Conversions: What Are They, How Do I Set Them Up and What Do They Mean For My Bottom Line?

If you use Google Analytics tracking for your website and have accessed the platform, you’ve probably noticed the categories nested within the Reports section.  

Many of them are self-explanatory: 

•    “Real-Time” shows traffic that’s on your website right now
•    “Audience” shows user and session information
•    “Acquisitions” shows how users entered your website
•    “Behavior” shows how users interact with your website and specific pages 

However, there’s one term that creates a lot of confusion, especially for users who are just getting to know the Analytics platform, and that term is “Conversions.” 

It sounds very serious and even daunting. So we have to ask: What are Conversions anyway?

According to Google, a Conversion is:

“A completed activity, online or offline, that is important to the success of your business. Examples include […] a purchase (a transaction, sometimes called an Ecommerce Conversion).”

In other words, a Conversion is the completion of an online purchase or the completion of a series of pre-defined activities. Pretty simple, right? Now, we need to know how to track them. 

For a website that has Ecommerce or is selling a product, tracking is fairly straight forward. You can use the URL of a checkout confirmation to indicate that a Conversion has been completed. For non-Ecommerce sites, this will be a bit more challenging, but Google gives you plenty of options to define on our own what a Conversion is.

How do I set them up?

When you’re in the Google Analytics platform and you go to Conversions > Goals > Overview, you’ll find that they aren’t set up. Therefore, before you can start tracking Conversions, you need to tell Google what you want to designate as a Conversion. 

For example, you can designate a number of pages viewed by a user in one session as a Conversion. Or you can designate a certain amount of time spent on your site or a particular page as a successful Conversion. There are many ways to set this up. 

Before setting up new Conversions, revisit previous reports and try to identify a series of pages viewed by a user that leads them to contact your business. There are many actions a user can complete that affects your business in a positive way and you can track them.

Whether you want phone calls, emails or new accounts, you can track almost any type of action as a Conversion goal in your Google Analytics. The sooner you get your Conversion goals setup, the sooner you can start tracking them.

If you’re interested in putting Conversions to work for your website then contact an Digital Marketing expert today!