Commercial & Professional Services conversion rate benchmarks by Unbounce

OVERVIEW

Key conversion rate insights for commercial and professional services

Commercial and professional services companies must convert visitors into prospects before they convert prospects into clients. Here’s what the data reveals about using (and optimizing) landing pages to do exactly that.

Mobile drives the majority of landing page traffic

Mobile visitors make up over four times the traffic compared to desktop, but they’re converting at a 40% lower rate.

Email converts nearly 2x better than paid search and social

Email is king when it comes to conversions, with almost double the conversion rate of both paid search and social.

Traffic from Instagram has been the paid social holy grail

Instagram ad traffic typically converts significantly more than any other paid social channel and achieves nearly twice as many conversions as its runner-up, Facebook.

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

KEY INSIGHT: INDUSTRY SUBCATEGORIES

Landing pages convert at 6.1%—slightly below the all industries baseline

The median conversion rate for commercial and professional services landing pages is 6.1%—slightly lower than the 6.6% baseline for all industries. When we go one layer deeper into the subindustries, repair and maintenance services pages convert almost 3x better than home and renovation services.

Implied urgency leads to higher conversion rates

Seeing that repair and maintenance pages convert almost 3x better than renovation pages, our first thought was the age-old “painkiller vs. vitamin” concept (which boils down to need vs. want). A visitor landing on a page offering repairs or maintenance likely has a stronger sense of urgency than a visitor landing on a renovations page. However, you can drive urgency (and pull many other conversion levers) by embracing good ol’ conversion copywriting.

Key insight: Overall traffic channels

Email is still the leader at a 13.9% conversion rate, but paid search is clearly in second place

Keeping with the industry-agnostic trend we’ve seen, email is still by far the highest-converting traffic channel with a median conversion rate of 13.9%. Beyond email, paid search is the clear runner up above paid social.

Paid search converts 77% better than paid social

Traffic from paid search converts at 7.8%, while paid social traffic converts at just 4.4%. This gets even more interesting when we compare this gap to the industry-agnostic data, where paid social actually converts 10% better than paid search.

This highlights how important it is to always validate what’s most effective in your industry, even if it performs well in other industries or even for other companies.

Key insight: Paid search traffic channels

Google search ads convert nearly 2x better than Bing and Yahoo ads

When we zoom in on paid search, Google ads convert 87% better than Bing ads, and 160% better than Yahoo ads. When you’re allocating your paid search budgets, Google is still your best bet by a wide margin.

The majority of Google ad traffic converts at 3.6% or higher

Looking at the Google search ads bucket in particular, 75% of all pages analyzed had a conversion rate of 3.6% or higher from Google search ads. If your Google ads traffic conversion rate is below that bar, it’s worth reviewing your landing pages to make sure they’re following conversion-centred design best practices.

Key insight: PAID Social traffic channels

Instagram ads convert at 11.7%, while YouTube ads have struggled at just 1.2%

Paid traffic from Instagram stands out as the highest converting at 11.7%—nearly 2x better than Facebook, the second highest converting channel.

YouTube ads are not typically high-converters for professional services companies, but some are successful

Compared to the overall data, where YouTube converts almost 6x better at 8.2%, it’s clear that YouTube is not the best advertising channel from a conversion perspective for professional services companies. But YouTube could be effective at building remarketing audiences and boosting brand awareness.

Instagram is your best bet for conversions from paid social

Instagram presents greater chance of hitting the paid social median conversion rate of 4.7%, with the majority of pages converting at 3.4% or higher.

Key insight: Mobile vs. desktop

Four of every five landing page visits were on mobile devices, but conversion rates were 40% lower than desktop

The data shows that despite 81% of landing page visits happening on mobile, the conversion rates were significantly lower than desktop visits. Desktop traffic converts at 11.6%, while mobile traffic is converting at just 8.3%.

The gap between mobile and desktop conversions is bigger than industry-wide trends show

Across all industries, desktop traffic converts 8% better than mobile. A gap, yes, but a relatively small one compared to what we’re seeing in this industry.

When you narrow down to the professional services industry the gap between desktop and mobile grows to 40%, so we’re left with a clear recommendation: Optimize your landing pages to convert mobile visitors first and foremost, or else you’re leaving a lot of potential conversions on the table.

Key insight: Readability

Simple words and shorter copy drive better conversions

To convert like a pro, you don’t need to use fancy or complex language. Simpler content means more clicks, fewer drop-offs, and more conversions.

The more complex your writing, the lower your conversion rate will likely be

As reading difficulty increases, the median conversion rate decreases. We see a 49% decline when we jump from 5th- to 7th-grade reading level (12.9%) to 8th and 9th grade (6.6%), so consider 7th grade and below your sweet spot to aim for.

The ideal word count to maximize conversions is between 275-745 words

This word count range was the sweet spot we found where median conversion rate was the highest at 6.1%. Taking it one step further, we also found the ideal max number of “difficult” words—defined as words with three or more syllables—was 45-120 total.

Putting two and two together, your aim should be roughly 500 words (with some wiggle room on either side), with no more than 15% of them being considered difficult.

Conversion rate by word count and number of difficult words

Lower reading levels, higher conversion rates

Your landing page copy should focus on converting your visitors, not confusing them. Keep the messaging simple and easy to understand, so more of your visitors will pick up what you’re putting down.

Tip: Use the “summarize” function in Unbounce’s AI copywriting tool, Smart Copy, to shorten your long paragraphs into digestible chunks.

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