The Only 5 Metrics We Look at First When Auditing an Ecommerce Store

When a new store comes to us, its dashboard usually has one of two problems: it's empty, or it's overloaded with numbers that connect to no decision. Both are the same problem — too little signal, too much noise.

Before we build anything, we audit. Every audit starts with the same five metrics — not because they're the only ones that matter, but because they tell us immediately whether a store has a data problem, and how serious it is.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), by channel

If you don't know what it costs to acquire a customer, you don't know if your ads are working. Most stores know total ad spend and total orders, but can't say whether Meta delivers customers at $18 or $47 — and that difference is the line between a profitable store and one slowly bleeding cash. What we want to see: CAC by channel, updated weekly.

2. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

CAC only makes sense next to LTV. A $47 CAC is a disaster if a customer buys once and never returns, and healthy if they come back three times a year for two years. Most stores underestimate LTV because they only look at first-purchase value. What we want to see: an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1.

3. Conversion rate by traffic source

Your overall conversion rate is almost useless. A store at 2.4% sounds fine until you segment it and find organic converts at 4.1% while paid social converts at 0.8%. That's a targeting or landing-page problem you can't see until you split it. What we want to see: conversion rate by source, device, and landing page.

4. Cart abandonment rate

The average sits around 70%. Most owners treat it as a fact of life rather than recoverable revenue. Above 75%, we look at checkout flow, payment options, shipping transparency, and whether any recovery sequence exists. What we want to see: abandonment tracked weekly, with a recovery flow in place.

5. Revenue and margin by SKU

Most stores know total revenue. Few know which products drive it — and which quietly destroy margin. We've audited stores where 80% of revenue came from 20% of SKUs and the owner had no idea. What we want to see: revenue, margin, and units by SKU, sortable and current.

What these five tell us

Together they give a complete picture: where a store acquires customers, what they're worth, where they drop off, and what drives revenue. If any one is missing, unclear, or buried in a manual spreadsheet — that's where we start.