Traffic Drop vs Conversion Drop: How to Tell the Difference
"Leads are down" has two very different causes: fewer people arrived (a traffic drop), or the same people converted less (a conversion drop). They point at opposite fixes, so telling them apart is the first move.
The one number that decides it
Look at visits. If visits fell, you have a traffic drop: the issue is upstream in ads, delivery, or your traffic sources. If visits held but leads fell, you have a conversion drop: the issue is on the page, in the form, or in tracking.
Why it matters
Chase the wrong one and you waste effort: raising budgets won't fix a broken form, and rebuilding a page won't fix a paused campaign. Splitting traffic from conversion first is the theme of the why did my leads drop framework.
A quick check
Compute your conversion rate (leads ÷ visits) for both periods. If the rate is stable but leads fell, it's traffic. If the rate itself dropped, it's conversion. The conversion drop diagnostic computes this across stages for you.
Example
Illustrative scenario. Visits fell 40% and leads fell 40%. The conversion rate is unchanged, so this is a traffic problem. Look at spend and delivery, not the landing page.
How Quarkad helps
Quarkad tracks both sides, ad delivery and on page conversion, and tells you which one moved when leads drop, so you never fix the wrong half.
Related
FAQ
What if both traffic and rate dropped? Treat them as two incidents, an upstream delivery issue and a separate on page issue, and diagnose each.