy, implementation and optimisation. 2) Define project goals If your store requires more than just ongoing audit fixes, we work with your team to define custom goals for the products you really want to push.   This can be something as standard as setting up Enhanced Ecommerce in Google Analytics or as complex as developing a multi-site dashboard to analyse average customer revenue by location. Either way, our enterprise plans offer complete online support for peace of mind.   3) Decision-making power throughout the process Unlike some account managers, our team is hands-on from initial GA set up to implementation.  You'll be looped in throughout the entire process with an in-app, custom dashboard that updates real-time.   If you have GA questions, enterprise customers can also communicate with our account team through online tools like Slack and Trello.   4) Always getting better Our GA team monitors your data collection for accuracy and depth before creating custom recommendations. These include step-by-step reports showing how to use your new analytics setup, how to maximise automated reporting and how to improve your marketing ROI and drive more revenue through fixed attribution. Take the first step In addition to deep experience with platforms including Shopify Plus, Magento, Demandware (Salesforce) and BigCommerce, we support and smoothly connect with the full range of popular tools for ecommerce analytics, including Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Segment, Facebook Pixel, and more.   Take the first step into Littledata's custom enterprise plans!

According to Baymard, 69.57% of online shoppers abandon their cart. That means that for every three people that add an item to their cart, two of those people end up not purchasing. As a store owner, this can be extremely frustrating. You’re running a business, so you want to see sales — not abandoned carts. On the other side of the coin, however, I can assure you that your customer was frustrated, and this is exactly why they abandoned their cart. While there are a million reasons why a customer would abandon their cart, there are a few common threads and factors for mounting frustration. The good news? They’re all easily measured with data and improvable with some common sense. [subscribe heading="Try Littledata free for 14 days" background_color="grey" button_text="start my free trial"] 1. Your mobile site experience sucks As an agency owner, I see a lot of websites. Yet it still surprises me how many ecommerce brands suffer from this issue. Over 50% of all traffic to ecommerce sites is coming from a mobile device, yet many brands are perfectly fine with letting their customers suffer through an almost unusable mobile experience. This is an extremely common cause of cart abandonment. If you’re curious, you can look within Google Analytics to see how many people abandon carts on different devices. While most websites are ‘responsive’ these days, that does not mean they’re usable or easily navigable. Have your parents, your siblings, or your significant other run through your online experience and try to purchase a product, and you’ll see the shortcomings in your mobile experience. Responsive design hardly considers the goals of an ecommerce website. When a store design is not user friendly, this leads to higher abandoned cart rates. 2. Your product pages don’t provide enough information The next commonality with cart abandonment is all too simple, but it’s one of the leading causes. It boils down to the customer having a question about the product: How big is it? What is it made out of? How much does shipping cost? How long until I can get it? What’s your return policy? Is it waterproof? Your product page needs to answer every question a shopper could ever have about your product. There are so many advantages to ecommerce, but the main disadvantage is that the customers are not holding that product in their hand. So, they can’t answer a lot of those questions on their own. You need to be their five senses in describing that product and your policies so that the customer can make a completely informed purchase decision. If I have more questions than answers, I’m not buying. (Not sure how to fix your product pages? You can get my 8-point guide on product page improvements by joining our mailing list here.) Some of the questions your customers have might not be obvious. Being so close to the product and the brand often puts blinders on business owners. An easy way to solve that is by asking your customers! You can use apps like Hotjar to ask your customers questions on why they’re leaving a product page. 3. Your apps, files or images are slowing down your page load speed The last issue to tackle: your page load speed. This is something that is often overlooked by people new to online businesses. If your website takes too long to load, I’m out of there. There are quite a few reasons why this would happen, but the main reasons are typically 1) too many apps and 2) content not sized properly for web. Apps are amazing, and I frequently recommend them to our clients to solve requests. What's not amazing about apps is their tendency to add bloat to your website. That’s why I highly recommend never installing an app unless you absolutely need it. The more apps you have installed, the more data that is being loaded on every page, and the slower your website will be. Uninstalling apps does not necessarily mean that the underlying code is deleted either. Take this as a warning. Additionally, oversized video and photos kill load times. I know that lifestyle photography you shot for your new collection is beautiful, but a five megabyte photo on my mountain 3G connection takes entirely too long to load, and I’m now browsing Twitter because I got fed up with your store. People are impatient. They do not want to wait, they want things instantaneously. You can view and track your site speed in Google Analytics to get some ideas on where you can improve those metrics. Ecommerce reporting and data tracking is key. Fix customer frustrations, fix your cart abandonment problem Customer frustration is the root of most abandoned carts. Your customers want a quick, mobile-friendly, simple experience — so create one! This is a guest post by Chase Clymer, Co-Founder at Electric Eye and Host of Honest Ecommerce. Chase is an ecommerce expert making brands more money every day. He's also a fan of islands, tacos, and Magic: The Gathering.