
As a marketer or business owner, your conversion rate is a critical metric that needs constant improvement to obtain more leads, sales and a positive ROI.
It’s the ultimate indicator that your marketing efforts are effective and your business is scaling.
As you refine your marketing efforts to lift conversion rates and grow your bottom line, you need to step back and answer these questions:
What is a good conversion rate for your business? How do your company’s conversion rates measure up against competitors’? What can you do to improve conversion?
This post will explain what a good conversion rate is and provide all the answers you need to boost your conversions and drive more sales.
Conversion rate records the number of users that complete a desired action or goal out of the total number of visitors who land on your website. The goal or action in this context might mean:
Unlike some business terms, the definition of conversion isn’t a one-size-fits-all. It means different things for different business types.
Google's definition of conversion rate focuses on conversions from ad interactions.
“Conversion rates are calculated by simply taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the number of total ad interactions that can be tracked to a conversion during the same time period.”
For a marketer focused on generating leads, conversion means gaining a sales-qualified lead. However, for e-commerce businesses, conversion means a completed sale.
Depending on your business model, you can have more than one type of conversion. And you can factor all of these goals into your marketing funnel or customer journey.
Other activities that you might want to track conversions for include:
Several factors can affect your conversion rate, including your headline, CTA and landing page image.
Overall, tracking conversion rate helps you measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. It also enables you to spot areas where you can improve your customer journey or marketing funnel to drive higher conversion rates and better return on investment (ROI).
According to conventional knowledge, an average conversion rate of 2-5% is considered good.
But again, a good conversion rate varies depending on:
For example, B2B conversion rates are typically lower than B2C because they have longer sales cycles and more complex products or services. However, they typically have a higher average order value than B2C businesses, which can offset the lower conversion rates.
Conversely, B2C conversion rates can be higher due to impulse purchases, shorter sales cycles and lower average order values.
Similarly, visitors coming from search engines may have a higher intent to purchase as they are actively looking for a product or service.
Social media visitors may be more interested in learning about your brand and engaging with your content but may not be ready to make a purchase yet.
So, when measuring marketing or sales success in your specific industry, ensure you’re comparing apples with apples. This will help you avoid overestimating and undervaluing your performance.
While industry benchmarks provide a baseline for a good conversion rate across your sector, they fail to consider many of the things we’ve mentioned above.
Before benchmarking against industry rates, you need to establish a sweet spot. What is your current conversion rate? Considering the available resources, what realistic conversion rate can you achieve in the next period?
PropelGrowth splits conversion rates based on lead qualification. Research showed that conversion rates from visitors to marketing-qualified leads stood at around 5%.
Another survey by RulerAnalytics revealed that the conversion rate across all 14 industries surveyed is 2.9%. The chart below breaks down the conversion rates across all 14 industries.
To calculate your conversion rate, you can use a conversion rate calculator.
Or, you can calculate it manually by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors to your website and then multiplying that number by 100.
The formula for calculating conversion rate is:
Conversion Rate = (Conversions / Total Visitors) x 100
For example, if you had 1,000 visitors to your website last month and 50 of them made a purchase, your conversion rate would be:
(50 / 1,000) x 100 = 5%
So, your conversion rate would be 5%. This means that for every 100 visitors to your website, 5 of them filled out a form or made a purchase.
As we’ve mentioned before, conversion is subjective. It depends on the action you want the visitor to take.
For an email marketer, let’s say your goal is for recipients to visit your website or download a whitepaper or ebook. Here’s how you’ll calculate your conversion rate:
Conversion Rate = (Number of Downloads or Website Visits/Total number of delivered emails) x 100
You know what a good conversion rate example is for your company and your current baseline.
But how do you raise the bar? Here are some proven ways to improve the conversion rate for your business:
When the subject of conversion rate optimization (CRO) pops up, most people focus on A/B testing, landing pages or social proof, etc.
But content is an underrated CRO strategy.
Creating high-quality and informative content is also crucial for driving conversions. The content on your website or email must be relevant, engaging and easy to understand.
Content that checks these boxes will grab the customers' attention, encourage them to take action and convert.
This infographic shares the types of marketing and sales enablement content you should create at different funnel stages.
The logic is simple: when your content provides value, visitors will likely take the desired action and become paying customers.
