How to Find Your eCommerce Conversion Rate in Google Analytics

Have you ever opened Google Analytics to check your store’s eCommerce conversion rate and found no metric with that name?

That’s because Google Analytics doesn’t have one. It has a few percentages with other names instead, and they don’t always match each other.

Numbers that disagree can feel unsettling, since conversion rate shows whether your traffic is turning into sales. The good news is that none of them is wrong. Each one answers a slightly different question.

In this guide, we’ll explain what eCommerce conversion rate is, which Google Analytics metric to use and where to find it.

In This Article:

What Is eCommerce Conversion Rate?

For an online store, a conversion is any action you want visitors to take, such as buying something, signing up for your newsletter, creating an account or filling out a contact form.

eCommerce conversion rate tracks the one that brings in revenue directly. It’s the share of visits to your store that end in a purchase.

Those other conversions have rates of their own, and they’re worth watching, since someone who joins your email list today could buy from you later. We’ll start with the purchase rate, then show you how to check the rest.

You don’t have to work out your eCommerce conversion rate yourself. Google Analytics calculates a close match for you under a different name. Knowing the formula behind the rate still helps, because it shows you which of Google Analytics’ metrics to read.

eCommerce conversion rate = purchases ÷ sessions × 100

For example, 30 purchases from 1,500 sessions works out to a 2% eCommerce conversion rate.

In Google Analytics, a session is a single visit to your site. A purchase is the event it records when someone completes an order.

Google Analytics calls the conversions you track key events, and older versions called them goals. Purchase is marked as a key event by default, so it’s ready as soon as purchase data arrives. Your other conversions become key events once you mark them.

Which Google Analytics Metric Is Your eCommerce Conversion Rate?

Session key event rate is the Google Analytics metric closest to your eCommerce conversion rate, but only when purchase is the selected key event. Left on All events, it counts every key event, such as sign-ups or form submissions.

On a store that tracks other key events too, the All events version can read much higher than your purchase rate.

Here’s how five numbers you might use as a conversion rate compare. The first four use Google Analytics data, and the last one is the rate you’ll see inside WordPress, which we’ll cover later in this guide.

For a store-wide number inside Google Analytics, Session key event rate with purchase selected is the one I’d start with. If you report purchases ÷ sessions instead, it’s worth labeling which one you’re using.

Why Two Correct eCommerce Conversion Rates Can Differ

Two correct eCommerce conversion rates can differ when a single visit includes more than one order. That can happen when a shopper checks out, remembers something they forgot and places a second order before leaving.

Here’s an example with round numbers. Say a store had 2,000 sessions in a month and 40 purchases, and two of those visits each included a second order. The 40 purchases then happened in 38 sessions.

Divide purchases by sessions, and you get 40 ÷ 2,000 × 100 = 2.0%. Session key event rate with purchase selected counts each session once, however many orders it included. So it counts the 38 sessions and shows 38 ÷ 2,000 × 100 = 1.9%.

Both numbers are right, because they answer different questions. The 2.0% is orders per 100 visits, while the 1.9% is the share of visits that included an order. If second orders in the same visit are rare on your store, the two rates will be almost identical.

Sessions or Users for eCommerce Conversion Rate

Choosing between the session and user versions of eCommerce conversion rate changes the question you’re answering.

The session version answers how often a visit turns into a sale. The user version answers what share of people bought. That makes the user version a good fit for products that shoppers research over several visits before they buy.

User key event rate divides the number of users who triggered the selected key event by your total users. Either rate can come out higher than the other.

If shoppers browse several times before buying once, the user rate can come out higher. If buyers come back and order on several visits, the session rate can come out higher.

Either version answers a fair question, so I’d pick the one that matches how your shoppers buy.

How to Find Your eCommerce Conversion Rate in Google Analytics

The Traffic acquisition report in Google Analytics shows your eCommerce conversion rate for the whole store and for each channel, once you set the Session key event rate column to purchase.

The rate only appears once your store sends purchase data to Google Analytics, and we show how to set that up for WooCommerce in a separate guide.

To get there, open Reports and go to Life cycle » Acquisition » Traffic acquisition.

If your property uses business objectives instead of Life cycle, you’ll find Traffic acquisition under Generate leads.

Set your date range with the date picker in the top right. Then scroll right in the table until you reach the Session key event rate column.

Just below that column’s heading, there’s a menu that reads All events. Open it and choose purchase.

The menu you change matters here. The Key events column has its own separate menu, and choosing purchase there leaves the rate column on All events.

Once the rate column shows purchase, the Total row is your store-wide eCommerce conversion rate. Each channel row shows that channel’s rate, and our guide to Google Analytics channels explains what each channel name covers.

