Average conversion rate by industry benchmark report

INSIGHTS FROM MILLIONS OF CONVERSIONS

Conversion benchmarks backed by 57M+ conversions and 41K+ landing pages

Unbounce is the leading platform for building and optimizing landing pages that convert. For over a decade, marketers from virtually every industry have used Unbounce to build, test, and optimize high-converting landing pages that power their marketing campaigns. As a result, we’ve collected insights on over 2 BILLION conversions all-time.

Here’s what that means for you: The benchmark data in this report isn’t based on a small “random” sample of 100 landing pages that are just cherry-picked, best-in-class examples to paint the prettiest picture possible. Not even close.

To build this report, in the past year alone, we’ve analyzed:

+41K

Landing pages

+464M

Unique visitors

+57M

Conversions

This means every insight, average, and benchmark you see in this report is based on a statistically significant sample size. If we didn’t see enough volume to confidently stand behind a number while building this report—we pulled it. Simple as that.

2024 CONVERSION BENCHMARK REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

Find out what stands between you and your highest-converting landing pages

Which paid traffic sources convert best on average?

Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Bing, Yahoo—which channels actually convert the best? We have the answers—and the benchmarks you can use across each channel to make sure you’re reaching your full potential.

Do mobile-first landing pages actually matter?

Not optimizing the mobile versions of your landing pages is costing you far more conversions than you might think. In some industries, up to 7x more visitors are coming from mobile devices vs. desktop, yet mobile conversions rates are often lower than desktop.

Are short attention spans hurting your conversions?

You've heard attention spans are shrinking—something about goldfish, right? The truth is, copy length, readability, and word choice directly affect conversion rates. In this report, we explore just how much and what you can do about it.

ABOUT THIS REPORT

The report designed to help digital marketers and agencies convert more landing page visitors, faster

With this report, you’ll better understand:

How your landing pages are performing relative to others in your industry
What you can do to optimize your conversion rates (including simple changes)
The challenges other marketers are facing so you can stay ahead

What are these “insight” boxes?

In this report, an insight is a data-validated recommendation that can help you get more conversions. They’re easy to understand and quick to apply. You’ll find ‘em through the report in boxes like this one.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THE REPORT

How the Conversion Benchmark Report can help you (beyond the raw numbers)

Benchmark data alone is always helpful. If you know where the bar is, it’s easy to gauge whether your performance is above or below average—then act accordingly.

But numbers alone aren’t always the most actionable. So to complement the conversion benchmark data throughout this report, we’ve also included tactical recommendations to help you get better results from your landing pages (without having to spend bundles of cash and wait months to see the needle move).

Get better results, faster and with fewer resources

You’ll uncover actionable insights you can launch on your landing pages right away. (You don’t need to wait for your next quarterly planning session.) With the insights in this report, you’ll be able to prioritize the right opportunities, so you can spend your time and every precious dollar of your paid media budget wisely.

Identify simple changes that have a big impact

Complex, turn-it-all-upside-down-style changes aren’t the only way to move the needle. Use the key takeaways from this report to prioritize smaller, simple changes that will have a big impact on your conversion rate. Unbounce helps you implement them simply, too. Just jump into our drag-and-drop builder with built-in A/B testing and go.

Develop a CRO mindset and simple execution strategies

Discover countless optimization opportunities and stay aware of the various things that could be hurting your conversion rate. Then it’s time to get to work. With the right tools, CRO becomes part of your DNA—not a massive project you suffer through every few months. With Unbounce, you can build, test, and optimize your landing pages in one platform.

What is CRO?

CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. In short, CRO is the practice of testing and improving your marketing assets—often your landing pages—so they can convert more effectively.

Why does CRO matter?

The better your landing pages perform, the more returns you’ll see from your marketing campaigns. For example, if you can boost the conversion rate on your landing page from 1% to 2% with CRO—that’s a 100% increase in performance. You’re doubling the results from the exact same amount of traffic (and ad spend).

Accelerate results with simple CRO

Access the full Conversion Benchmark Report for detailed industry benchmarks, in-depth conversion rate insights, top-performing channels, and more.

INTRODUCING THE 2024 CONVERSION BENCHMARKS

The median conversion rate across all industries is 6.6%—what about your industry?

“What’s a good conversion rate?”

Chances are, that very question is one of the main reasons you’re here. So we’ll skip straight to it—here’s your answer: The median conversion rate across all industries is 6.6%.

We’ve highlighted the median conversion rates across nine different industries, which range from 3.8% to 12.3% as the chart below shows.

We’ve also done a deep dive into five of those industries (with more coming soon). Check ‘em out in the navigation on the left or jump to your industry. If you don’t see your industry, don’t sweat it. We’ve got plenty of industry-agnostic insights below, from which paid media channels are performing best to landing page readability.

