White paper conversion actions are the desired events that are performed by readers. Typical desired actions can include requests for product samples, subscription submissions, product orders or other measurable actions.

Sample Requests - Sample requests are messages or form submissions from people that identify a sample product that they would like to receive. Sample requests commonly come from promotional offers for samples. It is recommended to use unique sample identifiers for each white paper to allow for tracking.

Subscriptions - A subscription page is a web page form that allows users to submit contact and qualifying information to activate or enable a subscription service. The number of subscriptions to an information service can indicate the interest level users have in a particular area.

Purchases - Purchases are orders for products or services. Identifying the purchases that result from white papers may be performed by matching customer contact information from order forms with contact information contained within white paper registration requests.

Inquiry to Conversion Ratio - The inquiry to conversion ratio is a comparison of the number of desired actions (such as purchases) to the number of inquiries that are received.

This figure shows some of the measurements for conversions that are related to white paper marketing. This example shows that white papers may offer free product or service samples, which encourage readers to submit (sample requests) their name, contact information and email address. Subscription services may be referenced in the white paper which obtains the readers name and email address, opening a relationship channel with the reader (a willingness to periodically receive information). Purchase conversions may be tracked (direct sales or online orders) by matching the order contact information with the white paper download contact information (name or email).