Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the share of visitors who take the action a page is designed for, such as signing up, starting a trial or booking a demo. Conversions divided by visitors, as a percentage.

Why it matters

It's the main measure of whether a landing page works. But it depends heavily on traffic: the same page converts very differently for brand search, cold social ads and email. Compare a page with itself over time, by source, rather than with industry averages.

How to get it right

• Define one primary conversion per page.
• Measure it by traffic source, not just overall.
• Look at the steps before it too: scroll depth, clicks on the CTA, form starts.

Common mistakes

• Comparing your rate with benchmarks from different industries and traffic.
• Counting several different actions as one conversion.
• Judging a change on a few days of data.