6 Essential Digital Product Performance Metrics for Ecommerce Success

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential for brand manufacturers to gauge both successes and failures. While it's tempting for brands to report on every KPI they encounter, the digital shelf is changing continuously.

Leaders must focus on the essential digital product metrics that will help them meet their unique goals. Too much data can blur the appropriate next steps for your team, leaving them chasing irrelevant or unactionable information. 

Using these six essential digital product metrics for ecommerce will help you hold your team accountable and ensure continual optimization to improve performance.

Build a Foundation for Measuring Digital Product Performance Metrics

Brand manufacturers must have a solid foundation before they can hone in on the more complex aspects of ecommerce optimization. This foundation must include both content and brand ownership.

Positive sales share, search rank, traffic, conversion, and low cart abandonment rates are the results of solid content health and brand ownership.

Together, these digital product metrics paint a detailed picture of a brand's competitive position — and, more importantly in today's consumer-centric world, how shoppers view and engage with products.

Metric 1: Content Health

Every element of your product detail pages (PDPs) can provide insights to help boost performance and increase revenue. Title length, description length, number of feature bullets and images, and the overall quality of images all play critical roles in how your products are discovered, researched, and purchased by consumers.

According to Salsify’s “2024 Consumer Research” report, 76% of shoppers say product images are “extremely” or “very important” to their purchasing decision.

Immersive, robust content is the consumer expectation, and detailed product content is a primary reason shoppers complete transactions — even tying with pricing and discounts as reasons to click “buy,” according to Salsify’s consumer research. Retailers also expect brands and content to focus intently on the consumer experience. 

Comparison charts, 360-degree product image spins, PDF downloads, and image galleries are being used more than ever on PDPs.

Metric 2: Share of Search

While about half of shoppers today prefer an even mix of online and brick-and-mortar shopping channels, according to Salsify research, most turn to search engines to browse and research products.

That’s why it’s critical for brands to infuse their product content with the right keywords to drive search traffic to PDPs.

Take a deep dive into relevant search terms for your products. Identifying search terms should be a thorough process — conducted product by product — so consumers can easily find your products during the search and discovery stage.

With this information, you'll be armed with insights into how your search rankings compare to your competitors and how easy your products are for consumers to discover.

By calculating the percentage of search results compared to your competition, you can improve your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. 

Metric 3: Search Rank

Your brand must know where in rank your products appear — both within search engines and within retailer site searches. Salsify’s research found that most shoppers are still unlikely to dig deep into search engine results to find the products they’re looking for.

Fourteen percent of shoppers will stop their online search after page one and about half (45%) will only search to page three.

SEO is one of the most critical aspects of boosting search rank. Improve your product rank visibility by using more quantitative and qualitative content, taking steps to generate more reviews, and improving your click-through rate (CTR).

Metric 4: Onsite Traffic

Monitor how many consumers visit your PDPs and website, when they visit, which pages they view, how long they stay, and if they click the "buy" button.

These digital product performance metrics can help your team plan and execute more targeted marketing objectives.

Onsite traffic is also a direct influencer of online sales. It can tell you which channels are most effectively funneling consumers to your products.

Helpful, instructional, or explanatory videos; immersive enhanced content; comparison charts; image galleries; and other content will aid in keeping consumers on your PDPs longer.

In addition to a variety of engaging content, consumers also want recommendations from trusted sources. Salsify’s research found that 72% peruse customer ratings and reviews before buying and 40% check out user-generated content (UGC) like customer images and videos.

Metric 5: Conversion Rate

The percentage of visitors to your PDPs who complete a transaction is your conversion rate. These numbers should be continually increasing from regular optimization, aligned with regular updates and changes.

Low conversion rates can be a result of consumers abandoning PDPs due to a wide range of content issues.

Salsify research found that 45% of shoppers have abandoned a purchase because of no or low-quality product images and 42% have done so because of incomplete or poorly written product information.

You can use conversion rates to set benchmarks for your team and identify opportunities for improvement and optimization.

Metric 6: Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

A lack of product detail information, videos, or images will send consumers to your competitors who more thoroughly answer their questions upfront.

By referencing your shopping cart abandonment rate, you can assess whether consumers are leaving behind your products because of cumbersome checkout processes or unexpected costs like taxes or shipping fees.

Be transparent with those costs early on and make the checkout process as seamless as possible.

Tracking Digital Product Metrics for Ecommerce Is the Key to Success 

Tracking these six digital product metrics will enable you to hone in on the critical data that will elevate both your brand positioning and consumer experiences.

Not only will you strengthen your foundation for measuring digital success, but you’ll also build a stronger team that is laser-focused on improving performance through continual optimization.