What’s a Decent Click-Through Rate, Conversion Rate, etc?
By Anna Johnson on November 21st, 2008So what exactly should you aim for when it comes to click-through rates (CTRs) for your pay-per-click ads, and conversion rates for the offers you make on your landing pages?
Well, it will vary according to how specific or general is your ad, and whether you have a ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ offer. Assuming you structure and conduct your PPC campaign correctly, David Szetela provides the following guidelines…
According to David, CTRs will always be higher for in-demand products, services and needs, and lower for those that are relatively unknown or difficult to describe. For products, services or needs in high demand, you should aim for a 5 percent or higher (i.e. double-digit) CTR.
For low-demand products, services, etc it may not be realistic to expect anything beyond 3-4 percent. In either case, a CTR of 2 percent or lower is probably not good enough.
When it comes to conversion rates, a good conversion rate for a ‘hard offer’ i.e. an offer to buy something would be a minimum of 2 percent. David says that for business-to-consumer e-commerce sales, it’s realistic to aim for conversion rates of 5 percent or higher.
For ‘softer’ offers, such as a free download (e.g. software, information, etc) a conversion rate of 10, 20 or even 30 percent is achievable.
Of course, as David points out, your conversion rate will depend to a large degree on your landing page and the degree to which you continuously test and improve it.
Meanwhile, you can still do a lot to optimize both CTRs and conversion rates by properly choosing, writing and structuring your keywords and pay-per-click ads. In this regard, be sure to check out David’s series on how to put together an optimal PPC campaign.
