Conversion rate in plain terms: what it is, the formula and how to calculate it

What conversion means in plain terms

Conversion shows what share of the audience reached the step you care about. It’s also called the conversion rate, or CR. It’s measured in percent.

A target action is whatever the site or ad exists for: an inquiry, a call, a purchase, a sign-up. In Yandex Metrica, such an action is set up as a goal — an action by a visitor that the site owner cares about: visiting a page, clicking a button, submitting a form, paying for an order. The business chooses the goal, not the platform: Metrica will calculate conversion for any goal, but the number only means something once the goal is tied to your actual objective.

That’s why «ad conversion,» «site conversion» and «sales conversion» are the same principle. Only what counts as the target action and what base it’s calculated from changes.

The conversion formula and how to calculate it

Conversion (CR) — the number of target actions, divided by the base and multiplied by a hundred, in percent

• Target actions — inquiries, purchases, sign-ups, target visits.
• Base — what you’re calculating from: site visits, ad clicks, store visitors, inquiries.
• Multiplying by a hundred — to get the result in percent.

Everything else depends on the choice of base. Conversion «from visits» and conversion «from clicks» are different metrics, even if the target actions are the same.

An example calculation in percent

An illustrative example: the figures are made up for clarity and aren’t a benchmark or data from a real site. Say in a month the site got A visits, and B of those visitors submitted an inquiry. Conversion is B divided by A and multiplied by a hundred. If an inquiry is submitted in one visit out of twenty-five, that works out to four percent.

The reverse problem uses the same formula. If you need twice as many inquiries and the share of visits with an inquiry doesn’t change, you’ll need twice as many visits. This kind of math helps estimate how many visitors a plan needs — but only if that share really does stay the same.

Conversion in sales and in a store

In sales, conversion shows what share of interested customers ultimately bought. Yandex Advertising’s training materials give this formula: the number of customers who paid for a purchase, divided by the number of interested customers and multiplied by a hundred. Conversion is also calculated for individual funnel stages — for example, from viewing a product to adding it to the cart, and from the cart to the purchase.

In a brick-and-mortar store the principle is the same: the number of purchases divided by the number of visitors. Purchases are visible from receipts, and visitors are counted separately — by sensors at the entrance, manually, or via video surveillance. For a sales team, the base is usually inquiries or contacts, and the target action is a paid deal.

Types of conversion: by funnel step

A funnel is a customer’s path from first contact to purchase. At each step, some people drop off, and each step has its own conversion rate.

Step	What’s divided by what	Where to get the data
Impression → click	Clicks divided by impressions. This is CTR, not conversion	Ad platform statistics
Click or visit → inquiry	Inquiries divided by clicks or by visits	Metrica, Direct statistics
Inquiry → sale	Paid deals divided by inquiries	CRM or sales records
Visit → purchase	Purchases divided by visits	Metrica with order data, sales records

Labels like «CR» with a step number — first, second, and so on — are just numbering inside one funnel. There’s no single standard: for one team the first step is «visit → inquiry,» for another it’s «click → visit.» Before comparing such numbers, check which step is actually behind them.

Conversion from leads (inquiries) to sales is often calculated separately from site conversion: it’s no longer influenced by the ad, but by how the inquiry is handled. Sometimes people also calculate full-funnel conversion — from first contact to sale. For that you need to connect ad, site and sales-tracking data.

Where to see conversion: Yandex Metrica and Yandex Direct

Conversion in Yandex Metrica

A visit in Metrica is a sequence of actions by one visitor on the site; a visit ends when the visitor is inactive for a while. If the goal’s condition is met during a visit, that visit becomes a target visit.

Conversion in Metrica is the share of target visits among all visits. In other words, Metrica calculates conversion from visits, not from visitors. Goals are created in the counter’s settings, and you can see conversion, goal completions and target visits in the «Conversions» report.

Conversion in Yandex Direct

A click is a user following a link from an ad to the site. Direct gets goal data from Metrica: for this, a counter is specified in the campaign’s settings, and ad links get a tag that lets Metrica tie a visit to a specific click. Based on Metrica’s data, Direct calls these target visits «conversions.»

In Direct’s statistics reports, the conversion rate is calculated from clicks: Direct’s documentation defines it as the ratio of the number of target visits to the number of clicks, in percent. That means, with the same goals, conversion in Direct and in Metrica can differ — they use a different base. At the same time, the help page on evaluating performance-campaign results describes CR as the share of target visits among all visits. So before comparing, check how the metric is defined in your particular report.

There’s a separate article on how Direct and Metrica together measure ad performance. And on how our contextual advertising work is set up, with goals configured in Metrica before launch — that’s on our service page.

VK Ads and other platforms

Every ad platform has its own rules: which events it counts as conversions, what base it calculates the share from, and which model it uses to credit the result. If you’re running ads on, say, VK Ads, check its help center before comparing its numbers with Metrica or Direct. Report and column names change from time to time across every platform.

Why conversion doesn’t match across different reports

It’s normal for Metrica, Direct and a CRM to show different conversion numbers. Direct states outright that Metrica counts all visits to the site, while Direct counts only clicks on ads. Here are the main reasons and what to check.

