You know your products, but sometimes customers act in unexpected ways. With Metrilo’s Retention Analysis, you get a better look at their behavior and worth over time, and can realign your marketing to maximize that worth.
Analyzing customer lifecycle in Metrilo’s Retention
From the main menu, go to the Retention Analysis tab.
There you should see Overview by default. Along with other key metrics, there are the orders per customer and the average time between orders.
Below, there’s a color line graph comparing one-time and repeat buyers.
Now, how to read the metrics?
Look at the numbers and get answers to the following questions:
Do you have more one-time or repeat buyers?
More one-timers indicate problems with engagement, retention and the acquisition of quality customers. Maybe change your focus to get more suitable customers with higher chances of becoming loyal.
More repeat buyers show healthy levels of retention – keep your retention tactics.
How any order per customer do you get?
For some products that are logically one-time buy (e.g. bikes, wedding dresses, baby strollers, tents, etc.) it’s ok to have a low order count by customer.
However, if you sell commodities like cosmetics, food, clothes, you should be getting a lot of orders per customer. If not, you might have a problem with service, product quality, engagement or overall satisfaction with your brand.
Plus, by clicking on Details, you'll get an accumulated trend graph for this metric so you can see its movement over the past year. For a developing store, it should be growing as you manage to keep more customers and get more repeat orders.
How often do people buy from you?
Again, times will vary for different products, but you will pinpoint how often they need yours. It’s an insight that might change your whole marketing approach.
Generally, too much time between orders signals people are not motivated to buy more or that they don’t use the product as (much) as you’d think. That’s often the case with cosmetics.
On the other hand, too short buying cycle is an indication that your product is ready for a subscription or a replenishment option.
Her, you can also see a trend graph by clicking on Details. With efficient retention efforts, this graph should be going down over time as you manage to shorten the buying cycle. However, a flat one is still good.
These 3 metrics are a good start of your Retention Analysis – they’ll show you if retention is working for you at all and will give you a direction for action.