16 Essential Conversion Rate Optimization Metrics You Can't Ignore

Starting right from the awareness stage, where a visitor gets to know about your business to making a purchase, there are a ton of KPIs you can track. But that doesn’t mean you should track them all. Well, you can do that if you want to feel overwhelmed;)

Ideally, you should only track the KPIs that are directly linked to and support your business goals and objectives. And this article is there to help.

Below, we have listed the top 15 KPIs that’ll help you track the performance of your conversion rate optimization (CRO) campaigns. Also, you’ll find practical tips to improve each KPI to achieve your business goals.

And by the time you’re done reading this blog, you’ll have everything to determine

Here’s a brief overview of all the key conversion rate optimization metrics:

Primary Metrics

Supporting Metrics

Customer Engagement

Revenue-Focused Metrics

Consider Behavioral and User Experience

To learn about the above metrics in detail, dive right in.

Say your goal is to increase conversions (a key performance indicator for CRO).

To achieve this goal, you’ll have to track the metrics associated with conversions. Otherwise, how would you know which metric you need to tweak to boost conversions?

Imagine you want to boost conversions for your landing page. You choose not to track any metric and start optimizing random elements. Would it make sense? Of course not.

On the other hand, if you track important (relevant) metrics like exit rate, bounce rate, click-through rate, you’ll get to know:

Once you’re tracking the right metrics, you can narrow down your options and identify the potential issues. And this can further help you make the right optimizations and run the right tests.

Here are some of the most common and important CRO metrics and KPIs marketers should focus on while experimenting:

Primary metrics for evaluating CRO

1. Conversion rate

Conversion rate is an important (and broad) metric that tells you the percentage of visitors that took a desired action. It could be anything from subscribing to your newsletter, filling out a form, or even making a purchase.

Purpose: A higher or growing conversion rate indicates more visitors are taking the desired action, giving a boost to your bottom line. And a lower conversion rate indicates potential issues (which you can identify by A/B testing) and a negative impact on your bottom line.

Imagine your goal is generating leads. However, you find that the majority of visitors are not filling out the form, i.e., the form conversion rate is poor. And if you aren’t generating enough leads, who will you nurture and convert into paying customers?

The conversion rate varies from industry to industry. Here’s an infographic from Statista to help you understand better:

Formula for conversion rate = (number of conversions / total number of conversions) * 100

How to improve conversion rate:

2. Click-through rate (CTR)

The click-through rate gives you the percentage of users who clicked on your ad or link after seeing it.

Similar to the conversion rate, the click-through rate also varies from industry to industry, says Word Stream:

Image Source

Purpose: CTR tells you whether your ads, emails, or CTAs were up to the mark according to your audience. If your CTR is higher than your industry average, it means your content is engaging and people are taking the desired action. And a lower CTR indicates problems with your copy, CTA, or graphics.

Formula for click-through rate = (number of clicks / total number of impressions) * 100

P.S. We know a great tool that’d help you personalize your landing pages based on your ads and drive better results.

3. Lead conversion rate

Lead conversion rate or LCR tells you the percentage of visitors who completed an action (submitting a lead gen form) and became a lead.

Purpose: A higher LCR indicates your forms, landing pages, and offers are hitting the right spot for your visitors. And a lower value means your form, messaging, or the overall design could use some improvement.

Formula for lead conversion rate (LCR) = (number of leads/total number of visitors) * 100

How to improve lead conversion rate:

Supporting metrics to help analyze conversion rate optimization

4. Bounce rate

The bounce rate tells you the percentage of visitors who land on your page and bounce off or leave your site without visiting any other page.

According to a 2022 survey conducted by Shopify, the average bounce rate of visitors landing on a page through Google search is 41.1%.

Purpose: Primarily, a high bounce rate means visitors are not engaging with your content. And this could further mean:

Formula to calculate bounce rate: Use Google Analytics.

How to improve bounce rate:

5. Exit rate

While the exit rate may sound similar to the bounce rate, there’s a major difference. Exit rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site from a particular page after viewing it. In exit rate, users visit 1 or more pages other than the landing page before they leave your site from a particular page.

