Metrics for eCommerce: How to measure profitability of a video game merch shop 

The key metrics of e-commerce sustain its growth in today's digital era. It is interesting to note that today, both the optimization tools like Alt tag generator, SEO & REM, have made it very easy for both the consumers and the developers to understand their needs better. While developers try to SEO optimize content by identifying the emerging customer trends, the customers are equally busy updating themselves in line with the new technologies. The compatibility between the two often serves as an indicator of a company's success.

What is Search engine marketing?  

Search engine marketing is the collection of activities that highlight the most common keywords used in marketing. It includes the components of advertising, such as Search engine optimization, link building, and ad-words. It has become a necessity for developers due to the rising internet usage across the world. 

1. Search engine optimization is a way to optimize the website following the most common searches that people do online. Google is not the only SEO tool, but a similar approach is being followed across all the platforms. 

2. Link Building is determined by the inbound links your website has in the content of other websites. The more you are featured on other websites, the higher are your chances for a good ranking. To understand more about link building to improve business, read:  

3. Meta description generator is another component of SEO that allows you to increase your ranking in comparison to your competitors in the market. A meta description is a small summary of what you include in your main website content. Thus they have a great influence on engagement with your customer. 

4. Lastly, Google AdWords is an excellent example of a pay-per-click platform for advertising where advertisers can earn each time a user clicks on their AdWord. HTS codes are also used in AdWords for better identification and classification of the goods.  

If you wonder how to create SEO content, you may combine the three points mentioned above to select, qualify, and optimize your keywords for delivering good content.  

 

4 key performance indicators that determine the success of your merch 

Performance indicators are the factors that either strengthen or weaken the foundation of a marketing strategy. Thus, it becomes essential to identify and use them for expanding your merchandise: 

1. Sales conversion rate  

When it comes to your merchandise growth, sales conversion rate might be the first thing that comes to your mind. You're heading in the right direction as this rate can give you a realistic check about your business's growth in terms of the number of people converted into customers.  

To increase the conversion rate, you should consider the average order value (AOV). AOV would highlight how much money a customer spends on average, helping you understand customer-related behaviours. The knowledge of these customer trends can better assist you in managing your website content.  

Except there's a problem with AOV; it can reflect a higher value even when your company's overall profit is less. That is where the role of revenue per client comes in. Revenue per visitor (RPV) is profit-driven by each customer, so it's safe to say that higher revenue is representative of a high conversion rate as well as a high average per order value. These two components are significant for increasing the sales conversion rate on your website.  

However, it is equally vital to avoid site abandonment instances, which occur when a user lands on your website but bounces back after adding stuff to their cart. A high rate of site or cart abandonment can affect the cost per acquisition rate of your website that can ultimately hamper the customer conversion and the revenue generation of your company. 

 

2. Customer retention rate  

The number of people who come back to buy your company's products or services reflects the client retention rate. It is a product of active and effective engagement with the customers.  

A reasonable retention rate would ensure that your customers are loyal to your company, which positively impacts its net promoter score (NPS). This rate is high when most of your customers can confidently recommend your company to their family or friends. A company's pillar is its loyal customer base, and thus a high customer retention rate is one of the critical factors that determine its overall success. 

The rate of customer retention can be improved by prioritizing communication for seeking feedback from customers. This would also increase the email click-through-rate by motivating them to go through your website content more often.  

You can include meta tags to elevate the effectiveness and rating of your website, as they specify information like keywords, description, character sets, etc., about your website. Lastly, Alt tag optimization would allow you to increase the accessibility of your website by making it more relevant to the image SEO principles.  

Social media posting can also affect your customer retention rate if there is a lack of consistency in your posts. Using a social media calendar can surely save you from unintentionally ghosting on your customers!  

The purpose of such a calendar is to provide you with a timeline or schedule that you can follow to boost your social marketing strategy. If you struggle with organization skills, you may want to consider Hootsuite to better manage your social media accounts. 
 

3. Generating traffic 

Generating convertible traffic may seem more tedious as a process than it is. Different kinds of traffic can be effective depending upon your purpose. There is organic traffic vs direct traffic, where the former is the one that comes to your website after exploring it through the search engine optimizations like Google.  

Direct traffic is when people directly put your company's URL in their search to access your website, which generally reflects your website's popularity.  

The other kinds of traffic are social traffic and referral traffic (paid and unpaid referral traffic). Social traffic directs through social media platforms and networks to your website. In contrast, the referral traffic is a form of secondary reference given that is usually given in the form of a blog, associate website, social media posts, etc.  

Now the question is- how to direct traffic to your website? Directing traffic to your website can be simplified if you follow specific strategies for driving a particular kind of traffic. Organic search results for searches like 'Book shops near me' are usually more common than direct searches as people typically prefer exploring their choices before deciding between them.  

There are endless organic traffic sources that can be identified using tools like Moz and SEMrush, making it easier for you to select the most effective keywords accordingly. Out of the organic vs paid search, you may even utilize the paid search to specifically reach out to the section of highly interested prospects due to increased visibility.   

Let's start with how to increase organic traffic as it is the most basic form of traffic, and thus most effort shall be made to improve it. Certain tricks like- producing SEO-appropriate content and inserting competitive keywords can prove to be especially effective in driving organic traffic. You can also consider Quora's questions to increase customer engagement which will ultimately boost organic acquisition traffic.  

Additionally, being in the social media age makes it necessary for you to explore ways to increase social traffic on your website. Instagram and Facebook are two of the most popular social media platforms that can effortlessly triple your content's reach.  

Videos have been identified as the most effective content for a better Facebook engagement than any other type of post. These findings also reflect the relevance of using video stories as a strong marketing tool for expanding your client base.  

To generate content on Instagram, carousel posts (1.94%) achieved the highest level of engagement with carousel posts (1.94%), which was even more significant than video posts (1.45%) as per the year 2020, which shows that the Instagram impressions differ from that of Facebook. Thus, Social media engagement has to be taken into active consideration to utilize its benefits for generating traffic through online mediums.  

 

4. Email marketing strategy  

Statistics highlight that the average revenue per abandoned cart email is around $5.64, which is pretty high compared to promotional emails ($0.02) and even welcome emails ($0.18). It suggests that such emails have a click-to-open rate of more than 40%.  

The only concern with email marketing is the extreme workload and high chances of missing out on important emails. To improve your experience in efficiently managing emails, you may want to consider the platform for email marketing Omnisend 

The idea behind email marketing is to increase an email's click-through rate to ensure that communication is engaging and fruitful. Additionally, it has been found that more than 81% of emails are read on mobile by the users. This clearly highlights why you should consider the importance of mobile open-rate for success in email marketing.  

Furthermore, the average daily attendance of consumers can be improved by making your email content mobile compatible, using appropriate CTAs to deliver your point clearly, and lastly, using tools to re-correct the tone and context of the email. These steps can also save you from spam complaints. While even the best email senders may face customer churn, and your goal should be to send the best-optimized emails.   

Number of unsubscribes highlight how many of these people have discontinued receiving emails from your company. So, learning about the reasons for the unsubscribes will help you understand where exactly do you need to improve your marketing strategy. 

The performance indicators mentioned above can be used by the developers to increase the profitability of the video game merch. Such campaigns would allow you to integrate these marketing strategies to connect with your consumers more effectively. Additionally, you should also incorporate links to external content for a better tracking experience, as linking can make your content more resourceful.