It is very difficult to accurately calculate the cost-effectiveness of advertising, since this marketing tool usually does not give the full effect immediately. In addition, the growth of trade turnover is often caused by non-advertising factors, for example, changes in the purchasing power of the population due to lower prices, expansion of the distribution network, etc. Therefore, it is almost impossible to obtain accurate data on the economic efficiency of advertising. However, both advertisers and advertisers want to have at their disposal a means of evaluation, even if only approximate.
To calculate the cost-effectiveness, advertising specialists use the following methods:
1. The ratio between the profit received from the additional turnover caused by advertising activities and advertising costs is determined by the formula:
E = Td H Nt / 100 - (Zr + R) (1)
Тд - additional turnover under the influence of advertising, monetary units;
Нт - trade markup per unit of goods,% to the selling price;
P - additional costs for the increase in turnover, monetary units.
The result of advertising activities can be: positive - advertising costs are less than the effect obtained; negative - advertising costs are higher than the obtained effect; neutral - advertising costs are equal to the effect obtained.
R = P H 100 / Z, (2)
3. The economic efficiency of advertising can be identified by the method of targeted alternatives, by comparing the planned and actual indicators, assessed as a result of investing in an advertising campaign. Efficiency is determined by the formula:
E = (Pf - Z) / (Po - Z) H 100 (3)
Pf - the actual change in the volume of profit during the advertising period, monetary units;
By - the planned change in the volume of profit during the advertising period, monetary units;
The effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising media is characterized by the number of consumers reaching, the brightness and depth of the impression that these media leave in the memory of a person, the degree of attracting attention.
The effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising on the consumer can be determined through observations, experiments, surveys.
The observation method is used to study the impact on consumers of individual advertising media. This method is passive, since the observer does not influence the buyer in any way, but, on the contrary, conducts observations unnoticed by him. According to a previously developed scheme, the observer registers the received data, which are then comprehensively analyzed. An observer, for example, notes which stand of a fair or trade exhibition attracts the most attention of buyers, how long pedestrians stay at a particular showcase, how many people enter the store after getting to know the showcase, which product on the showcase attracts more interest and what demand it is in demand ...
The observation method allows one to assess the psychological impact of advertising in natural conditions, in direct communication of the consumer with a certain advertising medium.
Evaluating the effectiveness of individual advertising media, first of all, it is determined whether this means achieves its goal. So, to determine the degree of attraction of buyers' attention to outdoor advertising (showcase), you can use the following formula:
where B is the degree to which the attention of passers-by is attracted; О - the number of people who paid attention to outdoor advertising (showcase) during a certain period; P is the total number of people who walked past the window in the same period.
Such data can be obtained from the readings of checks, punched on the summing cash registers, and by registering the facts of the purchase of the advertised goods by the controllers-cashiers.
An indicator of the effectiveness of tools advertising the retailer itself is the ratio of the number of store visitors during the period of use of these funds to the average number of visitors per day. These data can be obtained by observers or using a photocell.
When using the observation method in all cases, it is necessary to observe a number of conditions: observation should be carried out on weekdays, not characterized by an increased intensity of customer flows (preferably in the middle of the week); the duration of the observation depends on the nature of the advertising medium, the effectiveness of which is to be determined.
Along with the observation method, the experimental method is widely used. This method is active. The study of the psychological impact of advertising here takes place under conditions artificially created by the experimenter. If the observation only fixes how the consumer relates, for example, to a certain display of goods, then the experimenter can rearrange the goods, and then observe the change in the reaction of buyers.
In the same way, the experimenter can create a wide variety of combinations of advertising means and, by comparing the reaction of buyers, choose the most successful one.
The study of the effectiveness of the psychological impact of advertising media through experiments in foreign countries has been especially widely developed. This method is used to determine the impact on buyers of display cases, packaging, press advertisements, radio or television advertisements. So, if you need to assess the psychological impact on the buyer of the packaging of a product, then the same product (for example, washing powder) is placed in different packaging.
The psychological effectiveness of an advertisement such as an advertisement in a newspaper or magazine is determined by the following experiment. The advertisement includes a coupon with the text of the request to send the prospectus, catalog or sample. The buyer must cut this coupon and send it to the trade company, the address of which is indicated in the text of the advertisement. By the number of tickets-requests received from readers, the advertiser judges whether his ad was noticed in periodicals and whether the text of this ad turned out to be sufficiently convincing and interesting. However, it should be noted that the small number of requests received may not be due to the poor quality of the ads, but to the fact that the advertised product itself, for some reason, was not needed by the buyers.