Whether you’re writing a copy for your product page, landing page, blog post, email or one-pager, highlight their frustrations from the start. This does three things:
A significant portion of your content should focus on the purchase intent. Describe how your product solves the problem at hand. If you fail at this, competitors will win them over when it’s time to make a purchase decision.
When writing your copy, describe the features and benefits of your products or services.
Also, highlight your unique value proposition or selling proposition and the different ways your product can solve their pain points and hidden needs.
Do these things and watch your conversion soar!
With Visme, creating high-converting marketing materials, sales collaterals and sales enablement content has never been easier.
Access thousands of templates for creating engaging and interactive business content, such as presentations, one pagers, whitepapers, newsletters, flyers, brochures, printables, videos, ebooks and more. Make your content engaging and immersive with Visme’s range of icons, stock photos and videos.
Using the dynamic fields feature, you can easily customize your sales content for different target audiences or ICPs. If you’re dealing with writer's block, Visme’s AI Writer will help you generate compelling marketing and sales copy or proofread it in seconds.
During conversion rate optimization, split testing is a great way to see what works and what needs improvement.
It involves testing different versions of your website, email or form (or anything else you’re testing) to see which works better. Tools like Optimizely, Apptimize AB Tasty are great tools for A/B testing.
So, what are the key elements to test? The rule of thumb is to focus on things that have a marked impact on users' or conversion goals.
Here are elements you can split test for forms, websites and emails:
Forms:
Websites:
Other elements cut across forms, websites and emails, such as colors, designs, mobile responsiveness and content.
Test each of these elements to find out what moves the needle.
Once the results are in, you can start making improvements to boost conversion. For example, users may be hesitant to fill out lengthy forms. Shortening them reduces the time it takes to complete the form and increases the likelihood that users will actually submit it.
When testing, remember to focus on just a few variables. Otherwise, your results will be messy and difficult to understand.
Beyond the elements we’ve shared, many other variables influence conversions.
Your website design, user interface and experience can significantly affect your conversion rate.
Pay close attention to factors like your website’s overall look and feel, page load speed, ease of navigation, browser compatibility, mobile optimization and checkout experience, which can influence a customer’s decision to convert.
For example, slow website speed can frustrate your users and cause them to leave your site, resulting in missed conversions and sales.
Another important area improvement is your traffic sources and the other channels that drive users to your website, like advertising, referral, content marketing and other awareness programs.
Targeting and engaging the right audience puts you in a vantage position and increases your chances of conversion.
When setting up ad campaigns, use captivating ad creatives that create a solid first impression.
Also, select the right ad targeting options, such as demographics, interests, behaviors and retargeting to funnel conversion-ready traffic directly to your site.
Use relevant, high-volume keywords potential customers are using to search for products or services similar to yours. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Semrush and Ahrefs are handy for discovering high-volume keywords with low or moderate competition.
When creating content, optimize for user intent. Whether they are seeking information or ready to buy, your content should address their needs at that particular stage.
Deploy effective referral programs that generate word of mouth and increase conversions. And when partnering with influencers, choose credible ones who align with your industry or niche and can yield tangible results.
Once visitors have landed on your website, you want to convert them to leads. Forms are the point where a visitor transitions into a lead. Your form may serve different purposes or ask visitors to take different actions, such as:
Whatever your goal is, optimizing your form can tip the conversion rate scales in your favor.
Rather than use boring traditional forms, why not take advantage of Visme’s online, interactive form builder proven to double your conversions?
Similarly, we conducted a similar split test of lead magnet forms on an audience of nearly 500k organic users.
The results showed that adding Visme Forms interactive animated characters to our lead magnet forms resulted in the following:
Ready to elevate your form conversion? Use Visme’s extensive range of form and survey templates to create interactive, high-converting forms in minutes.
A conversion funnel (or sales funnel) is the path potential customers take from initial awareness to becoming a paying customer.
A customer journey map template is one way to map out this path. It accounts for the entire experience as customers move along this path.
Analyzing the funnel lets you easily identify where users convert or walk away.
Drop-offs are crucial hints for identifying potential friction points—like complicated registration and checkout processes—that hinder customers from converting.
Other friction points you should consider include hidden costs, limited payment options, complicated or poorly designed forms, slow loading times and limited information.
By spotting and addressing these friction points, you’ll be able to reduce the number of users who drop off and convert more customers.
Conversion funnel analysis isn’t just a marketing or sales thing. By understanding the improvement areas in the funnels, product teams can also work to create a more seamless user experience.
