Everyone knows what a macro conversion is; a booking, a transaction, the filling out of a key form on your website. Essentially a macro conversion is the primary conversion goal of a website or landing page.
And then there are micro conversions. Not everyone knows what micro conversions are, why they’re important and how to track them. Let’s start at the beginning.
What Is a Micro Conversion?
How many times have you landed on a site, seen a ‘buy now’ button and immediately converted? Probably not many. And that’s why micro conversions are important.
Put simply, a micro conversion is a checkpoint or important step on the path to a macro conversion. Generally speaking, micro conversions are an indicator of a user moving towards a macro conversion.
An example of a micro conversion might be a user filling out a certain field, sharing something on social media, signing up to your email newsletter, downloading an ebook, watching a video, commenting on a piece of content or using a certain submission button.
None of the above are likely to be the primary objective of your website, but all of them indicate a certain interest level or progression in the journey toward that macro conversion.
Why Tracking Micro Conversions Matters
On the surface, micro conversions might appear vanity. Who cares if a user has or hasn’t clicked a certain button, or whether or not they shared that piece of content? However…
Let’s say we have only macro conversion tracking set up with the following insight into performance:
Form conversion rate | 1% conversion rate | macro
What could be the source of the 1% conversion rate issue?
- Traffic quality (perhaps lack of conversion data to support optimisation)
- Targeting
- Website user experience
- Product/service lack of competitiveness against market
It would be challenging to pinpoint or discount any of the above without finer tracking. Now let’s say we have micro and macro conversion tracking set up. We now have the following insight:
Form Field 1 | 20% conversion rate | micro
Form Field 2 | 18% conversion rate | micro
Form Field 3 | 15% conversion rate | micro
Checkbox 1 | 3% conversion rate | micro
Submission Button 1 | 2% conversion rate | micro
Form Conversion Rate | 1% conversion rate | macro
In the above example, we can now see that the traffic being driven is demonstrating double digit engagement/intent to convert by typically filling in the first three fields but isn’t, for whatever reason, completing the next step; the checkbox.
Using this new information, we would be able to advise that time is invested adjusting the checkbox placement with the aim of narrowing its large disparity in conversion rate to further support not just paid activity, but also all channel conversion rate and performance.
Other Uses of Micro Conversion Tracking
That said, micro conversion tracking isn’t just about identifying user drop off! It’s particularly useful for low macro conversion volume accounts.
An increase in engagement data from micro conversions supports optimisation and traffic selection, helps feed any automated bid strategies and unlocks more sophisticated attribution models within accounts – essentially, knowledge is power!
If you have any questions about micro conversion tracking and want to know more about how you can get your own website up to speed, get in touch with the team here >>>
