Overview

Incremental Conversions are the extra conversions caused by a particular marketing action beyond the baseline activity.

What is Incremental Conversions?

Incremental conversions are among the most vital metrics in ecommerce marketing. These represent the number of additional conversions that a specific marketing strategy produces, above and beyond organic or “baseline” conversions—conversions happening without any promotional push. In simpler terms, these are conversions that would not have occurred without the specific marketing initiatives you’ve employed. This metric allows ecommerce firms to quantify the true return on their marketing investment and helps strategize future campaigns.

Formula

Incremental Conversions = Total Conversions – Baseline Conversions

Example

Consider an online clothing brand “Brand X.” They run a campaign promoting their new summer collection. Without the campaign, Brand X has a baseline conversion of 200 orders per day. When the campaign is in effect, they receive 300 orders. Hence, the Incremental conversions for this campaign are 300 (Total conversions) – 200 (Baseline conversions) = 100.

Why is Incremental Conversions important?

Incremental conversions help understand marketing’s direct impact on enhancing conversions. This metric provides transparency in marketing effectiveness and allows businesses to allocate their budget smartly across various marketing activities. It also assists in identifying the most and least impactful strategies to optimize performance.

Which factors impact Incremental Conversions?

To boost Incremental conversions, businesses can explore various strategies like targeting potential customers effectively, personalizing marketing messages, offering discounts or vouchers, and optimizing website or product page designs. Regular A/B testing and tweaking the strategies as per customer feedback and behavior is also beneficial.

How can Incremental Conversions be improved?

Some factors that can affect Incremental conversions include target audience demographics, promotional strategies, the personalization level in advertising, competitor activities, market trends, and overall user experience on the business’s ecommerce platform.

What is Incremental Conversions’s relationship with other metrics?

Incremental conversions directly impact a business’s revenue and profitability, influencing other metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). An increase in Incremental conversions can potentially lead to a decrease in CAC and an increase in ROAS, marking a successful marketing campaign.

Free essential resources for success

Discover more from Lifesight

  • The Future of Retail Growth scaled - Lifesight

    Published on: October 17, 2025

    The Future of Retail Growth: How Unified Measurement Powers Profitability

    Presented at Advertising Week New York 2025

  • Incrementality Adjusted Attribution

    Published on: September 3, 2025

    Incrementality-adjusted Attribution: Boost True ROAS Accuracy

    Incrementality-adjusted Attribution blends lift and attribution to deliver true iROAS, bridging marketing dashboards with CFO-trusted ROI.

  • Best Incrementality Testing Tools

    Published on: September 2, 2025

    6 Best Incrementality Testing Tools in 2025 [UPDATED]

    The Best 6 incrementality testing tools for 2025 to prove causal lift, optimize ad spend, and improve ROI with geo tests, MMM & attribution.