e-commerce kpi benchmarks 2016

studyauthorAlan Coleman is the Founder & CEO of Wolfgang Digital“The Digital Marketing Scientists”, he’s mad for the numbers andoften seen at swim in the Irish sea.

contents
1.

Introduction

2.

The Data

3.

TL;DR Version

4.

What Sources Generate Most Traffic?

5.

What Sources Generate Most Revenue?

6.

What Devices Are People Using to Browse and to Buy?

7.

Does Site Speed Matter?

8.

What Are Average On-site Engagement Metrics?

9.

Typical Paths to Purchase

10.

Assisted Conversions

11.

Commercial Metrics: Average Order Value and Conversion Rate

12.

How Do Acquisition and Engagement Metrics Influence Conversion Metrics?

13.

The Million Euro Question

14.

Access The Private Findings

“I know half my advertising budget is wasted, I just...”-Infamous 20th century advertising problem.

introduction

hiya

How things have changed. Lack of measurement is no longer a marketing problem. In fact, the opposite is true. One of the principle issues
facing digital marketers today is that we are drowning in a sea of datawith limited time to analyse it. In a world where our performance is100% accountable, it is crucial that we identify and comprehend thecorrect insights to drive our digital marketing strategy.
The E-Commerce KPI Study sets out to be an e-commerce digitalmarketer’s best friend. In this study we will help you:
* Discover how your website KPIs stack up against industry averages.
* Interpret why your KPIs are over-performing, and identify which
underperformers are worth investing in.
* Understand which website metrics correlate with conversion.
* Gain insights into the oft talked about metrics that don’t actually
influence conversion, so you can stop worrying about them andshut down the time-consuming conversations surrounding them.
* Effectively communicate performance upwards to ‘not digital
native’ management.
* Answer that critical twin question: How to increase traffic andsimultaneously improve your conversion rate.

the data

Travel contributors – Our travel contributors are predominantly hotels with a small number of visitor centres/attractions.
The KPIs for travel contributors give a good reflection of KPIs
for ‘single item’ travel purchases but are not so accurate a reflection for ‘package purchases’ which demonstrate very different
consumer behaviour.

We analysed:
87 million website sessions€230 million in online revenue
From our participant website between 1st April 2015 and 31st
March 2016.
We averaged stats on a per-website basis, so that websites with high levels of traffic didn’t skew the stats.
Revenue is attributed on a last-click basis. A selection of named participants are listed at the bottom of the study.
Retail contributors – We have a broad range of retail contributors infashion, furniture, sports & leisure, department stores, health & beauty,
electrical goods, jewellery, gifts and more. We have broken out the datato cover ‘online only’ retailers and ‘multichannel retailers’ who have bothan online and offline presence. We’ve found the metrics to be quite distinct for the two sets of retailers.

You will notice the metrics are quite different for retail and travel
contributors. Here’s why:
The monogamous retail shopper tends to engage with the one
website from the beginning of the research journey right throughto the final transaction. Whereas the flirtatious travel shopper
will flutter around a myriad of review sites, travel blogs and online
travel agencies before eventually arriving at the transaction website with their mind made up on what they want to buy. This explains the low engagement metrics coupled with high conversion
metrics we see for our travel cohort.
We’ve modelled how we present the data on the Google Analytics interface to make it easier for you to compare your Google
Analytics data against the industry benchmarks. The total figure
represents the average across all participants and is closer to theretail figure as we had more retail participants.
Context* We’ve added some context notes to certain sections. If there
is a limitation in the measurement methodology, we will highlight thisand suggest the likely impact.

1. Google Makes theWorld Wide Web Go Round.

2. Digital Marketers Are Over-Indexing
On Display.

Google delivers 69% of website traffic and
67% of website revenue. This is quadruple
the next best traffic source and quadruple
the next best revenue source!

Despite accounting for 38% of digital marketers’ budgets display failed to register as a
top ten traffic source.

3. Facebook Traffic Quantity
Quadruples!

4. Don’t Discount Email.

In our last KPI study Facebook traffic accounted for 1.3% of website traffic. It has
now shot up to 5%. Bundles of upside stillavailable here for canny marketers.

Email delivers as much traffic as all social
channels combined and ranks third behindsearch and direct traffic for revenue generation.

