What is a Conversion? by Certified Digital Marketing Agency, Absolute Digital
Updated: Oct 20, 2020
A Conversion in Digital Marketing terms is when a prospect has performed the desired Call-To-Action (CTA), typically aligned with the goal of your digital marketing campaign.
Depending on what the goal of your digital marketing campaign is, your conversion metrics may defer. Some examples would be An Online Sale, Leads Generation, Email Newsletter Sign-ups, or Online Form submissions.
Conversions usually measure the success of the digital marketing campaigns because it is the most accurate metric as compared to the other data. If you were to calculate your Return-On-Investment (ROI) based on impressions or website traffic, your digital marketing campaign might seem successful. However, these numbers do not tell the full story.
You might have many views on your ad (impressions) and some of these viewers might click on your ads, therefore landing on your website (website traffic). But if do not make the final step to purchase your product or leave their contact in your online leads generation form, your business will not benefit from this.
How to measure conversions?
The success of your digital marketing campaigns can be accurately measured if you understand how to use the conversion metrics. Also known as Conversion Marketing, it is the art of getting potential online customers (traffic) to perform an action (CTA) that you want and thus converting into a sale or lead, depending on your goal.
Here are some of the data you would need to start measuring your conversions:
Impressions - Number of people who have seen your ads
Engagements - Number of people who have liked, shared, commented, or engaged
Traffic - Number of people who have clicked on your ad, landing on your website
Unique Visitors - Number of unique vs. number of repeated website visitors
Interactions - Number of people interacting on your website
Duration - Average time spent on your website
Bounce Rate - Number of people who visited your site and left immediately
Exit Rate - Number of people who left your site (and from which particular page)
Device - Number of people viewing your website from mobile vs. desktop
Cost-Per-Visitor (CPL) - Your total advertising campaign budget divided by the number of visitors your ad has generated from this digital marketing campaign. Not to be confused with Cost-Per-Lead (CPL) where it is the total advertising campaign budget divided by the number of leads generated from that ad.
As you can see from the above lead, especially from #10, the way of measuring conversions may give you a totally different performance result (CPV vs. CPL). Depending on the data that you analyze, you or your digital marketing partner will then have to optimize your campaign.
If your website traffic is high, with the majority using mobile devices, but conversions are low, then you would know that you need to improve the User Interface (UI/UX) of your website's mobile view. Some suggestions could be to add a WhatsApp of Live Chat button or include an Abandon Cart function on your e-commerce website.
How to Improve Digital Marketing Campaign Conversions?
Depending on what platform your digital marketing campaigns are on, you should apply a different strategy. To optimize your digital marketing campaigns you will need to understand how each platform, such as Google Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Google Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Google Display Network (GDN), Facebook Marketing, or others, measure success and what metrics are the most effective to improve overall campaign performance.
Although there is no one method you can copy from, you can learn from industry best practises and optimize to your own business along the way. It is important to note that digital marketing campaigns will not magically bring your business new leads or sales overnight. It is a process of optimising your online presence to create credibility, convenience, and brand awareness of your brand.
To improve your digital marketing campaign conversion rate, you must first determine what do you count as a conversion. Take for an example, if you run an e-commerce business and your conversion would be an online sale. Let's say after 2 months, you realised that your online ads are running well with good impressions, decent engagements, and website traffic. But somehow these website visitors are not converting into a sale.
A professional, experienced digital marketing specialist will look at your data points such as the average time spent on the website and the exit rate at which particular page do most visitors leave your website.
If they leave during your products page, it could mean that your products are too complicated (e.g. too many colour or size options) and this confuses the customer leading to their frustration and eventually leaving your e-commerce before purchasing.
The Importance of Understanding Conversions
Once you've set a campaign objective, the next most important thing is to define your objective. If you're running an online leads generation form, your objective for your digital marketing campaign should be as many form submissions as possible. If you're running an e-commerce business, your objective should be an online sale.
If you do not understand what your conversions are, you may not be able to accurately track the performance of your digital marketing campaign, therefore, leading to inaccurate data analytics and application of an ineffective strategy.
If you are unsure of how to accurately measure conversions for your digital marketing campaign on Google SEO, Google SEM, Google Display Network banners, Facebook Marketing, you may read some of these useful articles on how you can optimize your online presence with digital marketing.
Alternatively, you may wish to check out our website www.absolutedigital.sg, drop us a message here at heelo@absolutedigital.sg or call us at +65 8892 1290 for a consultation.
