A customer relationship management (CRM) system’s basic functions are pretty familiar—they track orders, log customer conversations, and tell your whole team what’s happening with each account. But behind these obvious functions, your CRM system also quietly collects data about every touchpoint—from email responses to purchase patterns—building a fuller picture of your customer relationships.

That data tells important stories about your business when you know how to read it. Your CRM platform can show you critical metrics like customer churn rates, identify which marketing campaigns drive the most sales, and help predict future buying behavior. It can even flag when loyal customers might be at risk of leaving so you can take proactive steps to retain them. Read on to learn how to unlock these CRM analytics and use them to make smarter decisions for your online store.

What are CRM analytics?

CRM analytics are the numbers, trends, and patterns your CRM system pulls from your customer data, sales records, and marketing activities. These reports and visualizations make it easier to understand what’s happening in your business beyond basic contact lists and conversation logs.

For an ecommerce store, your CRM analytics system might show you that shoppers who use your wish lists spend 30% more annually, while subscription businesses can see exactly which delivery frequency leads to longer customer retention. By tracking these patterns in customer engagement, you can make smarter decisions based on real data rather than gut feelings.

Applications for CRM analytics

1. Customer insights and segmentation
2. Automated customer communication
3. Email marketing optimization
4. Purchase pattern analysis

If you’re using a CRM system to track customer data, you have access to a whole dashboard of reports and analytics. Making sense of all those numbers and trends, though, isn’t always straightforward—especially when you’re trying to figure out which metrics matter most for your business.

To help break it down, we spoke with Alex Cecil, a Shopify product lead who works on the platform’s marketing and segmentation tools, about how business owners can use their customer data to gain valuable insights. These applications fall into four broad categories:

1. Customer insights and segmentation

One of the biggest missteps in ecommerce marketing is blasting the same promotional message to your entire list without considering who’s receiving it. “That’s annoying,” Alex says. “It’s not effective. It’s not segmented.” CRM analytics can help you avoid this.

In a database of hundreds or thousands of customers, your CRM platform can help you spot meaningful patterns by grouping people based on their shopping habits and behaviors. These customer segments reveal natural groupings—like which shoppers make frequent small purchases, which ones save up for occasional big buys, and which ones haven’t returned in months.

“We have RFM analysis—recency, frequency, and monetary value,” Alex says of Shopify’s analytics platform. Using this data, the platform automatically sorts your customer base. “We’re putting them into groups like ’Your champions’ or ’Your at-risks.’” Understanding these distinct cohorts can lead to more targeted marketing decisions so you’re not using the same approach on someone who just spent $1,000 yesterday as someone who made a single $50 purchase last year.

2. Automated customer communication

Even when you have clear insights about your customers, automating communication with them makes sense—even for small businesses. If your CRM analytics show you have 450 customers who haven’t purchased in six months, contacting each one individually would take too much time. Automation makes short work of this problem, letting you start a personalized campaign the moment a customer hits that six-month mark.

Alex provides a host of examples of when automation can come in handy for ecommerce business:

• Win-back campaigns. “We have automations for win-back for customers. Say they used to spend a lot, but they’re not doing that now. Just turn that automation on. We’ll calculate when they meet the threshold and where they spend a lot. We’ll also calculate when they don’t meet it anymore.”

• Sales reminders. You might use sales reminders to specifically target customers who only buy on Black Friday. Your CRM system can provide the emails of all customers who made a purchase last year but haven’t bought anything since. You can then send them a tailored email reminding them that Black Friday is coming up.

• Milestone check-ins. “What happens on their birthday? Gifts. That’s a reason to talk to somebody that otherwise isn’t interacting with your store.” By setting up a birthday email automation, you can offer customers a discount or give them the option to create a wish list.

3. Email marketing optimization

The analytics tools in your CRM solution can measure and refine your outreach campaigns, though automation shouldn’t mean autopilot. Your campaigns need regular check-ins to stay effective. CRM analytics like email open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe patterns can show you which messages resonate with customers and which ones might need adjustment or elimination.

“If email delivery is low, let’s figure out who’s not even opening these things and start suppressing them to get deliverability higher,” Alex says. When a customer hasn’t opened an email in 30 days, it might be best to stop sending them marketing messages, focusing instead on engaged customers.

You can use CRM analytics to fine-tune your sending strategy. For instance, your CRM might show that first-time buyers respond better to product recommendations than discount offers. By tracking these patterns, you’ll learn which email subject lines drive opens, what content gets clicks, and even what types of products different customer segments tend to browse after reading your emails.

4. Purchase pattern analysis 

CRM systems and other data platforms can provide deeper insights not only into how much and how frequently your customers are buying, but also exactly what products drive repeat purchases. Your CRM reports might show you which items customers commonly purchase together, any seasonal buying patterns in your product categories, and how often customers buy consumable items. This information can help you make smarter decisions about inventory management and promotional bundles—e.g., knowing when to stock up on winter accessories based on last year’s buying trends or pitching thermal gloves to shoppers browsing ski jackets.

“If you’re buying a lot of whole-bean coffee, maybe we can sell you a grinder,” Alex says. “If you’re buying a lot of ground coffee, you probably don’t need a grinder.” By spotting these natural connections between products and customer behaviors, you can create more focused offers and better predict what your customers might want to buy together next time they shop.

