Conversion tracking tells you how many visitors got in touch and where they came from. For a service business the most important thing to measure is a successful form submission. It has to be measured from the submission succeeding, not from the button being pressed.

First decide what you count

Write down what is a conversion and what is not. A successful contact form is a conversion. Opening the contact page is not.

  • Main conversion: a submitted contact or quote request form.
  • Supporting events: a click on the phone number or email link.
  • Not a conversion: a page view, scrolling, a button click.

Measure the successful submission, not the click

The most common mistake is to measure the press of the Submit button. That also counts attempts where the form returned an error and no message was sent.

Contact Form 7 sends the browser a wpcf7mailsent event only when the message has really been sent. Use it as the trigger. With other forms, use the equivalent success event or a thank-you page that cannot be reached any other way.

Do not send personal data to analytics

Name, email address, phone number and message content do not belong in an analytics event. Send only the fact that a form was submitted, from which page, and which form it was.

Run the test three times: accept cookies, reject cookies, and leave the choice unmade. Each time, check what is sent to analytics. If events are sent before consent, something is wrong in the settings.

Remember that the figures are always an estimate. Some visitors reject cookies and do not appear in the reports.

Check that nothing is counted twice

Submit a test form and watch the real-time view in analytics to see how many events appear. Two events from one submission mean that the same tracking is installed in two places, usually both in a plugin and in Tag Manager.

Check also that the message really arrived in your inbox. Tracking can work while the messages go to spam.

Read the report correctly

Compare the number of conversions with the messages received. If analytics shows 20 and there are 12 in the inbox, something is counting wrongly.

Look at conversions by landing page and traffic source. That shows which pages and channels bring enquiries. Analytics and conversion tracking helps with setting it up, and conversion optimization with improving the results.

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