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Conversion rate is the share of visits that end in an order. It is the one number that tells you whether the people who reach your store find what they came for, and in October we changed how Tanqory counts it so it means the same thing on every screen.
How Tanqory counts it
A visit to your store is a session. A session counts as a completed checkout only when it created an order. A checkout that reported itself done without an order now counts as reaching checkout, not as a sale.
Conversion rate is completed sessions divided by sessions. Say your store had 2,000 sessions last week and 30 of them created an order: your conversion rate for the week is 1.5%.
That figure is now worked out the same way on your dashboard, in Analytics > Reports and in Live View. If two screens used to disagree, this is why they no longer do.
Find where buyers drop off
A single rate tells you that buyers leave, not where. Reports can now use three funnel counts for any period:
- sessions with cart additions
- sessions that reached checkout
- sessions that completed checkout
Put them side by side and the gap shows you which step to work on:
- Few sessions add to cart. Look at the product page: photos, price, the answer to the question a buyer would ask before buying.
- Many add to cart, few reach checkout. Look at the cart: shipping costs that appear late, a discount field that sends buyers off to search for codes.
- Many reach checkout, few complete it. Look at checkout itself: payment methods for the countries you sell to, and whether buyers who left get a reminder. Abandoned checkout emails are on by default for new stores.
The conversion rate breakdown and checkout conversion articles show where each view lives.
Set a target and watch it
Once you know your rate, give it somewhere to go. In Analytics > Targets you set a target for a metric over a period, such as conversion rate for this month, and narrow it with a filter if you want to.
- Measured like your reports. Progress uses the same figures your reports show for that period and filter, and conversion rate comes from the session funnel above.
- Check before you save. You see how a target measures up against the current value before you save it, so you do not set one you have already passed.
- One live target per combination. Each metric, period and filter has one target at a time. You can edit or remove it later.
Each target shows its current value, progress and status, so a glance tells you whether this month is on track.
A good first target
Pick one metric you can move with changes you control, such as conversion rate, and a period long enough to see a trend, such as a month. Make one change at a time, then check the target. If you change the product page, the cart and the shipping rates in the same week, you will not know which one worked.
