Conversion Tracking Defined

Traditionally the number of visitors was used as a measure of a web site’s success but the question must be asked: “How many of these visitors perform actions on your web site that you want them to perform? Any marketing campaign is pretty useless if it generates many visitors but none of these visitors "converted". Converting visitors to customers is what most of todays web sites are about.

Conversion Tracking is a form of website traffic analytics that measures the effectiveness of a source directing visitors to a web site and persuading them to take a desired action. The source could be a referrer, a search engine, a search phrase used etc. It could also be a characteristic of the visitor for instance the country, age, income etc. The desired action could be the completion of an order page, the sign-up of a newsletter etc. The effectiveness is expressed as a percentage called the Conversion Rate.

Conversion Tracking Methods

Log Analysis - The log files generated by the web server on which the web site resides are analyzed. Conversion Tracking reports are generated which are used for analysis.

Tracking Services - Tracking script is inserted into pages of the web site to be tracked. Page requests from visitors triggers the tracking script which updates some kind of a database at the Tracking service. Authorised personnel log into the tracking service and generate reports which are used for analysis.

Calculating Visitor Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate is calculated as follows:

For instance if 200 visitors used the search term "6-string guitar" to reach your site and 10 placed an order then the Conversion Rate for the search term "6-string guitar" is 5% [calculated as (10/200) x 100%].