Anna Kayfitz - Practical Ecommerce

Articles by: Anna Kayfitz

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Anna Kayfitz

Anna Kayfitz is founder and C.E.O. of StrategicDB Corporation, an analytics and data firm.

StrategicDB helps businesses get more from their data. The company offers data cleansing services (no analysis is possible without good data), segmentation modeling, dashboard building, market basket analysis, lifetime value analysis, and much more.

Anna has more than 10 years of marketing and analytics experience with leading brands, such as Oracle Marketing Cloud (formerly Eloqua), Harlequin Enterprises, and Sunwing Travel Group, as well as numerous startups. She also holds an M.B.A. from York University, in Canada.

Business
Charts: Plastic Waste from Ecommerce Is Flooding the World

August 10, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

In a seminal report titled "Amazon's Plastic Problem Revealed," Oceana, a nonprofit ocean-advocacy organization, described the amount of plastic packaging waste generated worldwide by ecommerce generally and Amazon specifically. "Amazon has a plastic problem," the report stated.
Cross-border Selling
Charts: 2020 Cross-border Ecommerce Purchases by Country

June 8, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

Advances in technology and logistics have facilitated the growth of cross-border ecommerce sales. We've analyzed data from 2020 for the total retail ecommerce purchases by country versus the amount of cross-border purchases and the percentage of cross-border to the total.
Business
Charts: 2020 Global Ecommerce Sales

May 17, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

The Asia Pacific region generated roughly 62.6 percent of 2020 global ecommerce sales. North America was second at 19.1 percent, followed by Western Europe (13.0 percent), Central and Eastern Europe (2.4 percent), Latin America (2.1 percent), and the Middle East and Africa (1.1 percent).
Analytics & Data
Charts: U.S. Direct-to-consumer Sales 2018 to 2020

April 22, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

The growth in U.S. direct-to-consumer ecommerce sales continues, albeit at a slower rate. In 2018, year-over-year growth was 56.6 percent. In 2020, it was 24.3 percent.
Conversion
Charts: Conversion Rates by Ad Channel

January 26, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

Benchmarking digital marketing campaigns is a good way to track their effectiveness. Monitoring conversion rates will help optimize the creative, target market, placement, and channel. But a better indicator of marketing success is the cost per conversion.
Social Media
Charts: Social Media’s Impact on Ecommerce Revenue

January 13, 2021 • Anna Kayfitz

Social media's impact on global ecommerce revenue varies depending on the platform. Almost half of Pinterest users shop on the site. Pinterest users also generate the highest average order value, at $154, versus other social media channels. Less than 10 percent of Snapchat and Twitter users shop for goods or services on those sites.
Platforms & Apps
Charts: Shopify’s Share of Global Websites, Ecommerce Sales

December 15, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Shopify launched in 2004 in Ottawa, Canada, when its founders were dissatisfied with existing platforms to sell their snowboarding gear. Fast forward to 2020, and Shopify is a global brand. Total 2020 revenue will exceed $2 billion. Its common shares trade at roughly $1,000 each.
Analytics & Data
How to Name Product Categories

December 8, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Category names on an ecommerce site have a huge impact on organic search rankings and on-site conversions. To determine the right names: Start by listing all categories on competitors' sites and marketplaces. Next, add additional category names that may apply to your products. Then determine the search volume for each term.
Google Ads
3 Ways to Scale Ecommerce with Data

July 9, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Scaling an ecommerce business requires insights into the market, consumers, and products. In this post, I'll address each aspect and how data can help.
Analytics & Data
Using Internal Data for New Products, New Customers

June 11, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Ecommerce merchants miss opportunities by not utilizing their data. New products, new customers, upsells, cross-sells — internal data can provide insights on all of them. In this post, I'll address data sources to help merchants grow their business.
Analytics & Data
How to Pace Monthly Ad Spend

May 8, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Choosing marketing channels is only the first step in digital advertising. Equally important is assigning a budget and then managing the spend based on performance. In this post, I'll provide a framework.
Analytics & Data
How to Manage, Visualize KPIs for Ecommerce

April 26, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

This post will offer a framework for identifying, tracking, and visualizing key performance indicators. It applies to all company sizes — big and small. Start by establishing the most important metrics for your business.
Email Marketing
The Keys to Successful Email Automation

March 11, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Success in email marketing for ecommerce companies depends on a few prerequisites. A marketing automation tool is essential. Many email service providers offer automation features, as do enterprise automation platforms.
Analytics & Data
6 Ways Geography Impacts Ecommerce Conversions

