CRO Statistics

32 CRO Statistics 2024: Key Facts, Usage & Trends

Published on: July 2, 2023
Last Updated: July 2, 2023

32 CRO Statistics 2024: Key Facts, Usage & Trends

Published on: July 2, 2023
Last Updated: July 2, 2023

Did you know that 70% of businesses believe that conversion rate optimization (CRO) is crucial to their overall digital marketing strategy?

CRO can help businesses understand their customers better, improve website performance, and ultimately increase revenue.

In this resource, we’ll explore the latest CRO statistics and how they can help you make data-driven decisions to optimize your website for conversions.

Resource Contents show

Key CRO Statistics 

  • For every $92 a business spends on attracting customers, only $1 is spent on conversion.
  • Only 22% of organizations are satisfied with conversion rates they’re getting. 
  • The average conversion rate for websites is about 2.35%. 
  • The average website conversion rate among the top 25% sites is 5.31%.
  • In the top 10% of landing page “unicorns”, you will see an average of conversion rate of 11.45% across all industries.
  • While the average conversion rate benchmark ranges from 2% and 5%, it varies across industries.
  • The retail sector (e-commerce) gets a 3% conversion rate among desktop users.
  • 94% of organic search traffic to the world’s websites come from Google.
  • Studies have shown that the proper use of CRO tools can help boost ROI by 223%.
  • Personalized CTAs (call-to-actions) on landing pages result in a 202% higher rate of conversion.

Detailed CRO Statistics in 2024

Here are some common CRO statistics to get you started.

CRO Conversion Rate Optimization 1103

1. For Every $92 a Business Spends on Attracting Customers, only $1 Is Spent on Conversion. 

It’s common to find businesses spending an average of $92 on attracting new customers, but only $1 gets spent on converting them.

Moreover, Inc.com says that an average of $2,000 is spent on CRO tools each month, but they are being used to target returns in excess of double their spending. 

What does all this mean? Well, because of so much being spent on attracting over converting customers, the CRO opportunity is wide open.

The biggest element in conversion is trust. If your customers or website visitors don’t trust you, they won’t buy anything from you. 

Therefore, establishing trust should be a huge priority in converting site visitors into buyers. 

(Inc. 2023)

2. 2020 HubSpot Research Showed that Only 22% of Organizations Were Satisfied with Conversion Rates They’re Getting.  

The biggest reason for low satisfaction in conversion rates is the lack of knowledge among the person or teams who are handling your marketing.

Not having the right knowledge isn’t shameful, but it will make your conversion rates lower than you like. 

So, it’s mostly about learning how to use CRO tools to not just attract, but to convert leads. Some things you can focus on include form placement on your landing page, how you’re using your headline, and remembering to perform split testing. 

When using CRO tools, a little knowledge can go a long way.  

(HubSpot November 2022, Inc. 2023)

3. Data from 2021 Showed that The Average Conversion Rate for Websites Is About 2.35%. 

Let’s face it, landing page and website conversion rates are subjective, or biased based on your industry, niche, audience, or your product or service.

Some audiences, niches, and products/services are easier to convert leads into customers than others. 

The median rate of conversion accounts for 2.35% across niches, audiences, products, etc. The average conversion rate in the E-commerce sector falls at 1.84%, but in Finance it’s 5.01%. Those represent the low to high ends. 

In the legal and B2B sectors, you will see 2.07% and 2.23% average conversion rates, respectively. 

(Impact, WordStream 2023)

4. The Average Website Conversion Rate Among the Top 25% Sites Is 5.31%. 

The top 25% of sites are experiencing average landing page conversion rates of 5.31%, which is more than double that of the overall rates among landing pages. 

Getting an over 5% conversion rate means that you’re exceeding the rates of 75% of all advertisers. However, 75% still gives you loads of room to improve.

What you should take away from this data is that it’s doable.  

The Finance sector of the top 25% of sites is seeing conversion rates of 11.19%, which is at the high end of the spectrum. 

(Impact, WordStream 2023)

5. In the Top 10% of Landing Page “unicorns”, You Will See an Average of 11.45% Across All Industries. 

Unicorns may be a mythical creature but having a “unicorn” landing page (the top 10%) is attainable. Unicorn landing page conversions account for an average rate of 11.45% across all industries.  

Once again, we see Finance has the highest conversion rate at 24.48%.

B2B comes in at an average of 11.70% and E-commerce and Legal sectors make a good showing at 6.25% and 6.46% respectively. 

Will you work to aim for the top 25% with 5.31% conversion rates and unicorns? 

(Impact, WordStream 2023)

6. While the Average Conversion Rate Benchmark Ranges from 2% and 5%, It Varies Across Industries. 

What is considered a good conversion rate varies among industries, but experts say that between 2% and 5% are good conversions.

