A conversion is defined as the act or an instance of converting or the process of being converted.

This might not seem very helpful, possibly because it isn’t. This is a very broad definition across all uses of the term “conversion”. So, how does this translate specifically in marketing?

Conversions are very powerful in marketing. So, let’s take a look at what they are in marketing and how they’re used.

Key Highlights:

  • Core Definition: In marketing, a conversion signifies a visitor taking a desired action, essential for evaluating campaign effectiveness.
  • Versatile Tracking: From form submissions to video views, conversions encompass various interactions, trackable via tools like Google Tag Manager and Analytics.
  • Strategic Importance: Conversions are pivotal for assessing marketing ROI, generating leads, and refining database management through detailed segmentations.
  • Custom Events: Ability to monitor specific behaviors, such as form abandonment, offering insights for remarketing efforts aimed at increasing conversion rates.
  • Tool Utilization: Platforms like HubSpot aid in segmenting users based on their actions, facilitating targeted marketing strategies for better lead qualification and engagement.

What Is a Conversion in Marketing?

A conversion in marketing is the act of a visitor performing a desired action. In theory, this can be just about anything that can be developed on a website or application.

If you can build a custom event in Google Tag Manager, you can add that event to Google Analytics as a goal conversion. Then you can use that goal conversion in Google Ads as an advertising conversion.

Even more, you can track when an action was started and not completed. For example, when someone begins filling out a form, but abandons it, you can actually count that as a conversion. There’s a thorough article about this on Simo Ahava’s blog.

But, why would you want to do that?

So you can segment visitors who had enough interest to start a form but stopped for whatever reason. You can keep track of where people are abandoning, sure. But more importantly, you can also add these visitors to a segment and use that segment in ad campaigns to remarket to them again. Maybe this time, you send them to a page with a shorter form.

Here are Some Common Conversions

So great, you can track just about any interaction someone has on a website and call it a conversion. But, besides filling in a form, what else is there?

Here are a few fairly common conversions:

  • Filling out a form
  • Watching a video
  • Clicking a link
  • Scrolling more than a certain distance down a page
  • Viewing a page
  • Zooming in or out on a map
  • Staying on a page for a certain period of time

Why are Conversions Important?

They’re how we measure the success of our marketing and advertisement campaigns. By specifying different kinds of conversions we can give attribution to each one appropriately when calculating the ROI of our advertising and marketing efforts.

We can generate leads with them. This is probably the most important thing to most businesses in marketing. The ability to generate qualified leads that are educated and ready to talk with sales.

Conversions assist in database management like adjusting lead scores based on certain actions. They also help adjust the lifecycle stages of leads to MQLs and beyond. If we segment different kinds of conversions, like the list above, we might want to capture data around who did what.

  • Who filled out a form?
  • Which contacts watched a video?
  • Can we create a segment of contacts who clicked a link?
  • Who scrolled more than a certain distance down a page?
  • Etc..,

Tools like HubSpot can be a huge help in creating some of those segments while others might still require some custom event configuration.

Happy converting, everyone!