What conversions events are there

Each business model has its own key events that should be targeted. These can be loosely grouped into the following three categories.

E-commerce funnels are delightfully straightforward: someone clicks “Buy Now,” enters their credit card details while questioning their life choices, and completes a purchase. The conversion is the transaction. Simple. Clean. The sort of thing that makes analysts weep with joy.

• Common conversion events:
  • purchases
  • sometimes "add to cart" events are preferred due to volume or other reasons
• Common mistakes: tracking thank-you pages instead of using e-commerce platforms data leading to duplicate or missing conversions

Not all e-commerce funnels are created equal. If your customers don’t buy immediately, prefer to have an actual conversation before opening their wallets, or routinely get tempted into fancier models, you’re not dealing with a simple e-commerce funnel at all. You may actually need a CRM or Subscription funnel even if you run a e-commerce business.

CRM funnels. Someone fills out a form, downloads a whitepaper, or schedules a demo. Have they given you money? No. Are they a “conversion”? Absolutely. They’ve converted from “random internet person” to “lead"—which is marketing speak for “someone we will now pester with emails.”

• Common conversion events:
  • leads
  • qualified leads
  • closed won deals
• Common mistakes:
  • optimizing for leads instead of qualified leads and won deals
  • sending only first-party data (emails and phones) to ad platforms with conversions without original click IDs

Subscription funnels occupy a special circle of complexity hell. The initial sign-up is a conversion. The upgrade from free to paid is a conversion. The renewal is a conversion. Cancelling is technically a conversion in the wrong direction. The worst thing? The most meaningful conversions where a user becomes a paying customer usually don’t happen in the browser.

• Common conversion events:
  • subscriptions
  • trial-to-paid activations
  • recurring payments
• Common mistakes:
  • optimizing for free sign-ups instead of conversions to paid