What is a Conversion Rate in Google Analytics?

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The first thing that you need to understand about conversion rates is to know what Google Analytics is. However, if you are wondering what a conversion rate is, you most likely already know what Google Analytics is. It is a type of analytic software that allows you to gain insights into your website and a business’s online performance. 

A conversion rate is defined as the average number of conversions per ad interaction, which is shown as a percentage. In other words, it is the number of visitors to your website/landing page that do what you want them to do. 

How to Calculate Conversion Rates

It is actually quite simple to calculate a conversion rate. What you will want to do is divide the number of conversions you get in a given time frame by the total number of people who visited your site or landing page and multiply it by 100%.

It should look like this: 

Conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) * 100%

You can be as broad or specific with your conversion rates as you want. Some of the different types of conversion rates you can use and ways you can use this data to examine your performance include:

• Overall conversion rate - how well does your website convert traffic from any source
• Marketing channel conversion rate - is Google Ads traffic or Facebook Ads traffic more likely to convert
• Page-level conversion rate - which of these pages is better at converting traffic
• Campaign conversion rate - did my targeting changes improve anything
• Individual ad conversion rate - do I need to change my ad copy - does this ad drive more qualified traffic
• Keyword conversion rate - which keywords deserve more budget

What Are Conversions?

Depending on what your business’s goals are a conversion can be pretty much anything but here are a few of the common types of conversions:

• Making a purchase
• Submitting a form - a contact us form, lead gen form, etc.
• Calling your business
• Engaging with your online chat
• Signing up for a subscription - either paid or free - like a newsletter
• Registering on the site
• Downloading something - a software trial, eBook, mobile app, etc.
• Using something - new/advanced feature on your software or app, simply using your software/app for a certain amount of time
• Upgrading their service
• Engaging with your site in some way - time on site, repeat visits, number of pages visited

This is just a few examples of what a conversion can be, there are lots of other conversion actions visitors can take on your site. A conversion is any measurable action that brings a potential customer into being a paying customer. 

Watching What Your Visitors are Doing

It is crucial to watch what your visitors are doing while on your site. This will allow you to optimize your website in order to gain the most traffic. When you watch what they are doing, you can go in and change certain aspects of your site to offer personalized experiences for your customers. You can also attach cookies to your visitors’ browsers, that way you will be able to view what other sites they are visiting and what products they are buying. This will allow you to be able to determine what changes you need to make to your site that will attract them to it. Watching what your visitors are doing will allow you to see what improvements need to be made to your site. Some aspects to look out for or update include:

• Finding out why users are dropping off your site - recording your visitors sessions on your site can allow you to determine where most are dropping off at 
• Learning what problems your customers are experiencing at checkout - by checking session replays you can see if you are potentially having them fill out too many fields or if it may be taking too long to process an order
• Improving your navigation and search options -  making sure it has a clear navigation menu with easy-to-follow subcategories and a simple search bar - this should be accessible on any device - cellphones, laptops, and tablets
• Pinpointing the specific places you need to track in Google Analytics - you do not need to track/check every single KPI (key performance indicators) that Google Analytics tracks - by watching your visitors you will determine which ones you should track

At the end of the day, watching your customers’ actions on your website allows you to make the necessary changes to keep them engaged with your site. 

How to Increase Your Conversion Rates 

If you are wondering how you can increase your conversion rates, look no further, here are three analytics-based techniques to help:

• On-site offers and promotions
• Email marketing
• Creating dynamic pages

These techniques will allow your business to have improved conversion rates, which allows you to make better use of the analytics you have collected. 

On-site Offers and Promotions

You can create personalized promotions on your site for your target audience or visitors based on collecting analytics such as:

• Location-based
• Data on interests
• Personal demographics - sex, age, race
• Behavioral patterns
• And more…

You are also able to combine different analytics that way you can get maximum effect from these promotions you set. In Google Analytics specifically there is a function for cross-referencing geo-location and measurable data on mobile usage. When you combine these two characteristics, you are able to do multiple things at one time with your promotions. 

Email Marketing

Email promotions are a vital aspect of online/digital marketing campaigns. Email marketing can be super important when trying to improve your conversion rates, especially when it is paired with data-centered personalization. Google Analytics terms of service allows a website owner to store personal information about their customers such as their name and email addresses. You can monitor the behavioral patterns of your customers based on this information, which will allow you to determine the best time to send out the email promotions. 

Creating Dynamic Pages

In order to create these dynamic pages you will first need to collect data on your customers’ purchasing behaviors, browsing trends, and basic insights into their likes and dislikes. In Google Analytics it offers online product reports and insights which include — a customer’s geolocation, how often the visitors have viewed a product, the number of times a customer added a product to their cart, and how many times a customer completed a purchase. By using this data you are able to create these dynamic pages which will offer personalized experiences for your customers. For example, giving them recommendations based on their purchasing behaviors. 

Why Are Conversion Rates Important?

By using conversion rate optimization (CRO) to optimize your conversion rate you can increase your revenue per visitor, gain more customers, and grow your business. Conversion rate optimization is the process of increasing the percentage of conversions from a website or mobile app. This usually involves coming up with ideas for elements on your site/app that can be improved. CRO helps to ensure that people who view your site stay there and eventually become customers.

This conversion rate optimization is important because it allows you to lower your customer acquisition costs by gaining more value from the visitors/customers you already have. Even if you believe you do not need to make improvements, it will be beneficial to make changes anyway, that way you can optimize the views to your site.

Making these improvements allows your customers to have a better experience, which will get them to keep coming back to your site, and allow you to gain more customers. Remember that just because you need to make improvements it does not mean your site was inferior.