End-of-year reviews are a vital part of any ecommerce business — but they're especially critical in brand recovery environments where the goal isn't just to grow, but first to stop a decline that has been running for years.
A client of mine was facing exactly that situation. Year-over-year decline driven by a combination of structural and operational failures that had compounded over time. Before any growth strategy could be meaningful, the foundations needed to be understood clearly — and then addressed honestly.
The Starting Point — Five Root Causes
When I first engaged with this business, the YOY decline had multiple causes. None of them were hidden — they were all visible in the data and in the operational reality of the business. The challenge wasn't identifying them. It was building a plan that addressed them in the right sequence.
My role through 2018 was to address these challenges and create a roadmap for recovery — focused initially on stabilisation, then on growth. As we closed out the year, I reviewed the ecommerce KPIs systematically to assess where progress had been made and where the challenges remained.
The 2018 KPI Review — What the Data Showed
| KPI | 2017 YOY | 2018 YOY | Status & Commentary |
| New Customers | −43% | +32% | ✓ Driven by SEO investment and improved non-brand rankings |
| Second Orders | −36% | +19% | ✓ Targeted entry-level segments with matched second-order marketing |
| At-Risk Customers | −6% | −30% | ✓ More relevant offers sent before customers reached at-risk status |
| Lapsed Customers | −6% | −26% | ✓ More relevant incentives — fewer customers reaching lapsed status |
| Won-Back Customers | +46% | +152% | ✓ Dramatically improved segmentation on win-back promotions |
| Sessions / Traffic | −23% | −20% | ✗ Still declining — regulatory restrictions limited email for 5 months |
| Conversion Rate | −3% | +9% | ✓ Better stock levels and more relevant, targeted traffic |
| Revenue | −23% | −11% | ✗ Still declining but rate of decline reducing year on year |
| Units per Order | +53% | +22% | ✓ 3-for-2 promotion reintroduced after a period of absence |
| Organic Traffic | N/A | +11% | ✓ SEO investment paying off — 65% of new customers now via organic (up from 50%) |
| Email Traffic | N/A | −41% | ✗ Regulatory restrictions on promotional emails — only informative sends allowed for 5 months |
| Direct Traffic | N/A | −19% | ✗ Brand still in decline — reflected in falling direct and branded traffic |
| Leads | +115% | +158% | ✓ Improved overlay visibility and better first-customer offers |
The picture is mixed — deliberately so. This was a stabilisation year, not a growth year. The key signals were that customer acquisition was recovering strongly, CRM metrics had improved dramatically, and conversion was moving in the right direction. Revenue and traffic were still declining, but at a slower rate than the previous year. The trajectory had changed, even if the absolute numbers hadn't yet.
Issues to Address in 2019
A crucial part of any end-of-year review is identifying the issues that need to be addressed to drive improvement in the following year. These aren't things to be softened or presented optimistically — they need to be named clearly so they can be planned against.
- A recovery review needs to be honest about what is still broken — not just what has improved
- Trajectory matters as much as absolute numbers — a declining metric improving its rate of decline is meaningful progress
- KPI measurement must be in place before you can distinguish what's working from what isn't
- Development, trading and budget planning needs to happen before the year starts — not in response to in-year problems
- Management clarity on ownership is as important as the strategy itself — without it, execution stalls regardless of how good the plan is
- Brand recovery takes deliberate, sustained investment — performance marketing can drive traffic but it won't rebuild brand recognition