We process a lot of data here at Monetate. In fact, during Cyber Week 2015, we influenced more than a third of total U.S. ecommerce sales. We’re proud of that number. It stands as a testament to our ability to test, optimize, and personalize—at scale—for a big group of the world’s top brands.

But those data also give us a unique perspective over long-term trends. Once a quarter, we put those data to use and release our much-anticipated Ecommerce Quarterly report. We recently released the report for the third quarter (we know—ancient history, it seems), and pulled the interesting (and oftentimes confounding) trends.

Note: Since the number of customers using Monetate is always growing, these long-term historical data may be skewed accordingly. That said, let’s move on to our first metric:

Add-to-Cart Rate

This metric looks at add-to-cart rates by platform—that is Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac—for each quarter, over the past two years.

Android, iOS, and Windows desktop add-to-cart rates are relatively flat, while desktop Mac sales are up.

Next, let’s take a look at annual Q3-only add-to-cart rates by platform. Nice amount of improvement across the board there.

Average Order Value (AOV)

Next, let’s take a look at AOVs over the past four years. Interesting to note that after Q3 2012, when social made a big jump up—the performance of search, social, and email seem to ebb-and-flow more or less in sync.

Conversion rate

Last but not least: Conversion rate. (Click image for full-size version.)

Looking at conversion rates by platform, we see the typical bump during the fourth quarter of each year. You may also note that iPhone conversion rates are the only metric that has seen sustained and steady growth—from a low of 1.25% in Q1 2011, to almost 2.5% by Q1 2015.

For more insights, including real-world examples from retailers Missguided and Bonobos, download EQ3 2015.