New Product Launch: Evaluate Product Performance for Post-Launch Assessment

A successful e-commerce launch strategy does not end with the product launch. It must be followed-up with a post-launch assessment that involves evaluating both quantitative and qualitative metrics. And post-launch assessment is as essential as a pre-launch strategy because it offers valuable insights that can drive sales for new products which are to come in the future.

Below are these metrics discussed in detail:

Quantitative Metrics​

Conversion Rates: Overall product conversion rate gives an insight into the relevance of the new product to the target customers. Also, slice and dice conversion rates as below to have a granular level understanding of various marketing aspects:

• Marketing channel: Traffic from which channel is converting at a better rate
• Campaign: Which campaigns are rightly targeted at customers
• Individual ad: Which ad copy is driving more qualified traffic
• Keyword: Which keywords are performing better and deserve more budget
• Marketing Strategy: Which marketing strategy (discounts, referrals, or influencers) is good at motivating customers to take the plunge and purchase

Engagement on Social Media: Evaluating social media engagement helps in measuring how many people are paying attention to and interacting with the ads focused on new products regularly. Hence, look at important metrics like Reach, Impressions, Shares, Likes, and Comments to understand the content engagement.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Acquiring customers is an enormous cost associated with each business, and CAC captures it. If CAC is more than the revenue a customer generates over time, it is advisable to reconsider pricing and product marketing strategy to attract profitable users.

Revenue: Measure the revenue generated by the new product to get insights into the success and impact of the new product launch. Money matters, and hence, if the current revenue is not as per expectation, it is time to reassess the components of the product launch.

Product Performance Metrics: Evaluating product performance provides insights into how customers are interacting with the newly launched product. Use this information to tweak product offering and presentation to improve conversions.

• Cart-to-Detail Rate: It is the percentage of how many visitors have visited a product page to how many people added it to the cart. If this percentage is low, it shows that there is a disconnect between what the customer expected based on how it was marketed, and the product they are seeing on the detail pages. Avoid these pitfalls by reviewing ad campaigns to ensure that the pricing and messaging are consistent between ads and the website.
• Buy-to-Detail Rate: It is the percentage of how many visitors have visited a product page to how many people bought it. If this percentage is low, consider improving the product detail page as the current information is not motivating enough for visitors to buy the product. If the Cart-to-Detail rate is pretty good (say: greater than 5%), but the Buy-to-Detail rate is low, it could be a combination of the product price plus shipping that is causing the abandonment.

Qualitative Metrics​

Internal Feedback: Feedback from the marketing team, sales representatives, product managers, and executives on how the launch process was and the progress so far can be insightful as to the internal planning and execution. This can guide internal efforts.

External Feedback: Knowing what customers liked and did not like about their buying journey and their thoughts on the product itself will be useful for solving problems at the initial stages. Use multiple avenues (like below) to gather feedback on the newly launched product:

• Surveys on website
• Surveys through emails
• Sentiment analysis on social media and web
  
• Reviews on customer/ community forums
• Customer service call records

Along with measuring the above metrics, evaluate the success of the below strategies executed either before or during the product launch.

Pre-Order Campaigns: Check how many customers have pre-ordered the product to assess the optimal time to provide for pre-order.

Retargeting Campaigns: Evaluate the effectiveness of retargeting campaigns in bringing the visitors back to the site and motivating them to complete the transaction.

Email Campaigns: Analyze the open rates of triggered emails sent as part of order confirmation. Also, evaluate the efficacy of cart abandonment emails in encouraging visitors who left mid-purchase to complete the order placement.

Dynamic Messages: Evaluate if the dynamic messages, (displayed on the product detail/ cart pages) focused on communicating the availability of product and re-stocking time, have served the purpose by looking at the customer feedback forum and customer care call records.

Segregate the Analysis by Customer Type​

Besides measuring the metrics and evaluating the performance of various campaigns at an overall level, it is also crucial to analyze how returning customers acted as opposed to the first-time visitors across all these parameters. This analysis will help in determining the perception, acceptance of the new product among existing customers vs. new customers, and hence in planning future marketing strategies.

Conclusion​

The product launch strategy does not solely reflect the success of the new product. Looking back on the pre-launch/ launch campaigns, user engagement on the website, and analyzing the results is crucial to the product’s overall success. It provides valuable insights with which one can make adjustments – change the interface, content, or the product offering and hence achieve better results.