The number that matters is "how many more users are signing up since we changed"? The answer is NOT 5.2%.
Example: I have a 1% conversion rate on 100,000 visitors. 1,000 customers! Yay! I change something and I get it up to 2% on the next 100,000 visitors. 2,000 customers.
Which is a better description: "I doubled my conversion rate" or "I increased my conversion rate by 1%?" I'd go with the former.
But the other reason why it's a bad idea to quote percentages of percentages is that there is no indication whether the claimed improvements are actually statistically significant. I didn't see any data in the article to indicate they are, and what little I know about conversions from my own observations is that they vary by at least 10% depending on totally random factors.
>Which is a better description: "I doubled my conversion rate" or "I increased my conversion rate by 1%?" I'd go with the former.
I see your point and I'd use it if I needed to flatter myself. But I'm sticking to the latter. And I'd be sure to mention the starting baseline as well.
Help yourself. Just don't use that type of language in any conversation with anyone else on the planet because you'll likely confuse the hell out of them (take note of the "wtf is this guy talking about" downvotes you've received on this thread)
It's not about flattery. It's about metrics that matter and revenue. Doubling your conversion rate pretty much doubles your revenue. That aside, the goal here is communication. I'd wager that if you said that you doubled your conversion rate, people would grok what it meant (1% to 2% or 5% to 10%-- either way, a big win because it'd double revenue and profit down the funnel). If you said you increased your conversion rate by 10%, I'd wager people would assume that meant something like 10% to 11%.
I don't rely on opinion-polling to determine who is right, esp. when it comes to questions related to science.
>conversation with anyone else on the planet
On your planet, a move from 0.0001% to 0.001% would be reported as "an improvement of 1000%" No thanks.
> It's about metrics that matter and revenue.
Yes, we established long ago that it's about marketing-speak versus math.
So, since you have so many upmods, perhaps you can tell me what happens in your world when the conversion rate goes from 0% to 1%? :-)
The percentage change in users is the interesting number. If someone said "My conversions went up by 100 per week!" I would say "What percentage increase is that?" If someone said "My conversions went up five percentage points!" I would say "What percentage increase was that?" If they said "My conversions went up 20%," I would know what I wanted to know.
I expect hackers to use metrics that are at least defined over the range they are supposed to be used. Imagine that the conversion rate goes from 0% to 1%. I report 1% improvement, the value I measured. You? (1-0)/0 = what percent?
It's a one percentage point improvement. Wrong terminology is responsible for 95% of this thread.
It wouldn't be an increase of 1%. It would be an increase of one percentage point OR an increase of 100%.
This entire thread could be resolved by acknowledging the differences between percent and percentage points.
