Do these figures seem reasonable?

[Kerwin]

I'm trying to determine a specific market campaign's conversion rate.

From a bit of Googling, it seems that 4.4% is the average conversion rate for Google AdWords, which I must admit sounds pretty low. I was working off the assumption 7.5% to 10% would be more accurate, and that landing page conversion rates would sit somewhere between 5% and 10%.

What numbers do you generally make use of? I'll be optimising ads and landing pages myself.

 

[wayzgoose]

I suppose it all depends what business it is. Ours is usually around the 2% mark.

 

[fisicx]

I’ve had 60% CTR for Google ads and close to 50% conversion. This was for a very niche service and a highly optimised landing page.

The more long tail or niche the better

 

[Kerwin]

I’ve had 60% CTR for Google ads and close to 50% conversion. This was for a very niche service and a highly optimised landing page.

The more long tail or niche the better

I won't start the campaign until I have more experience from reading some marketing material. Hopefully, I'll be able to optimise my landing pages that well. I don't expect significant problems, though.

I do need to investigate the best-case and worst-case scenarios.

 

[fisicx]

The landing page is key. Get this right and everything else falls into place.

Sell something that is difficult to source or unique to something and you are off to a good start. Sell something you can easily find on eBay and it’s not worth the effort.

 

[Kerwin]

The landing page is key. Get this right and everything else falls into place.

Sell something that is difficult to source or unique to something and you are off to a good start. Sell something you can easily find on eBay and it’s not worth the effort.

This is a social media site so marketing will be interesting. I have a strong product idea with a well-defined customer type, but getting the first few users on a social media site will be difficult.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Unfortunately, the overall average conversion rate tells you nothing useful, CPC, CTR and conversion rate differ wildly for markets and even niches/segments of markets. This recently updated research gives a good idea of the differences by industry: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/29/google-adwords-industry-benchmarks

Plus, a whole host of other factors determine what is a good conversion rate is; e.g. service led sites and ecommerce sites have big differences, the level of competition in your market/niche has a big bearing, as does product pricing and delivery options for ecommerce.

Finally being average is usually a waste of time PPC wise. The vast majority of average performers will be losing money on PPC campaigns, as fisicx says, really high conversion rates are possible. We have campaigns performing at scale for clients that deliver 30-50% conversion in industries where the average is 5%, other clients achieving a 25% conversion rate when the industry average is 2.5% (they used to lose money on this service).

The best thing to do is approach this the other way around. Do some keyword research and see what the CPC (cost per click) is, then work out what what profit you make at 2%, 5%, 10% (etc) conversion rate, plus factor in the CPC being double and work out the impact of that (as your initial Google Quality Score will likely mean much higher early CPCs). Often when you do that you realise that the average conversion will not work for you.

 

[Kerwin]

Unfortunately, the overall average conversion rate tells you nothing useful, CPC, CTR and conversion rate differ wildly for markets and even niches/segments of markets. This recently updated research gives a good idea of the differences by industry: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/02/29/google-adwords-industry-benchmarks

Plus, a whole host of other factors determine what is a good conversion rate is; e.g. service led sites and ecommerce sites have big differences, the level of competition in your market/niche has a big bearing, as does product pricing and delivery options for ecommerce.

Finally being average is usually a waste of time PPC wise. The vast majority of average performers will be losing money on PPC campaigns, as fisicx says, really high conversion rates are possible. We have campaigns performing at scale for clients that deliver 30-50% conversion in industries where the average is 5%, other clients achieving a 25% conversion rate when the industry average is 2.5% (they used to lose money on this service).

The best thing to do is approach this the other way around. Do some keyword research and see what the CPC (cost per click) is, then work out what what profit you make at 2%, 5%, 10% (etc) conversion rate, plus factor in the CPC being double and work out the impact of that (as your initial Google Quality Score will likely mean much higher early CPCs). Often when you do that you realise that the average conversion will not work for you.

Interesting. Thank you.

Yeah, I've been playing around with the Google Keyword Planner and have been playing around with the figures in Excel. I'll try out various outcomes.

 

[fisicx]

This is a social media site so marketing will be interesting. I have a strong product idea with a well-defined customer type, but getting the first few users on a social media site will be difficult.

In which case you will probably lose more than you make. Social Media works in a whole different way.

I know one SM channel that built a free game and spent all their marketing on promoting the game. They got traffic to the SM site through in game promotions.

 

[Kerwin]

In which case you will probably lose more than you make. Social Media works in a whole different way.

I know one SM channel that built a free game and spent all their marketing on promoting the game. They got traffic to the SM site through in game promotions.

I'm not over-fussed about making money directly, but my big aim is to get people to sign up for a free account and hopefully offer some incentives to invite friends/family to the site.

I haven't fully worked out the plan, but I'm not only money orientated.

 

[Mark T Jones]

In line with the above, averages can be very deceptive

My average was well below 1%, but

The 99% self-eliminated very quickly

The 1% would earn me thousands of pounds, which made it worthwhile

 

[thinkfast]

According to my experience and knowledge online 2% average is good. And members are describing in above reply that if you have very attractive, optimized landing page then can in crease average ... for me 2% is enough to make / earn good amount of money online.

 

[fisicx]

According to my experience and knowledge online 2% average is good. And members are describing in above reply that if you have very attractive, optimized landing page then can in crease average ... for me 2% is enough to make / earn good amount of money online.

Sorry to say you knowledge is not very good. How many different campaigns have you run to accept an average of 2%?

 

[thinkfast]

Sorry to say you knowledge is not very good. How many different campaigns have you run to accept an average of 2%?

Sorry, i think i replied in wrong thread ..... i am actually not talking abot paid campaigns ... i am talking about normal promotion by digital marketing service, even if you are on first page of google about 100 will check and 1 or 2 will convert. Its just part of online marketing strategies that 2% is well enough.

Running paid campaign for few clients and see good improvement (30 plus percentage at least).

 

[fisicx]

Sorry, i think i replied in wrong thread ..... i am actually not talking abot paid campaigns ... i am talking about normal promotion by digital marketing service, even if you are on first page of google about 100 will check and 1 or 2 will convert. Its just part of online marketing strategies that 2% is well enough.

Running paid campaign for few clients and see good improvement (30 plus percentage at least).

Even that is wrong. Ranking well for the right keywords can convert far higher than 2%

 

[HFE Signs]

Ours is always very low, due to the nature of bespoke print people like to email back and forth before making the payment and often pay by phone, thus not be counted or tracked by analytics.

Be careful when looking at market average, as above every product/industry is different and what really counts is you getting yours to be the most efficient and then do the costs stack up to make a worth while profit.

 

[sjr4x4]

I've been running an Adwords campaign inhouse continuously since 2003. Until around 2015, we would average around 30 - 40% conversion rates. Since then, it dropped down 25%, but so did our spend and we never manage to spend our daily budget due to Google's continuing tinkering.

As others say, it depends on the industry, 2% average may seem low, but if it's a high-value product and generates a good return, it doesn't matter, We have a decent conversion rate, but a low-cost product. The campaign ticks over with little intervention, so makes it very cost-effective. If we went below 15%, it wouldn't be viable.

So no absolutes, depends on aims, objectives, industry and ROI including managing the campaign.