The survey method also refers to active methods of determining the psychological impact of advertising. This method is laborious, but much more reliable than others, since it allows to reveal directly from the buyer himself his attitude not only to the advertising medium as a whole, but also to the individual constituent elements of this medium. Using the survey method, you can assess the impact of an advertising medium on buyers and establish which elements of its design attract the most attention and are better remembered.
To determine the effectiveness of an advertising medium, questionnaires are drawn up, which, according to a pre-developed program, are brought to the attention of consumers in writing, in personal conversations, on radio or television. Analysis of the responses received allows us to draw appropriate generalizations and conclusions.
Conducting surveys is time consuming and involves a large number of people. At the same time, the results obtained cannot be sufficiently complete. Indeed, sometimes even for the buyer himself it is not clear whether he bought the product under the influence of advertising or on the advice of a friend, or was guided by some other considerations. In addition, sometimes verbal questioning of buyers can cause them to be wary. Therefore, it is more advisable to invite them to fill out a questionnaire, setting out the objectives of the survey, so that the buyer knows its purpose and tries to answer the questions more accurately.
The effectiveness of an advertising event or a separate advertising medium can be expressed in the number of consumers covered by the advertisement, as well as in the amount of costs per viewer, reader, etc. So, the expediency of publishing a newspaper ad in a particular print organ is established by determining the total number of people who can read it (the number depends mainly on the circulation of the newspaper), or the size of the cost of the ad per one reader.
Advertising is one of the most mysterious areas of business activity: no one doubts that it is necessary. But how to assess whether it is really worth the money spent on it, whether it has solved the tasks assigned to it, has it made a profit? Further planning of advertising activities and its control during activities depends on the answers to these questions.
It is impossible to answer them unequivocally with mathematical precision, but in the practice of entrepreneurship, approximate methods are used to determine the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, which help to clarify the picture as accurately as possible.
Effectiveness is all you need from advertising
It seems that everything is simple: compare how much money is spent on advertising and how much is earned on the advertised product. But there is a too indirect connection between these factors, because profit depends not only on advertising, and advertising, in turn, can affect differently and on different objects. That is why there is no single theory for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising.
NOTE! Evaluation of advertising effectiveness is also a rather expensive undertaking, so many organizations neglect this difficult and time-consuming procedure. Meanwhile, it is certainly useful, especially during the periods of the "fall" of the market.
To comprehensively assess the effectiveness, you need to research the advertising campaign at all its stages:
- when developing a strategy, benchmarks are developed, with which the achieved ones will then be compared;
- in the process of conducting - it is better to conduct several "slices" of efficiency, at least two, to clarify the dynamics;
- the final of the advertising campaign - analysis of the results achieved.
What does advertising performance consist of?
- Communication efficiency, otherwise called informational. This indicator reflects the number of potential consumers who saw (heard, recognized, etc.) the advertising message. In addition to the quantity, it is also assessed how the opinion of those who were in contact with the advertisement changed. In this regard, the following is assessed:
- quality of advertising delivery - how appropriate is the content and presentation of the advertising "message" for its audience, whether the message has been successfully placed, whether the form has been chosen correctly;
- memorability of key information - it is important that during advertising, the consumer remembers at least the name of the organization or the advertised product;
- impact on the motivation of potential customers;
- the formation of stable associations;
- creating an opinion and attitude towards the advertised product;
- features of a sustainable image of the advertising object;
- ability to attract attention, etc.
- Economic efficiency- the financial result of the advertising campaign. It is the most difficult to evaluate because it requires an unambiguous mathematical approach, which is not possible in the case of advertising. The effect of an advertising campaign can be stretched over time, and the profit can depend on other factors. The approximate calculations are based on data on the dynamics of sales: the relationship between the profit supposedly received from a given advertising campaign and the costs of it is found out.
Rules for evaluating advertising performance
These requirements are caused by the peculiarity and ambiguity of the object of assessment itself. To get the most reliable result, it is worth observing 5 key rules for evaluating the effect of advertising:
- Profitability rule: advertising must generate a profit that exceeds the cost of advertising itself, or at least equal to them. All other results are ineffective. In other words, the game should be worth the candle.