5. SEO v PPC. Choose one.

AdWords is ‘King of the Conversion’. The
strongest correlation our study found was thatbetween having a high percentage of Google
paid traffic and high conversion rates. However,
we also found that a high percentage of Google
Organic traffic correlates strongly with a highaverage order value (AOV). So for high value
goods websites SEO will do the job. For lower
value goods websites seeking a higher conversion rate PPC is your best bet. But do both.
Seriously. You really need to do them both.

6. Mobile is our ‘Decision Device’.

Mobile is now the busiest device for traffic, but seriously underperforms for revenue. Its 42%
share of traffic becomes a miserly 21% share of revenue, and it delivers the lowest conversion
rate and AOV of all devices. So is the buzz surrounding mobile a case of the emperor not having any clothes on?
Nope! This palm sized emperor is clad in Gucci. Our correlation study found strong correlations between high percentages of mobile traffic and high overall website conversion rates. Our‘PA in our pocket’ truly is the device upon which decisions are arrived at.

7. Site Speed Matters Most.

8. Bounce Rate Don’t Mean Diddly.

9. Average Conversion Rate Is 1.5%.

We found site speed matters more thanany of the website engagement metrics.
‘Server response time’ enjoyed a conversion rate correlation three times stronger
than the best engagement metric, ‘average
session duration’. Because site speed is a
SEO ranking factor, smart digital marketers can benefit from a ‘site speed multiplier effect’ as their faster site earns more
traffic combined with a higher conversion
rate.

Bounce rate has zero correlation withconversion rate. As an overall website
metric, it’s a dud.

Travel websites averaged 2%. Retailwebsites averaged 1.4%. ‘Online only’
websites converted almost twice as wellas their multi-channel counterparts.

10.People Are Buying More Online, A
Lot More.

Average Conversion rates have increased
10% since last study. Retail average ordervalue has shot up 25%!

In this section we are going to answer the FAQ

43%“How much traffic should I be getting from Google, Facebook,
Email etc?.”“Win on Google
Win Online”

26%

17%

The answer? When you win on Google, you win online.
More than two thirds of e-commerce website traffic comes from
Google. With 43% coming from Google Organic and 26% comingfrom Google CPC.

Google Organic

Google CPC

Direct Traffic

You can’t go to a search conference these days without hearing a
digital media banshee decrying “The Death of SEO” from up on high.
Our findings demonstrate this clearly isn’t the case with almost half(43%) of traffic coming from Google Organic. This figure has actually
increased from 40% in our previous KPI study. Google AdWords accounts for one quarter of traffic (26%) and Direct is the third mostpopular traffic source delivering 17% of traffic. This direct traffic is
typically made up of repeat visitors returning to the website (including repeat customers), traffic from above the line marketing activities such as TV advertising and ‘dark traffic’.

“It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play that matter”- Miles Davis

GoogleOrganic

GoogleCPC

DirectEmailFacebook
Organic

Facebook
CPC

Bing
Organic

Yahoo
Organic

OthersRetail

43%

27%

16%

6%

3%

2%

1%

1%

8%

- Multichannel

47%

24%

15%

7%

4%

2%

1%

1%

7%

- Online Only

33%

36%

17%

4%

3%

2%

1%

1%

9%

Travel

39%

20%

23%

-%

0%

0%

1%

1%

15%

Overall

43%

26%

17%

6%

3%

2%

1%

1%

9%

A notable finding from this research is the channels not generating traffic.

tion of their budget is going to these underperforming traffic sources.

According to the IAB, 38% of European Digital AdSpend went on the display category in 2015 which includes VOD, Display and Social.

Facebook was the only social network to register as a traffic source with 5%of traffic. This has quadrupled from 1.3% in our last study. We’ve seen anec-

Display and Video don’t register as a top 10 traffic source. By nature, they

dotal evidence of Facebook now being able to contribute very large volumes

are more ‘branding’ channels than ‘direct response’ so their benefit mighthighly targeted traffic for great value CPCs, but the study demonstrates an

be seen in the high levels of direct traffic and the proportion of that Goo-

‘adoption lag’ as the majority of websites are not realising this benefit yet.

gle Organic traffic that comes in as brand searches. However, marketerswith a mandate for direct response should carefully analyse what propor-

“Google makes the world wide web go round”
GoogleOrganic

GoogleCPC

DirectEmailFacebook
Organic

Facebook
CPC

Bing
Organic

Yahoo
Organic

OthersRetail

41%

25%

17%

6%

2%

0%

2%

1%

12%

- Multichannel

45%

22%

15%

7%

2%

0%

2%

1%

13%

- Online Only

31%

32%

21%

5%

2%

0%

2%

2%

12%

Travel

46%

27%

16%

-%

0%

0%

2%

2%

6%

Overall

42%

25%

17%

6%

2%

0%

2%

2%

11%

So which traffic sources contribute the most cash on a last click basis?

