Impulse, intent and income: Ecommerce analytics built for how people really buy.

Adobe for Business Team

08-20-2025

Smiling woman in an office pointing at real-time customer analytics dashboard overlay.

In a new Adobe study of 1,000+ US consumers, we uncovered some surprising patterns in how — and when — people shop online.

Key findings:

A scroll at sunrise. A splurge after payday. A basket full of impulse buys at 2am.

These aren’t edge cases — they’re buying signals. And if your ecommerce strategy doesn’t account for them, you’re likely missing your most valuable customers.

This 2025 Adobe Study infographic illustrates peak online shopping habits by creating personas based on shopping preferences. Americans are most commonly wind-down shoppers perusing in the evening (6.00 p.m. - 9.59 p.m.), with Saturday being the top shopping day. Night owl shoppers spend the most time and money online, using phones more than computers. Early bird shoppers are most active on Mondays and spend the least time and money.

What is ecommerce analytics?

Ecommerce analytics isn’t just about tracking traffic or counting conversions any more.

Today, it’s about understanding why people buy — and when.

This infographic from the 2025 Adobe Study explores brand communication tactics most likely to encourage online purchases. Free delivery is the most effective tactic, influencing 24% of consumers, followed by personalised discounts (18%) and loyalty rewards (17%). The infographic also shows the days that are the best and worst for different brand communications. Night owl shoppers are particularly responsive to urgent, limited-time offers. Additionally, nearly one in 10 consumers shop online the day they are paid.

It’s no surprise that Gen Z clicks through more impulsively. That night owls generate more revenue per shopper. That a surge in first-time purchases might be tied to payday — or an UX tweak you rolled out last week.

Modern ecommerce analytics combines behavioural signals, contextual triggers and real-time data activation. It helps you:

And increasingly, it must be accessible beyond the analytics team. Merchandisers, product owners and growth marketers all need to see what’s working — and what’s not — without waiting on dashboards.

That’s why platforms like Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, specifically Product Analytics are changing the game. They replace siloed metrics with a single, event-based view of the customer journey — from first touch to repeat purchase — and make insights self-serve.

Why traditional analytics tools fall short.

Most ecommerce teams still rely on legacy tools built for an earlier era — one where customer journeys were linear, web-only and easy to segment by campaign or channel.

But today’s shoppers don’t follow a straight path. They jump from Instagram to your site, abandon a basket on mobile, then return days later via a promotional email — often on a different device.

This infographic from the 2025 Adobe Study displays a map of the states that spend the most online as a percentage of their monthly income. New York leads with 8.74%, spending an average of $528 per month, followed by Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana and Kentucky. It shows the top 10 states that spend the highest percentage of their monthly income on online shopping.

Traditional analytics platforms weren’t built for this.

Here’s where they fall short:

The results? Missed revenue opportunities, reactive decision-making and a disconnect between insight and action.

That’s why leading ecommerce brands are turning to Adobe Customer Journey Analytics and Product Analytics — to shift from fragmented views to unified, real-time insights that drive business outcomes.

Why this matters now.

Shoppers don’t just convert because of what you offer. They convert when it’s the right moment — on the right device, with the right prompt.

That "right moment" isn’t the same for everyone.

This infographic from the 2025 Adobe Study uncovers the most common motivators for online shopping. The top motivators are the satisfaction of finding a good deal and improving life or solving a problem, each at 19%. Early bird shoppers are 31% more likely to impulse buy than wind-down shoppers and Gen Z is 25% more likely to do so compared to older generations. The infographic also shows that the primary shopping motivator based on communication channels varies, with Facebook (49%) and Twitter (47%) being popular for improving life or solving problems.

Some wait until payday. Others browse after midnight. Some convert quickly, while others take days. And the signals that reveal these patterns — like, session timing, campaign exposure and funnel drop-off — are already in your data.

The problem? Most analytics tools weren’t built to surface those signals, let alone make them actionable.

Adobe Product Analytics changes that.

