A micro-conversion is a smaller but measurable step that indicates a visitor's movement towards the main goal. This includes adding to cart, starting the order process, downloading a price list, playing a video, viewing the contact page or subscribing. They matter in two situations. The first is a low number of main conversions, when a handful of orders a month is not enough to evaluate any change or test; micro-conversions provide enough data for decision-making. The second is diagnostics, because they show at which step people drop off. Watch out for two risks: a micro-conversion is not a goal in itself, and optimising advertising directly towards it leads to a worse actual result. And choose only those that genuinely correlate with purchase, which you should verify by comparing against orders.
See also: Friction in the conversion process, Statistical significance of a test, KPIs for a marketer.
