Table of Contents
Goals
To get up to speed with three industry benchmarks for e-commerce companies; (i) Typical cart abandonment rates for food delivery apps (can broaden to any type of food/ grocery delivery/ service apps) (ii) Best-in-class and average customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratios for app businesses in maturity (and the time to reach maturity, i.e., good startup apps see a 3:1 LTV to CAC ratio after 4-7 years) iii) Typical impact of holistic SEO optimizations on a website (including impact on the average search ranking, traffic from search)
1. Food Delivery App Cart Abandonment
There is limited information on the typical cart abandonment rates for food delivery apps. The average cart abandonment rates for food (grocery and takeaways) is 39%. Mobile apps have lower cart abandonment rates (at 20%) when compared to desktop apps.
Cart Abandonment Rates
- According to iScripts, customers utilize mobile apps 3 to 4 times longer than desktop apps. Mobile apps are known to have the lowest cart abandonment rates at 20%, while the abandonment rate for desktop users is 68%.
- The average cart abandonment rate for food items such as grocery and takeaways is 39%. This study assumes that takeaways include food delivery outside an eatery/restaurant.
- Going by the average for all industries, the rate of abandoned cart experienced by online retailers is nearly 70%.
- According to the Baymard Institute, the average documented cart abandonment rate is 69.57% for online shopping platforms.
Helpful Findings
- The average value of order made on mobile apps is 140% more than that of order on mobile sites. The average amount of orders made through a mobile app is 130% higher than the value of order made via a desktop.
Research Strategy
The study investigated the typical cart abandonment rates for food delivery apps. An investigation was conducted to uncover the “hourly, daily, weekly,” or monthly cart abandonment rates in the food delivery apps industry. Resources reviewed include scholarly and academic publications of the University of Nottingham. This strategy revealed the KPIs achieved through hourly, daily, and weekly monitoring of shopping cart abandonment rates. The KPI score for shopping cart abandonment rate between November 2016 and January 2017 was 15%. Additional information to uncover what the shopping cart abandonment KPI score achieved for the food delivery app industry within the same period did not reveal any helpful insights. Such information is not made public.
The study also included the websites of shopping cart solution providers such as iScripts. This strategy investigated platform-specific cart abandonment statistics (rates) for food delivery apps. Insights revealed that mobile apps have lower cart abandonment rates (at 20%) when compared to desktop applications (at 68%). Going further, studies to uncover cart abandonment rates for food delivery mobile apps and desktop apps did not give the required insights. Such details are not available to the public. There were no insights specific to the food delivery industry.
The study also reviewed the publications of e-commerce UX (user experience) research organizations such as the Baymard Institute. An investigation was conducted to uncover industry-specific cart abandonment rates. This strategy included efforts to uncover rates specific to cart apps in the food delivery industry. Baymard published the cart abandonment rates obtained from studies conducted by several organizations interested in e-commerce such as Adobe, IBM, Fresh Relevance, and so on. None of the rates published related solely to cart abandonment rates for food delivery apps. Collectively, online shopping platforms have an average documented abandonment rate of 69.57%. Research to break down this figure based on specific industries/e-commerce segments does not reveal insights specific to food delivery apps. Baymard Institute does not provide information related to the niche segment to the public.
The study also included cloud-based analytics solution service providers such as the Formisimo web. Formismo provides market-leading form (including forms/scripts used for carts) analytics for market leaders. Formismo is trusted by Uber, Toyota, Capital One, and other popular brands. This strategy investigated cart abandonment rates for food delivery apps. Formismo web resource provided cart abandonment rates for food (including “grocery and takeaways.”) The study includes these insights and assumes that food delivery in the United States is a term equivalent to food “takeaway” in other parts of the world. (Takeaway includes food delivered away from eateries/restaurants).
2. Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost Ratios
A common benchmark for LTV to CAC is 3:1 and ideally, it should take roughly one year to recover the cost of customer acquisition. Additional findings are provided below.
App Business
- Liftoff analyzed user data for a year and found that the average cost to acquire a user who makes a purchase via an app is $64.96. It is significantly higher than the cost of getting someone to install an app, at $4.12.
- It costs $8.21 to have a first-time user that creates an account via an app.
- Liftoff found that the average cost to acquire an app user who makes an in-app purchase, like game content, is $76.40.
- The cost of acquiring an app user who subscribes to a paid service is $162.22.
- In the mobile app business, as long as the average customer lifetime value (LTV) exceeds the customer acquisition cost (CAC), the marketing expenditures will have a positive return on investment.
- Success in the app business often comes down to owners knowing their numbers and a firm grasp of customer lifetime value. This is what will ultimately will differentiate an app from the others competing for customers and revenues.
LTV/CAC Ratio
- A common benchmark for LTV to CAC is 3:1.
- Innovation Tactics published an article on Netflix, in which the calculated ratio LTV/CAC of Netflix is 7.5.
- Ideally, it should take roughly one year to recoup the cost of customer acquisition, and the LTV:CAC should be 3:1.
3. Holistic Seo Optimization Benchmarks
Holistic SEO optimization ensures that websites offer better experiences to the users and as a result, they get maximum traffic.
Overview
- Holistic SEO provides a user with a greater and better experience. A website utilizing the holistic SEO optimizations has a high probability of offering high quality content with better and improved security measures.
- Websites that have incorporated holistic SEO boast of increased exposure and traffic. This traffic can be used for content marketing, especially for stores using online means of marketing. A well-integrated SEO optimization will aid the company to increase sales through this kind of marketing, as over 236.5 million people use search engines in the US.
- Using holistic SEO for the websites creates links that are useful in digital marketing. As holistic SEO is integrated, it will help website owners identify and attract potential clients and retain them.
- An average search ranking is at 74.75% for Google. However, with the incorporation of holistic SEO, the rank can experience a 14.6% conversion rate. This is facilitated by the fact that, currently, 93% of the online users start by searches.
Pros of Using Average Search Ranking as a Performance Metric Tool
- Most e-commerce sites operate by use of keywords, which are common. This increases efficiency of the results.
- It also allows for one to use key word rank tracking tool to measure success.
Cons of Using Average Search Ranking as a Performance Metric Tool
- It is difficult to determine a websites rank as it depends on its niche. Therefore, this could result in bias results.