list on Google Search, YouTube and Gmail Native Ads. Facebook also allows
advertisers upload email addresses for ad targeting purposes. We’ve frequent-If money makes the world go round, Google makes the world wide web

ly found these “email targeted” campaigns to be high performers.

go round, contributing a whopping 67% of revenue, 42% organic and 25%
CPC. The next best non-direct channel for revenue is actually email. In

Interestingly Bing and Yahoo both deliver twice as much revenue as they dofact, the combo of Google and Email represents almost three quarters of

traffic. Indicating that although the quantity of traffic is low it is highly prof-

revenue (73%). If you are time and resource poor, maximising your impact

itable traffic. I’d suggest this is down to reduced competition on the lesson these two channels looks a very safe bet.

popular search engines.

The value in developing an up to date databases of customers’ email ad-*Context – At this point you might be thinking “that all sounds great but last-click

dresses now reaches far beyond the sending of email alone. Google recent-attribution is quite limited”. Right you are! I will be talking Paths to Purchase andly introduced customer match which allows advertisers target their email

Assisted Conversions later.

Let’s not go there.

Sessions By Device

Revenue By Device
However, mobile’s cold hard commercial metrics are an awful lot lessexciting. Mobile suffers the lowest conversion rate of all devices andthe worst AOV too. Meaning that mobile’s 42% share of traffic is

21%

chopped in half and translates to a 21% share of last-click revenue.

41%

42%

The trusty desktop might be losing traffic share but it punches way

17%

63%

above its weight when it comes to conversion, owning 63% of revenue
and enjoying the highest AOV and highest conversion rate to boot.

17%

So is the buzz around mobile a mirage disguising a dramatically underperforming device? Or is mobile simply the research device uponwhich decisions are made before the user moves to their desktop
with their mind made up to seal the deal?

Desktop

TabletMobileLet’s skip ahead to our correlation study to see how mobile traffic
impacts overall conversion rate.

The quickest way to induce nausea in a room full of digital marketers is to proclaim“This, is the year of MOBILE!”. We’ve had that maxim rammed into our earholes for

Mobile is actually the device that shows the strongest correlation be-almost a decade now.

tween the percentage of traffic it delivers and overall conversion rate.
So if your website gets a higher than average proportion of traffic

But there are some striking stats surrounding mobile usage in 2016. First of all, mobile

from mobile devices you are likely to experience a higher than average

is now ahead of desktop for delivering website traffic!

website conversion rate. This is despite the fact that the conversion
rate for that chunk of mobile traffic will be poor. From this stunning“THIS,

finding we can deduce that purchase decisions are arrived at on mo-

IS FINALLY,

bile before being completed on desktop (or offline). Mobile, our PA in

THE YEAR……,”

our pocket, truly is our research device.

Sessions By Device

Revenue By Device

Sessions By Device

Revenue By Device

21%

21%

41%

41%

62%

18%
18%

Desktop

42%

45%

67%

12%
12%

Desktop

TabletTabletMobileRetailMobileTravelIt does to Google!
Google founder Larry Page is famously obsessed with speed. Way
back in 1996 before Google was called Google, Larry hypothesisedthat the faster Backrub (as Google was initially called) results load,
the more the search engine will be used. This mission for speed
dictated the minimal search page design which the world is now sofamiliar with.

This is significantly slower than the 2 second threshold for e-commerce websites recommended by Google. Amazon’s research into
site speed found that every one second delay reduces conversion
rate by a whopping 7%.

Larry’s obsession with speed has transcended Google’s digital products. When a Googler is setting up a presentation and the room is
waiting Larry can be heard counting loudly“One-one thousand,Two-one thousand
Three-one thousand…”
while staring blankly at the wall, until the presentation is ready togo.

We also found a strong correlation between low server response
times and high conversion rates. This means for every two tenthsof second you shave off your server response time you can expect
to see an an 8% lift in conversion rate. Unsurprisingly, there wasalso a strong correlation between high server response time andhigh bounce rate.

So would your website speed invoke Larry’s ire?
Here are the average site speed metrics.

Average page load time 6.5 seconds.

We found Average Server Response time is0.76 seconds.

