What is conversion?

The definition of conversion in marketing is when **a user performs a desired action in response to a **call-to-action (CTA) placed in an ad, offer, app or even push notification. What that conversion action is varies depending on the campaign and the mobile marketer’s objectives. An app conversion, also known as a conversion event, could be a download, install, sign-up, or purchase, among other actions.

Marketers measure their app conversion volume to assess the performance of a campaign or advertising channel or the impact of a change to the user experience. An app can track conversions by calculating its conversion rate, or the percentage of users who have completed a desired action.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with conversion are key to assessing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. You can only determine your return on ad spend (ROAS) if you measure how many users convert as a cause of that spend. Conversion rate is particularly important when running mobile user acquisition (UA) campaigns because it can measure the success of each campaign. It can also be used to set return on investment (ROI) expectations when scaling a campaign.

When establishing your KPIs it’s important to look at the conversion events that align with your company’s goals. For example, a high conversion rate for installs is a positive outcome, but that won’t necessarily translate into greater revenue from in-app purchases (IAPs). In this case, the conversion rate for installs and in-app purchases both need to be considered in your analysis to learn how to move users from install to purchase.

Conversion rates are also an effective way of:

• Comparing and contrasting the performance of multiple advertising channels.
• Identifying valuable users by measuring events further down the funnel. This information can then be fed back into the funnel to aid segmentation, targeting, and optimization of campaign performance.
• Spotting issues with an app’s user experience (UX) and highlighting areas for improvement. For example, a lower-than-expected conversion rate may indicate that users are having problems signing in.
• Testing development changes. For example, if the onboarding process is overhauled and conversion significantly improves, this is an indication that the onboarding was a critical step in the customer journey.

There isn’t a single conversion rate that can be used to define success across the mobile advertising industry, but research into industry benchmarks and vertical-specific conversion expectations can help. You can use this research to compare these figures with the performance of your in-house advertising campaigns across a selection of channels and advertisers.

However, here are a few examples of conversion events across verticals, with each example getting further down the funnel.

Education: A user subscribes to the app’s newsletter.

Utility: A user downloads and installs the app for the first time.

E-commerce: A user adds three items to their cart.

Banking: A user requests a call with a financial advisor.

Gaming: A user purchases virtual currency to use in-game.

In mobile marketing, a goal is the strategic outcome you're aiming for, while a conversion is the specific user action that contributes toward that goal. For example, if your goal is to drive subscription revenue, your key conversion events might include a free trial sign-up, an in-app upgrade, or a successful payment. Understanding this distinction helps marketers identify which actions to measure and optimize across the funnel.

Improving conversion rates starts with removing friction and delivering value early. For app marketers, this means optimizing everything from ad creative and targeting to onboarding flows and call-to-action placement. Some common tactics include:

• Refining creative messaging to align with user intent
• A/B testing landing pages or app store assets
• Streamlining onboarding flows to reduce drop-off
• Using deep linking to guide users directly to key conversion points

High-performing teams constantly test and iterate based on conversion insights, using real-time data to evolve strategy at every stage of the user journey.

A conversion is only useful moving forward if you know where it came from. That’s where event measurement and attribution tools come in. By assigning conversions to their originating source—such as an ad campaign, influencer link, or push notification—marketers gain clarity into performance. This visibility enables better budgeting, audience targeting, and creative testing. Mobile measurement partners (MMPs) like Adjust make it possible to assign value to every conversion touchpoint, whether it's a click, view-through, or post-install event.

Accurately measuring conversions is central to any effective mobile marketing strategy. As an MMP, Adjust provides the infrastructure and tools marketers need to track, analyze, and optimize conversion events across the full user journey. From installs and sign-ups to in-app purchases and subscriptions, Adjust’s event tracking capabilities help teams understand which campaigns drive results, how users move through the funnel, and where to focus spend for maximum impact.

Explore how Datascape, Adjust’s solution for unified analytics, delivers a real-time view of your most important conversion metrics.

To learn more about conversion measurement or to see hands-on how we can grow your app business, request a demo today.