The conversion rate formula
A conversion is any action you count as a success: a sale, a sign-up, a booked call or a download. The calculator uses:
- Conversion rate % = conversions / visitors x 100
- Conversions per 1,000 visitors = conversion rate x 10
- Visitors needed = conversions you want / conversion rate
A worked example
A landing page had 1,800 visitors last month and 36 of them bought. 36 / 1,800 x 100 is a conversion rate of 2%, or 20 sales per 1,000 visitors.
The owner wants 100 sales next month. At a 2% rate that takes 5,000 visitors. The other route is to lift the rate. At 3%, the same 100 sales need only about 3,334 visitors, which can be far cheaper than buying more traffic.
What counts as a good rate
Online stores commonly convert 1% to 3% of visitors. Pages built around one offer, such as a free trial or an email sign-up, can reach 10% or more. Rates also vary a lot by traffic source. Visitors from a newsletter or a brand search usually convert far better than visitors from social ads, so a blended site average can hide what is really going on.
Measuring it properly
- Decide whether you count visitors or sessions, and keep it the same over time.
- Look at each traffic source and each landing page on its own.
- Wait for enough data. With fewer than 30 or so conversions, small swings are mostly chance.
- When you test a change, run the old and new versions at the same time rather than one month after the other.
Small gains add up. Moving from 2% to 2.5% is a quarter more sales from the same traffic.