It helps pinpoint effective marketing strategies and facilitates the smooth conversion of marketing-qualified leads to sales-qualified leads.
Google Analytics can also help you track acquisitions from traffic sources and conversions. Use heatmap session recordings to see how users interact with your product and where they drop off.
Use a data visualization tool like Visme to make sense of your data. Combine all the data from different sources (like Excel or Google Analytics) into beautiful reports so top-level executives can easily draw insights and make actionable decisions to improve conversions.
Hear what one of our clients had to say about Visme:
Non-Profit Organization Management
Trust influences purchase decisions. And one way to build trust and credibility with your potential customers is social proof.
In a study by Trustpilot, 89% of global consumers admit they check online reviews before purchasing a product. Up to 49% of consumers also consider it one of the top three factors that influence their purchases as well.
Reviews and ratings aren’t the only type of social proof that works.
Case studies, testimonials, user-generated content, endorsements and influencer marketing are also effective in raising your conversion rates.
Creating compelling case studies is a breeze with Visme. Take advantage of our extensive library of case study templates to validate your solution and boost credibility.
Publish it on your website or share it with prospects on social media, webinars, email and sales presentations. For example, Visme has a page dedicated to the success stories of clients who have achieved success with our solution.
Backlinko also features a short testimonial by Kieran Flanagan, VP Marketing at HubSpot, on their landing page form to drive signups.
During the sales process, potential customers are bound to have some objections or hesitations.
In face-to-face selling, you can easily address these concerns by asking sales discovery questions.
But it gets trickier when you’re selling online.
To overcome this challenge, you need to research your prospects. Then, anticipate the objections they may have and list them out. The most common objectives are price, competition, trust, reluctance to change, quality and suitability.
Create informative content such as blog posts, videos or guides that address common questions and concerns related to your industry or product category.
Also, highlight key features, benefits, and specifications to address potential concerns and reassure prospective buyers.
Here are other ways you can address these objections:
Investing in customer success directly impacts your bottom line.
It’s more of an upgrade to the traditional customer service model.
Instead of waiting for customers to contact you, this proactive approach involves reaching out to ensure customers get the most value from your brand.
McKinsey’s benchmark data revealed existing customers account for up to 33-50% of total revenue growth.
When customers receive prompt and effective support, they are more likely to make repeat purchases and become loyal advocates for your brand.
This can lead to positive word-of-mouth marketing and increased sales.
On the other hand, poor customer support can result in negative reviews, low customer retention rates and lost sales.
Integrate live chat support or chatbots to interact with customers and provide answers to their customers’ inquiries quickly. This eliminates downtime or long wait times over the phone.
Although chatbots often replace the human element of live chats—using both will ensure no customer is left unattended.
These are just a few strategies that can help improve your conversion rate. It's important to continually test and optimize your approach to find what works best for your audience and business goals.
Conversion optimization involves improving different moving parts of your website or business process to increase sales.
Here are six key tools you can deploy to improve your conversion rates.
Visme offers a powerful online form builder that allows you to create engaging, high-converting forms with beautiful 3D designs, animated characters and motions.
These interactive elements are proven to stun and engage your visitors, turn your landing page into a revenue-growth engine, boost conversion by up to 207% and reduce form abandonment by up to 67%.
You don’t need coding experience. The tool comes with a no-code form builder and hundreds of professionally designed form and survey templates across multiple categories, including:
Easily customize the look and feel of your form and select your preferred character and their movements. Use our AI-powered brand wizard to ensure your forms stay on brand.
Once you’re satisfied with the outcome, publish your form designs with a link or QR code, or embed them on your website using auto-generated HTML. Track and analyze the performance of your forms using our real-time analytics dashboards.
Visme isn’t just a form builder; it’s an incredible visual content creation tool for businesses of all sizes. You can use it to create content that nurtures leads and builds relationships that lead to purchases.
Take advantage of our drag-and-drop and extensive template library to create different lead magnets or content for your sales and marketing teams. Improve team collaboration and use AI-powered tools to streamline the form and content creation processes.
Next on our list is the most popular web analytics tool—Google Analytics.
Google Analytics gives you a complete picture of your website and mobile app performance, traffic and other marketing events that can impact conversions. The tool lets you track traffic patterns, traffic sources, acquisition channels and user behavior in real-time.
You can also set up and monitor conversion goals and metrics like sessions and session duration. This helps you spot pages that have high bounce rates and where visitors are leaving your site.
