How to calculate a conversion

In Yandex Metrica, conversion is the share of goal visits in the total number of visits. The glossary calls a goal an action the site owner wants: a page view, a button press, or something similar. A goal visitor is the person who met that condition. Counting “conversion” from the inbox or from CRM rows swaps this fraction for a denominator the counter never used.

The same word shows up in three places: the glossary, the goals help page, and a Yandex Direct report. The figures below are a worked example. The goals page never states a normal conversion, and the example is not a benchmark for a niche.

The share of goal visits

The definition is a short division: goal visits divided by all visits.

Suppose the counter recorded 1,000 visits in a week, and the goal condition was met in 40 of them. Conversion is 40 / 1,000, or 4%. That arithmetic is here so the fraction is visible. It is not a campaign snapshot.

A quotient stops being Metrica’s conversion as soon as the numerator and the denominator come from different exports. Forty leads from a manager’s spreadsheet and 1,000 sessions from another account, on another calendar, produce a number neither report labels.

The glossary draws one more line. A goal is a condition the owner set. A goal visitor is a person who met it. A visit that never met the condition stays out of the numerator, however long the person read the page.

A visit, a visitor, and a repeated action

The goals help page repeats the visit fraction and places a second one beside it. Visitor conversion is the share of people who reached the goal among unique visitors. Continue the example. The same 1,000 visits came from 800 unique visitors, and the 40 goal visits belong to 40 different people. Visitor conversion is 40 / 800, or 5%. Both ratios describe one week. They do not have to match, because the denominators differ.

The same goal can complete more than once inside a single goal visit. Completions per visitor are the average number of completions per unique goal visitor. Suppose the form was sent twice in ten of the forty goal visits and once in the rest. Completions are then 50. In this example each unique goal visitor accounts for 50 / 40 = 1.25 completions. Goal visits are still 40, and visit conversion stays at 4%.

Sending the form again in the same visit raises completions and does not raise the number of goal visits. Conversion is therefore not a count of leads. Three submits in one session are one goal visit and three completions. Calling “emails divided by visits” a conversion invents a third fraction the definition does not have.

Goal revenue is set in the interface as a static amount, or passed in the price or order_price parameter. A static amount is one figure you attached to the completion. A parameter arrives with a particular event. Until revenue is passed, the goal has a completion counter and no money in the numerator.

Where conversion sits and which goals feed it

Goal metrics appear in most Metrica reports. There is also a separate conversions report. Choosing a report does not change the ratio: if you are looking at conversion, the numerator is still goal visits, not completions.

The goals page lists these conditions:

• a goal event from JavaScript, the API, or a file;

• a number of page views;

• a visit to pages;

• a click on an email, a phone number, or a button;

• a form submit;

• a move to a messenger or a social network;

• a file download;

• on-site search;

• a return from a payment system;

• calls and chats;

• a multi-goal;

• a compound goal of steps in sequence.

Metrica creates some goals on its own. The page does not rank the types. For conversion, the label matters less than the fact that meeting the condition marks the visit as a goal visit.

The permission “use goals in Direct campaigns” allows optimization without access to the counter. It is not enough for retargeting or audience selection: a campaign can train on a goal while the visitor segments stay closed to you.

That page also does not subtract spam from completions of a “form submit” goal. In the example, 50 completions are everything the counter wrote down. An empty submit that met the condition sits among completions next to a real lead. Visit conversion still does not become a count of live leads. A repeat inside the same visit does not increase it, while a submit that opened a new visit does increase the numerator.

The help page never names a normal conversion. The 4% in the example cannot be compared with a “good” bar, because the page has no bar.

CR and CPA in a Direct report

In the performance-campaign statistics breakdown, “Conversions” is how many goal visits the ads brought. CR is the share of those visits among all visits. CPA is the average cost of one goal visit. How a lead price is calculated in other cuts is covered in how to calculate cost per lead.

The report is built in the report wizard: period, then goals, then the attribution model, then the metrics. Without Metrica goals there is nothing to compute CR and CPA from. The conversions numerator is goal visits, not clicks.

Revenue, profit, and ROI appear in the same report once a conversion value has been passed. Until there is a value, the report keeps conversions, CR, and CPA. The description of this report treats a passed value as the condition. A static amount sitting in another screen does not fill the column by itself.

Direct’s fields are about goal visits. They are not the “CPA per goal completion” or the “CPA per visitor” from Metrica’s expenses report. Return to the example. Spend for the week is 20,000 ₽, goal visits are 40, completions are 50, unique goal visitors are 40. Direct’s CPA in this example is 20,000 / 40 = 500 ₽ per goal visit. Dividing spend by 50 completions would give 400 ₽, and that is a different denominator. The performance-report help does not define CPA that way.

Four rows, one example. In the account they match only when the period, the goal, and the attribution model are the same.