In brief: A conversion is a pre-defined action that a person completes and that matters to a company, such as an order, registration, or relevant enquiry.
How I use conversions in practice
In practice, with conversions I am interested in the trend and the cause, not an isolated value. I divide the result by source, offer, or customer type, but only to the level where enough data remains for a reasonable decision. Alongside the number, every dashboard should also contain a note about what changed in measurement or operations.
What to watch out for
A number appears more precise than it really is. A conversion can be distorted by a poor implementation, consent, attribution rules, a small amount of data, or different definitions in tools. Optimising a metric without checking the business result often means merely producing cheaper but worse activity.
Questions for the decision
- Exactly how do we calculate the value, and from which source?
- Which decision will change if the number rises or falls?
- What can distort or duplicate the measurement?
- What do we compare the value with so that it has business meaning?