What is a conversion and how do you know what type of conversion is best for your business?

I talk about online conversion often when talking with clients. It is a term that can mean many things. And, I often get asked, “What is a Conversion?”

So, I thought it would make sense to write a blog post on all the different options.

Official meaning of conversion from Google: ‘the process of changing or causing something to change from one form to another.’

Let’s take that a step further and get the official meaning of online conversion from Google: ‘Rates are the percentage of prospective customers who take a specific action you want. For example, the following are specific conversion rates that an organization may track: The percentage of website visitors who fill out a form, call your company, or purchase something from you online.‘

Now, let’s break down conversion based on GOALS from top level down.

Goal: Sales

Well, of course, all businesses’ END goal is sales. But, some cannot track EXACT sales, unless you have an ecommerce component with online tracking capability. However, if you do have that tracking mechanism, then sales is a great online conversion goal to have.

As a local business, you can run a special offer and track how many grab that offer.

There are a number of ways to track sales and this is the highest, most direct type of conversion.

Goal: Leads

The lead conversion is simpler to track. You can build an email list or run a webinar and track the people that entered their personal details.

You can also run ads on Facebook, such as lead ads or messenger ads where people contact you and this is a pay-per-lead. These can be direct to sales leads, but tracking is based on lead.

Goal: Clicks

One of the top goals in online marketing is to get clicks. This could be and usually is clicks to your website. It could also be clicks to other places you have content on the internet, ie. podcast, YouTube, sales page, etc.

Goal: Engagement

Getting engagement on your posts in social media is something many businesses strive for. Engagement can be likes, comments, shares, video views and clicks on posts.

The more engagement a post gets, the more organic reach happens, which in turn shows your posts in front of more potential customers.

Goal: Impressions or Reach

Impressions and reach is your brand awareness conversion. I would not put this as a ‘true’ conversion, but once again it depends on your goals.

How many eyeballs can see your content? This can be a conversion. But, it is the lowest level of it.

Now that I have explained different types of conversions, I hope you understand that this is different for every business. It all depends on how you sell your product or service.

I work with numerous clients who cannot directly correlate a conversion to a sale. So, we aim to go the next best level with some of our marketing and build an email list. This tracks conversions to a lead.

What types of online conversions are you tracking in your business?