WooCommerce Insights: Turning Web Data into Profitable Action
You do not have to be a data expert to know how to turn online store data into meaningful action.
As you must be already aware, online store metrics are key for making data-driven decisions about your overall website performance, marketing tactics, and customer service.
Good online store analytics frequently appears as a prerequisite for the success of an online store. It often also stands out as one of the main criteria for selecting an eCommerce development platform.
This is how today we turn to see how one of the biggest eCommerce platforms WooCommerce approaches the issue. With a global market share of almost 30% in 2020, we believe it truly deserves a closer look.
In its essence, this article deals with the question of how WooCommerce Analytics supports online store owners with vital marketing metrics. We will thus explore the new WooCommerce store dashboard and its key analytical insights.
Then, we will navigate through some further WooCommerce resources that can strengthen our use of analytics. We will finally touch upon some further options for extending analytic capabilities.
Still, are we all familiar with the WooCommerce platform? If you are still not there, do watch this two-minute video.
What is WooCommerce?
WooCommerce is the top WordPress eCommerce plugin (it is used by 93.7% of all WordPress eCommerce websites). It is employed by eCommerce leaders such as Amazon. Often, it sets the standard for eCommerce development.
WooCommerce is a free, open-source, and customizable eCommerce platform. It offers full-featured online store functionalities, various language support options, different plugins for additional features, etc.
Yet, do you know that WooCommerce is the most popular plugin on the entire Internet? Here come a couple of other amazing facts we encounter in a dedicated article from February 2021:
- To date, WooCommerce is used by 4,414,537 live websites;
- 28.19% of all online stores employ WooCommerce;
- 22% of the best 1 million online stores worldwide use WooCommerce.
Speaking from our experience as a WooCommerce agency, the plugin is equally suited for selling both products and services. WooCommerce analytical capabilities ensure an indispensable set of tools for data-driven decisions to match our individual goals and needs.
What is the Backbone of the New WooCommerce Analytics?
Overview
So far so good. But then, which key elements does WooCommerce Analytics offer that can help us gain better control of our sales, customers, and marketing efforts?
Actually, in WooCommerce, the top performance data is straightforward, multi-level, and easy-to-understand. You can see the big picture behind your performance by simply entering the WooCommerce Analytics Dashboard (WooCommerce>Dashboard).
Once there, you can consult all pre-defined indicators structured into three main categories:
- Performance – gives a snapshot of all key statistics on sales, orders, returns, etc.
- Charts – visually present data on the key metrics of interest;
- Leaderboards – gives details about top-performing categories such as top customers/ products, etc.
All WooCommerce Analytics categories may be fully customized to our specific needs. They may be renamed, reordered or removed/added, etc.
Further, we are also enabled to toggle between the periods for which we would like to be reported. We can change the settings for the items we would like to track. Finally, we can import our historic data to make additional analyses and comparisons.
Key Concepts
Although WooCommerce store indicators are pretty straightforward, your best ability to use them will also depend on how well you know them.
To help you most, the new WooCommerce Analytics dashboard displays the definition of each indicator by a pop-up appearing straight above your cursor. You may thus immediately start tracking the pre-loaded set of indicators to get meaningful insights into your performance.
Let us now take a look at what some key terms in the performance section reveal.
How to Use
You may use WooCommerce Analytics capabilities both for analyzing regular online store operations and for measuring the impact of specific initiatives.
For an initial introduction to the way the WooCommerce reporting function works, try watching the WooCommerce Analytics Guided Tour.
Let us now look into some of the immediate targets you can set by using WooCommerce marketing metrics:
- Improve sales (by analyzing performance green/red indications);
- Measure the impact of Discounts/ Coupons (by examining customer buying patterns);
- Analyze the behavior of your Top Customers (by following their return habits);
- Analyze your best-performing Products (by matching them with your historic data);
- Analyze Returns (by interpreting customer satisfaction).
For example, you have been running a new coupon campaign and you are interested in keeping a continuous track of your results. Although you have been generally aware of your sales, you find it challenging to measure the campaign contribution. You need further data to assess the success of the new approach and to compare it to other marketing initiatives. The coupons marketing metrics in WooCommerce Analytics will immediately help you resolve this.
How to Customize
The best way to start using your WooCommerce store Analytics is by (1) exploring it in detail and selecting the indicators you are interested in; 2) customizing the dashboard as per your needs; 3) continuously adjusting your tactics when you encounter bottlenecks in your marketing metrics.
Here comes a summary of how to customize WooCommerce Analytics to your needs. First, you will need to discover the Settings Tab (Dashboard>Analytics>Settings).
Once there, you are enabled to adjust:
- Your actionable items (let’s say exclude pending payments, products on hold, etc.);
- The default date range for your reporting (let’s say you want to juxtapose other than default periods);
- Options to upload historic data (let’s say you need better comparisons with former performance).
This is just a simple two-step approach on how to launch your personal experience with WooCommerce Analytics. By making your way through the platform, you will continuously encounter new amazing ways to enrich it.
WooCommerce Plugins
As you may be already aware, WooCommerce is a continuously developing platform. Thus, you can further enrich your web store analytics by taking advantage of the specialized WooCommerce Plug-Ins. You can try out both free and paid plug-in options.
For instance, if you browse the web, you will see that one of the hottest topics of recent debate deals with the integration of WooCommerce and Google Analytics. You can research the issue on your own by further exploring the free WooCommerce Google Analytics.
We do recommend launching your research to find out which plug-in tools best suit your individual needs.
In Conclusion
There is no better way of growing your online store business than making smart use of performance data. WooCommerce Analytics offers full functionalities which can help you improve your work with customers, products, campaigns, and more.
Already certain that WooCommerce Analytics should be tested out? If you encounter any issues along the way, do not hesitate to contact us for additional support.
