Conversion is the primary measure of the actions taken by users on a website. It relates directly to the objectives we want to achieve with the website. It is crucial for online shops, but other businesses also benefit from it. Wondering what conversion and marketing have in common? How do you use it for business purposes? We answer these questions and more in this article!
When starting out in internet marketing, it is important to grasp some basic concepts. If you understand how some of the mechanisms work, you will be able to make sensible decisions and save yourself from wasting money on ineffective advertising. Through conversion and its measurement, you can assess the effectiveness of your website and marketing efforts.
Conversion - what is it?
According to the dictionary definition, conversion is 'a transformation of the form of something'. In psychology, on the other hand, it can be understood as a radical change in, for example, an opinion or world view. But what is a conversion in marketing? It is the transformation of a passive user into an active one. In simpler and more figurative terms, it is the taking of a specific expected action by an Internet user in response to a marketing action taken by us. These expected actions are so-called conversion events. They should be clearly defined and important from the point of view of your business model. You could say that conversion goals are such KPIs for a website. 
Not all conversion rates need to have the same rank. Some will be more desirable and the role of others will only lead to the most important ones. This is why there is a division in marketing between macro and micro conversion. The macro conversion is the most important one to which we assign the highest importance. It can be:
- making a purchase of a product or service,
- completing and submitting the contact form,
- purchase of a subscription,
- clicking on an affiliate link,
- registering for the service,
- use of the telephone contact option.
Micro conversions, on the other hand, are side activities that merely suggest the user is heading for a macro conversion. For example, this would be:
- spending a certain amount of time on the site,
- visiting a specific subpage,
- subscribing to the newsletter,
- downloading a file, such as an e-book or price list,
- watching the video on the website,
- click graphics.
Selecting specific activities as macro or micro conversions depends on the purpose of the site. It seems that the greatest importance of conversion will be for sales. Nothing could be further from the truth! Of course, for e-commerce, the most relevant conversion will be for sales, but for a law firm it will be for leaving contact details and for a restaurant it will be for a phone call to book a table.
How to measure conversion - popular tools
There is no denying the importance of conversion for online businesses. To measure this on your website, we recommend using publicly available tools such as Matomo, Clicky or Woopra. The most popular, however, is Google Analytics.
Google says it will be used by some 28.1 million sites worldwide in 2022. It enables the acquisition of multidimensional analytical data about the audience - how many visited the site, how long the session lasted on the site, which channels they came from or what interactions they had with the site. Using Google Analytics is free and only requires creating an account with the service and implementing tracking code on the website. Placing it is very simple and can be done without the help of a specialist. Another Google service, Tag Manager, can be used for this purpose. If the site has been set up on popular content management systems, such as WordPress, this will be even easier, as they often have plug-ins that configure the site with Google Analytics.
Google Ads and Facebook Ads also offer the possibility of measuring conversions. However, these relate directly to the actions taken by users with the ad displayed. The purpose of a conversion can be to click on the ad and its elements, such as the option to contact the phone or check the location. When running marketing campaigns on Facebook, it is possible to use Pixel, which collects information about the behaviour of potential customers coming from this site. 
What is a conversion rate and how to interpret the result?
You already understand what conversion means, but do you know what conversion rate is? Conversion rate (or conversion rate) is the number of conversions made per all website visitors. It is presented as a percentage value. It allows you to get more meaningful results. How? By using only conversions, you will not be able to determine the reliability of your data. For example - in May you noticed an increase in conversions in relation to April. However, at the beginning of the month you ran a search ad that generated more hits to your website. You then find that the higher conversion rate did not translate into generating more revenue, because the user acquired by the ad did not become a customer. It is therefore advisable to add a conversion rate to the analytics, which shows the results obtained in relation to all impressions. The higher the value taken by this measure, the better. When interpreting the results, however, you should consider the average value for your industry. For example, the e-commerce conversion rate - for shops offering clothing and accessories in August 2022 - was 1.71%.
How to optimise conversions and improve the result?
Conversion rate optimisation requires diagnosing the problem occurring with our website. Optimisation measures may involve making changes to the site itself (its design, speed and content). Perhaps a customer wants to, but for some reason cannot complete a transaction. SEO, i.e. search engine positioning of the website, can also influence the conversion result for e-commerce. It is also important to maintain credibility and build a good company image by getting more positive reviews than our competitors. A useful method of conversion optimisation is to conduct A/B tests. These can involve dividing users into two groups and then displaying the old and new versions of the site to individual group members, for example. If the effectiveness of the improved site is greater, then it can be made available to all visitors. Testing customer choices in this way will be reliable if there are at least 500 conversions per month on the site. A multi-variant analysis already requires 10,000 conversions per month.
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