- Criteria selection rules: you need to track changes sequentially, and for this, select specific positions that will be investigated. It can be:
- sales volumes;
- the number of customer requests;
- turnover of goods, etc.
- Conversion rule: it is not advertising itself that is important, but how it is converted into real and measurable performance indicators - in the number of hits (clicks, calls), as well as the number of conversions of these calls into real sales.
- Rule of Margins: it is necessary to evaluate both the best and the worst results in order to maneuver between the means that caused such responses in the future, achieving a “golden mean”.
- Rule of objectivity: You should not sugarcoat the results obtained, since only an honest analysis result will help to improve the effectiveness of advertising. Fixing the failed effect of an advertising campaign will also be effective, it will show gaps in market knowledge and weed out incorrect marketing moves.
IMPORTANT! Even with a comprehensive assessment, each criterion should be able to be assessed separately.
Methods for assessing the economic performance of advertising
This is the most objective indicator, calculated in specific figures, based on data from financial documents. Advertising does not always show an increase in profits; often it is enough that it prevents losses. Let's consider various ways of calculating the ratio of advertising financial factors:
- Comparison of turnover before and after advertising:
- the level of turnover in excess of the expected;
- comparison of the profit for additional turnover and the cost of the advertisement itself.
- Calculating the ROI of your ad(how does the result of each promotion relate to its cost price).
- Analysis of targeted alternatives- to what extent the set objectives of the advertising campaign were solved. It is measured as a percentage:
EE = (Pr fact - Zr / Pr.pl - Zr) x 100%, where:- EE - economic efficiency;
- Pr fact - profit upon the action of the advertising company (in rubles for the selected period);
- NS. pl is the planned profit for the same period;
- З р - advertising costs.
- MethodROI(from the English "Return of Investment" - "return on investment"). To measure the investment component of advertising performance, use the formula:
E p = (B before x P - B after x P) / Z p., where:- E p - advertising efficiency;
- In before - indicators of revenue before the start of the campaign for a certain period;
- After - financial data on revenue for the same period after the advertising campaign;
- Р - profitability of sales of the advertised product (the ratio of the unit price minus the cost price to the net price);
- З р - advertising costs.
- I. Berezin's method- the difference between the planned indicator without taking into account the influence of advertising and the actually achieved figures is calculated (according to the selected criterion - sales or circulation).
- Comparison with competitors- a similar product and a comparable time period are taken into account. Based on the analysis of the level of sales, a conclusion is made about the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.
Methods for assessing communicative effectiveness
Here the numbers will not play a key role, because the object of assessment cannot be expressed in them with all unambiguity. To analyze this advertising factor, the following methods are used:
- interview;
- questioning;
- observation;
- experiment (focus group) - advertising is used in approximately equal markets, first in the same, and then in different proportions;
- testing - tests for the main indicators of the psychological impact of advertising: recognition, memorability, attitude, image, etc.
For more accurate results, the assessment of the communicative component of the effectiveness of advertising should be done in 3 steps:
- Preliminary estimate- helps to avoid miscalculations at the stage of advertising preparation, which is important, especially in expensive projects. It is mandatory to check criteria such as:
- compliance and coverage of the target audience;
- adequate form and content;
- channels for placing and transmitting advertising "message", etc.
- Current control- evaluates the reaction to advertising in dynamics, when it can be corrected.
- Final analysis- is carried out after the completion of the advertising campaign, its results will affect the subsequent advertising activities.
Advertising effectiveness is the power of the impact of advertising on consumers. It is measured by the ratio of advertising costs and an increase in sales, an accurate measurement is impossible, because In addition to advertising (correct definition of the goals and objectives of advertising, knowledge of competitors and target audience, creativity, reach, frequency of coverage and media planning), a lot of other factors affect the sales process.
- Determination of contribution advertising in the marketing of the enterprise and in general its necessity;
- Feasibility assessment preservation (increase, decrease) of the advertising budget;
- Efficiency control individual advertising events and the advertising campaign as a whole;
Advertising efficiency width - how many people were "covered" by the advertisement. Depends on the number of advertising carriers involved (and their coverage), the frequency of coverage (the intensity of the advertising campaign), the duration of the advertising campaign, the volume of one advertising message.