What’s the difference between median and average conversion rates?

Benchmarks are displayed as either medians or averages throughout the report. This typically depends on the type of data that was available to us. To quickly define each:

Median: The value that lies exactly in the middle of the data set. The median is particularly useful in wider data sets because it is not affected by extreme values (outliers).
Average: The sum of all numbers in the data set divided by the total number of values. It provides a general sense of a data set’s central value.

In simple terms, here’s how to analyze your own landing pages using the data above:

Higher than the median? Your page is converting better than most.
Lower than the median? Your page is converting worse than most.

Of course, there are countless variables underneath the hood here that you should be factoring in. It’s also worth mentioning that our data only looked at conversion events—not the value per conversion event. That means your pages may see fewer conversions, but those conversions may be more valuable to your business. For example, if your conversion rate is slightly below the median but the conversion event you’re tracking is worth five figures to your business, don’t beat yourself up too early. Yes, there may be room for improvement—there always is, after all—but your page shouldn’t be considered “bad” by default.

KEY INSIGHT: OVERALL TRAFFIC CHANNELS

Email is the highest converting channel at 19.3% on average

The ongoing debate about whether email is dead or not has officially been settled. Compared to paid channels like social, search, and display, email is significantly more effective from a conversion perspective.

But that doesn’t mean paid media is dead, either. When considering where to place your paid media bets, note that paid social (12%) converts 10% better than paid search (10.9%). Overall, if your PPC landing pages are converting at less than 10% right now, there’s still room for growth.

With Unbounce, you can create and launch new landing pages for your PPC campaigns quickly and easily. Plus, you’ll have full control over A/B testing any element on the page to increase your conversion rate and convert more visitors.

Email isn’t dead—in fact, it typically converts better than all other traffic sources

Our data shows that visitors who reach your landing page via email convert 60% more than visitors from paid social, 77% more than visitors from paid search, and 370% more than visitors from display ads.

Keep in mind there are exceptions to this rule in certain industries (ahem, financial services) and you may see different results depending on whether your campaigns are focused on a particular funnel stage (email is a typically a middle and bottom of funnel tactic, which naturally sees higher conversion rates).

CVR BY PAID SEARCH SOURCE

Google is still the paid search king, with an average conversion rate of 11.3%

Across all industries, paid search ads on Google convert 41% better than Bing search ads and 95% better than Yahoo search ads.

While Google is the leading search engine for many, some industries are seeing that Yahoo and Bing present interesting opportunities either with similar performance or greater performance potential.

Message match your landing pages and ads

If your landing pages aren’t converting on paid search, one of the best ways to improve your conversion rate is to match the messaging on your landing page with the messaging you’re using in your ads. 

With Unbounce, you can use dynamic text replacement to automatically update headings or other copy on your page based on the ad copy each individual visitor clicked on from search engines.

Start building for free

Google dominates in most industries, but not all

Google is the 800-pound gorilla in paid search across most industries—except health and wellness, where Yahoo presents a tantalizingly attractive option.

To see more insights for your specific industry, jump to the industry page that best matches your business.

CVR BY PAID SOCIAL SOURCE

Instagram (17.9%) and Facebook (13%) are the highest converting paid social channels

Meta ads are where it’s at right now, apparently. As the chart below shows, Facebook and Instagram are the only channels converting above the average.

YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter) are in the next tier between 6-9% on average. LinkedIn converts relatively poorly compared to the others. Keep in mind that these vary quite significantly by industry, but the chart below can offer insight into higher-level performance trends.

LinkedIn conversion rate is poor relative to other social channels, but the value per conversion may still justify it

To be clear, our data only looked at conversion events—not the value per conversion event. By the numbers, LinkedIn converts 4-5x worse than Facebook and Instagram. That said, since LinkedIn is typically seen as a business-focused platform, it could be that there are simply fewer, but higher value conversions happening.

Before you redirect every LinkedIn ad dollar to Meta (sorry Zuck), take a look at your conversion rate AND value per conversion data. At the end of the day, fewer conversions that are worth significantly more is a trade worth making.

KEY INSIGHT: MOBILE VS. DESKTOP

Mobile drives nearly 5x more visitors, but desktop converts 8% better

Within our sample data, 83% of the visits we analyzed happened on mobile devices. If you’re still building your landing pages for desktop first, with the mobile version being just a quick box to check before publishing, chances are you’re missing out big time.

The industry average shows that desktop converts 8% better than mobile, and this discrepancy becomes even more drastic for certain industries that are struggling with mobile optimization more than others (check out your industry page for more info).

