Micro Conversions
Micro Conversions
Definition
Micro conversions are activities that can lead to your desired conversion goal (e.g. purchase or deposit). They are an incremental step that allows users to express an interest in your product or service. It is important to pay attention to micro conversions because without them customers won’t get to your macro conversion.
They often allow users to learn about your product or service, and can create commitment which can increase their propensity to complete a macro conversion. For an analyst, micro conversions enable them to better understand user behaviour and identify user intent.
They are also beneficial because if you can increase the flow of visitors at the beginning and middle of your funnel, you are likely to significantly increase the number of visitors who land on your page with your macro conversion.
1. What are the Different Types?
The Nielsen Norman Group separate micro conversions into two categories:
- Process Milestones. These are essential steps in the user journey towards the macro conversion. Measuring drop offs at these milestones often help identify where UX improvements will have most impact on macro conversion rates.
- Secondary Actions. These are not essential steps in the user journey, but they often demonstrate intent and an increased propensity to complete a future macro conversion.
2. What are Micro Conversions?
Common user events that can be categorised as micro conversions include:
- Account creation
- Downloading a PDF guide
- Clicking on a call-to-action button on a landing page
- Adding to basket
- Signing up to a newsletter or email update
- Viewing a product page
- Watching a video
- Adding a product a wish list
- Viewing a set number of blog posts
- Sharing content on social media
- Going to view social media posts
- Writing a review
- Commenting on a review
- Visit the About Us page
- Confirming their identify
3. How do you Measure Micro Conversions?
Web analytics solutions, such as Google Analytics and GA4, allow you to measure all types of conversions by creating events in Google Tag Manager (GTM). You should first consider which are the most important steps in the user journey and how measuring these steps will help you identify potential barriers to your primary macro conversion goal.
GTM allows you to create triggers which will only fire the event when specific conditions are met. For example, if you want to measure new account creations, you might want to create a trigger that only fires when the user user proceeds to the account registration confirmation page. You can’t rely on clicks on the “Sign Up for your Free Account” call-to-action in case they don’t complete all mandatory fields correctly and so don’t proceed to the confirmation page .
In Google Analytics 3, you can create goals which use URL changes to measure micro conversions. GA4 is more flexible because you can use any type of event to track micro conversions and macro conversions. The funnel analysis report in GA4 is especially good at allowing you to measure drop offs in the user journey.
4. Why are they important?
Micro conversions may appear to be only baby steps in the conversion journey. However, they are important because they allow users move at their own pace, raising awareness of your brand, building trust and credibility and ultimately enabling users to proceed to your primary macro conversion goal when they are ready to do so. If we try to minimise micro conversions we risk harming our brand by appearing too aggressive and impatient to achieve our macro conversion.
Resources:
Conversion marketing – Glossary of Conversion Marketing.
Over 300 tools reviewed – Digital Marketing Toolbox.
A/B testing solutions – Which A/B testing tool should you choose?
Types of A/B tests – How to optimise your website’s performance using A/B testing.
Credit:
Conversion rate icons created by Dandy Ivan Anggriawan – Flaticon
