How is conversion rate calculated?
The formula is simple: Conversion Rate = (Conversions / Total Visitors) × 100. A 'conversion' is whatever valuable action you define on the page: a purchase, form submission, demo request, quote request, app install or newsletter signup. If a page carries several conversion types, track a separate rate for each — rolling them into one number hides the real bottleneck.
Conversion rate is the bridge between traffic and revenue. Lifting the rate without adding traffic means more customers from the same ad budget, which is why conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is usually the fastest way to bring CAC down. Always segment by source, device and campaign — a two-fold gap between mobile and desktop is common.
Measuring conversion rate on an e-commerce site
To measure sales per visitor on your e-commerce site, define the conversion as a completed order and check the rate per unique visitor as well as per session. In retail a single blended rate is misleading: category pages, product detail pages and the cart-to-checkout steps each need their own rate. A typical funnel loses most visitors before the product page, then 60-80% of the people who add to cart drop out during checkout. Late shipping-cost disclosure, forced account creation, limited payment options and a slow mobile experience are the four most common causes. Track mobile and desktop separately, and treat sale periods as their own cohort.
Benchmark ranges by sector
There is no universal target. As orientation: e-commerce sites typically land at 1-4%, B2B lead forms at 2-5%, dedicated landing page campaigns at 5-15%, and email-driven traffic often higher. These are rough references — your own historical trend and in-channel variant tests are the benchmarks that matter.