Understanding the metrics behind your visuals can be a game-changer. Using image performance data to align your studio outputs with business goals will help to refine creative strategies, improve processes, and elevate the customer experience. We get it, product image metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) won’t get most creatives hot under the collar and bridging the gap between creative and commercial realms can be daunting. But in today's data-driven e-commerce landscape, it’s becoming essential for creatives to know and understand product image metrics. This guide will help you ask the right questions, set objectives, and serve as a metrics glossary so you can start using data to make creative decisions that deliver.
Diving into your data
Asking the right questions
The first step towards understanding and utilizing product image metrics is forming an effective collaboration between your creative studio team and the colleagues that hold the keys to the data. This team will have their finger on the pulse of your e-commerce platform and will be able to provide the insights required to create and continuously improve data-driven processes in production… so be nice!
Some initial talking points to help you get started:
Discover what’s possible:
- What image-related metrics do you already track for performance (if any)?
- What metrics are available that might directly impact creative decisions?
- Where do they see imagery perform best and why?
- Can you monitor image performance across the entire customer journey?
- Are there any gaps in data or insights that the studio team could help address?
- What constraints/limitations will you need to work within or resolve?
Set Clear Objectives:
- Define how your studio's outputs connect to specific e-commerce goals. For instance, are your images designed to drive clicks, reduce returns, or boost conversion rates?
- What data models can be created to measure and improve visual effectiveness?
- Are there any product lines, campaigns or categories that require specific focus?
Define Success:
- What does success look like for your product images in each area?
- What are the key metrics to focus on product detail pages (PDPs)? Is it higher conversion rates (CVR), lower return rates, or increased revenue?
- Start with clear benchmarks to guide your analysis.
Test and scale!
- Roll out new imagery with A/B testing to understand impact.
- Decide how often you want to review and analyze metrics.
- Optimize processes.
- Prioritize impactful content across all areas.
Glossary of Essential Metrics & KPIs
What can often be daunting when bridging over to the world of data is just how much gets measured. Our e-commerce metrics glossary will help you make sense of the numbers and prevent you from drowning in the endless sea of acronyms!
Content Engagement Metrics
Measure how your visuals connect with customers:
- Unique Visitors (UVs): The number of individuals who visit your website within a set timeframe. Are your visuals attracting new eyes?
- Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU): The number of unique customers that visited over the previous month or day.
- Impressions: The number of times your image is presented to a potential customer.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Gives a ratio of impressions to clicks. A critical measure of how compelling your images are in grabbing attention and driving action.
- Conversion Rate (CVR): This is a key metric that indicates the percentage of visits that result in a purchase. Have your images done enough?
Revenue-Related Metrics
The money numbers. These KPIs link directly to your bottom line:
- Revenue: The total income generated.
- EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization): Measures profitability and efficiency. Strong imagery can reduce costs like returns, boosting this metric.
- Revenue Contribution (by feature/category/campaign/image/model): Understand which visuals are driving the highest returns and prioritize accordingly.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The amount spent on marketing divided by the amount of new customers acquired through the campaign = CAC. High-quality imagery can lower acquisition costs by improving ad performance and conversions.
- Average Order Value (AOV): How much customers spend on average each time they visit your e-commerce platform. Are your images doing enough to show premium products or outfitting options?
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Calculates an average of how much revenue a customer is worth over the entire duration of their spending activity with your brand. Useful to show the importance and value of returning customers.
- Return Rate: The percentage of total orders that are returned by customers. Inaccurate imagery can lead to unmet expectations and higher returns.
- Repeat Customer Rate: Measures how many customers completed more than one purchase during a certain time period. This can signal how good your customer experience is; consistent, appealing imagery can encourage loyalty and repeat purchases.
Imagery and the Customer Journey
Where do visuals have an impact in the basic marketing funnel?
- Awareness: Metrics like impressions and views show how well your imagery grabs attention. High impressions indicate visibility, but pairing this with engagement metrics will tell you whether your visuals are compelling enough to make viewers pause.
- Evaluation: Engagement metrics (hover rates, zoom-ins, clicks) reflect how images help customers evaluate products. For example, frequent zoom-ins may indicate that customers find detailed images crucial for decision-making.
- Action: Conversion Rate (CVR) and Average Order Value (AOV) demonstrate whether images close the sale. A high CVR often signals that your visuals are persuasive, while AOV can reveal whether your images effectively showcase premium features or outfitting options.
- Loyalty: Images that drive repeat purchases or re-engagement contribute to Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). For instance, consistent branding across visuals can foster trust and brand recognition.
Armed with the information above, you hopefully have enough confidence to get the ball rolling with your data teams and just like learning a foreign language, you’ll become more fluent practicing the lingo with the locals! They won’t expect you to know everything inside out from day one, the same as you won’t expect them to know what camera settings to use to get the perfect shot. Create a strong working relationship and trust that you’re collaborating with the colleagues who know best - the learning will likely become a two-way street.
If you’re making changes to how you measure your image metrics, let us know about it. Join the conversation on Linkedin.