Just as a business would track the results of a direct mail campaign, for example, in terms of the response rate to a postcard mailing, the same business should also track activity relating to any digital campaign they conduct. Tracking conversions is perhaps the most critical component to understanding and evaluating the effectiveness of any marketing campaign or business activity you conduct online. Without knowing your conversion rates, you have no intelligence regarding how successful your online (digital) business is.
Types of Conversions
The numbers and types of conversions vary greatly for each type of business. For example, a business that offers a service such as home renovations may want visitors to their website to fill out a contact form to request a free estimate for new siding. Another business that sells a line of products may want customers to join their email distribution list to receive notices about upcoming sales or coupons for discounts or free shipping. Because of the differences in the types of businesses that exist, and their respective product and service offerings, each business must define the terms of their digital campaign and set their own goals, that is, the activity they want tracked. Google’s analytics then do all the work of tracking the numbers of conversions for each goal the business has set up, and provide the critical information necessary to understanding if the campaign needs to be tweaked.
Google categorizes goals into specific categories:
- Destination – the specific location (page, screen) a user visits
- Duration – how long a session lasts
- Pages/Screens per session – how many pages or screens the user viewed
- Event – a user takes a specific action
See the following examples of each type of goal category to measure the conversions of a given user/visitor to a website:
- The user clicks on a link and lands on your Contact page (destination)
- The user spends at least five minutes on a business’s Home page (duration)
- The user visited all 6 pages of the business’s website (pages per session)
- The user completes and submits the Contact form (event)
What Are Benefits
Conversions can be assigned a monetary value. By so doing, a business is able to track specific returns on their investment (ROI). The monetary value is not, however, a random dollar amount. Using an example from above, the business might look at how often users who complete their Contact form actually become customers. And, the business owner needs to know certain other business intelligence upfront, such as the average amount of each business transaction. All this information helps assign a proper and reasonable monetary value to a particular conversion. Once you know the number of conversions related to a specific goal, you will know the value of that goal.
Again, by following conversion rate results, the business can make appropriate adjustments to the site, such as improving site usability by moving the Contact form to the Home page. This one change may have the potential to improve the conversion rate, the value of the original goal, and ultimately the business’s larger revenue objectives.