Purpose: This metric helps you identify potential issues on particular pages of your website that might be pushing visitors away. Also, the exit rate makes one thing clear: there is no audience mismatch. Otherwise, why would they visit another page?

But it also indicates a problem with the page they left.

Note. A good exit rate is usually less than 40-50%, according to Agency Analytics.

Formula to calculate: Use Google Analytics.

How to improve exit rate:

6. Average session duration

Average session duration is a metric that tells you the average time visitors spend on your website per session.

Purpose: If the average session duration of your website is higher than the industry average, it means visitors like engaging with your content, and they find it valuable. However, a lower average session duration could indicate problems with your website.

This infographic tells you the average time spent per page per industry:

Source

How to improve average session duration:

7. Pages per session

Pages per session tell you the number of pages your visitors interact with on your website per session.

Purpose: A higher number of pages interacted with per session indicates engaging content, well-placed CTAs, and optimized other elements. And this eventually points to more conversions. The opposite, however, indicates problems like poor navigation, low-quality content, etc.

How to improve pages per session:

Make sure your content is relevant to your visitors.

• Design

8. Time on page

This metric tells you the time visitors spend on a landing page before moving to another page on your website. Make sure you know that if visitors quit your website, no time on the page will be calculated.

Purpose: Longer time on the page indicates higher engagement, i.e., visitors love your content and find it valuable. A shorter time span indicates poor engagement, which can impact conversions.

P.S. A good average time on a page, according to OptinMonster, is 50-60 seconds.

How to improve time on page:

Customer engagement metrics for deeper insights

9. Scroll depth

Scroll depth is yet another important metric that tells you how far down a page visitors scroll.

Purpose: The average scroll depth is around 60-80%. A scroll depth in this range indicates your page is able to engage the visitors. On the flip side, a lower average scroll depth indicates issues like poor content readability, engagement, relevance, etc.

How to improve scroll depth:

10. Interactions per visit

This user engagement metric tells you the number of interactions users per user per site visit.

Purpose: Interactions per visit help you better understand user behavior. You can learn how many interactions the visitors are making and see what elements they’re interacting with.

Say the interactions are higher, but the conversion rate is still poor. This may happen because visitors are unable to find ample information to take the next step.

Formula to calculate interactions per visit: Set up events for elements in Google Analytics.

How to improve interactions per visit:

Revenue-focused CRO metrics

11. Average order value (AOV)

This metric is particularly helpful for monitoring eCommerce conversion rate optimization. It tells businesses the average amount a customer spends in a single transaction/purchase.

Purpose: Tracking this metric helps you slowly increase the revenue without having to onboard more customers, which makes more financial sense.

Formula to calculate average order value (AOV) = Total revenue / Number of orders placed

How to improve average order value:

12. Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value indicates the total revenue you generate from a customer during their relationship with your business.

Purpose: This metric is pretty crucial to calculate if you’re making enough revenue from one customer. Imagine your CLV is lower than or nearly equal to your customer acquisition cost. This means you either need to upsell or reduce customer acquisition costs (that is our next metric).

Formula to calculate customer lifetime value (CLV): Multiply the average order value by repeat sales and the customer’s retention rate.

How to improve customer lifetime value:

P.S. If the above tips seem complex or you simply don’t have ample time, you can hire reliable CRO companies to help you maximize your CLV, among other things.

13. Return on ad spend (ROAS)

ROAS tells you the revenue you generate against the money you invest in your marketing efforts.

Purpose: This metric tells you how effective, if at all, your marketing efforts are. If you’re getting substantial returns on your investment, you can allocate more budget and thus generate more revenue. And change your CRO strategy if the ROAS is poor.

Formula to calculate ROAS = revenue generated from an ad campaign / total cost of the ad campaign

How to improve ROAS:

14. Customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost tells you the average money (sales and marketing expenses included) you spend to acquire a single customer.