Site speed is not only a conversion factor, it’s a Google ranking
factor. So when we talk about optimising site speed we are talking
about a potentially dramatic ‘multiplier effect’ on revenue, from the
combined benefit of more traffic coupled with a better conversion
rate. For this reason, optimising site speed seems to be a no-brainer for performance focused digital marketers.

So now you’ve got the prospect to your website, how can you expect
them to behave? We’ve broken on-site metrics down into 2 categories;“engagement metrics” and cold hard “conversion metrics”.
Let’s start with average engagement metrics.

Pages /
Sessions

Sessionduration

BounceRate

Page LoadTime

ServerResponce
Time

Retail600.03.49

34

6.57 sec

0.85- Multichannel

600.03.44

32

6.12 sec

0.95- Online Only

600.04:0240

7.67 sec

0.59

Travel300.02.36

44

5.69 sec

0.34

Overall

600.03.37

36

6.43 sec

0.77

Our Traffic Revenue figures (section 3) are attributed on a last-click basis.
The next few sections will give us a fuller picture of all the website touchpoints prior to that last converting click.
This is critical data. Today’s consumer journeys to purchase take place overmultiple touchpoints. For online-only retailers we are seeing that 40% ofrevenue happens after 3 ‘same device’ clicks and after 5 days.
**** Context – we aren’t measuring cross-device conversions here, therefore theconversion paths we can measure only happen on one device, hence it’s certainthat actual conversion paths are longer than the data demonstrates.
Here are some of implications of longer paths to purchase:
Conversion Rate Consideration. The more clicks prior to purchase thelower your conversion rate will be.
AdWords Impression Share. If you have limited impression share you
could have a leaky bucket, i.e. you are investing in the first two clicks towarm up the prospect but budget is then depleted when the searcher
comes back to search again.
Cross Channel Audience Strategy. As paths to purchase become longer your cross channel audience strategy (link) grows in importance. When
implemented correctly you can design and create the touchpoints required
for a conversion

Overall Clicks to PurchaseOverall Days to PurchaseChannel
Grouping

Assisted
Conversions

Assited /Last Click/
Direct Conv

How to read the Assisted Conversions figure:
The % represent the proportion of assisted conversions attributed to thischannel. They add up to more than 100% because there is more than one
assisted conversion per conversion on average.

Direct58%

0.79
E.g. Social – PPC – Organic (conversion)

Paid Search

36%

1.54

will attribute the conversion to Organic and one assist each to Social and
PPC.

Organic Search

55%

1.31

The fact that our assisted conversions add up to 177% tells us that
there are 1.77 assisted conversions for every conversion or 2.77

Email

10%

5.02

clicks on the average conversion journey.
3 of the stand out channels delivering assisted conversions are:Social Networking

03%

4.09
Direct – Highest proportion of assisted conversions. This makes
sense if you consider the types of traffic that make up Direct. Direct

Referral

10%

1.37

mops up returning customers as well as returning visitors, both ofwhom are more likely to convert. Direct also mops up traffic from

Display

02%

17.28

above the line advertising.
Google Organic & Paid Search – The other key contributors of

Other

04%

3.33

assisted conversions. If you view Google as one channel it is easily thelargest source of assisted conversions. Given that Google drives 67%of ‘last-click’ revenue it’s no surprise it plays a major role in delivering
assisted conversions.

Email – Email assisted 10% of conversions. What’s unique about
email was it was an interaction initiated by the advertiser. They
mailed their database and this propelled people to visit the website
and buy. The prospect initiated the interaction in the other top assisting channels.
Assisted/Conversions. This metric is a little harder to wrap yourhead around.
How to read this figure:For every conversion, how many assisted conversions did we get? When thenumber is above 1 this tells us this channel tends to be a TOFU (top offunnel) touchpoint. When it’s below 1 it tells us it’s a BOFU (you guessedit!) touchpoint. Email and Display are the standout figures here, with email
delivering x assists for every conversion and display delivering x assists forevery conversion.
It’s worth mentioning that Facebook is getting a raw deal in termsof measurement here. At present Google Analytics is not good atmeasuring cross-device conversions for the majority of websites.
Facebook’s traffic is 91% mobile. We’ve already deduced that mobile is the research device and desktop is the transaction device. So
conversions that started on mobile and finished on desktop won’t
show a mobile Facebook assist. My gut tells me if we were tracking
cross-device conversions Facebook would be a power player when it
comes to the assist.

