Conversion Rate (CVR)

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions

A macro-conversion aligns with the primary goal of the website or business. If a business runs an e-commerce store, a macro-conversion or macro-goal is a purchase. Macro-conversions for a software company might be  visitors signing up for a paid account.

A micro-conversion or micro-goal consists of the smaller conversions that lead to a macro-conversion. This might be an email signup, registering for a free trial, or downloading a lead magnet.

What does conversion rate (CVR) mean?

Conversion rates measure the percentage of people who have visited a page and completed the desired call-to-action. Continue below for a closer look at how businesses calculate conversion rates, what a good conversion rate is, and what the difference between conversion rates and click-through-rates are.

Visitors can also be replaced with clicks, impressions, or leads, depending on the desired action.

Let’s take a look at an example of how a marketer might calculate the conversion rate of people who visited a landing page versus people who signed up for the landing page’s offer. If 250 people visited a landing page promoting an marketing guide and 30 of those people submitted their information to get access to said trends report, the calculation would look like this:

This trends report promotional campaign generated a conversion rate of 12%.

To go back to the example, let’s say a marketing team ran an ad to promote their trends report landing page. If 1,000 people saw the ad and 250 clicked on it, the

We calculated the conversion rate of the landing page and got 12%. But the conversion rate of the ad would then be calculated like:

When using ads to generate conversions, it’s important to keep cost per click (CPC) in mind. This helps ensure the cost per acquisition (CPA—the cost of acquiring a new customer) isn’t higher than the customer lifetime value (CLV—the total amount of money a customer is expected to spend with a business over a defined period of time).

1. Pinpoint conversion goals

The first step is to pinpoint the conversion goals that are most important to the business. Once the business knows what to track, they can make efforts to improve their customer journey.

2. Make processes easy

After determining what to track, simplify the path to conversion.

For example, if the main goal is to increase the number of people making a purchase on the e-commerce website, take a look at the checkout process.

Is the checkout process intuitive to customers? Does checkout require too many fields, is it confusing, or is it asking for unnecessary or irrelevant information? How could the business improve processes to move the customer from adding a product to the cart to completing a purchase? 

If a business wants to boost conversions, it’s essential to understand how customers convert and to make sure processes align with customer expectations and preferences.

3. Revisit positioning of CTAs

How a company positions their call-to-actions on landing pages is essential in improving conversion rates. 

If a company wants to boost conversion rates, it’s critical to review and test call-to-actions to determine if they are strong enough and clear.  If not, adjust the call-to-action so that it captures customers’ attention and motivates the right action.