What’s the use of a plethora of data and analytics at your fingertips if you don’t or can’t use that data?
Amazon seller performance metrics form your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), which, if chosen correctly – define and positively affect the end-goals of your business.
With the help of seller metrics, you can measure a lot of KPIs, create data-driven and actionable business plans to outstand and remain ahead of your competition.
But what is KPI and what difference does it make in your business decisions?
“Amazon success is based on data-driven decisions. By knowing and constantly following your account health and preparing monthly and/or biannual KPI reports, you will have a foolproof way of becoming successful on Amazon.”
For example, $30,000 monthly revenue with 3000 sessions can be a good indicator for one Amazon seller and discouraging for another.
So we have ONE piece of advice: know your numbers.
The amazon metrics are the essence of your business. The visitors, monthly sales and bounce rate all say something.
And we will teach you how to speak numbers and measure each KPI per end-goal.
But hold on! Looks like you are a bit confused between metrics and KPIs.
Metrics are quantitative indexes of business processes, KPIs are the quantitative measure of your business goals.
Simply put, conversion rate and total Amazon fees are metrics, but when you subtract these two – you get your ROI (Return on Investment or how much money you actually made) and THAT’s a KPI.
So, back to measuring KPIs.
But first, let’s define your KPIs using the SMART technique.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Actionable
R – Realistic
T – Timebound
EXAMPLE:
I will create a sales funnel to generate new leads and triple my sales in three months by using A/B ads and offering them a discount without violating the MAP policy.
Specific: You have set the objective to increase your sales.
Measurable: You can measure the number of leads, the results of A/B testing and the conversion rate.
Achievable: You will run the promotion to generate leads = make money.
Realistic: You have the budget and experts to do that (the latter can be us btw).
Timebound: You set a deadline.
Other examples:
- Reduce Cart abandonment rate by 30%. KPIs to set: low bounce rate, low to no Reviews, Content Optimization.
- Increase returning customers by the end of the year. KPIs KPIs to set: CTR Click
through rate) and conversion rate. - Increase sales by 30%. KPIs to set: Feedback rates, customer service metrics (ODR basically), refund requests, late shipment rating.
So, you track metrics, measure your KPIs, see your pain points, set SMART goals to boost your business present on Amazon.
Easily set than done.
- Product KPIs
- Marketing KPIs
- Customer Success KPIs
- Finance KPIs
Product KPIs
- Sales velocity
Look at your sales data to track the seasonal spikes and you will gain vital insights on expected sales velocity weekly, monthly or biannually. Defining your sales velocity will help you be well prepared during high demand seasons.
- Inventory Turnover
Go to your inventory dashboard and you will see the inventory turnover number under Days in Inventory. You KPI is to always set this number high, as it’s the speed of your inventory sales.
- Commingling Inventory
You can consider setting Commingling Inventory as your KPI to nullify the chance of getting inauthenticity policy violations, negative feedback or even A-to-z claims. Before you ship your items to Amazon’s warehouse, make sure you label each product and thus identify you as the sole seller.
- Aging Inventory
To get the quantitative report for this KPI you’d want to check your seller ASINs and just analyze the time frame per inventory. You definitely don’t want to leave your Christmas products roasting under the scorching summer sun. Meaning, don’t use Amazon’s space just to store your inventory. You will receive Long-Term Storage fees if you leave them for more than 6 months.
Marketing KPIs
- Media Mentions (PR)
You launched a PR campaign (a marketing technique basically). Your KPI is the equivalent of how many times your brand was mentioned in a specific time-frame and how many closed sales it brought eventually.
- Bounce Rate and Engagement (Content Marketing)
Before we determine the Content Marketing KPIs, you should understand that content appears in many forms: promo posts, captions, banners, blogs, videos and what else not. A well-written copy determines the amount of time spent on your page, engagement rate, low bounce rate and the number of conversions, after all.
- Keyword Rankings and Organic Search Rankings (SEO)
“The formula is: write for people, optimize for search engines”
70% of potential buyers search on Amazon over other online retailers. And the majority are more likely to purchase a product from Amazon. Therefore, SEO optimization is of foremost importance. You 1. optimize, 2. rank 3. get traffic and make sales.
And your goal should be Amazon’s 1st result page.
- Search Term Impressions (SEO)
When you perform keyword research and optimize your product list accordingly, there will be negative keywords as well as keywords driving you sales.
You should analyze your keywords weekly to determine which drive impressions, clicks and conversions.
Create a list of keywords with impressions but no clicks (poor content or visual) and keywords with impression, clicks but NO conversion.
At the end of the analysis you will have few but a decent amount of niche-specific keywords that are high-performing and have high-return on ads.
Customer Success KPIs
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
To measure an estimated cost of acquiring a customer you need to divide the total cost of the campaign by the number of new customers acquired from that campaign. This is also a good KPI to measure the efficiency of your campaign.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
This is how to measure it: Avg. Order Value x Avg. Annual Purchase Frequency x Avg. Customer Lifespan.
The estimated amount of money shows how much money your customer spends throughout the entire relationship with your store. The idea behind this KPI is that you should earn more than your customer than the customer retention cost.
Example: you spend $50 to acquire your customer, you should make $50 off of that customer within X period of time (6 month or year).
- Return Rate
This is one of the pertinent KPIs. Customers are always right, and they are twice right on Amazon. Having a high return rate or bad reviews is not a good barometer of future sales.
Seeing what kind of customer response you’re getting is a good barometer of future sales. Reviews influence new customer purchases. Trends in your reviews can give you an indication of product quality, and highlight things that might need fixing.
- Customer Retention Rate
To succeed in customer retention – you need to offer a high quality product and service… and build a strong relationship with your customers along the way.
To keep this KPI happy, you can consider offering exclusive discounts or gift cards as a part of your customer loyalty program.
Financial KPIs
- Long-Term Storage Fees
Amazon is a two-sided street. You either pay commissions on the items you SELL or you pay fees for the items you DON’T sell. Thereafter, long-term storage fees will pop up when your inventory has been stored for 6 months and knock you over with more fees in 12 months without a single notification beforehand.
- Buy Box
Appearing in the Buy Box and getting people to buy your product listing is only half the struggle for this KPI.
As Amazon detects the percentage of customers visiting your product listing, it helps the algorithm to determine the listing’s quality/value. So make sure you have perfectly optimized listings and overall high product quality to hit Buy Box.
- Conversion Rates
Conversion Rates or better known as Unit Session Percentage within Amazon is the best way to measure your ad campaign performance.
The higher is your conversion rate, the better your targeting and message is!
This is the last stop of sales funnel, conversion rate is the percentage of purchases.
Tracking your conversion rate will show you the launch efforts, customer behavior and their buying patterns.
To find this KPI, go to Seller Central’s Business Reports section -> Detail Page Sales and Traffic Report by ASIN.
- Total ROI or Net Profit
Sales are one thing, Total profit in the end of the long tunnel of Amazon fees is another thing.
If you have high sales velocity, but high cost of sales – you will have low profitability.
To measure your Total ROI, use this formula: Total Revenue – Total Expenses = Total ROI.
KPIs here are to look at your Total ROI and determine how to increase your revenue and decrease your expenses.
Final thoughts
Peter Drucker – visionary management consultant – said: “What gets measured gets improved.”
KPIs measure each and every process you cooperate with. Setting your SMART goals and choosing the right KPIs will help you easily identify the areas for improvements in a specific time-frame. Tracking KPIs will help you predict your revenue and detect any problems immediately
In your endeavors, remember you can always consult with one of our professional experts and get your store going!
