12 e-commerce KPIs you should track (and how to calculate them)

What is the difference between a KPI and a metric?

Every measurable value is a metric: page views, clicks, follower count… A KPI (key performance indicator) is a metric tied directly to your business goal that drives decisions. If you know what to do when the number goes up or down, it's a KPI.

Sales KPIs

1. Revenue

Total sales in a given period. Track the website, marketplaces and offline sales separately and in total. Use net revenue, after cancellations and returns.

2. Number of orders

Is revenue growth coming from more orders or bigger baskets? You need to track order count separately to tell.

3. Average order value (AOV)

Free-shipping thresholds, bundles and complementary product suggestions raise AOV. Because it brings more revenue for the same ad cost, it also improves ROAS directly.

4. Conversion rate

Shows what percentage of visitors buy. Sudden drops often point to a technical issue (checkout, page speed, stock).

Advertising KPIs

5. ROAS

Shows advertising efficiency. We explain how to work out break-even ROAS in our ROAS guide.

6. Blended ROAS / MER

Revenue from all sales channels divided by total ad (or marketing) spend. It isn't affected by attribution overlap between platforms, so it's more reliable for budget decisions (our marketplace article).

7. Cost per acquisition (CPA)

The ad cost of getting one sale. Read it together with your AOV and margin.

8. Click-through rate (CTR) and cost per thousand impressions (CPM)

Show whether an ad attracts interest and what it costs to reach the audience. If CTR falls while frequency rises, consider creative fatigue.

Customer KPIs

9. Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

The cost of winning a new customer. Unlike CPA, it only counts first-time buyers and covers all marketing costs.

10. Customer lifetime value (LTV)

The total revenue (or profit) a customer brings over their relationship with your brand. A simple approximation: average order value × yearly order frequency × average customer lifespan (years).

11. Repeat purchase rate

The share of customers who place more than one order in a period. As repeat purchases grow, dependence on ads falls and profitability rises.

12. Return and cancellation rate

Shows how much of reported revenue actually stays. A high return rate lowers both profit and the reliability of ad ROAS.

How often should KPIs be tracked?

• Daily: Revenue, orders, ad spend — anomaly checks.
• Weekly: ROAS, CPA, conversion rate, AOV — campaign decisions.
• Monthly: CAC, LTV, repeat purchases, return rate — strategy and budget.

Track every KPI against the previous period; a single number on its own rarely says much. When comparing periods, matching calendar days (for example “1–9 October” vs “1–9 September”) reduces misleading results.

Bringing KPIs onto one screen

These metrics come from different places: revenue and orders from your store and marketplaces, spend and clicks from ad platforms. Pulling them together by hand every week takes time and invites errors. CiroFly combines sales and ad channels in one dashboard and shows these KPIs compared with the previous period.