Search Marketing: Cost Comparisons

Statistics show that around 75% of internet users don’t look beyond the first page of search results. And while SEO is a fabulous tactic for gaining organic search impressions, Paid Search marketing is the fastest way to get your business to page one. With money spent though, you’ll want to keep a keen eye on your metrics.

Here we review a couple key indicators for success with your Search Marketing. Take a look at the stats and see how your business compares in it’s industry.

Conversion Rates

Your conversion rate is a metric based on the total number of conversions on your site, divided by the total number of visitors. If your site received 10,000 visits last month, and converted 500 times, then your conversion rate would be 5%. Depending on your goals a conversion might be considered an email signup, a phone call, a white paper downloaded, or an e-commerce transaction completed. There are a variety of conversion types to choose from and each business must select the conversions most important to them. 

Wordstream’s latest report found an average conversion rate of 4.4% for Google Ads across all industries. The Vehicle and Law and Government categories saw the highest conversions rates at 7.88% and 7.45% respectively. On the low end was the Apparel category at 2.77%.

Looking at the Display network conversion rates ranged from .29% to 1.22%. No surprise that the Search tactic performed higher, if you’re looking for something you’re probably interested in it. On the other hand, it’s important to remember that while Display may not convert the same, it is a vital tool for helping consumers learn about your product or service. After all, if they don’t know about you, they can’t buy from you.

Conversion Rate benchmarks

Cost Per Conversion

Average Cost per conversion

This metric begins to take into account the actual costs associated with your Search or Display campaign. There are a variety of bidding strategies available and how you set them up will have an effect on where you show up online and how often. However, regardless of the details of how it happened – the cost per conversion is a clear metric to show you how much you’ve paid for each of your conversions.

Again, the cost per conversion metrics vary greatly across industries, and across specified conversions. The overall range most recently reported by Wordstream was from $26.17 to $101.40 for Search Marketing. With the overall average at $56.11. Computers and Electronics sat at the high end, the only category to pass over the $100 mark. 

While $101.40 may seem like a lot of money to convert a single customer there are other factors to consider. First is the lifetime value or LTV. When you can consider the frequency of which a customer will purchase again (and again) you can begin to see that it’s often worth spending more money on that first conversion. Additionally, repeat customers are the easiest to reconvert and will be more likely to add on additional products / services once you’ve earned their trust.

Get in touch with our team at The Woodshop to learn more about search marketing. We can help you identify KPIs that are most relevant to your business and create the best search marketing strategies for you. Schedule a meeting with us to learn more!

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