Hard conversions VS soft conversions

I want to give you guys a quick look at the differenced between hard conversions and soft conversions. People tend to think that a conversion is simply a conversion, but that's not always the case. Knowing the difference between these two types will greatly help you get a better understanding into data-driven marketing

As you propably already know, a conversion happens at the end of a buyer's journey. It's in many cases the most important metric to measure. The conversion can be a sale, lead or any other kind of end game.

The impact of a hard VS soft conversion is potentially huge, so it's important to get this right.

Hard conversions

Hard conversions are essentially relating to hard sales transactions. Something that drives direct revenue for your business. Your business earn money right there and then when the actual conversion happens.

Examples of hard conversions

  • Transactions
  • Sales
  • Average transaction size
  • Conversions  ($)
  • Conversion rate ($)

As you can see these types of conversions are hard sales, they bring in revenue at the point of completion of the conversion goal.

Soft conversions

Soft conversion deals with those non transactional things so like downloads, signups, subscriptions and other things. SO whatever it is that you want the user to do at the end of your campaign funnel that is non transactional, that is a soft conversion.

A lead can become a hard conversion later down the line, but for now it's just a soft conversion. Same with newsletter signups, they can enter into your automatic email funnel and at some point later become a paying customer.

Examples of soft conversions

  • Leads
  • Newsletter signups
  • Free downloads
  • Conversions  (non $)
  • Conversion rate (non $)

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