How is conversion rate calculated?
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The formula: unique conversions divided by delivered emails, multiplied by 100.
So if you sent to 10,000 subscribers and 150 completed the action you were measuring (a purchase, a trial signup, a form fill), your conversion rate is 1.5%.
Two things to nail down before the math matters:
What counts as a conversion? That's on you to define. Conversion rate is only meaningful if you've agreed on what "converting" means for this specific email. A newsletter drives different actions than a cart-abandonment sequence. Set the goal first, then measure against it.
Why delivered, not sent? Bounced messages never reached anyone. If you divide by everyone you sent to, you're penalizing yourself for addresses that were never reachable. Using delivered emails as the denominator keeps the calculation honest.
Conversion rate tells you about the full funnel from inbox to action. If you want to isolate whether the email content earned the click (vs. whether the landing page earned the conversion), look at click-through rate and click-to-conversion rate separately. A high CTR with a low conversion rate points to a landing page problem, not an email problem.
For a deeper look at setting up the tracking to capture conversions in the first place, see how to track email conversions with UTM parameters and analytics tools.
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