A conversion rate is an excellent metric to measure your company’s success in marketing. But you may have some questions. For example, what is a reasonable conversion rate, and how can you boost yours? This blog post will discuss the definition of conversion and how you can calculate a conversion rate.
*Updated 11/12/2024
Did you know we offer great free templates on our site? You can check out our free contact form here.
A conversion is when a website visitor takes a desired action on your website. It could be anything from filling out a form to purchasing a product. There are six basic steps involved in the conversion process:
For more detail on these steps, check out our post explaining all the steps in the conversion process.
Also, a good understanding of the steps of conversion optimization can help you achieve reasonable conversion rates. On that note, let’s discuss what a conversion rate is and how you can calculate it.
A conversion rate is the number of times a visitor to your website takes a desired action, such as purchasing an item or signing up for a newsletter.
You can calculate your conversion rate by taking the number of conversions and dividing it by the total number of visitors. For example, if you had one hundred visitors to your website and twenty made a purchase, your conversion rate would be twenty percent.
However, it might not always be possible to calculate a conversion rate using this simple calculation. For example, if a visitor makes multiple purchases or signs up for various newsletters, it would skew the results.
You can use the unique conversion rate in such cases—the number of visitors who take a desired action divided by the total number of visitors.
Similarly, suppose you are looking at the conversion rate for a specific marketing campaign. In that case, you can calculate it by taking the number of conversions from that campaign and dividing it by the total number of visitors exposed to it.
Now we know what a conversion rate is and how to calculate this number. Next, let's look at what is considered a reasonable conversion rate.
It’s a difficult question to answer because it depends on your industry and goals. Generally speaking, a good conversion rate is anything above the average conversion rate for your industry.
For example, if the average conversion rate for e-commerce websites is between two and three percent, a reasonable conversion rate would be anything above that.
Here are some common industries and their average conversion rates:
It’s essential to remember that these conversion rates are for organic search, meaning they reflect the fraction of people that successfully convert after searching for a particular business online for a given industry.
You also have conversion rates for social media marketing, email marketing, paid ads, and referrals. When comparing your conversion rates against your industry’s average, consider these.
For example, you don’t want to compare your conversion rate for organic search with your industry's average email conversion rate.
There are several things you can do to improve your conversion rate. Here are some of the most effective:
Remember, there is no ideal conversion rate. A reasonable conversation rate varies with industry and marketing medium. But anything above average is considered good.
We hope the ideas discussed in this article will help you boost your conversion rate. Don’t forget to read our guide on conversion optimization if you want more tips to grow your business!