why micro conversions are important
When you think micro-anything, it’s not weird to see people write it off as less valuable than the larger version. In a culture of excess portions, super sizing, and instant gratification it’s normal to be geared toward as much as we can get as quickly as we can get it. But when it comes to mini pigs and micro conversions, we’re here to tell you the micro is worth it.
(See. What did we tell you? Worth it.)
what’s the difference between a conversion and a micro conversion?
A conversion is when a prospect or client takes the desired action. One of the easiest conversions to visualize is when a sale is made, but this can differ a little for everyone. It might look like providing their contact information, filling out a lead generation form, or downloading a white paper.
A micro conversion can be any of the much smaller actions taken that make up those larger actions. For example, clicking on a site link, viewing a certain page, or opening a pop-up window.
a micro conversion is not as adorable as a mini pig. why should I care again?
Micro conversions can be tracked across all platforms, but for the sake of simplicity in our examples we’ll use Google as our example throughout this post. Micro conversions are a way of training a platform like Google to understand what your be all, end all conversions are. Google’s machine learning can’t be expected to immediately know what constitutes ringing the bell because it doesn’t even know where on your site the bell is.
What’s more, ringing the bell once or twice isn’t remotely enough. Setting up micro conversions as the pathway toward your ultimate conversion teaches Google’s machine learning the baby steps needed to travel that route. When 25 or more users take those same steps and Google starts to recognize them as steps in common, it can then begin to gear traffic toward conversions because it has learned the pathway using micro conversions as breadcrumbs.
when does tracking micro conversions matter?
We know our industry is full of mirrors and smoke screens. On the surface, a micro conversion can look like a digital media team providing irrelevant or ultimately unimportant metrics to inflate the results they’re producing. Unfortunately, this can and does happen so it pays to ask smart questions and keep a critical eye on your campaigns.
However, at the beginning of a relationship, campaign set up, or application of new analytics tracking it’s reasonable to expect micro conversations to be tracked. Listen for transparency and an explanation of the strategy behind teaching Google your online sales funnel. On a well established campaign or site, it’s less likely to need to monitor these as closely.
Like many strategic marketing efforts, starting with the end in mind and staying the course pays off. It can be appealing to ignore or shut down micro conversions if they don’t yield information quickly. But we promise, the pathways they’re providing to Google are worth it in the long run.
As always, hit us up with your nerdy digital questions. Or to swap pics of your favorite adorable animals.
Go Forth. Go Digital.
-cohort.crew