Purpose: By tracking the customer acquisition cost, you can understand how onboarding new customers is impacting your finances. You can then take the necessary steps to keep your business more profitable.

Formula to calculate customer acquisition cost = marketing costs/ number of newly onboarding customers during a specific period

How to improve customer acquisition cost:

Behavioral and user experience metrics

15. Form completion rate

Form completion rate tells you the percentage of people who successfully fill-out and submit a form against the total number of people who started but did not complete.

Purpose: A poor form completion rate simply means more people are choosing not to complete the form, indicating issues such as complex design, lengthy forms, personal questions, confusing navigation or more.

Formula to calculate form completion rate (FCR ) = total number of form submissions / number of users who viewed the form*100

How to improve form completion rate:

16. Cart abandonment rate

Cart abandonment rate is another metric more relevant to the eCommerce industry. It represents the percentage of users who add items to the cart but don’t complete the purchase.

Purpose: A higher cart abandonment rate indicates issues with your checkout process. Otherwise, why would people add products to the cart and not checkout, right?

Formula to calculate cart abandonment rate: total number of purchases/ total number of carts created*100

How to improve cart abandonment rate:

Now that you know what metrics you need to track to maximize CRO results, let’s learn how you can set ideal targets for your KPIs.

Setting practical KPI targets helps you determine what success looks like. You have a clear picture in mind of what you want to achieve. This clarity allows you and your team to collectively work towards the same goals that align with your bigger business objective.

Here’s how you can set targets for conversion KPIs:

1. Leverage KPI standards

Every KPI is a metric, but not every metric is a KPI or key performance indicator. This means not every metric is worth tracking or directly impacts conversions. Therefore, it’s crucial to choose the right KPIs as this will directly impact what targets you set.

To identify the right KPIs, you can use KPI standards like:

S.M.A.R.T: this acronym stands for:

• Smart

Think of this standard as a CRO checklist when picking the right KPIs for your business. This will help you stay on the path and in sync with your overall business objective.

2. Assess your performance and set realistic targets.

After identifying the right KPIs, you need to analyze your business’ performance.

Say one of the KPIs you want to track and improve is lead conversion rate. Without assessing your performance, you might end up setting an unrealistic goal. And it’s never good to overpromise and underachieve.

Let’s say your present lead conversion rate is at 3%. With this information at hand, you know where you’re at. This will help you set realistic expectations and goals that are truly attainable.

But how do you ensure your targets are realistic? Here’s how:

Note. It’s common to look at industry figures when setting KPI targets. While taking reference isn’t harmful, you must not completely trust industry figures to set your targets.

Why?

Every business, website, product, or customer base is different. Following industry standards blindly can lead to misaligned expectations and poor decision-making.

Always go for realistic targets that align with your business objectives.

3. Define your long-term and short-term objectives

KPI targets are your means to achieving your bigger objectives.

Say you want to double your revenue to $20 million from $10 million in the next five years. This means a 20% revenue increase every year. Now, this can be quite overwhelming, leaving no margin for error.

Instead, you can set a short-term objective of a 5% revenue boost in the first year and then progressively increase it year by year.

How to analyze CRO metrics effectively?

The mantra here is to not rely on the numbers alone and dig deeper. If you compare the KPIs you want to measure and track based on these segmentations, you can effectively analyze the metrics and draw useful insights:

Segment the data by:

If the numbers are too broad, you won’t get much insight. But when you dive to the depths, that’s when you find real value.

You have analyzed the KPIs for a set duration, and you have the numbers with you. Now what?

It’s simple:

One such reliable A/B testing tool is Fibr AI. It’s an AI-powered personalization platform that allows you to run unlimited A/B tests. And that too for FREE. You can generate landing page variations within seconds and add high-conversion elements (CTAs, copy, etc) using Fibr AI’s AI recommendation feature. Also, Fibr AI allows you to track all the essential conversion KPIs.

P.S. Just wanted to let you know that businesses that leverage CRO tools usually see a 223% average ROI. Therefore, investing in a CRO tool like Fibr AI seems like a pretty logical decision.