Depth of advertising effectiveness - informational (communicative) effectiveness of advertising - how often people were "seized" by advertising and how well it worked. Indicators of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign - ad recognition, ad memorability (ability to remember an ad), level of motivation (persuasiveness), influence on buying behavior.
| 1 | Cognitive level | Changing knowledge about the company, its products and services. |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Affective level | Formation of a positive attitude towards the manufacturer. |
| 3 | Incentive level | Formation of a positive attitude towards the manufacturer. Consumer behavior (the likelihood of choosing an advertised brand increases). Formation of intentions to enter into contact with the company, to purchase its goods. |
Psychological effectiveness of advertising -
- Message ability create higher expectations for the product (more important than building brand awareness).
- Identity level (the "self-reliance" effect). The level of understanding of the advertising message and, accordingly, its better memorization depends on the degree of its identification, i.e. is determined by the level of his perception by the buyer, as intended directly for him or for people familiar and understandable to him.
- Aesthetic characteristics of the message - the advertising material must be understandable, inspire confidence, "like" the viewer, so that he does not have an additional incentive to switch a channel or radio station, quickly turn a page in a magazine or turn away from a billboard.
- Benchmarking - the basis of the effectiveness of advertising and the initial assessment of the effectiveness of previous advertising activities. Conduct a survey of those who will target your ad campaign, asking them to tell you what they know (or believe to be fact) about your company. The purpose of benchmarking is to identify the degree of knowledge and stereotypes of consumers regarding your company and its products (services), i.e. the current state of affairs (what "sags" from the lines of activity and why). All further advertising should be based on supporting or overcoming these stereotypes !!!
- Competent development of an advertising campaign - from target audience, ad goals to creative (see previous 11 steps).
- Pretest- a preliminary forecast of the effectiveness of the impact of the created version of the advertisement. "Perception map" is an advertising testing method based on a direct assessment by respondents of the presence or absence of significant consumer characteristics of the product under study. The assessment is given by the consumer after familiarization with one or another incentive material related to the product (name, logo, packaging design, advertising message, etc.). Upon the questionnaire survey of respondents, statistical processing of the primary data is carried out in order to obtain an assessment of the product according to the factors of choice that are significant for the consumer. As a result of the study, the indices of attraction of involuntary attention, attractiveness and memorability of an advertisement are determined. A method for measuring ad recallability, which is based on three components: "spontaneous recollection" - an advertisement is recalled when a product category is mentioned (for example, a category of "washing powders", a product - "Tide"); "recollection upon presentation of the product" - the advertisement is recalled after pronouncing the name of a specific product or demonstrating it; "memories after retelling the advertisement". The sum of these three indicators is the proportion of the target audience that remembered the ad message. And they look at how the indicators relate to each other.
where X 1i is the number of consumers who remembered advertising spontaneously,) X 2i is the number of consumers who remembered advertising after presenting the advertised brand,) X 3i is the number of consumers who remembered the advertisement after retelling its content, YK 1i, K 2i, K 3i, - are used when a consumer names several competitive brands at the same time and it is necessary to determine their weight in terms of consumer preferences. - Measuring the effectiveness of individual advertising media. Interviewing clients about the source of information about the company and drawing up a report. In any case, the results will be approximate. consumers often do not remember, confuse the source of information or name the last, but not the first, seen (heard) advertising medium. For example, a consumer found out about a company from a video, immediately before making a purchase, he chose a company on the Internet, and will name the pillar sign seen at the store as a source of information.
- Criteria for evaluating the economic efficiency of advertising:
- The table shows
that advertising activity:
- brought slightly more visitors - only 50 more,
- however, the conversion rate from visit to shopping has risen sharply - from 29 to 42Y
- The size of the advertising audience and the cost of advertising. For a quantitative assessment of efficiency, the CPM (cost per thousand) and CPM (cost per rating point) methods are recommended.
- Financial efficiency of advertising (formula for calculating advertising efficiency):
where E is the economic effect of advertising; Тд - additional turnover under the influence of advertising; Нт - trade markup for goods (in C selling price); Uр - advertising costs; Uд - additional costs for the increase in turnover. - Investigation of the effectiveness of advertising "on the trail" advertising campaign, among the same audience that participated in the benchmarking study. You don't have to talk to the same people, but it is important to talk to the same type of people who you think will be affected by the ad. This study will answer the same questions as benchmarking, and thus the results can be compared.
