In Analytics, a conversion is the completion of an activity on your site that is important to the success of your business. For example:

• *** This page is Google’s – and needs new content ***

  a completed sign up for your email newsletter (a Goal conversion)

• a purchase (a transaction, sometimes called an Ecommerce conversion)

Goal conversions

You must define Goals in Google Analytics in order to track Goal conversions. Goal conversions are the primary metric for measuring how well your site fulfills business objectives. A Goal conversion occurs once a visitor completes a desired action on your site, such as a registration or download. You’ll be able to see the conversion rates and number of completions for each Goal you set up. If you set a monetary value for each Goal, you’ll also see the value of your conversions. Read About Goals and Goal Funnels.

Once you’ve set up Goals, you’ll also be able to see how all your channels work together to create conversions. Read About Multi-Channel Funnels.

Ecommerce conversions

To analyze online sales effectiveness, you’ll need to track Ecommerce. Ecommerce tracking is Javascript code on your shopping cart or site that collects information about each transaction as it occurs. The information collected includes which product(s) was/were purchased, purchase amount, and billing city, state, and country. Tracking Ecommerce transactions in Google Analytics allows you to see the value of traffic by geography, referral, campaign, and many other dimensions. You can see Ecommerce performance metrics on the Ecommerce tab of many reports. In addition, the Ecommerce reports provide information on product and sales performance, number of transactions, and time to purchase. Read Ecommerce Overview.

Once you have set up Ecommerce tracking, you’ll also be able to see how all your channels worked together to create sales. Read About Multi-Channel Funnels.