Almost every website owner seeks to maximize conversions. That might involve getting more sales, gathering a strong list of emails, or another metric altogether. Either way, if you’re not tracking those conversions, you’re missing out on data you can use to optimize your website.
By conducting some online conversion tracking, on the other hand, you can figure out how effective your marketing is. That in turn will enable you to figure out if you need to switch gears when it comes to your strategy.
In this article, we’ll talk a bit more about why you should track website conversions. Then we’ll discuss how you can go about it, and introduce you to several WordPress plugins that can help. Let’s talk tracking!
WHY SHOULD YOU TRACK WEBSITE CONVERSIONS?
Every website has a goal, and that usually involves convincing your users to do something. Each time you succeed at getting someone to take a desired action, such as buying a product or signing up for a membership, that’s called a ‘conversion’.
There are two primary goals when it comes to conversion tracking:
- It enables you to determine if your web strategy is successful.
- You can track changes in performance over time, so you’ll know if adjustments and new strategies are working.
Conversion tracking makes a lot of sense if you think about your website as a business. To determine if a business is successful, you rely on indicators such as sales, foot traffic, leads, and more.
Tracking website conversions is the equivalent of measuring sales, except that in this case, they don’t necessarily involve a purchase. For simplicity’s sake, however, let’s assume you want to increase conversions that bring in revenue, and talk a bit about monetization.
TOP WAYS TO MONETIZE A WEBSITE
There are a lot of ways you can earn money through your WordPress website. Depending on which method you implement, your goals and desired conversions will be different.
Let’s look at some of the most common approaches to website monetization:
- Selling products directly. In this case, each sale is a conversion.
- Affiliate marketing. Whenever someone buys a product through your links, that’s another conversion on your tally.
- Selling services. Some people sell one-off services, whereas others do subscriptions. In any case, each purchase is a win for you.
- Advertising. If you’re running Cost Per Click (CPC) ads on your site, each click becomes a conversion.
- Lead generation. Some people run websites to attract traffic to their existing businesses. In that scenario, each lead you bring in is a conversion.
As you might imagine, those are not the only monetization methods at your disposal. However, they are by far the most common options. If your website uses any of these techniques, then you need to learn how to track the resulting conversions.
HOW TO TRACK WEBSITE CONVERSIONS
Since conversions don’t come in a single shape or size, it stands to reason that there’s more than one way to keep tabs on them. Here are the most common conversion tracking methods:
- Trackable URLs. These are links that include tracking parameters, so whenever someone clicks on one of them, the data is reported back to you.
- Using third-party tracking tools to set up goals. Most analytics tools enable you to set up custom goals for your website (i.e. sales, time spent on site, or pretty much anything else) and measure their success, often by using trackable URLs.
- Monitoring email sign-ups. If you use an email marketing tool or plugin, you’ll be able to monitor new sign-ups to your list.
- Measuring sales. This approach is the simplest, because every WordPress eCommerce plugin enables you to keep track of sales (some in more detail than others).
The good news is that you probably don’t need to figure out how to track all these types of conversions. Instead, what you’ll want to do is focus on your site’s primary goal, and find the right tool to help you measure its success.
PLUGINS TO TRACK WEBSITE CONVERSIONS
For this section, we’ve rounded up our top picks when it comes to WordPress conversion plugins. Each of these tools will help you measure different types of conversions on your website.
PLUGIN #1: ANALYTIFY
Google Analytics is by far the most popular free analytics tool. With it, you’ll be able to measure a lot of important data on your website, including conversions. However, to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics, you’ll need to create custom goals.
What Analytify does is enable you to connect WordPress to Google Analytics, so you can track those goals on your website. Plus, it also supports eCommerce goal tracking for WooCommerce, making it the perfect pick if you’re using that plugin to run an online store.
PLUGIN #2: PIXELYOURSITE
If you run ads on Facebook, then you’ll want to use the Facebook Pixel. This is a tracking code that can help the social media giant measure goals on your website, which you can customize depending on your needs.
Usually, adding the Facebook Pixel to WordPress can be a bit of a chore, but PixelYourSite simplifies the process. Plus, it also enables you to integrate Facebook with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads to track sales.
PLUGIN #3: WOOCOMMERCE ADWORDS CONVERSION TRACKING
AdWord campaigns are one of the most powerful tools at your disposal if you want to drive paid traffic towards your products. However, to measure the success of your campaigns, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking.
WooCommerce AdWords Conversion Tracking enables you to set up tracking for WooCommerce products you’re promoting through AdWords. With that data, you’ll be able to figure out which campaigns are pulling their weight, and which aren’t.
MEASURING YOUR DIGITAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Tracking conversions is vital if you want to use data to improve your website. However, that strategy only works if you’re getting plenty of conversions in the first place. To get there, you’ll need to design a positive digital customer experience, and your hosting provider plays a significant role in making that happen.
