A conversion rate refers to how well your team gets leads to perform a desired action. You can compare it to industry benchmarks to determine whether you are outperforming or underperforming.

The desired action may include providing an email address, going to a specific page, or becoming new customers.  A low conversion rate is often a sign that you are targeting people outside of your ideal customer or there is a problem with the process.

Conversions are vital key performance indicators for your business and marketing team. This information will show whether your company is matching with new leads who are interested in your product or service.

When more users complete the desired action, your conversion rate will go up.

The average conversion rate percentage across all industries is anywhere between 2% and 5%. Anything above that is good. For industry-specific conversion rates, however, this number can look much different. 

If your percentage is higher than other websites in your niche, focus on building stability and maintaining that number of conversions over time.

Calculating your conversion rate will require different data points based on how your business is structured. For a website, your analytics platform may automatically record the number of transactions and website visitors you have in a given period.

Plug that information into the formula to get your conversion rate. For example, here’s the formula for 10 sales out of 100 site visitors:

10 sales / 100 site visitors = 10%

On the other hand, if you have a physical store, then you’ll need to develop your own in-person system to count the total number of purchases and visitors.

You will normally need analytics software and a customer relationship management system to measure conversions. Once you know your conversion rate, you can use it as a benchmark in comparison to your past performance or against another company or competitor.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of increasing the percentage of website traffic or in-store shoppers who make a purchase. Optimizing your conversion rate requires a tailored approach that focuses on user behavior and the customer experience.

Prioritizing conversions also allows you to do the following as a company: 

• Understand your visitors and what it takes to convert them
• Deliver a better shopping experience for users
• Create data-driven solutions
• Get a higher return on investment by targeting ads to specific users
• Improve average order value by increasing how much each user spends
• Increase SEO rankings
• Stay competitive in your industry

There are several different methods that will help you increase your total number of conversions. Take a look at the following strategies you can employ to increase conversion rates:

• Give each user the opportunity to leave a review or testimonial.
• Add a live chat feature.
• Test your sale offers on a small group before sending them to all your customers. 
• Create email campaigns to draw back customers who abandon their carts in the middle of a visit.
• Streamline purchasing by making it easier for customers to pay and spend money.
• Add a newsletter sign-up option to advertise your products and services.
• Use A/B testing to understand the difference between two marketing options.
• Remove unnecessary forms and fields.
• Make it easy for people to find the search bar during their visits to your site.

Due to the high competition found on Etsy, a strong conversion rate is between 2% to 3%. A conversion rate above 5% is considered outstanding for that particular website.To increase your site traffic and conversion rate, take the following tactics into account when listing on Etsy:

• Listing quality: Adding more items to Etsy will provide a small boost to your landing page and get the algorithm to calculate clicks, favorites, and purchases. When these metrics increase, your score will go up as well and help you convert. 
• Photos and titles: Optimize your pictures and titles to help increase conversions. Check top competitors on the site to see how they compare so that you’ll know what to improve.  
• Special offers: Provide incentives such as free delivery or a coupon to bring down costs. Even a simple campaign can benefit your business by driving more traffic to your store. You should try A/B testing offers to see if one version performs better than another.
• Reviews: Reviews attract more site visitors and reveal important information to buyers. They can also make it easier to increase a low conversion rate.

Similar to Etsy, the average conversion rate for eCommerce stores overall is anywhere from 2.5% to 3%. Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, the competition is much higher for websites since anyone can access them regardless of their physical location. 

This makes cost much more important since not all eCommerce stores have equal pricing for the same products.

In general, you should aim for a conversion rate of around 10%. While this figure could fluctuate slightly depending on the industry, allow this to be a benchmark goal when developing different marketing strategies and campaigns.

Conversion rates are a top metric for any company, so it’s always a good idea to periodically calculate your conversion rate even if it’s usually high.

While the average conversion rate for Google ads is 3.75%, you’ll want to aim for a conversion rate of higher than 5.31%. The top 25% of companies who advertise with Google are able to maintain high traffic volume and a conversion rate of 11.45%.  

Here are few tips to sell more using Google Ads:

• Match your landing page and ad copy with the same search terms. 
• Review and update site links.
• Experiment with different campaign types based on which users converted in the past.
• Analyze your target market.
• Review your Google Analytics page.
• Use A/B testing to try more than one version of a campaign.