Comments on: What is a good conversion rate ? http://www.oninternetbusiness.com/2009/12/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ Michael Conway’s tips, views and information for entrepreneurs Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:56:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jon http://www.oninternetbusiness.com/2009/12/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/comment-page-1/#comment-109 Jon Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:38:21 +0000 http://www.oninternetbusiness.com/?p=926#comment-109 Slightly misleading figures in many ways, as they are based on visitor conversion rates rather than session conversion rates. For example, if I visit a site 20 times in a month and make 1 purchase, my actual conversion rate (in the usual sense) is 5% but under the above rules I would come out as having a conversion rate of 100%. The figures are also taken from a limited panel of visitors, rather than a complete set of actual data. It was interesting to see that in the figures for June 2009, Schwan's didn't even make the top 10 (the 10th site on June's list "converting" at 16.4%) which shows how much figures can vary with this method. So, for me the Nielsen figures are useful as a basic month by month comparison (and as PR if you can get your site in there) but not much else. There's just far too much real world visitor activity not factored into these figures to be able to compare them to your own e-commerce site. Slightly misleading figures in many ways, as they are based on visitor conversion rates rather than session conversion rates. For example, if I visit a site 20 times in a month and make 1 purchase, my actual conversion rate (in the usual sense) is 5% but under the above rules I would come out as having a conversion rate of 100%. The figures are also taken from a limited panel of visitors, rather than a complete set of actual data.

It was interesting to see that in the figures for June 2009, Schwan’s didn’t even make the top 10 (the 10th site on June’s list “converting” at 16.4%) which shows how much figures can vary with this method.

So, for me the Nielsen figures are useful as a basic month by month comparison (and as PR if you can get your site in there) but not much else. There’s just far too much real world visitor activity not factored into these figures to be able to compare them to your own e-commerce site.

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