What is conversion rate?
Conversion rate is the share of people or deals that move from one step to the next, such as visitor to lead or quote to signed work. Google Ads defines its version as conversions divided by the ad interactions that can be tracked to a conversion in the same period. A revenue team can measure a conversion rate at every step between first interest and a signed agreement.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
Conversion rates show where demand leaks. Forrester notes that a typical lead-centric process converts less than 1% of inquiries into closed deals, which is why the step-by-step rates tell a leader more than the total. The step with the steepest drop is often where management attention pays back fastest. In commercial services, the quote-to-signed-work rate and the inspection-to-repair rate often matter more to the number than any marketing metric.
How to calculate it
Divide the number that reached the next step by the number that entered the current step, for the same group of people or deals.
Common mistake: dividing this month's wins by this month's new leads, when most of those wins came from leads created months earlier.
Example
Fictitious numbersA plumbing services company had 1,000 website visits from property managers in a month, which produced 50 quote requests and 15 signed jobs. Visit-to-request conversion is 5% and request-to-job conversion is 30%. The CRO compares the 30% with the rate for quotes that sellers generate on their own, which is 45%.
"Between first inquiry and signed work, which step loses the most buyers, and do we know why?"
Sources
- Conversion rate: Definition (Google Ads Help) checked 9 Oct 2026
- The Revenue Process Alignment Series, Part 1: The End Of MQLs (Forrester) checked 9 Oct 2026