- Post test- analysis of the effectiveness of advertising messages, designed to study whether the advertising has achieved its goal and what conclusions can be drawn from the advertising campaign. In practice, the most common criterion is memorization of an advertisement (or service). Other commonly monitored dimensions are ad item knowledge, awareness, image rating, and your company's preference.
Cumulative (deferred) advertising effect - the impact of advertising has a latent (latent) period and the property to accumulate and manifest itself not immediately, but when the quantitative and qualitative critical threshold is reached (memorability, recognition, audience coverage, etc.). Advertising takes time to influence consciousness and nudge to action. On average, such a period of time is taken equal to 10-12 months.
Synergistic effect of advertising (enhancement of the effect according to the principle of geometric progression) - advertising works according to the principle 1 1 = 3. The main factors influencing synergy are exposure time, target audience coverage, frequency of coverage (repetitions).
- The environment that really surrounds the advertisement.
- Advertising activities of competitors.
- Seasonality (heaters do not go in the July heat even with very decent advertising support).
- Weather.
- Price.
- Range.
- Scope of the company.
- Impact of the previous ad campaign.
- Inertia in buying behavior.
- Consumer inflation expectations.
- The availability of a product or service to the consumer.
- Market saturation.
- Advertising cost.
- Solvency of demand.
- Fashion.
- Other factors ...
- Fast effect forgetting advertisements (after 4 weeks).
- Consumer reactions on advertising in the conditions of real contact and on the same advertising, but indoors, when conducting research, built on the type of focus groups, are completely different. The secret is that the state of the consumer is changing a lot. Consequently, the filters of information perception also change, respectively, and the advertising message is perceived differently.
- Choose to check respondents , as much as possible corresponding to the portrait of the consumer, which in practice is not always available.
- "False negative" results (exclusion of potentially effective materials) and "false positive" results (inclusion of ineffective materials). This is due to the fact that when conducting a study, people are introduced to the options "forced".
- It's almost impossible to evaluate an image campaign , as a result of which no one contacted, but many remembered the trade mark and subsequently became clients.
- Clients are not always eager to tell you what is really wrong with you. This is due to such a psychological phenomenon as "the desire to avoid confrontation."
- Advertising budget structure for most enterprises, it varies greatly by month: how can you compare the effectiveness of advertising for two months, when in the first half of all advertising costs were spent on the production of a new brochure, and in the second, a third of them was “gobbled up” by the upcoming video, and its placement will only go next month?
- Lack of specific goals and tasks of the advertising campaign.
- Incomparability of goals and objectives an advertising campaign with the goals of marketing activities, as well as corporate strategy.
- Lack of information about the target consumer and the sources of information received by him (channels of access to the consumer).
- Lack of feedback with the consumer.
- Segmentation errors.
- Low qualification of employees responsible for advertising, as well as employees of advertising agencies.
- Lack of systematization and consistency when conducting promotions.
- Charge development and advertising placement to professionals.
- Change your current ad. You cannot reach a new goal by going the old way! Ditch the advertising concept entirely and come up with something completely new. Entrust the development of advertising to new people (new employees or a new ad agency). Change the form and content of advertisements, colors, etc.).
- See how everyone is doing (for example, modules in the press) and vice versa (instead of rectangular advertising - round or square, on color pages - black and white layouts, etc.).
- Test fictional ads if not in focus groups, then at least on friends - acquaintances from the target group (on people from the group for which the advertisement is designed).
(c) Unified Announcement Service
And yet, one can say a lot about the fact that economic indicators are not a measure of marketing effectiveness. But how in practice can you measure (and the effect, as I noted earlier, are numbers) the effectiveness of an advertising campaign?
I am deliberately not talking about the effectiveness of marketing, about a long-term advertising campaign or a marketing program - in these cases and goals may be different and the effect is considered differently. But even the formula for analyzing the dynamics of sales volumes over a long period will allow marketers and financiers of an enterprise not only to assess the effectiveness of marketing activities in a specific period, but also to identify seasonal trends (fluctuations) in sales.
