You’ve been told that to increase your revenue and generate more profit, you need to boost conversions on your website and send the right conversion event to ad platforms (Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn Ads, etc.). This is good advice! But if you don’t know what it is and how you can make it happen… You won’t get too far!
Optimizing your website is not something you can do randomly. The first thing to do is make sure you understand three essential elements:
- The definition of a conversion event
- The difference between micro and macro conversions
- The art of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Luckily for you, we’re here to guide you through everything!
The definition of a conversion event
A conversion event represents the completion of an important activity for your business. This information is sent to Google Analytics or Meta Pixel to let you know a visitor converted. You can optimize these conversions when working on ad campaigns.
But wait, what is a conversion?
A conversion is what happens when a website visitor performs an action you want them to. When he does, he qualifies as a “lead” or a customer.
The executed action can take various forms. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t always about purchases. There are generally two main categories: micro and macro conversions.
The difference between micro and macro conversions
Micro conversions
Micro conversions are considered to be small steps that might (but don’t always) lead to the macro conversion. They are often defined when the macro conversion is difficult to observe or takes a lot of time to complete.
Some examples of micro conversions:
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Email clicks
- Video views
- eBook downloads
- Blog subscriptions
- Button clicks
- Add to cart
Macro Conversions
A macro conversion is considered to be your primary objective. To avoid complications, we recommend only having one or two macro conversions. These should reflect the desired business outcome of your website’s visits.
Macro conversions can take the form of:
- A completed sale
- A subscription to a free trial
- A contact request
It depends on your activity and how you define them.
Micro vs. macro conversions: which one should you choose and when?
Micro conversions reveal themselves as key indicators of your funnel’s construction and fluidity. Paying attention to these enables you to observe your visitors’ first steps and the possible friction points they meet on your channels.
Low-traffic website owners often find micro conversions useful. Why? Because macro conversions are rare and take a certain amount of time to generate significant data, while micro conversions – which happen more often – don’t. Micro conversions are also useful if it takes a long time to reach the macro conversion.
Optimizing micro conversions will help carry visitors further in your funnel and eventually lead them to a macro conversion, generating more profit for your business.
When optimizing ad campaigns on Meta or Google, you usually want to focus on events closer to the end of your funnel. Why? To see which visitors are high-value. With that being said, if you don’t have enough volume, machine-learning algorithms from platforms will have limited data which might not be effective enough. If this is the case, it might be worth experimenting with events higher up in the funnel.
The bottom line is to focus on macro conversions as much as possible. In the end, they’re what will get you more revenue, so obviously, they’re essential. But keep in mind that without focusing on the micro, you won’t be able to get the macro.
The art of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Optimizing your website is the main objective of a Conversion Rate Optimization strategy. Such a strategy has two benefits: increasing your profit and allowing you to offer a more enjoyable experience to your visitors.
But to optimize and increase your conversion events, all lights need to be flashing green. Want to make sure of that? See if you manage to avoid the 5 most common conversion killers! Are you realizing you need help or you’d like to work with a partner to guide you? Contact our team!
