How do you track online conversions?

A conversion is a key metric in digital marketing that represents the successful completion of a desired action by a user, and it is a critical component of measuring the success of your website and marketing efforts.

Tracking conversions is important because it allows you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns in achieving your business goals. By tracking conversions, you can identify which channels, campaigns, or traffic sources are driving the most conversions, and adjust your strategies accordingly to optimize for higher conversion rates.

What is a conversion?

A conversion is a specific action that a user takes on your website to turn a visitor into a customer. The action could be anything from signing up for a newsletter, filling out a form, downloading a file, or making a purchase.

In other words, a conversion represents a successful outcome that you want a user to take when they interact with your website. For example, if you are an e-commerce website, a conversion might be a completed purchase. If you are a lead generation website, a conversion might be when a user fills out a form to request a quote.

Here are some examples of conversions:

• A visitor makes a purchase.
• A visitor signs up for a newsletter.
• A visitor downloads a whitepaper.
• A visitor fills out a contact form.
• A visitor watches a video.
• A visitor likes or shares a social media post.

What parameters are used to track conversions on online Ads?

Online Ad platforms like Google, Facebook, and Bing use various parameters to help track and measure the effectiveness of online Ads and identify the campaign and traffic source of the conversions. The following parameters are often used to track conversion sources.

• Click ID: The Click ID is a unique identifier that is generated by advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, and Bing when a user clicks on an ad, and it is included in the URL of the landing page. Google has a special name, gclid for it. The Click ID allows for tracking of the user's click path and attribution of conversions to the correct ad and campaign.
• Client ID: The Client ID is a unique identifier that is generated by Google Analytics when a user visits a website. The Client ID is stored in a cookie ("_ga") on the user's browser and allows Google Analytics to track the user's activity on the site across multiple sessions and devices. This helps to provide a more complete picture of the user's behavior and allows for better attribution of conversions.
• Campaign ID: A campaign ID is an automatically generated unique ID associated with an Ad campaign, and it is passed to the landing page as a URL get parameter via auto-tagging. Google Ads and Facebook Ads create a campaign ID automatically when a user created a campaign. The campaign ID is used to track the success of an Ad campaign by tracking conversions on Ad campaigns.
• UTM Parameters: UTM parameters are tags that are added to the end of a URL to track the source, medium, and campaign of a particular traffic source (inbound link). UTM parameters are commonly used in digital marketing to track the effectiveness of different campaigns and channels. The five standard UTM parameters are utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, and utm_content. By including these parameters in a link, you can track where the traffic is coming from and how effective each marketing channel is in driving traffic and conversions. Each UTM parameter identifies characteristics of inbound traffic.
  
  
  1. Source (utm_source): The website or app that sent the traffic.
  2. Medium (utm_medium): The type of traffic, such as organic search, paid search, or social media.
  3. Campaign (utm_campaign): The specific Ad campaign that is driving the traffic.
  4. Content (utm_content): The specific piece of content that is driving the traffic.
  5. Term (utm_term): The keyword that is driving the traffic.

The parameters described above (Click id, Client id, and UTM parameters) are used to identify traffic sources, but we also need to identify the value of each conversion. The following parameters are used to determine the value of the conversion.

• Conversion ID: Conversion ID is a unique identifier that is associated with each specific conversion that occurs on your website or digital platform. This ID is generated when you set up conversion tracking in your analytics platform, such as Google Analytics or Facebook Ads Manager. The conversion ID is used to track and measure the performance of each specific conversion event, such as a completed purchase or a form submission. It allows you to analyze the performance of each conversion event separately and optimize your campaigns accordingly.
• Conversion value: Conversion value is a monetary value assigned to a specific conversion event, such as a sale, sign-up, or form submission. It represents the amount of revenue that a conversion generates for your business. By assigning a conversion value to each conversion event, you can track the revenue generated by your marketing campaigns and optimize them for improved results.
  

  There are different ways to assign a conversion value depending on your business goals and the nature of your conversion events. Here are a few examples:

  • E-commerce: For e-commerce businesses, the conversion value is usually the total value of the sale. This can be automatically tracked by your e-commerce platform, such as Shopify or WooCommerce.
  • Lead generation: For businesses that generate leads, the conversion value may be an estimate of the potential revenue that the lead may generate over time. This can be calculated based on the average customer lifetime value and the average revenue per sale.
  • Ad clicks: For businesses that generate revenue from ad clicks, the conversion value may be the average revenue each click generates based on historical data.

  The conversion value is an estimated value that you assign to each conversion event to help analyze and identify the most effective marketing channels and campaigns and optimize your strategies for better results.

How do you track conversions?

Tracking conversions is an important part of measuring the success of your website and marketing efforts. Here are some ways to track conversions:

• Set up conversion tracking: The first step in tracking conversions is to set up conversion tracking in your website analytics platform. This can be done using tools such as Google Analytics. You will need to define the specific actions that you want to track as conversions such as a completed purchase, contact form submission, or newsletter signup.
• Implement tracking code: Once you have defined your conversions, you will need to implement tracking code on your website to track those conversions. This can involve adding tracking tags or pixels to specific pages or elements on your site.
• Monitor conversion data: After you have implemented your tracking code, you can monitor your conversion data in your analytics. This data will show you how many conversions you are getting, what sources are driving those conversions, the value of each conversion, and other important metrics like conversion rate and cost per conversion.
• Analyze conversion data: Once you have collected conversion data, you can analyze it to identify trends and patterns. This can help you to optimize your website and marketing efforts to improve your conversion rate and drive more conversions.
• Make data-driven decisions: You can use your conversion data to make data-driven decisions about your website and marketing strategies. By analyzing the data, you can identify areas of your marketing campaigns that are underperforming and make changes to improve your conversion rate and drive more conversions.

Tracking conversions is essential for measuring the success of your marketing efforts, and it requires a combination of planning, implementation, and analysis to get the best outcome.

What is conversion rate optimization (CRO)?

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of improving a website's conversion rate. CRO can be achieved through a variety of techniques, such as:

• Improving user experience by improving website's design and layout
• Optimizing the website by adding relevant and clear call-to-action content
• Driving traffic and improving target audiences
• Testing different marketing messages
• Performing A/B testing

Conversion rates can vary greatly depending on the type of website and the desired action. For example, a website that sells products might have a conversion rate of 2% on sales, while a website that provides lead generation services might have a conversion rate of 10% on leads.

By improving its conversion rate, a business can increase its sales, leads, and brand awareness and improve its overall business outcome.