The numbers you’ve been waiting for...
those critical conversion metrics.
Conversion Rate
Retail converts at an average of 1.4%. Online-only retail converts at 2%
while Multichannel retail converts at 1.1%. The reason for the multichannel
retailers’ lower conversion rate is they are making ‘untracked’ conversions
in store, so their online conversion rate only tells half the story.

Average Order ValueThe Online-only retailer has a marginally smaller AOV (€170) thanthe Multichannel counterpart who averages €192.

Our travel participants convert at 2% on average.

Travel websites are enjoying a much bigger AOV again with €333.

Average
Conv Rate

AOV

Retail

1.36%

€186

- Multichannel

1.12%

€192

- Online Only

2.00%

€170

benchmarks?

Travel

2.04%

€333

numbers?

Overall

1.48%

€209

The next section will give you a deeper understanding as to how your

When we compare these figures with our 2014 study we see that the
average conversion rate has increased 10% and Retail average ordervalue has shot up by a stonking 25%!
So how do your commercial metrics stand up against your industry
How should you go about improving your critical cash-moneyother website metrics influence your commercial metrics and will
help you funnel your activities towards the most effective activities.

Want to ramp up your conversion rate?
Keen to boost your average order value?
Worried your bounce rate is costing you customers?
Or simply want to understand the relationships between the various metrics?
We’ve correlated all the metrics in the study with conversion rate
and average order value (AOV).

Here are the stand out findings
in order of strength of correlation:(correlation is measured on a scale of 0-1, with 0 being no correlation and 1
being perfect correlation. A negative correlation indicates an inverse relationshipbetween the two metrics).

Conversion Rate Correlations:

AdWords is ‘King of Conversion’. The websites who got moreInterestingly Bounce Rate Has No Correlation (-0.03) With

than the average proportion of traffic and/or revenue from AdWords

Conversion Rate. This demonstrates that the widespread ‘allenjoyed higher conversion rates. This was the strongest correlation

bounces are bad’ notion is simply wrong. If Google is doing its job

found in the study.

correctly, it delivers people to the webpage with the info they need,from where they happily bounce off.

Purchase Decisions Are Made On Mobile. Websites who got
more than average traffic and/or revenue from mobile devices en-

Size Matters Too. The websites who enjoyed more traffic than thejoyed higher overall website conversion rates.

study average enjoyed higher conversion rates and vice versa.

Repeat Customers Boost Conversion Rate. Direct revenue isa healthy sign of repeat visitors and loyal customers which will boost
conversion rate. We found significant correlations between websites
with higher than average direct traffic proportion and higher conversion rate.
Speed Matters. There was a strong correlation between quicker
server response times and higher conversion rates. The correlation
here was three times stronger than other engagement metrics suchas pages viewed and time on site.

AOV (average order value correlations)High AOV Hurts Your Conversion Rate. If your conversion rate

SEO for AOV. Those high AOV transactions tended to hap-

is lower than the study average it might be because your AOV is

pen for websites who enjoy higher than average organic traffic

higher. We found a solid negative correlation of conversion rate de-and revenue. Those websites with broad SEO coverage are be-creasing as AOV increases.

ing rewarded by the research-heavy, high-value customer.

High AOV Transactions Occur On Desktop. There is a verystrong correlation between desktop revenue and traffic with high
AOVs.

So how many clicks does your website need to get toturnover €1,000,000?

323,365.
That’s how many!
Check out the industry breakdown below.

Average ofOverall Conv
Rate

Average of
ATV EUR# Transactions# Sessions
Required

Revenue

Retail

1.36%

186

5,390

396,535€1,000,000- Multi

1.12%

192

5,217

467,590€1,000,000- Online Only

2.00%

170

5,866

293,487€1,000,000

Travel

2.04%

333

3,001

146,982€1,000,000

Overall

1.48%

209

4,774

323,365€1,000,000

private findings
We have private findings for study participants which go deeper. In the private findings we have deeper industry specificfindings on:
1.

Paths to Purchase2.

Assisted Conversions

3.

Conversion Correlations

If you sign up to contribute to next year’s study you can access this year’s private findings.
Get in touch with kt@wolfgangdigital.com to sign up for the
next study and receive your copy of the private findings.

Selection ofContributors

Harvey Norman
Kilkenny Shop
Lifestyle Sports
Littlewoods Ireland
McElhinneys
Voya
Guinness Storehouse
Funked Up Fixies
We have a large bank of participants
who wish to remain anonymous

Words by Alan Coleman | Pictures by Jen Darcy | Numbers by David O’Daly