WordPress Conversion Tracking Made Simple: The Complete Guide

Conversion tracking is one of the most important tools for growing your WordPress site.

But I know it can seem complicated to set up and make sense of all that data.

Well, don’t worry! As a webmaster with over 15 years of experience, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about conversion tracking in this complete guide.

I’ll explain what conversions are, why you need to track them, actionable tips to optimize your conversion funnel, and how to implement tracking in WordPress.

By the end, you’ll have the keys to unlock data-driven growth for your business or site. Let’s get started!

What Are Conversions?

Put simply, a conversion is when a visitor to your site completes a desired action. These include:

• Making a purchase on an ecommerce store
• Signing up for a newsletter or email list
• Downloading a gated resource like an ebook
• Filling out a contact form
• Clicking on a call-to-action button

Any user interaction you want to encourage can be defined as a conversion.

The goal of conversion tracking is to monitor these actions to better understand your customers. For example:

• What content or marketing channels drive conversions?
• Where are visitors dropping off in the conversion funnel?
• How can you optimize landing pages and CTAs for higher conversion rates?

Understanding these questions is key for boosting conversions.

Now let’s see why conversion tracking is so crucial for WordPress sites and online businesses.

Why Conversion Tracking Is Essential

Conversion tracking may seem non-essential at first, but it provides invaluable data and insights you simply can’t afford to ignore.

Pinpoint High and Low Converting Pages

With conversion tracking, you can see exactly which pages encourage conversions and which ones underperform.

Maybe your About page converts really well because it builds trust. But your Contact page has a high bounce rate because the form is too long.

Optimizing the winners and improving the laggards can directly increase conversions.

Identify Top Conversion Traffic Sources

You can also uncover where your conversions originate from – which traffic source or marketing channel drives the most converting visitors.

For example, maybe email newsletter brings in high quality leads while social media conversions need work.

Focusing your marketing efforts on the best sources has an obvious positive impact.

Map Your Sales Funnel and Bottlenecks

Conversion tracking provides a clear picture of your sales or conversion funnel from start to finish.

You can easily identify friction points and blockers that cause visitors to abandon. Common issues include complicated multi-step forms, unclear calls-to-action, lack of trust signals, etc.

Fixing these bottlenecks results in more visitors moving down the funnel and converting.

Calculate Your ROI from Marketing

Do you know how much revenue is generated from your marketing efforts? With conversion tracking, you can directly attribute sales and leads back to channels like:

• Email marketing campaigns
• Paid ads
• Organic search traffic
• Referral links
• And more

This allows you to accurately calculate return on investment (ROI) and focus spending only on profitable channels.

Personalize the User Experience

Conversion tracking also provides insight into your users – their preferences, pain points, and on-site behavior.

You can leverage this to tailor the experience, like:

• Displaying targeted CTAs and offers
• Showing relevant content to users
• Retargeting those who previously didn’t convert

Catering your site to each user positively impacts conversions.

Clearly there are many reasons why conversion tracking is indispensable. Now let’s go over how to actually implement it.

Step 1 – Install Google Analytics

For WordPress sites, Google Analytics remains the best free option for getting started with conversion tracking.

Here is how to set it up:

1. If you don’t already have one, sign up for a free Google Analytics account.

2. Once registered, navigate to Admin and create a new account for your website.

3. Select the website type and enter your site‘s URL when prompted.

4. Copy the unique tracking code Google provides. This is key for tracking your data.

5. Install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin on your WordPress site.

6. In MonsterInsights settings, click Tracking Code and paste the code you copied.

7. Validate the tracking code and save your settings. You‘re all set!

It may take up to 24 hours for data to start populating in your Google Analytics reports.

Pro Tip: If you run an ecommerce store, upgrade to MonsterInsights Pro for enhanced ecommerce tracking out of the box. The free version only offers basic tracking.

Once Google Analytics is installed, you can move on to step 2…

Step 2 – Configure Goals and Conversions

The key to unlocking the power of Google Analytics for conversion tracking is setting up goals. This tells GA what counts as a conversion on your site.

Here are the main types of goals to configure:

1. Form Tracking

Do you want to see your lead generation metrics from contact forms submissions, newsletter signups, etc?

Then enable form tracking in MonsterInsights:

1. Go to MonsterInsights > Tracking > Forms

2. Toggle the Form Tracking setting to On

3. Detected forms will automatically be listed

4. Expand each form and enable ‘Track Form Submissions‘

5. Click Save Changes

Now all your conversions from form fills will be tracked!

2. Custom Goals

For important pages you want to monitor, like downloading a PDF or accessing a specific URL, use custom goals.

1. In MonsterInsights, go to Tracking > Goals

2. Click the ‘New Goal‘ button

3. Give your goal a name and select the type – URL destination, time on page, etc.

4. Fill in the required fields.

5. Click ‘Add Goal‘ when completed.

Try creating goals for your most important funnels and let the tracking begin!

3. Ecommerce Tracking

If you run a WooCommerce store or online shop, ecommerce tracking is a must. Here‘s how to enable it:

1. Install MonsterInsights Pro

2. Go to MonsterInsights > Tracking > Ecommerce

3. Check the ‘Enhanced eCommerce‘ and ‘Track Outbound Forms‘ options

4. Under Integrations, your ecommerce plugin should automatically be detected

5. Click Save Changes

Detailed conversion data on products, transactions, etc. will all appear in GA reports.

