Conversion tracking is the process of monitoring actions that indicate a visitor has become a customer or shown significant interest in your brand. For example, conversion tracking indicates when someone makes a purchase on your ecommerce platform or app or signs up to receive marketing messages from your brand.
The purpose of conversion tracking is to provide insight into the events leading up to these conversions. This information helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and optimize your conversion rates.
How to set up and use conversion tracking
Klaviyo automatically tracks conversions and defines them as message opens followed by a placed order within a specific attribution window—5 days for email and 24 hours for SMS. Each platform has a distinct approach to conversion tracking and offers different conversion settings.
Once you get to know your platform’s capabilities, take the following steps to implement conversion tracking:
1. Set your goals
Think about your business goals to define your key conversion events. In ecommerce, your aim is to boost sales, in which case a purchase could equal a conversion. Still, there are plenty of other events that can represent a conversion, such as:
- Sign-ups and other website actions
- Ad interactions
- Opt-ins for SMS and email marketing
- App installations and in-app actions
- Contract signing and other offline events
2. Map out your conversion flows
It’s important to understand the different paths your visitors take from their first interaction with your brand to the conversion. For example, they may discover your website via a paid search ad, then complete a sign-up form, and later make an order after receiving a promotional message. Identify and outline these key pathways to better analyze and optimize your conversion strategies.
3. Choose the metrics
Next, determine the metrics based on your chosen events and channels. The first one should be the conversion rate—the percentage of people you reached who converted.
To better understand how visitors interact with your brand and how valuable these interactions are, also track metrics such as:
- Total conversion value: The sum of all the conversion values, which you’ve estimated based on the average revenue per conversion
- Conversion value per click: The total conversion value divided by the number of qualified clicks
- Assisted conversions: Conversions resulting from a specific interaction or channel
- Session duration: Average time visitors spend on your website
- Pages per visit: Number of pages visited per session
4. Enable conversion tracking on your chosen platform
This step will depend on the analytics or marketing platform you use. Klaviyo tracks conversions for each campaign and flow automatically, while Google Analytics requires you to create a conversion action first.
The conversion tracking process will also differ based on your conversion source. If you’re looking to track clicks on your website, insert a tracking code snippet on your website. Other types of events, such as form submissions, don’t require coding and can be tracked within your analytics platform.
Once you’ve set it up, test your tracking mechanism to ensure it’s measuring correctly.
6. Gather and analyze data
Take a close look at your conversion data using your preferred analytics tool. Regularly check key metrics to spot trends and patterns in how your customers interact with your brand.
For example, see which marketing channels—like email, SMS, or social media—are bringing in the most conversions. This helps you understand what’s working best so you can tweak your strategies and make smarter decisions to boost your results.
7. Optimize your marketing strategy
Use what you’ve learned from conversion tracking to improve your marketing strategy. Put more effort into the channels that are working best for you. Look for any areas where visitors seem to get stuck or drop off, and make changes to improve them.
For example, if you find that a particular bottom-of-funnel (BoFU) page on your site isn’t converting well, look further into why people might be leaving. Maybe the checkout process is confusing, or a product page is loading too slowly. Fix these issues to make it easier for customers to complete their purchases.
Klaviyo enables you to track conversions on your website as well as for email and SMS marketing initiatives.
With Klaviyo AI, it’s easy to create, distribute, and refine your marketing campaigns and flows. You can segment your audience to determine who responds to your marketing efforts the most and run A/B tests to identify which elements of your messaging are conversion-friendly.
Sign up for Klaviyo to understand your target audience and enhance your marketing performance for maximum engagement.