Top CRM metrics to track

• Sales metrics
• Customer service metrics
• Marketing metrics

Looking at your CRM analytics is a bit like checking your business’s vital signs—they tell you the health of different parts of your operation. But you won’t find actionable insights if you’re overwhelmed by data, so it’s best to start by tracking a handful of key metrics that matter most. Here are some core metrics for your sales, marketing, and customer service teams: 

Sales metrics

Your sales reps need clear data to understand what’s working and what isn’t in their customer relationships. These metrics, pulled from your CRM data, can help track both individual performance and overall sales health:

• Customer lifetime value (CLV). This is how much revenue each customer brings in, from their first purchase through all their repeat orders. CLV helps you focus your retention efforts on the right customers and invest more in marketing channels that bring in dedicated shoppers.

• Average order value (AOV). This metric reveals the typical amount customers spend per transaction. For online stores, tracking AOV helps evaluate whether offers like product bundles, free shipping thresholds, and on-page recommendations actually drive bigger purchases.

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC). Bringing new customers to your store comes at a cost. CAC adds up everything you spend on acquisition, from paid ads to email campaigns to influencer marketing partnerships. Watch this metric carefully to ensure you’re not spending more to acquire customers than you’ll make from their lifetime purchases.

• Conversion rate. The percentage of visitors who actually complete a purchase tells you your conversion rate. In ecommerce, where window shopping and cart abandonment are common, this metric helps identify where shoppers get stuck and which products or categories drive the most sales.

• Sales cycle length. Moving from first click to purchase takes time, and tracking your sales cycle length shows you exactly how long that journey typically takes. This metric is particularly relevant for business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce companies, where purchases often involve multiple decision-makers and longer evaluation periods.

Customer service metrics

Every interaction between your support team and customers leaves a trail of valuable CRM data. By tracking these customer service metrics, you can spot bottlenecks, improve response times, and identify common issues before they become bigger problems:

• Customer churn rate. Tracking your churn rate shows you what percentage of customers stop buying from your store over time. High churn rates often signal deeper issues, such as low product quality, shifting tastes, or poor customer service.

• Average resolution time. When customers have problems, they expect quick solutions. This metric measures how long it takes to resolve a customer’s issue.

• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT). Asking customers to rate their experience after each interaction gives you your CSAT score, providing direct feedback about your support team’s performance. This information helps you spot trends and fix issues before they lead to negative reviews or lost customers.

• Customer retention rate. This measures what percentage of your customers come back to make additional purchases. By tracking this, you can see how changes to your product selection, customer service, or overall shopping experience affect repeat business.

• Customer ticket volume. Ticket volume tracking breaks down what issues customers contact you about most often. Spikes in certain categories—like shipping delays, website glitches, or product questions—can help you prioritize fixes and better allocate support resources.

Marketing metrics

Marketing campaigns generate reams of data about how customers interact with your brand across different channels and touchpoints. These metrics help you understand which campaigns resonate with your audience and how effectively you’re moving prospects through your sales funnel:

• Email open rates. Measuring how many subscribers open your marketing emails gives you insight into your message’s first point of contact. Low open rates might mean your emails are hitting spam folders or your email subject lines fail to drive interest.

• Click-through rates. When subscribers click links in your emails, you get a clear signal about which content resonates and drives action. This engagement metric helps you understand if your email designs and offers are actually working to move customers forward.

• Campaign conversion rates. Tracking who follows through on your marketing efforts—whether using a discount code or making a purchase—reveals your true campaign success rate. By comparing results across different campaigns, you can double down on approaches that drive the most sales.

• Customer segmentation performance. Different groups of customers respond differently to marketing messages. By measuring and comparing performance across a range of segments, you can adapt your strategy for various types of shoppers.

Tips for choosing a CRM analytics tool

• Consider privacy and compliance
• Seek ease of use
• Evaluate integration capabilities

When you’re selecting a CRM tool (like Hubspot or Salesforce), make sure that it offers integration with your Shopify store and offers a few basic benefits:

Consider privacy and compliance

Ecommerce CRM platforms typically collect sensitive customer data, including email addresses, physical shipping addresses, purchase histories, credit card transaction records, and browsing behavior on your site. With intensifying privacy regulations like GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California (that most other states follow), choose a CRM that takes data protection seriously and helps you comply. Your platform should offer data encryption, automated customer data deletion requests, clear audit trails of how data is used, and proper documentation of consumer consent.

As Alex notes, these are essential. “There’s what I would call defensive features like privacy and compliance, and the ability to redact a workflow. That’s kind of the table stakes to not get sued,” he says. For example, if a customer wants their information deleted from your system, you need to have an automated process that handles that.

Seek ease of use

Your sales, marketing, and customer support teams should be able to jump in and use the tool without needing a dense manual or a data analyst on speed dial. That means clean layouts, drag-and-drop simplicity, and insights that surface without an exhaustive search. For small ecommerce teams, a tool that’s quick to master often beats one with all the bells and whistles.

“There’s something to be said for starting simple,” Alex says. “If you pick software that is expensive because you have dreams of being aspirationally performant, you will pay for it until you get good at it.”

Evaluate integration capabilities

Make sure your CRM analytics tool works well with your full software ecosystem—think marketing tools like Mailchimp or payment systems like Shop Pay. Look for something that can grow with you, whether that’s adding new apps, handling more data, or connecting to tools you might need in the future. Skipping this step could leave you stuck with a tool that fights your workflow instead of powering it.