• Different base. Metrica divides target visits by all visits; Direct divides by clicks. One click can become the source of several visits. → Check exactly what’s in the denominator of each report.
• Different attribution models. An attribution model is the rule for which visit to the site counts as the source of a visit. The model determines how visits and conversions get distributed across sources. Direct notes that comparisons with Metrica often end up comparing different models. → Set the same model in both reports.
• Not every click becomes a visit. The visitor might have left before the counter loaded, or they might have an ad blocker installed. Direct doesn’t count invalid clicks in its statistics. → Don’t expect clicks and visits to match one-to-one.
• The counter isn’t linked to the campaign. Then goal data won’t reach Direct at all. → Check the counters in each campaign’s settings.
• The wrong reports. Direct recommends comparing its statistics with Metrica’s dedicated Direct reports, not the general ones. → Compare comparable reports.
• Delayed conversions and the period. If a lot of time usually passes between the click and the conversion, some of Direct’s reports show data with a noticeable lag. → Compare matching periods, and don’t draw conclusions from the most recent days.
• Different goals. Conversion for the goal «submitted the form» and for the goal «opened the contacts page» are different numbers. → Make sure the same goal is selected everywhere.
• Sales outside the site. Orders by phone or offline aren’t visible to Metrica by default — they only exist in a CRM or sales records. → Calculate conversion into a sale from the sales-tracking data.

An illustrative example: for one campaign over a week, some number of target visits accumulated. Direct divides them by clicks on ads, while Metrica, in its general report, divides them by all visits to the site, including other sources. You get two different conversion rates, and both are calculated correctly.

To see which source an inquiry came from, it helps to tag your links. There’s a separate article on which tags to add to links and where to read them in reports.

What counts as good conversion

There’s no universal conversion benchmark — both Yandex Direct’s and Yandex Advertising’s materials say so directly. It’s valid to compare conversion against your own past results, calculated by the same goal and from the same base.

What conversion depends on

• Niche and decision price. Yandex Advertising lists the field, competition and deal-cycle length among the factors. An expensive service gets thought over longer than a cheap product.
• Traffic source and intent. A person actively searching for the service and a person who saw an ad in a feed are ready for different things. There’s a separate article on why user intent affects the result.
• Type of target action. Subscribing is easier than paying for an order. Conversion for an «easy» goal is almost always higher.
• Region and season. Demand changes over the year and from region to region; Yandex Direct lists seasonality among the causes of low conversion.
• The site and the offer. How convenient the site is, the value of the product, the price, payment and delivery terms.
• Traffic quality. Off-target visitors lower conversion even on a good site.

How to compare correctly

• Against your own past period — with the same goal and the same base.
• Between channels — only if they share one goal and the same calculation base.
• By funnel step, not as one single number: that’s how you see exactly where people are lost. Calculating stats for each funnel stage is also what Yandex Direct recommends.
• Together with volume and cost. High conversion on a few dozen visits might just be chance. High conversion for an «easy» goal might not produce sales. So «higher is always better» is only true at the same goal and with enough volume. Also look at what one inquiry costs: high conversion with expensive traffic can be less profitable than average conversion with cheap traffic.

How to raise conversion: what to check first

This is a checklist, not a promise of results: what actually works depends on your situation.

• Is conversion even being tracked? Make sure goals are set up and firing, forms are submitting, and the counter is linked to the ad campaigns. Without this, any conclusions are premature.
• Does the page match the query or the ad? Someone who clicked an ad about a specific service should land on a page about exactly that service.
• Is the offer and the next step clear? What you’re offering, on what terms, and what the person needs to do — submit an inquiry, call, place an order.
• Is it convenient on mobile, and does the page load fast? A slow or awkward mobile page loses some visitors.
• Are there off-target visitors? Look at which queries and placements bring people in. Off-target queries in ads are filtered out with negative keywords.
• Are you changing one thing at a time? Make changes one at a time and compare comparable periods. Otherwise you can’t tell what actually affected the number.

Frequently asked questions

How is conversion different from CTR?

CTR is the ratio of the number of clicks on an ad to the number of its impressions, in percent. Conversion is the share of target actions among visits or clicks. CTR shows how well the ad grabs attention, while conversion shows how many people did what was needed after clicking through.

Can conversion be more than a hundred percent?

It depends on how it’s calculated. In Metrica — no: conversion there is the share of target visits among all visits, and even if a goal is reached several times during one visit, that’s still a single visit. In Direct’s statistics — yes: the base there is clicks, and one click can become the source of several visits.

Why is conversion in Metrica different from conversion in Direct?

Because Metrica calculates it from all visits, while Direct calculates it from ad clicks, and the attribution models in the reports can differ. The full list of reasons and what to check is in the «Why conversion doesn’t match across different reports» section.

Which goal should I pick for calculating conversion?

Whichever one is closest to money and fires reliably: an inquiry, a payment, a call if you track it. Intermediate goals — viewing the contacts page, moving to the cart — are useful for funnel analysis, but it’s better to calculate the headline metric from the main action.

How do I calculate conversion if sales happen by phone or offline?

The principle is the same: link contacts to sales. Inquiries and calls are logged in a CRM or other records, marking which ones ended in payment. Then you can calculate conversion from contact to sale, not just from visit to inquiry.

In advertising, conversion is worth measuring from day one, which is why goals are set up before campaigns launch.