The founder of WordStream, Larry Kim disagrees and says if you’re stuck there, you have lots of room for growth. 

In 2022, the statistics show that the Animals & Pets sector converted the highest at 45.54% followed closely by the Physicians and Surgeons sector 15.07%.

At the lowest end, Apparel, Fashion and Jewelry experienced 2.06% conversion rates and Furniture fell at 2.59%. 

Usually, the Finance sector converts better, but in 2022, this sector showed 5.59% conversions. 

(JJR 2022, Marx Communications 2022)

7. The Retail Sector (e-Commerce) Experienced a 3% Conversion Rate Among Desktop Users.

We are bringing in a new element of conversion rates by device used. The retail sector (e-commerce) saw a 3% conversion rate in 2022 among desktop users.

According to the BigCommerce website, online retailers should be aiming for 3% and over in conversion rates.

That means that in 2022, the retail sector was right at its exact conversion rate. The overall average for ecommerce is between 2% and 3%, so this sector was doing well in 2022.

However, many experts think it can be better.

Most retailers are happier when they can achieve over 3%. Who wouldn’t prefer more than 3% in sales?

(BigCommerce, Woosuite July 2022)

8. 94% of Organic Searches to The World’s Websites Come from Google.

Google is responsible for 94% of the whole world’s organic search traffic. Organic search consists of well over half web traffic across all industries (53.3%).

Moreover, organic search usage is surpassing growth across other channels. 

Likewise, B2B organizations are generating two times more revenue due to organic search queries than any other sector. In fact, all B2B traffic combined accounts for 76% of web traffic.

Did you know that 68% of all website traffic that can be tracked comes from both organic and paid searches? 

(BrightEdge 2019, Business News Daily February 2023)

9. Studies Have Shown that The Proper Use of CRO Tools Can Help Boost ROI by 223%.

The competition across industries in marketing is fierce, and it’s not going to get any easier.

So, if you aren’t utilizing CRO tools, or aren’t using them properly, you are missing a 223% rise in your ROI. 

Every day, more blogs, brands, and organizations are vying for control between paid ads and organic search ads.

Online users are also spending 28% of their time on social sites, while others are spending their time on video streaming, gaming, blogging, email, searching, and more.

As a result, CRO tools are more important to your business than ever. 

(VentureBeat)

10. Personalized CTAs (call-to-actions) On Landing Pages Result in A 202% Higher Rate of Conversion.

Did you know that CTAs are not all the same? There are three main types. 

  • Basic CTA: This kind of CTA stays the same regardless of the site visitor.
  • Multivariate CTA: This type of CTA is like the basic but is tested between two or more other CTAs. Then the traffic is evenly split until you discover which one converts better.
  • Smart CTA: Smart CTAs can change based on the individual visiting the page. There are several that can be more relevant to the visitor, their location, language, and other attributes.

You can probably see that smart CTAs are the best course of action because these can adapt to the visitor, which can result in a 202% higher chance of conversion.

 (HubSpot Blog)

CRO Adoption Statistics

CRO Statistics

It’s time to learn who’s using CRO tools and at what pace.

11. A 2020 CXL Convert Survey Across 64 Countries Revealed that 46.9% of Respondents Say They Perform One to Two Tests Each Month.

To properly optimize your conversion rates, A/B testing needs to be done.

In the CXL Convert survey, 46.9% of optimizers across 64 countries say they conduct one to two tests per month.

This is the most used test velocity.

Another 9.5% said they conduct at least 20 or more tests each month.

In cases where optimizers wanted to conduct more than 20-plus tests, the most cited problem was the lack of traffic among the open-ended survey questions.

Also, it’s common for a/B testing to not have a standard stopping point. 

(CXL State of Conversion Optimization 2020 Report)

12. 56% of Marketers Say That A/B Testing Is Their Most Popular Type of Conversion Rate Optimization. 

A/B testing is by far the marketer’s best friend in terms of CRO.

In fact, 56% of marketers surveyed said A/B testing is their preferred method of finding out what’s working and what’s not working on their website related to CRO.

Website personalization can help you with higher conversion rates, but you need to perform A/B testing and other testing methods to know what to do.

The issue about A/B testing for website personalization is that 36% of marketers find it exceedingly difficult and another 43% say it’s quite difficult. Only 20% say it’s not difficult.

Another 58% are using A/B testing to improve CRO and 35% said they plan to start using it. 

(Econsultancy)

13.  Using Videos on Landing Pages Are Shown to Boost Conversion Rates by 80% to 86%. 

Not only can quality video content increase landing page conversion rates by 80% to 86%, using the word “video” in email subject lines can boost CTR by 65% and open rates by 19%.  

