Average website conversion rate: handle with care

Conversion is the ultimate goal in digital marketing. Raising your conversion rate means increasing your return on investment and, in turn, your business’s profitability. But what conversion rate should you be aiming for? Is yours reasonable, satisfactory or could it be improved? Faced with these questions, many turn to the average website conversion rate for a benchmark. However, it’s important to approach this figure with caution.

What is conversion rate?

For any business, conversion rate refers to turning potential customers into actual buyers. It’s calculated as the number of people who complete a desired action—such as making a purchase—divided by the total number of website visitors, then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage. For instance, if your website receives 100,000 visits in January and you make 2,000 sales, your conversion rate is 2,000/100,000 = 0.02, or 2%. Here, we’ve used a purchase as the standard example, but depending on your website (is it an e-commerce site?) and your objectives, a conversion could mean something else: downloading an app, using a service, registering as a user, signing up to a newsletter, and so on. Ultimately, a conversion is whatever action you want your visitors to take. This can even be a micro-conversion, such as watching a video or taking another small step along the customer journey. Remember, overall conversion rate includes both organic and paid traffic. For a thorough analysis, it’s important to distinguish between the SEO conversion rate and the Adwords conversion rate.

The average website conversion rate

According to a 2022 study by World Stream, the average website conversion rate is 2.35%. This figure relates to paid traffic (SEA) and is a global average. As we’ll see, there are significant differences depending on your industry—and even within the same sector.

Wide variations in performance

Looking more closely at the average website conversion rate, even within a single sector, there are notable disparities. One in four businesses achieves a conversion rate more than double the average (at least 5.31%). Meanwhile, one in ten businesses reaches a conversion rate of 11.45% or higher. So, when you’re working to improve your own conversion rate, don’t just aim to be slightly above average: striving to join the top performers is a sound strategy. To help you achieve this, Incremys offers a range of modules to boost your conversion rate, such as personalised AI and content production.

Sector matters

A quick look at the figures below makes it clear: conversion rates vary greatly depending on the sector. While fashion, for example, has a relatively low conversion rate (2.77%), the vehicle sector stands at 7.98%. If you’re selling cars, you should compare your results to your own industry. Here are some example conversion rates by sector:

• Fashion: 2.77%
• Computers: 3.16%
• Travel and tourism: 3.95%
• Finance: 4.17%
• Property: 4.23%
• Arts and leisure: 4.51%
• Health: 4.63%
• Vehicles: 7.98%

Other KPIs to consider

Some key performance indicators are closely linked to conversion analysis, especially those relating to the commercial value of your offer, such as visitor numbers or average basket value. Adjusting these will inevitably affect your conversion rate. Some industries have flexibility here, others do not. Margin and profitability per conversion are also part of the equation. A business with high profit on occasional sales will have a different approach to a dropshipping site focused on high sales volumes.

Tracking your conversion rate

How can you find out your website’s conversion rate? By correctly setting up analytics tools such as Google Analytics or Incremys, you can monitor your conversion rate daily and over time, and analyse the performance of your marketing campaigns. The reports provided help you track your website’s effectiveness and identify which pages convert well and which ones underperform.

What is a good conversion rate?

It’s important to collect data on your objectives as early as possible. From this analysis, you can establish your own median conversion rate, based on your historical data. This rate will help you evaluate the impact of your conversion optimisation efforts. In addition, by referring to the median values published annually from various sources, you can accurately assess your performance and set realistic targets.

In conclusion

The average website conversion rate is a key metric for analysing marketing performance. It allows you to benchmark against competitors and assess your potential for improvement. Optimisation is often achieved by enhancing user experience (UX)—including content quality, usability, navigation and design. As long as there’s room for improvement in any of these areas, your conversion rate can be further optimised. For more ideas on how to improve, you can read our article dedicated to conversion rate optimisation.

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