83% of landing page visits were on a mobile device, yet mobile converts 8% less than desktop

Simply put, you can’t afford not to optimize your landing pages for mobile devices. An 8% gap in conversion rates is significant, but it gets even worse when you look at the number of conversions lost. If all industries optimized their pages, we might have reported over 1.3 million more conversions.

With the Unbounce page builder that lets you fully customize the mobile experience as well, there’s no excuse anymore for your landing pages to look clunky and broken on mobile.

A couple of industries buck the mobile/desktop trend

If you’re in the financial services or SaaS industries, you might want to take a look at the industry-level mobile and desktop conversion rates before you plan your next marketing campaign.

For details on your specific industry, jump to the industry page that best matches your business.

Get the most out of your marketing

No more being at the mercy of your designers’ and developers’ calendars to launch a single landing page for your next marketing campaign.

With Unbounce, you can build, test, and optimize your landing pages all on your own—but we’re also here to help. With our Concierge plans, you get access to a dedicated team of conversion experts who will help you get the best possible return on your marketing budget.

Request a demo

KEY INSIGHT: CONVERSION TYPES

Explore how different conversion types perform in your industry

As part of our exploration, we looked at how conversion rates differ between click and form conversion events, as well as mixed conversion types (which are landing pages that include both click and form events).

As marketers, we know that multiple conversion types on a landing page is typically not best practice. However, we also know that best practices should always be tested. Conversion types should be defined first and foremost by your conversion goal, with the insights below to help guide your decision.

What is a mixed conversion type?

A landing page with a “mixed” conversion type includes both a form and a click conversion event.

KEY INSIGHT: READABILITY

Using complex words hurts conversions the most, but lengthy copy and long reading times can harm conversions too

When it comes to landing page copy, there are countless ways to optimize. Long story short: simple and shorter copy typically leads to healthier conversion rates, but some variables have a bigger impact than others.

There is a significant correlation between number of difficult words and declining conversion rates

For this analysis, we’ve defined “difficult words” as words with three or more syllables. To get specific, the data shows a -24.3% correlation between the number of difficult words used and your conversion rate. In simple terms, there’s a high likelihood that your conversion rate will drop as you add more difficult words to the page.

Copy challenges negatively correlated with conversion rates

-24.3%

Difficult words

-19.4%

Reading time

-18.6%

Word count

The negative correlation between difficult words and conversion rates is 62% stronger than it was in 2020

In 2020, there was a -15% correlation between difficult words and conversion rates. This year it’s -24.3%, which is a 62% increase. That means difficult words have a more negative impact on conversion rates than ever before. This could be pointing to the impact of decreasing attention spans and tolerance for complexity. Research from The Science Survey shows that attention spans have decreased from roughly 2.5 minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds in 2024.

That means, more often than not, simple copy converts.

Writing at a 5th to 7th grade level can significantly boost your conversion rates

Landing pages written at a 5th to 7th grade level convert at 11.1%—56% higher than pages written at an 8th and 9th grade level (small change, big impact) and more than 2x higher than professional-level writing which converts at 5.3%.

As the chart shows, there’s a strong correlation between reading difficulty level and conversion rates. The easier your copy is to read, the more likely it is to convert at an industry-agnostic level.

Where things get really interesting is at the industry level. No spoilers, but this general rule doesn’t actually apply across all industries. Some actually convert better as the complexity increases (to a degree).

Money talks, but it’s not always easy to understand

Financial services is the only industry where more complex language can actually help conversions.

To get insights for your specific industry jump to the industry page that best matches your business.

START OPTIMIZING (SIMPLY) TODAY

Unbounce empowers you to create a simple CRO practice so you can start optimizing today

Conversion rate optimization doesn’t need to be complex or take months to implement. The reality is, there are actions you can take today that can boost your conversion rates and deliver an even greater ROI on your marketing efforts.

The Unbounce platform is how thousands of marketers are already doing exactly that.

We call it simple CRO: Simple actions you can take without a designer, developer, data scientist, or expensive management consultant running 3-month-long customer interviews.

With Unbounce, you can:

Build and launch landing pages at lightning speed

With the easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder, you can launch landing pages fast. No coding needed. Perfect for getting your pages live in no time.

Start building

Experiment with every element on the page

Change and A/B test different parts of your page, all while creating an unlimited number of page variants to find out what lands the best with your visitors.

Start A/B testing

Convert better with AI-powered traffic optimization

With Unbounce’s AI-powered traffic optimization tool, Smart Traffic, you can automatically send visitors to the best page for them to boost your results without any extra effort.

Start optimizing

GET INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

Discover your true conversion potential

The insights on this page are just the tip of the iceberg. You can drill down into the same data points, averages, and comparisons at the level of your specific industry.

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