Decide which metrics are important to your Shopify store

At the end of every month I take a few minutes to collect metrics on how the month went.

I include regular business metrics like revenue, number of new customers, etc. Also for over a year now I've been tracking the speed of Repeat Customer Insights and its components.

The faster the app, the faster the answers, the happier the customers, the better the business.

I've narrowed all of my metrics down to about half a dozen really important numbers, with another dozen or so that compliment those or are measuring active improvements. For example I'm tracking how much work the app does in the background to make sure imports from Shopify continue to perform well.

At first I tracked nearly everything. Any metric that told me something I'd track or have a calculation for. But over time I found that some metrics only matter in specific contexts. e.g. If I wasn't doing anything to optimize my trials right now, tracking my trial completion conversion rate isn't that useful.

The good thing about automatic analytics systems like Repeat Customer Insights is that you get a lot of metrics calculated for you.

The bad thing is that you get a lot of metrics calculated for you.

Deciding which metrics are important to you and when, that's the key. The advice I sprinkle around the app can help make that decision but ultimately, any metric-based business requires getting clear on what you're trying to improve.

Eric Davis