Conversion rate: formula, benchmarks and free tracking

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors (or sessions, depending on your tool) who complete a target action on your site, such as viewing a thank-you page or triggering a signup event. You calculate it by dividing the visitors or sessions that converted by the total in the same period, then multiplying by 100. Across UK and Irish B2C ecommerce tracked by IRP Commerce in September 2026, the overall conversion rate was 1.97%, ranging from 0.44% to 5.76% by market.

How to calculate conversion rate

The standard formula divides converted visitors by total visitors in the same date range:

Conversion rate = (Converted visitors / Total visitors) * 100

Say 2,000 unique visitors land on your site in one day, and 50 of them reach your signup confirmation page. Even if 10 of those people reload the confirmation page and generate 60 total conversion hits, 50 unique visitors converted. Divide 50 by 2,000 to get 0.025, then multiply by 100 for a 2.5% conversion rate.

In Clicktag goal tracking, these numbers sit side by side so you do not mix up total triggers and unique people:

• Visitors: unique daily visitors (counted with a daily salted SHA-256 hash; someone active on 3 days counts 3 times).
• Converted visitors: visitors with at least one matching pageview or custom event that day.
• Conversions: every matching pageview or event, including repeat triggers by the same person.
• Conversion rate: converted visitors divided by visitors, which never goes above 100%.

Per-session vs per-visitor conversion rate

Two tools can report different conversion rates for the same traffic because they use different denominators.

Google Analytics 4 reports "Session key event rate", which is the number of sessions in which a key event happened divided by the total number of sessions. GA4 tracks users and persists session state using the _ga and _ga_<container-id> cookies, which both last 2 years. Standard GA4 properties allow up to 30 key events (50 on Analytics 360).

Clicktag sets no cookies, uses no local storage, and never stores IP addresses. Because there is no session cookie, Clicktag calculates conversion rate per daily visitor. If someone visits in the morning, leaves, and comes back later that UTC day to sign up from the same browser and IP address, both hits share one daily visitor hash. That person counts as 1 visitor and 1 converted visitor for that UTC day.

Per-session rates drop when the same person visits two or three times before converting, while per-visitor rates count that person once per day.

What is a good conversion rate? Benchmarks and caveats

In IRP Commerce Market Data, which calculates benchmarks from UK and Irish B2C ecommerce trading data within the IRP platform, the overall conversion rate across all markets in September 2026 was 1.97% (up from 1.68% in September 2025), with an average order value of GBP 133.12 (GBP 127.32 in September 2025).

By market, the rate that month spans 0.44% to 5.76%:

Figures from IRP Commerce Market Data, checked on October 29, 2026.

Before you judge your site against a benchmark table:

• Check the denominator: a rate built on sessions is not directly comparable with a per-visitor rate, so find out which one a source uses before you compare.
• Compare like with like: In the September 2026 IRP data, Health and Wellbeing had an average order value of GBP 52.90 and converted at 2.83%, while Baby & Child had an average order value of GBP 871.49 and converted at 0.44%.

Your own baseline, tracked over time per traffic channel, is a steadier target than any public table.

How to track conversion rate for free in Clicktag

Clicktag is free and includes up to 50 goals and funnels per site, with no credit card required and up to 50 websites per account.

1. Install the script and verify your site. Copy the latest.js script tag (about 4 KB compressed) from Site settings > Installation and paste it into your HTML. The tag verifies the site, or you can verify with a DNS TXT record or a file under /.well-known/.
2. Send a custom event if your goal isn't a URL. latest.js does not record clicks, outbound links, file downloads, or form submissions automatically. For actions that don't load a new page, call window.tt_event(name, metadata, callback) in the browser (see event tracking). Event names use letters, digits, and _, up to 256 characters.
3. Create the goal. Open your site in Clicktag, choose the Goals tab, and click New goal. A site with no goals suggests its top events and pages so you can pick one to start.
4. Match a page or event and add filters. Choose Page (is, starts with, or contains on a path like /pricing) or Event (exact name match like signup_completed). You can add up to 6 filters per step to narrow by page, source, country, device, browser, OS, or UTM source, medium, and campaign.

Goals are computed at query time from data you already collected, so creating or editing a goal immediately populates your past conversion rate. You can also create goals through the API:

curl -X POST https://clicktag.io/api/sites/example.com/goals \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TT_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"Signup completed","kind":"goal","steps":[{"match":"event","filters":[{"key":"event","op":"eq","value":"signup_completed"}]}]}'

Breaking down conversion rate by referrer, entry page and country

A site-wide conversion rate hides which channels bring buyers and which ones just bring readers. Click any goal in the Goals tab (or query the breakdown endpoint in the goals docs) to split visitors, converted visitors, and conversion rate by:

• Referrer (referrers): Compare search engines, referral links, and AI assistants. ChatGPT adds utm_source=chatgpt.com to its links, and Clicktag reads utm_source first, so chatgpt.com shows up as its own traffic source and you can compare its conversion rate against google.com or Direct / none.
• Entry page (pages): Check the landing page conversion rate for every blog post, documentation page, or paid landing page where visitors start their visit.
• Country (countries): Derived from the browser's time zone without storing IP addresses.
• Devices, browsers, OS, and UTMs: Break down by devices, browsers, os, utm_sources, utm_mediums, or utm_campaigns.

In every goal breakdown, each visitor is counted under the value of their first pageview that UTC day. To measure drop-off across several pages or events, plus the median (p50_s) and 90th percentile (p90_s) time between steps, set up a 2-to-6 step funnel with funnel analytics.

FAQ

Does Clicktag track ecommerce revenue or average order value?

No. Clicktag does not track revenue, order totals, or ecommerce cart values. You can track checkout pageviews or fire a custom event like purchase_completed to measure your visitor conversion rate, and since event metadata cannot be grouped or filtered in reports, you can put plan names into the event name itself (such as signup_pro).

Can conversion rate in Clicktag ever go over 100%?

No. Clicktag divides converted visitors by total daily visitors, so even if one person triggers your goal event five times in a day, they count as 1 converted visitor and the conversion rate stays at or below 100%. The total count of all five triggers is shown separately under Conversions.

Do new goals work on historical traffic data?

Yes, as long as the pageviews carry a visitor identity. Clicktag computes goals at query time over the data you have already collected, so a new or updated goal shows past conversions right away. Imported historical data (such as a Simple Analytics import) has no visitor identity, and when less than 99% of pageviews in a date range carry an identity, the Goals tab displays a coverage notice.

Can I use backend server events in conversion rate breakdowns?

You can send backend events with a JSON POST to /events without an API key, and Clicktag will count them. Server-sent events get a visitor identity built from your server's IP address rather than the visitor's browser, so they cannot follow a visitor's pageviews in a funnel or inherit their referrer and entry page. Use browser window.tt_event calls when you need referrer or landing page attribution.

What happens if a visitor lands on my site on Monday and converts on Tuesday?

Clicktag hashes visitor identities with a daily salt that is deleted shortly after each UTC day ends, so goals never link visits across days. A person who reads your landing page on Monday and comes back to sign up on Tuesday counts as 1 non-converting visitor on Monday and 1 converting visitor on Tuesday, and multi-step funnels must be completed on the same UTC day.