A conversion is a visitor completing an action that has value to the business. On most sites that means submitting the contact form, calling from a phone, or booking an appointment.
Why the definition matters
Advertising platforms optimize toward whatever you tell them counts. If you register a page view as a conversion, the system will faithfully find you people who look and leave. Every optimization after that rests on the wrong signal.
What should count
- Form submissions, with spam and duplicates filtered out.
- Phone calls over a set length, so hang-ups do not count.
- Bookings or purchases completed.
Newsletter signups and downloads can count too, as long as you separate them from real enquiries in reporting.
Defining conversion correctly in your account
Typically, we set up conversion tracking as part of every campaign we price, because the wrong definition quietly wastes budget for months.
For example, Google’s own conversion tracking guide covers how to set this up across calls, forms and bookings.
Specifically, set a minimum call length before it counts, since many short calls are wrong numbers or hang-ups rather than real enquiries. Similarly, exclude your own team’s test submissions from the count. Notably, a lower number that is accurate is worth more than a higher number you cannot trust.
However, a definition that worked last year can quietly stop matching how the business actually operates today. Instead, treat the list of what counts as something you review with whoever answers the phone, not just in an analytics dashboard.
Notably, involving whoever answers the phone in this review catches mismatches an analytics dashboard alone would never surface, because they hear the difference between a real enquiry and a wrong number every day.
For example, a five-second hang-up should never be treated the same as a genuine two-minute enquiry.
Likewise, a booking that gets cancelled minutes later should be tracked separately from one that actually shows up.
