What’s A Good Conversion Rate?
Before you start to think about search engine optimziation, I always recommend that the content and structure of a website is built with conversion elements. When it comes to conversion rates, they’re not all created equal. I have seen conversion rates for clients over the years as high as 15% and as low as 0%. It’s one thing to say that 2% is good, but it’s quite another to say that 2% is good for landing pages within such-and-such industry. In truth, 2% is not bad for conversion rates. If you can snag a 2% on any of your landing pages then you are doing pretty well. But what did you have to do to get to that?
If 2% is your starting point then you can probably do better. You should consider testing your landing page and using Website Optimizer to help you achieve the best mix of variables for your landing page. Obviously, 4% is a better conversion rate than 2% so if you can improve your conversion rate then that’s even better.
But another startling fact – startling if you’re new to online marketing, or marketing in general – is that conversion rates differ from industry to industry. What is considered good for one industry may only be mediocre for another. And there are several factors that influence conversion rate averages. It is important to have some idea of what is considered normal for your industry so that you can benchmark your own success against that of others in the same niche. One way you can do that is to ascribe goals for your landing pages within Google Analytics.
Conversion rate measurement is one important metric. You can’t change or influence what you don’t measure so keep an eye on your conversion rate and whatever it is when you start your measurements can probably be improved upon.
11 Responses to “What’s A Good Conversion Rate?”
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Going back to my direct mail days I’ve always thought that ‘conversion rates’ would be more meaningful if you included a measurement of the value of each conversion. So, for example, if your are trying to get free subscribers for your newsletter then 4% may not be that great. But if you are selling personal jets then .0000000004% would be more than super.
Hi wbw_Jeff – Thanks for your comment and reading! Very good point it is indeed all relative and is really related to your industry and the marketing medium, for sure!
.0000000004% would not be a good conversion rate for anything… even personal jets. I get your point though.
Hi Matt – Glad you get the point!
I always get asked this question too. There is no right answer, no “average conversion rate” that one should strive for. I have seen customer conversion rates of 40%….and personally think a low customer conversion rate of 2% is indicative of low quality traffic, me-too product, bad pricing or some other failure of the list and/or offer. In the catalog world, you could not survive with a 2% response rate from your customer file unless you had very high average order values (i.e. >%500) or gross product margins (i.e. >80%). I think the important thing is that, as an online marketer you are measuring the conversion rate from your various incoming customer streams and you are focused on continuous improvement within each stream. The actual rate will depend on the product, offer, quality of the incoming stream (catalog response? organic search? PPC? DRTV?), economic environment, landing page, etc. Just like mailing a list repeatedly overtime, you track your conversion rate over time from the customer segment and strive to “improve the test result over the control”.
Hi Terry,
Thanks for chiming in here and the thoughts regarding conversion rates. I agree about your state regarding the catalog world (I agree with you!)…
Nick,
Good article and it’s important to have benchmarks for conversion. Three to four percent reminds me of the direct mail days when this was a pretty good return. Agree that conversion rates vary by industry but I have seen 10 to 15% conversion depending on the offer.
Mark
Hi Mark,
Thanks for reading and your comment…it is amazing to think back to the direct mail industry and 3 to 4% conversation rates and how great everyone thought they were…
It can be pretty random, and if you are using PPC to get people to the landing/squeeze page, 2% is pretty abysmal, and you really need to look at your adverts.
Recently for one client, the page I put together with the test campaign got an astonishing 50% of visitors registering.
The adverts were very targeted, and the landing page was not all that brilliant visually. The copy was simple, but to the point.
Once the advertising was broadened, conversion dropped back to 10%, and with further changes to the landing page, increased back to 15-20%.
That’s the great thing about this form of marketing, it is so measurable and relatively cheap.
Hi Karl,
You are right on, it can sometimes be fairly random it is good to hear your success and testing conversion story as well!
A lot have been talked about conversion for Ecommerce and newsletters signups,
Does anybody know what’s an avarage conversion rate for a landing page that sells specific service trade in the home imorovement field?
All we ask is a Phone# and a name for a free estimate.
On the same note – do you guys reccomend when building a landing page for such service to “lock” the page as is or to leave the navigation bar active so then can still wonder your site?