Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Critical Few Metrics

My particular task today is to chose a company and discuss what their critical metrics, macro conversions, and micro conversions are. For this task I will choose Amazon (http://www.amazon.com) as my company.

What are their critical metrics?
I believe the critical metrics for Amazon are: Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate, and Engagement (degree and kind). The bounce rate is critical because it highlights the percentage of people who visited their site without opting to provide additional clicks. The Conversion Rate is critical because it is a representation of the number of order generated divided by the number of visits or unique visitors. The Engagement metric allows Amazon to see just how engaged their customers are with their website, regardless if the degree and kind is positive or negative. Amazon can learn from how many pages their visitors see. If a customer sees a lot of pages, but does not make a purchase then Amazon knows it has something to work on. If customers are viewing multiple pages and making purchases, then Amazon knows their customers are positively engaged and their website is moving in the right direction.

What are the Macro Conversions?
The Macro Conversion for Amazon is completed orders. Granted, the number of visitors to their site is valuable information, but the bottom line is whether not a sale was made. If there are tons of visits but a minimal amount of purchases then Amazon has some work to do with their webpage and business strategy. If visits translate into order then everyone at Amazon is happy.

What are their Micro Conversions?
The Micro Conversions for Amazon are: Accounts created, Applications for “Amazon.com Store Card”, and Product reviews. Customers creating accounts signifies that they are making a purchase and are likely to make future purchases. The same could be said for the “Amazon.com Store Card.” Since this credit card is only accepted at Amazon.com, customers most likely will conduct their shopping where they can finance their purchases. Chances are they would not sign up for a credit card, for a particular place, if they did not plan on making future purchases. Product of reviews is a good way for Amazon to learn what products people like or dislike. Product reviews can also serve as free advertising that can influence the purchases of new or returning customers.

3 comments:

  1. James,

    Excellent, well thought out post!

    I think AMZ is a great company to choose for this post because they have several metrics which one could analyze, so narrowing them down to the CF presents a genuine application of the concept.

    I would think AMZ is obsessed with things like BR, CV Rate, etc -- as you mention. I would also imagine they have various goals set for those metics, as well as "floors" that indicate if something goes below a standard.

    Again, excellent work.

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  2. I’d be interested in seeing all the analytics going on at a company like Amazon. Conducting nearly all your business online must accumulate an amazing amount to sift through. Because of this identifying the critical few metrics is incredibly important but perhaps difficult. I agree that completed orders are significant and important for Amazon to focus on. I’d also monitor total traffic and see where most people who buy and just browse spend most their time. I suspect a lot of people use Amazon for price checking and product reviews but ultimately buy elsewhere.

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