Sales Loves Marketing

What is Conversion Rate (CVR)?

Conversion rate (CVR) is the percentage of visitors, sessions or ad clicks that end in a desired action, such as a sign-up, demo request or purchase. You calculate it by dividing conversions by the total number of visitors (or clicks) and multiplying by 100.

By Sales Loves Marketing teamOriginally written by Joran HofmanUpdated

Conversion rate (CVR) is the share of visitors who do what you want them to do. If 1,000 people visit a page and 50 of them request a demo, the page converts at 5%. It is one of the main numbers for judging a landing page, an ad campaign or a whole website.

How do you calculate conversion rate?

Conversion rate = conversions ÷ total visitors (or sessions, or clicks) × 100

What you divide by depends on the tool and the question:

  • Google Ads divides conversions by ad interactions, such as clicks. Its own example: 50 conversions from 1,000 interactions is a 5% conversion rate.
  • Google Analytics 4 calls important actions key events. It reports a session key event rate (the share of sessions with a key event) and a user key event rate (the share of users who completed one).
  • Your CRM may track rates further down the funnel, such as lead-to-opportunity or trial-to-paid.

Always say which base you used. A 5% rate per session and a 5% rate per user are not the same thing.

What counts as a conversion?

Any action you define as valuable. Common examples in B2B:

  • a demo request or contact form;
  • a free trial or account sign-up;
  • a content download, such as an e-book;
  • a purchase or upgrade.

Macro conversions (a sale) matter most, but micro conversions (a newsletter sign-up) show whether people are moving in the right direction.

What is a good conversion rate?

There is no universal benchmark. Rates vary widely by action, traffic source, price and audience. A free newsletter sign-up will convert far more often than a request for a quote on enterprise software. The most useful comparison is with your own past results and with similar pages on your site. If a rate drops after a change, investigate. If it rises across a large enough sample, keep the change.

What affects conversion rate?

  • Traffic quality. Visitors who searched for exactly what you offer convert more often than visitors from broad campaigns.
  • Message match. The page should deliver what the ad or search result promised.
  • The offer and the call to action. A clear next step works better than several competing ones.
  • Friction. Long forms, slow pages and missing information all cost conversions.

Improving these systematically is called conversion rate optimization.

Does conversion rate help SEO?

Conversion rate and SEO measure different things. SEO gets people to the page; conversion rate shows what they do once they arrive. Google describes its ranking signals as the meaning of the query, the relevance, quality and usability of content, and the searcher's context. Whether visitors buy is not among them.

The two still support each other. Pages that match search intent and are easy to use tend to rank better and convert better. Targeting the right keywords also brings visitors who are more likely to convert.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate conversion rate?

Divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors, sessions or ad interactions in the same period, then multiply by 100. Google Ads gives the example of 50 conversions from 1,000 ad interactions, which is a 5% conversion rate.

What is a good conversion rate?

There is no single good number. It depends on the action (a newsletter sign-up converts far more often than a purchase), the channel and the price of what you sell. Compare a page against its own history and against similar pages on your site.

Can conversion rate be higher than 100%?

Yes, in some tools. Google Ads notes that if you track several conversion actions or count every conversion, one ad interaction can lead to more than one conversion, so the rate can exceed 100%.