By combining guided analysis with real-time customer journey data, ecommerce teams can:

In a crowded market, timing and insight are your advantage. With Product Analytics, you can use both at scale.

Applying these insights: What leading ecommerce teams do differently.

Understanding when and why people buy is only useful if you can turn those insights into action. That’s where Product Analytics makes a measurable difference.

Here are five ways modern ecommerce teams are using data to drive growth — and how Product Analytics supports each one:

1. Segment by timing, not just demographics.

Most analytics platforms group users by age, geography or channel. But real buying behaviour often depends on when people engage.

Use case: Build segments for morning browsers, late-night buyers and payday-driven shoppers. Then compare funnel conversion, basket abandonment or revenue per session across each group.

How Product Analytics helps: Filter events by timestamps, session start times or days of the week. Apply usage trends and funnel views to compare performance across time-based cohorts.

2. Identify and fix friction in high-intent journeys.

You already know which steps should lead to conversion — but where do users drop off?

Use case: Analyse add-to-basket to checkout flows and compare free versus logged-in users. Use the insight to streamline your checkout or trigger follow-up emails.

How Product Analytics helps: Run guided funnel analyses with pre-built visualisations. Toggle between lifetime or session-based journeys and compare conversion rates across user segments.

3. Measure the impact of campaigns and feature releases.

You launch campaigns to drive action — but can you prove the outcome?

Use case: After a reactivation campaign targeting dormant users, measure whether it led to more media starts or purchases.

How Product Analytics helps: Use impact analysis to compare behaviour before and after campaign exposure. Segment by clickthrough or first-use action to quantify the lift.

4. Spot patterns in user growth and retention.

Are you gaining active users — or just cycling through one-time buyers?

Use case: Track net user growth week by week and then drill into dormant cohorts to understand why they didn’t return.

How Product Analytics helps: Use the active and net user growth views to visualise retention over time. Export segments to Adobe Real-Time CDP to activate reengagement journeys.

5. Go from insight to action — without waiting on data teams.

Your team shouldn’t have to file tickets to explore what’s happening in the data. You need to act in the moment.

Use case: A merchandiser spots low conversion on a popular product. They quickly build a segment of users who viewed but didn’t buy — and launch a targeted email promotion.

How Product Analytics helps: Use any guided view to define a segment and then push it directly to Adobe Journey Optimizer for activation — without leaving the interface.

How Adobe Product Analytics helps ecommerce teams move faster.

You don’t need more dashboards. You need faster answers — and clearer next steps.

That’s exactly what Adobe Product Analytics delivers.

Built on top of Customer Journey Analytics, Product Analytics gives ecommerce teams a guided way to explore their most important metrics — without needing a data science degree or endless tagging tweaks.

Instead of raw tables or static reports, teams get pre-configured analysis views designed for ecommerce decision-making:

Everything is powered by Customer Journey Analytic’s event-based data model, which means you’re not limited to session data or rigid schemas. You can filter by product views, basket adds, campaign clicks and even time of day or device type — right inside the interface.

And when a guided view sparks a new question, you can open it directly in Analysis Workspace to explore further, share with a teammate or drill into specific customer segments.

The result: Ecommerce teams don’t just see what’s happening — they can understand why and act on it immediately.

Your ecommerce advantage: data you can act on.

Shopping behaviours are changing. Personalisation expectations are rising. And the only way to keep up is with analytics that work at the speed of your customers.

Adobe Product Analytics gives ecommerce leaders a way to:

It’s not just ecommerce data — it’s ecommerce momentum. Powered by Adobe Customer Journey Analytics.

Want to learn more about Product Analytics? Explore the full capabilities here or book a demo.

Shop O’clock is an original research initiative from Adobe. In June 2025, we surveyed over 1,000 U.S. consumers about their online shopping habits and analysed behavioural trends across demographics, locations, devices and times of day. The findings in this report are based on self-reported data combined with aggregated behavioural patterns. All figures are reflective of the survey sample and may not represent the entire U.S. population.

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