Comparing channel rates shows which kinds of traffic turn into orders. We go deeper on that comparison in our guide to finding the traffic sources that convert best.

If you’d rather calculate purchases ÷ sessions yourself, the same table has both numbers. Set the Key events column’s menu to purchase, and it counts your purchases right beside the Sessions column.

The Ecommerce purchases report sounds like the right place for that count, but its Items purchased column counts product units rather than orders. An order with three items counts as three.

For a fully custom view, we walk through building an exploration in our average order value guide.

How to Find Conversion Rates for Sign-Ups, Forms and Other Store Conversions

The same Session key event rate menu shows the conversion rate for any other key event your store tracks, such as newsletter sign-ups, account creation or form submissions. Open the menu and choose that event instead of purchase.

An event only appears in that menu once it’s tracked and marked as a key event. Event names depend on how your site sends them.

Google’s recommended events include sign_up for new accounts and generate_lead for form or information requests. Enhanced measurement can also send form_submit when someone submits a form.

To mark an event as a key event, go to Admin » Data display » Events and click the star next to its name.

Reading these rates next to your purchase rate can show whether visitors who aren’t buying yet are still signing up or getting in touch.

How to See Your eCommerce Conversion Rate in WordPress

You can see your eCommerce conversion rate inside WordPress, already worked out and shown next to your revenue and average order value, without setting up a report or doing the math yourself.

On MonsterInsights Pro and above, with the eCommerce addon active, go to Insights » Reports. Then choose eCommerce in the report navigation and click Overview.

The Conversion Rate tile is the first tile in the row under the graph. It divides purchases by sessions for the date range you pick.

To see the rate for each channel, open Traffic » Overview from the same report navigation and scroll down to the Traffic Details table.

Its Conversion Rate column shows each channel’s purchases divided by its sessions.

A channel with plenty of sessions but a low conversion rate is worth a closer look before you put more budget behind it.

We tour the rest of the eCommerce reports in our guide to eCommerce tracking in WordPress.

Why Your eCommerce Conversion Rate Shows 0% or Looks Off

A 0% or odd-looking eCommerce conversion rate on a store that’s taking orders points to a tracking problem or a report setting rather than your sales. Ruling those out first keeps you from reacting to a sales change that didn’t happen.

Here are the checks I’d run, matched to what you’re seeing:

• The rate shows 0%: check that purchase events are reaching Google Analytics from your checkout. Google Analytics doesn’t receive ecommerce events automatically, so your store platform or a plugin has to send them.
• Purchase data arrives but the rate still shows 0%: confirm purchase is still marked as a key event. Google Analytics also needs time to process new data, so a brand-new setup can look empty at first.
• The rate looks far too high: check whether the menu under Session key event rate is still on All events, which counts every key event.
• Google Analytics shows fewer purchases than your store’s order records: see our guide on why Google Analytics revenue might not match your store’s orders.
• The rate jumps after a tracking change: compare only date ranges that use the same tracking setup and key events.

If your store runs on WooCommerce, we walk through how to connect WooCommerce to Google Analytics step by step.

WooCommerce Analytics reports your orders and revenue, but it doesn’t calculate a conversion rate, because that takes visit data from an analytics tool.

How to Track Changes in Your eCommerce Conversion Rate

An eCommerce conversion rate is most useful when you compare it with itself over time. That comparison shows whether a change to your store made a difference, whether it’s a redesign, a new ad campaign, a price change or a sale such as Black Friday.

To keep the comparison fair, measure the change against a baseline. Your baseline is the rate for a same-length period before the change, using the same metric and purchase setting.

If you’re measuring the four weeks after a change, for example, the baseline is the four weeks before it.

To compare the two periods in Google Analytics, open the date picker, turn on Compare and pick Previous period, then click Apply. Previous year works too if you want to compare against the same dates last year.

Google Analytics annotations let you mark when a change happened. A single annotation can also cover a date range. With the Analyst role or higher, right-click a point on a line graph, choose Add annotation, enter the details and save it.

It also helps to read the rate next to average order value. A discount can lift your conversion rate while lowering what each order is worth. That’s why a higher rate on its own doesn’t prove a change paid off.

If your rate is lower than you’d like, we cover ways to raise it in our guide to eCommerce conversion optimization tactics.

FAQs About eCommerce Conversion Rate in Google Analytics

That’s it! I hope this article helped you find your eCommerce conversion rate in Google Analytics. If you liked this article, check out the following beginner-friendly guides:

• How to Find Your Average Order Value in Google Analytics
• Effective eCommerce Conversion Optimization Tactics
• How to See Which Google Analytics Traffic Sources Convert Best
• How to Set Up WooCommerce Google Analytics (Track Revenue Correctly)
• How to Track WooCommerce Cart Abandonment in Google Analytics 4

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