Glossary

Conversion rate

The proportion of sessions, users, or clicks that complete a defined goal, such as a purchase or signup.

Also called: CVR

Conversion rate measures how often a defined goal action is completed relative to the traffic that had the opportunity to complete it. The goal can be a purchase, a signed-up account, a form submission, or any other event a business treats as valuable.

The general formula is conversions / total opportunities * 100, but the denominator varies by context: it might be sessions, unique visitors, or ad clicks (as in click-through rate campaigns), and the choice materially changes the number. A site can report several conversion rates at once—by traffic source, device, or step in a funnel analysis—each answering a slightly different question.

Conversion rate is a central e-commerce and marketing KPI because it connects traffic to business outcomes, and it is the standard metric optimized in A/B testing. It is often read alongside customer acquisition cost to judge whether growth is efficient. Common pitfalls include counting multiple conversions from one visitor as separate events, inconsistent conversion windows across tools, and forgetting that the attribution model in use determines which channel gets credit for the conversion.

Last reviewed September 19, 2026

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Related terms

Funnel analysis A method for tracking how users move through an ordered sequence of steps toward a goal, and where they drop off. Click-through rate The percentage of people who click a link, ad, or search result out of everyone who saw it. Customer acquisition cost The average total sales and marketing spend required to acquire one new paying customer. A/B testing A controlled experiment that compares two variants to measure which one produces a better outcome.

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