Website monitoring plays a key role in running a successful e-commerce business. Whether your site receives 100s or 1000s of visitors a day, it is important to monitor customer behavior as it provides in-depth insights which can be used to provide them a personalized experience. This results in higher sales and the development of brand loyalty. In this article, we’ll explore the various benefits of website monitoring for e-commerce businesses and the best ways to implement a robust monitoring system.
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Top Benefits of Monitoring Website Performance
Constantly tracking website performance helps maintain a firm grasp over its functioning and performance. Below we discuss three benefits of monitoring website performance:
- Maintain Website Up-time
As the name suggests, up-time refers to the amount of time a website is running i.e. customers can visit the site and make purchases without issues. It is often expressed as a percentage with 99.99% being the optimum number, as reported by Uptrends. Being an ecommerce business, you can expect to have customers from across the world. Hence it is imperative that the site is running 24/7. Even small glitches or server issues can cost you in terms of potential customers and revenue. But, constant monitoring of website performance will help you maintain the optimum up-time level.
- Prevent Data-Theft
Monitoring website performance also includes running periodic security checks. This includes having cybersecurity software installed on all office machines, hiring an IT security professional, and scanning your servers for viruses and discrepancies daily. Active monitoring is the best safeguard against cyberattacks and keeps company and customer data safe.
- Provide a Personalized Customer Experience
As reported by Nosto, up to 50% of online consumers prefer returning to websites that provide personalized experiences. This can result in higher conversions, revenue, and reduced customer acquisition costs. The groundwork for personalization will be created using data collected from your website (both desktop and mobile versions).
Best Website Performance Metrics to Track
Along with up-time, there are other important website metrics that should be constantly monitored as they help to improve all areas of the business.
- Bounce Rate: The bounce rate calculates the percentage of customers who visit your site and leave without continuing to any subsequent pages. A high bounce rate could be due to technical problems such as slow page load times or marketing problems such as boring website copy or lack of visuals.
- Conversion Rate: This denotes the percentage of customers who took the desired action on your website. Conversions can include registrations or purchases; hence it is important to set clear measuring parameters for each. A high conversion rate denotes a good-performing website, while the inverse means you should reconsider customer flows, pricing, and other product-related aspects.
- Error Rate: It measures the number of request errors from the total number of requests on your website. Common error codes include HTTP Error 500, 404, 400 and 502. A low error rate will help to increase conversions and your SERP ranking.
Process Mining
Considering the sheer amount of data your e-commerce website will generate daily, it is not feasible to monitor it manually. The alternative is to adopt an approach that utilizes a combination of data science and process analysis methodology, which is often referred to as process mining. Utilizing the power of AI and machine learning, a process mining tool greatly reduces the effort needed to accurately monitor website performance. Once set up, the tool will constantly review the log data created by your website and subsequent applications used to maintain it, and create a process map.
On review, the tool will highlight areas of concern that can then be catered to by your IT team. Additionally, process mining will provide your sales and marketing teams with insights regarding customer behavior, buying decisions, and more which can be used to improve messaging on the website and future campaigns. When you learn more about process mining, your business will benefit from data-driven decision-making, reduced inefficiencies, and better performance across all important metrics.
Given the importance of a website in e-commerce, constant data monitoring needs to be considered a business priority. Creating a reliable reporting system and utilizing process mining will help to improve sales, outperform competitors, and constantly grow the business.