If you notice visitors are leaving your website on a particular page, you can use Google Analytics to:
You can even get granular data about SEO performance, links clicked (or not clicked), page load times, top-performing content and more.
Since Google Analytics provides real-time data, you can quickly see how changes to your website are affecting your conversion rates.
Using the Visme + Google Analytics integration, you can pull in website data and create beautiful data visualizations for high-level reporting and decision-making.
Optimizely is a powerful optimization platform that helps marketers conduct tests and experiments to make better decisions. You can create multiple variations of your website or app in real-time and test them to see which version performs best based on user behavior and data.
By gathering valuable insights, you can make data-driven decisions about what changes to make to your website or app to lift conversion rates and improve overall user experience.
The beautiful thing is that your product team doesn’t have to go through a development workflow to make changes every time. They can run experiments and multi-armed bandit campaigns that use machine learning algorithms to allocate traffic to the best-performing variations while allocating less traffic to the underperforming ones.
Crazy Egg is a web analytics and user behavior tracking tool that provides insights into how visitors interact with your website. By utilizing different features like heatmaps, scroll maps and user recordings, you can understand user behavior, such as:
Crazy Egg also allows users to analyze and compare traffic performance from different channels, campaigns and landing pages against each other. The tool is also useful for collecting customer feedback, split testing and tracking site errors that could cause visitors to leave.
Use one or a combination of these features to gather the insight you need to optimize your website and maximize conversions.
HubSpot’s Marketing Hub offers a suite of tools that can help improve your website's conversion rate. One of the most valuable tools is the landing page builder. With this tool, you can create custom landing pages that convert visitors into leads or customers.
HubSpot also offers a variety of email marketing, live chat and lead capture tools, such as pop-up forms and slide-in forms. These tools can be used to capture leads and nurture them toward a sale.
The HubSpot analytics dashboard allows you to track user behavior, traffic sources and other important metrics in real time. By analyzing this data, you can gain valuable insights to improve what's working, fix what isn't and test new ideas.
Conversion rate is a critical metric that impacts your bottom line. It measures how effective your marketing efforts, websites and overall customer experiences are.
You can monitor your ROI and make actionable decisions by tracking how many visitors convert into leads and customers. A higher conversion rate means more revenue and a better return on investment.
Conversion values help accurately measure and optimize the business impact of your marketing channels and campaigns. If you assign values to your conversions, you'll be able to understand the total business value that each channel or campaign generates rather than simply the number of conversions that have happened.
Conversion value is important because it determines the worth of each conversion to a business. It allows companies to focus on their most profitable activities and optimize their marketing efforts to increase ROI.
On average, 30% is considered an exceptional conversion rate for lead generation or even for e-commerce stores. But for some businesses and industries, it might be below average.
Overall, a good conversion rate largely depends on industry benchmarks, the type of action being measured, the conversion stage, the traffic source and other factors.
A 1% conversion rate is generally considered low, but it can still be profitable if the business has a high customer lifetime value.
A good paid conversion rate depends on the industry and the specific goals of the business. However, a 2-5% conversion rate is typically considered good for paid advertising campaigns.
A bad conversion rate is one that is below the industry average or the company's own historical performance. It suggests that there are issues with the website or marketing campaign that need to be addressed to improve the customer experience and increase sales.
The conversion rate may drop because of a variety of factors, such as changes in the market or user behavior, seasonal or cyclical trends, increased competition or issues with the website or marketing campaign. It's essential to analyze the data and identify the root cause of the drop to make necessary improvements.
What is a good conversion rate? The answer is: it depends on a lot of factors.
Industry benchmarks and competitive data provide a good baseline. But your focus should be to hit higher levels—a conversion rate significantly better than the rate you’re converting now.
Achieving this isn't a quick fix. You need an all-in-one conversion optimization tool like Visme.
Use Visme’s online form builder to design interactive newsletters and lead forms that increase conversion by up to 207%. Access thousands of professionally designed templates, branding, animation and interactive elements, AI-powered tools, collaboration and workflow features—in one platform.
The best part is that Visme offers so much more. You also get a powerful visual content creation tool that you can use to attract and nurture leads towards conversion, including lead magnets, ebooks, whitepapers, presentations, infographics and more.
Ready to take your conversion from good to incredible? Sign up for Visme’s online form builder and watch your conversion soar.
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