Conversion rate

What is conversion rate?

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who completed the action you were after, divided by everyone who had the chance to. The action is whatever you defined as the goal: a link click, an email signup, a purchase, a demo booked. If 1,000 people saw your link and 30 clicked it, your conversion rate is 3%.

The formula is always the same shape:

(conversions / total opportunities) × 100

What changes is the denominator. "People who saw the post" gives you one number; "people who clicked through to the page" gives you another. Always say which one you mean, because the same campaign can look great or terrible depending on where you measure.

Why conversion rate matters

Likes and reach tell you a post got attention. Conversion rate tells you that attention turned into something with business value. It's the metric closest to revenue, which is why it cuts through vanity metrics: a post with modest reach but a high conversion rate often beats a viral post that nobody acts on.

Where conversions get measured

• In-platform actions: profile visits, follows, product taps on a shoppable post
• Click-through to your site: the link click is the first conversion, but the signup or purchase on the page is the one that pays
• Multi-step funnels: each step has its own rate, so a low overall rate points you to the exact step where people drop off

Conversion rate vs click-through rate

CTR measures who clicked your link; conversion rate measures who did the thing you actually wanted after that. A high CTR with a low conversion rate usually means the post promised something the landing page didn't deliver. Read them together to know whether the problem is the hook or the destination.