With goals configured, you‘re ready to start digging into the metrics and analytics!

Step 3 – Analyze Your Conversion Reports

This is where the real magic happens. Google Analytics offers powerful reports to analyze conversions across your site.

Let’s look at some of the most essential reports for optimizing:

1. Dashboards

The main GA dashboard shows key metrics like Sessions, Total Users, Bounce Rate, Pages per Session, Goal Completions, and more.

Use this bird‘s eye view to spot macro trends and changes in your conversion rates. Then dive deeper into reports.

2. Conversions > Goals

This report shows your goal conversion rates in detail. You can view totals for each custom goal created along with trends.

Analyze which types of conversions are increasing or decreasing over time.

3. Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

See which landing pages result in the most conversions under Site Content. Then optimize your top pages for higher rates.

Identify poorer performing landing pages that lead to high bounces. Improve or remove them.

4. Acquisition > All Traffic

Check All Traffic under Acquisition to view your top conversion traffic sources. Focus on driving more users from channels with better conversion quality.

5. Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns

This report shows conversion data from paid advertising and other campaign links tagged with UTMs.

See which campaigns are your best performers for optimizing conversions.

6. Conversions > Ecommerce

If you have an online store, the ecommerce reports under Conversions are critical.

Analyze product performance, shopping behavior, your sales funnel, revenue streams, etc. to heavily optimize your store.

Tip: Don‘t let the data overwhelm you. Focus on the vital 20% of reports and metrics that give you 80% of the value.

Now let‘s go beyond Google Analytics and track even more conversions…

Step 4 – Implement Facebook Pixel

If you run Facebook ads, install the Facebook pixel to unlock more data:

1. Create a Facebook pixel in Business Suite (or use your existing one)

2. Copy the pixel ID from the settings page

3. Install and activate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin

4. Go to Settings > Social > Facebook Pixel

5. Paste your Facebook pixel ID

6. Click Save Changes

The Facebook pixel will now be added to all pages. You can view conversions from Facebook ads in Ads Manager.

Step 5 – Track Conversions from UTM Links

To monitor conversions from your own marketing links, UTM tags come in handy.

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module (named after a predecessor of GA).

It allows you to append campaign parameters like source, medium, name, etc. to links so you can better track their performance in GA.

For example:

https://www.yourwebsite.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sale_october

Here‘s how to easily create UTM links:

1. Sign up for a free account on a URL builder like UTM.io

2. Enter your target URL

3. Fill in the UTM tags you want appended

4. Click "Generate URL" to create your linked tracked link

5. Use this in your email, social posts, ads, etc.

6. See the conversions in GA from your UTM links

UTMs allow you to directly see which marketing links result in conversions. Super useful!

Step 6 – Optimize Pages for Higher Conversions

Now that everything is tracked, it‘s time for the fun part – optimization!

Here are 12 tips to structure your WordPress site for maximum conversions:

1. Simplify Forms

Remove optional fields, use single column layouts, and minimize steps to increase form completion rates.

2. Improve Page Speed

Faster loading pages lead to higher conversions. Enable caching, resize images, and defer non-critical JS.

3. Add Trust Signals

Boost credibility with testimonials, security badges, contact info, guarantees, etc. This encourages visitors to convert.

4. Limit Distractions

Remove unnecessary elements on your pages that divert attention from CTAs.

5. Make Offers Clear

Visually highlight promotions and offers. Use scarcity indicators like countdown timers to prompt action.

6. Retarget Abandoning Visitors

Remarket to users who left without converting using ads and emails to win them back.

7. Personalize Experiences

Tailor content and messaging based on visitor location, interests, referrer, and past behavior.

8. Review On-site Heatmaps

See click density from session recordings to optimize page layouts.

9. A/B Test Variations

Try different CTAs, headlines, page designs, etc. to determine the highest converting version.

10. Follow Funnel Best Practices

Ensure your pages and content map to the ideal conversion funnel – awareness, interest, decision, action. Remove friction across each stage.

11. Layer Marketing Efforts

Combine multiple tactics like social media, email, SEO, affiliates, retargeting, etc. to generate more funnel entries.

12. Continuously Test and Iterate

Keep improving page elements through split tests. Fix what doesn‘t work. Optimization is gradual and never ending.

Following structured best practices for optimizing your site and funnel is proven to lift conversion rates.

Now let‘s recap everything we covered…

Wrapping Up

The ability to track conversions is a superpower that can unlock tremendous growth for your WordPress site.

Implementing the steps in this guide will help you:

• Pinpoint exactly which pages and campaigns convert
• Identify low points in your funnel causing abandonment
• Make data-backed decisions on marketing spend and optimization

The key is to start tracking everything – then focus on incremental optimization over time.

Don‘t let analysis paralysis set in and prevent you from taking action.

Look for quick small wins first. What existing assets like pages and content can you better leverage?

Gradually build up to bigger changes like restructuring your funnel. Maintain an experimentation mindset.

Conversion tracking combined with relentless testing is a formula for consistent expansion.

So leverage the platforms and plugins covered here to chart your path to higher conversions! Feel free to reach out if you need any help getting started.