Marketing
Conversion rate
Also called
- CVR
Conversion rate is a ratio, and ratios move for two reasons. A rate that improves because the page got better and a rate that improves because you cut the traffic that was never going to buy look identical in a dashboard and mean opposite things.
This is why conversion work should always report the numerator alongside the rate. Twelve conversions from four hundred visitors is not obviously better than fourteen from a thousand, and which one you want depends on what the traffic cost.
Segment before optimizing. A single site-wide rate averages together new and returning, mobile and desktop, brand and non-brand — populations that behave so differently that the aggregate describes nobody.
Most reported conversion 'wins' are traffic mix changes. Reporting the count alongside the rate is what stops a team celebrating a smaller business.
Commonly misunderstood
What people get wrong
The claim
“The industry average conversion rate is 2%, so we should aim for that.”
What is actually true
Benchmarks average across wildly different traffic mixes, price points and definitions of conversion. Your own baseline is the only comparison that means anything.
Where this comes up
Services where it matters
Related terms
Next step
Working through a conversion rate decision?
Tell us the situation. We will give you the tradeoffs as we see them, including when the answer is that you do not need what you are being sold.
No pitch deck. A 30-minute conversation about what you are trying to achieve.