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What Should My Conversion Rate Be?
This is probably the most common question I get as a consultant specializing on Conversion Optimization. What is a good conversion rate? What should my conversion rate be? I currently convert at X%, is that good?
The correct answer is never particularly direct. Conversion rates vary widely based on many different factors such as price points, audience, marketing channels, etc.
With that said, I was reminded today about the Fireclick Index. According to the index (numbers accurate as of this post date), here are the conversion rate benchmarks for different industries:
- Fashion & Apparel: 1.80%
- Electronics: 0.10%
- Catalog: 5.00%
- Specialty: 0.90%
- Outdoor & Sports: 1.30%
- Software: 7.80%
These numbers are “compiled from the live statistics of participating Fireclick customers.” There is so much room for obfuscation here. Why is the electronics category so amazingly low? If a client came to me selling a $30 electronics products and they were converting at .20%, I would certainly not tell them that was good. And yet, that’s twice the industry average according to this index. Also, what is the price point on the majority of the software Fireclick customers are selling? 7.80% on average seems high compared to the others.
If you ignore the electronics and software outliers, conversion rates between 1.5% and 3% are very common, and you’d expect catalog based sales to be slightly higher so their numbers are probably in the ballpark.
To answer the question in the title of this post, “What should my conversion rate be?” – I have to leave you with one thought. On the web, average is BAD. When you have thousands of competitors, being just as good as everyone else basically guarantees that you will not survive for very long.
One of my clients is in the Fashion & Apparel industry and converts at about 6% (and there’s still room for improvement). If their competitor converts at the “industry average” of 1.8%, well, that rivalry probably isnt going to last very long.
The answer is you should always push your conversion rate higher. You should setting your own benchmarks and then breaking them every quarter. What are you doing to make that happen?
One Response to “What Should My Conversion Rate Be?”
January 4th, 2010 at 4:09 am
Odd – I was just thinking of writing a similar post … it goes beyond whats written above as I recall a website that introduced ‘community’ elements, support sections etc.. – conversion went down, (but sales went up)… – its worth segmenting customers as much as possible, and almost having a conversion rate by product, by keyword etc..
PCworld (a popular highstreet brand in the UK) for example maybe low because people source it on the website, but then go buy it in store … (I suspect with their online prices – conversion is very low). Same applies to any brick and mortar with a website, stupid things such as P&P being high can be exceptionally detrimental – one popular UK website has about £10 ($20) P&P so the bargains look terrible when you get to the checkout.