February 26, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

Merchants are typically aware of the states or countries where their customers reside. Many variables can impact sales or performance by region. In this post, I'll address six of them.
Amazon & Marketplaces
11 Key Metrics to Evaluate Potential Marketplaces

January 30, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

There are dozens of worthwhile marketplaces worldwide. Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Etsy are examples. What follows are tips for using data to identify (and optimize) marketplaces to sell your products.
Analytics & Data
7 Ways Big Data Will Impact Ecommerce in 2020

January 8, 2020 • Anna Kayfitz

As ecommerce grows, so does the data that is stored. Only a fraction of that data is utilized, however. But data scientists are getting better at merging, standardizing, and analyzing. What follows are my data predictions for ecommerce for 2020.
Social Media
What’s the Value of Social Media?

December 18, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Ecommerce companies have different approaches to social media. Some view it as a way to generate brand awareness, such as with print and television ads. Others use it as a customer service portal for engagement. Regardless of the approach, a company that spends time or money on social media should measure the results.
Analytics & Data
7 Ways to Analyze Black Friday, Cyber Monday Sales

December 5, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales are complete. Marketers should scrutinize the results for insights on future promotions. There are multiple approaches. In this post, I'll review seven ways to analyze the results from Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Analytics & Data
Predicting Profits from Black Friday Promotions

November 22, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

The Black Friday weekend is near. Many merchants will lower prices, add promotions, and compete in one of the biggest retail days of the year. By analyzing prior year results, merchants can estimate current-year sales and profits and the impact of promotions.
Analytics & Data
5 Ways Data Science Drives Ecommerce Revenue

November 5, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Data science is the processing and analysis of large datasets — structured or unstructured. Tweets from customers and prospects is an example of unstructured data. Here are five data-science uses to drive ecommerce sales.
Analytics & Data
16 Business Intelligence Tools for Ecommerce

October 11, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

A business intelligence tool can provide helpful data to make critical, daily decisions. There are many such tools to choose from. In this post, I'll list popular business intelligence tools that I'm familiar with and offer my perspective on each.
Analytics & Data
How to Choose KPIs for Your Ecommerce Business

September 24, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Key performance indicators apply to many aspects of an ecommerce business. Examples include marketing KPIs to track, say, coupon redemptions or return on investment from advertising. In this post, I'll offer tips for building your ultimate KPI dashboard.
Analytics & Data
How to Determine Survey Size for Meaningful Results

September 5, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

When conducting surveys by email, polling on a website, or approaching people on the street, the main hurdle is knowing how many responses to collect. The following formula can predict the necessary sample size based on your population, such as users, email addresses, or potential customers.
Analytics & Data
10 Ways Bad Data Hurts an Ecommerce Business

August 13, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Data is essential for ecommerce businesses. Order quantities, shipping addresses, sales history, marketing performance — all rely on accurate data. Thus missing or inaccurate data can harm a business. Here are 10 ways that poor data can reduce ecommerce performance.
Analytics & Data
Need Data for a Key Decision? Try These 8 Sources

July 16, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Data drives most businesses. But what happens when you lack data to make a critical decision? How do you collect the data, and at what cost?
Inventory
How to Calculate ‘Available to Sell’ Inventory

June 11, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

"Quantity on hand" is physically available inventory. It's a simple number, but it does not include unfulfilled sales and outstanding purchase orders where the inventory has not arrived. All those scenarios can be addressed in an "available to sell" calculation.
Analytics & Data
Using Attribution Modeling in Google Analytics

May 24, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Marketing attribution is the process of identifying sources or channels that led to a desired outcome, such as a sale or a subscription. Google Analytics offers attribution modeling at Conversions > Attribution > Model Comparison Tool. There are a handful of models to select from.
Analytics & Data
Use Market Basket Analysis to Boost Cross-sales, Average Order Values

May 9, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Market basket analysis is based on the idea that a customer who buys product A is likely to buy product B, too. The model seeks to find relationships among purchases — a customer who buys pasta likely needs pasta sauce. The model applies at an item level or to a group of items or categories.
Analytics & Data
How to Merge Data from Multiple Sources into a Single Platform

May 1, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Migrating to a new customer management platform may require merging multiple data sources or adding a new source. In this post, I’ll review how to merge multiple sources into a ...
Analytics & Data
8 Ways to Improve Marketing Automation for Ecommerce

April 8, 2019 • Anna Kayfitz

Marketing automation can do more with email than send mass deployments and track opens and clicks. Marketing automation can integrate email with your customer management platform to create relevant campaigns. In this post, I'll review eight ways to accelerate an ecommerce marketing automation program.