Varos Glossary

Customer Journey Analytics

Customers are the lifeblood of eCommerce. The more you understand about who they are, what they want, and how they shop, the more of a competitive advantage your business will have. Customer journey analytics is the pursuit of this understanding — the process of collecting and assessing customer data to gain deeper knowledge of their relationship with your brand. 

Why is Customer Journey Analytics Important? 

According to Google, nearly 90 percent of successful businesses maintain that anticipating and proactively responding to customer needs is critical to growth. Customer journey analytics provides you with the insights to do so. It helps you identify bottlenecks, uncover new opportunities, and ultimately improve the customer experience from beginning to end. 

What's The Difference Between Customer Journey Analytics and Customer Journey Mapping? 

Customer journey analytics and customer journey mapping are frequently mentioned in the same breath, and with good reason. One naturally feeds into the other. While customer journey analytics provides information and insights about customer interactions, customer journey mapping creates a visual representation of those interactions. 

Either one is a viable starting point, but in the long term, they are ultimately two sides of the same coin. 

The Most Crucial Customer Journey Metrics

Caption: Customer Lifetime Value is arguably one of the most important retention metrics under the umbrella of customer journey analytics

Each stage of the customer journey has its own set of key performance indicators, detailed below — it's also important to note that specific eCommerce niches may have their own KPIs to consider, as well. 

Awareness

Customers know they have a specific problem, desire, or need, and have begun researching a possible solution. Either through paid media or as a result of their search, they've discovered your website. 

KPIs at this stage include: 

  • Impressions
  • Cost Per 1000 Impressions (CPM)
  • Reach
  • SEO PageRank
  • Bounce Rate
  • Time on Page
  • Pages Per Visit

Consideration

Customers at the consideration stage can essentially be considered prospective buyers. They know their options, but they haven't yet reached a decision. KPIs at this stage include: 

  • On-Site Clicks
  • Clickthrough Rate (CTR)
  • Cost-per-Click (CPC)
  • Engagement Rate

Decision

As the customer nears the bottom of the sales funnel, they start looking for any information to help them finalize their decision — case studies, reviews, etc. KPIs at this stage include: 

  • Conversion Rate
  • Sales
  • Revenue
  • Cost Per Conversion
  • Average Order Value

Retention

Once you've secured a customer, it's time to start thinking about how to keep them coming back. This is the retention stage, and it's arguably the most important of all. KPIs include: 

  • Customer Satisfaction Score
  • Net Promoter Score
  • Customer Lifetime Value
  • Returning Customers
  • Time to Reorder
  • Repeat Purchase Rate
  • Customer Feedback
  • Referrals

Customer Journey Analytics Use Cases

Core use cases for customer journey analytics include: 

  • Gaining a better understanding of customer behavior across different demographics and sales channels. 
  • Identifying customer challenges, pain points, objections, and concerns. 
  • Defining customer expectations and desires. 
  • Creating more engaging, personalized and cohesive customer experiences. 
  • Leveraging analytics and customer data to iterate on and improve the customer journey. 

Choosing the Right Customer Journey Analytics Tools

Caption: The ability to visualize and assess 

Customer journey analytics can be incredibly complex, doubly so without the right software. Your organization needs a means of collecting and consolidating customer data, breaking down data silos between marketing, sales, and customer success. It also needs a tool that allows them to track, monitor, and assess key metrics at each stage of the customer journey. 

Unfortunately, even within the eCommerce space, there's no one-size-fits-all solution here. Every seller's business needs are a little different, and every eCommerce niche faces a different set of problems and challenges. Your best bet is to seek out a software vendor specialized in your specific products and services — in the meantime, you can leverage a more generalized analytics solution to at least help you keep track of things.