I’ve got two months of sales under my belt at Sock Doggo.

I’m feeling like the results are “ok”, but I wish they were better. Sound familiar?

All of us store owners (me too) tend to see SALES as the only measure of success.

And while sales are the most important thing for the long haul, when you’re at the beginning stages of business, I don’t think we do ourselves any favors when we use sales as the measure of our success, and here’s why:

My new business is still at the “Traffic” stage. I have had some success driving traffic to my site, but I really haven’t perfected it. I still have work to do before I can reach my goal of getting 3000 monthly web visitors at a cost I can live with.

I know that if I focus all my efforts on Traffic, I have the best chance of reaching my goal.

So really, my goal is 3000 quality web visitors each month. That’s a good goal.

3000 quality web visitors = SUCCESS when your stage is “Traffic.”

Sales at this stage are a bonus. If you see them as a measure of your success, you risk feeling disappointed.

In this video, I’ll walk you through my numbers for Month #2 at Sock Doggo.

I”ll show you the most important metrics, and what you should check too.

Then I’ll tell you exactly what we did to get our sales!

Don’t have time to watch?

Here are the numbers for Month #2 at Sock Doggo:

Sales for December:

$1114.22 = 38 orders

Key Metrics:

Traffic: 2176

Returning Visitors: 366 (15%)

Conversion Rate: 1.48%

Average Order Value: $29.45

Ad Spend + Traffic:

1429 web visits were from Facebook ads at an average cost of $0.61. Total spend is $878.

Facebook ad goal was Conversion/View Content Pixel Event

747 free traffic

Source of Sales:

5 were from Facebook

7 were direct (went directly to the site)

7 were from Google Search

3 were from Instagram

1 was from Bing

1 was from Yahoo

12 were from email

Did you catch that that?? 32% of all orders from email!

Marketing Efforts:

Email Mini-Campaign: We did a last-minute, stocking stuffer holiday sale.

25% off from Dec 2 – Dec 16

Out of the Shop: We did a site-wide discount advertised on the website that customers could take advantage of while we were away for the holidays.

15% off from Dec 24 – Dec 30

The Good News:

We got sales.

Our Conversion Funnel is performing better than average.

The Add to Cart Rate is almost 4%.

We reached more than $4k from Oct – Dec with very part-time effort, and very few products.

The Bad News:

We don’t have enough traffic. I dropped the ball and missed the 3000 visitors goal.

Our Average Order Value is below $30. I need to focus on higher priced product.

The Next Steps:

I need to get a popup and New Lead and Welcome email series running.

I also need to increase the Average Order Value by promoting higher priced product.

And last, I have to devote one full day each week to building the business.

Do you focus on increasing your Average Order Value?

If you do, I’d love to hear about your strategy. If not, what metric are you focused on?

Either way, comment below and let me know!

If you have questions, comment below and ask me!

So, here’s what I need you to do next.

First, sign up to get updates in your inbox:

Then, be sure to Like and Follow my page on Facebook. I’ll be posting regular updates there!

That’s it! It will be a fun adventure, all the way from 0 to $50K on Shopify!

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