10 Mobile Metrics to Track Now Before the Holidays

10 Mobile Metrics to Track Now Before the Holidays

10 Mobile Metrics to Track Now Before the Holidays

Mobile devices have reshaped the shopping landscape. But despite impressive growth, mobile revenues still account for only a small percentage of online sales, and a minute slice of the overall retail sales pie. Merchants seeking to quantify the true impact of mobile commerce — and justify ongoing investment — must dig deeper to establish the right metrics for success.

By now, merchants are well aware that mobile commerce should be a central component of their online strategy. Two-thirds of the total time spent with brands online is via mobile devices, and revenue from smartphones grew a whopping 53 percent from 2014 to 2015.

But with mobile revenues continuing to lag mobile visits by a significant margin — some 44 percent of traffic comes from mobile devices, compared with 31 percent of revenues — and with those revenues contributing a minuscule amount to the overall company bottom line, merchants must find more ways to measure mobile impact.

So far, the 62 percent of retail merchants who say they’ve established mobile measurement of any kind have stuck to tried-and-true methods: 92 percent of those with established mobile KPIs report using “engagement” metrics such as traffic, and 77 percent track revenue metrics such as sales and conversion, but less than half use metrics to measure total business impact.

The imperative to identify and track key benchmarks is even more urgent now, as the calendar moves into the second half of the year and merchants finalize their plans for the all-important holiday season, when mobile is poised to play a pivotal role. In 2015, for example, mobile traffic topped desktop/laptop traffic to eCommerce sites on Black Friday.

To establish a solid baseline before the holidays, merchants should consider the following metrics to capture a fuller picture of total mobile impact on their businesses:

Site and Social Content

  • Mobile on-site search usage. Mobile users are by and large task oriented, so measuring how well on-site search serves their needs is crucial.  

Offline/Online Interaction

  • Conversion and fallout for site-to-store options. Merchants should apply the same analytical techniques they use for the cart and checkout to options that route shoppers into stores, such as “buy online, pick up in store” and personal shopping appointment scheduling tools.  
  • Use of saved carts and wish lists. Merchants should track mobile usage of tools that enable shoppers to “pick up where they left off” and access products of interest, whether they’re in stores or on desktop or laptop computers.

Customer Service

  • Click-to-call usage and call tracking. Merchants should track click-to-call usage and consider implementing call tracking — bespoke phone numbers for different touchpoints or campaigns — in order to better understand not only what site pages prompt calls to live help, but also activity originating with ads that prominently list phone numbers, which may not register “clicks” but may drive business.    

What metrics are you tracking to capture mobile’s total impact?

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