Still, let's try to assess the effect of a local promotion for now. There are a number of formulas that help to more accurately assess the effect of a marketing and advertising event. First, let's decide
What tasks do you need to cope with when advertising a marketing item?
regular readers have already noticed that I constantly draw attention to the fact that it is not necessary to count something in marketing - accountants and economists consider! In marketing, it is imperative to satisfy the market!But in management, understanding how effective you are in your efforts is very important.
- commercial efficiency- first, to solve the problem sales growth
- communicative efficiency- secondly, digital communication indicators(the quality of communication of the subject of marketing with the market).
- economic efficiency- thirdly, you need to spend it economically viable(economic indicators)
Commercial efficiency
Calculation of turnover under the influence of advertising (quantitative assessment of sales)
Making the sales effort unnecessary and securing the sale is a fundamental challenge. Therefore, we consider how the turnover has changed under the influence of advertising, in relation to the turnover before advertising:T d = (T c * D * P) / 100where:
T d - additional turnover caused by promotional events, rubles;
T c - the usual average daily turnover (before the beginning of the advertising period), rubles;
D - the number of days of accounting for goods turnover (in the period of active advertising);
P is the relative increase in the average daily turnover for the advertising period in comparison with pre-advertising
nmm,%.
Please note that your turnover may change and not at all due to the quality of advertising - seasonal demand for the product has begun, problems with logistics have appeared. All this and so on can affect the growth of trade. For the calculation, you will need to either neglect this, or take it into account with other formulas and compensation coefficients.
The number of receipts with the advertised product (quality indicator of advertising)
The indicator of the increase in the number of checks (invoices) with goods used in advertising is calculated in relation to the indicator before advertising.The amount of the advertised product in the receipt (advertising quality indicator)
If we assume that advertising stimulates quantitative consumption, then it is also important to fix the number of goods in the basket (account) during the advertising period. Please note, advertising has a cumulative effect of attention to the advertised product and a fading effect after the ad is stopped. How these effects affect sales can also be analyzed.Product in category
Purchases of the advertised product as a percentage of total purchases in the product category. Why is this metric important? Product sales can grow under the influence of advertising even if the volume of category sales falls. This indicator allows you to assess the quality of advertising with a general drop in sales during the crisis, at the end of the season or off-season.
Communicative advertising performance indicators
The communicative indicators of an advertising campaign are expressed in the form of the results of observation and analysis of the behavior of real and potential consumers. The information obtained in the course of such observations and analysis, as well as conclusions, cannot be reduced to any standard form. Therefore, each time the report on high-quality advertising performance results is unique in its own way.
Reach
Reach - the percentage of the target audience who viewed the ad within a certain period of time (the number of contacts with the target audience).
K - Number of contacts
Р - The size of the audience of the advertising channel (advertising carrier) during the advertising period
Ad recall
Remembrance of advertising. In response to a question about advertising for a product, the respondent begins to mention specific names. For example, to the question "What television advertisements of cellular operators have you seen on television?" the respondent can answer unequivocally by naming the trade mark, or he can begin to retell the content of the video clip. The percentage of respondents who call this out of the total number of respondents determines the quality of ad recall. Brand awareness
Criteria such as recall or brand recognition are assessed (depending on the goals of the advertising campaign). If both goals are present, brand recall is assessed first (“What brands of mobile phones come to your mind first?”), And then recognition (“Which of these brands have you seen before?”). The first measurement is carried out without prompts, the second - with prompts in the form of showing the images of stamps (or a list of their names) to the respondents.Consumer action
Actions are expressed in behavioral reactions to advertising (buying, preparing for a purchase, seeking additional information, ignoring, etc.). When trying to find out about the "action" using a survey method, usually those who have seen an advertisement are asked the following question: "Which mobile phone stores have you recently visited?"CTR is an indicator of the communicative effectiveness of an advertisement, measured as the ratio of the number of certain actions as a reaction to an advertisement (clicks on advertisements, store visits, leaflets handed out) to the number of impressions of this ad.
CTB is an indicator of the effectiveness of online advertising, measured as the ratio of the number of visitors to a commercial web resource attracted by advertising and made a purchase to the total number of visitors attracted by the advertisement. The metric reflects the conversion of visitors and in some cases is called the conversion rate. as in the previous case, the purchase itself (not its value) is taken as an "action".