This means that your marketing emails will be opened 19% more often than without the word “video”.

Since we’re discussing this based on how video improves landing page conversions, you should know the engagement of such content is the main reason. 

Also, videos often aid in more efficient and effective communication of what you’re offering. Video content is huge for conversions. 

(Promo) 

14. Statistics Suggest that User-Generated Content Boost Conversion Rates by 8.5%. 

An analysis conducted by PowerReviews of more than 1.5 million product pages from 1,200 retailers showed that UGC (user-generated content) rose conversions on product pages by 8.5%.  

User-generated content includes testimonials, product reviews, videos, and images that are uploaded by customers, plus any other UGC. 

(PoweReviews)

CRO & PPC Statistics 

We’re going to look at some statistics related to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. 

15. The Average Conversion Rate when Running Google Ads Is 3.75% Across All Sectors.  

The goal of advertisers should be to focus on enhancing the performance of ads in terms of conversion. Experts say that 2% to 5% are good conversion rates, but should marketers and advertisers not set higher goals?  

The Google Ads average rate of conversion across every industry is 3.75%, which falls well within the range of good, but with testing and other methods of getting to know your audience, you could do better.

Google display ads achieve an average of 0.77% conversions.

(WordStream)

16. For PPC Advertising, the Dating and Personal Services Industry Soars at 6% CTR. 

Content for dating and personals often appeals to the emotions of people, which is part of the reason that this industry works so well with PPC advertising.

With 6.05% click-through (CTR) rates on average, it likely makes conversions much easier. 

The average cost-per-click (CPC) for dating and personals is $2.78 and the average conversion rate is 9.64% for search PPC.

So, you could say this industry and the niches within it are high converting. 

Among all industries, dating and personals account for the highest conversions for PPC ads on Google. 

(WordStream)

17. The Most Recent Data Shows that The Average Organization Using Google Ads Generates $2 in Revenue for Each Dollar Spent. 

As mentioned, your brand and industry will somewhat determine your conversion rates. Your brand could perform above the average or below depending on a variety of factors.

It’s common knowledge that PPC advertising is beneficial for nearly any brand.  

This is why many businesses use PPC advertising as part of their marketing strategy.

It’s an effective way to get the most for your advertising dollar. Remember, you need to use keywords that will attract the right audience for your industry. 

Also, customize your ad copy and landing page to get the most out of your marketing strategy. 

(Your Marketing People)

CRO & SEO Statistics 

This portion of the article will cover some SEO data in relation to CRO.

AdobeStock 314883773

18. Studies Show that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Drives Over 1000% More Website Traffic than Organic Social Media Marketing.  

SEO also drives more traffic than paid advertising and other types of marketing with 53% of the total share.

Organic social media marketing generates an average of 5% of website traffic.

This doesn’t mean businesses should quit marketing on social media because it’s still effective and carries a significant impact on clicks and conversions.

It simply doesn’t drive as much website traffic as SEO does.  

Marketers need to utilize engaging social media content along with a solid SEO marketing strategy.

(Create It)

19. 71% of Surveyed Marketers Claim that They Use Strategic Keywords as Their Primary SEO Strategy.

A HubSpot survey in 2020 revealed that 71% of marketers said that they use strategic keywords as their number one SEO strategy.

What does that tell you about keywords? Keywords (short-or long-tailed) are the key to a sound SEO strategy.

When you look at the data, you’ll find that SEO for organic search and paid ads is a solid strategy for getting results.

Conversions are leads that you can convert into loyal customers with the right follow up.

Make sure you’re using keywords properly across all of your marketing channels.

(HubSpot 2020) 

20. More than Half of Surveyed Marketers Say that Keyword Ranking, and Organic Traffic Are the Top Two Ways They Measure SEO Strategy Success. 

According to the HubSpot 2020 survey, more than 50% of respondents said that keyword rankings and organic traffic were their two top ways they measured their SEO strategy success. 

This is another statistic that tells you the importance of organic traffic and keywords.

Not only is using strategic keywords as their top SEO strategy, but they also find keyword rankings one of the best ways to measure success in SEO strategies.

This says a lot about SEO and keywords, doesn’t it?

(HubSpot 2020)

21. 18% of Location-Based Mobile Search Queries Generate a Sale in One Day.

Location-based searches involve people seeking something in their local area.

18% of these local searches lead to at least one sale within a day.

In contrast, only 7% of searches that aren’t location-based result in a sale over one day.

Moreover, 50% of people who used a local search on their mobile phone visited a physical store in a single day.

Another 76% of consumers using local search on a smartphone visited a business within 24 hours.

Additionally, 28% of them made a purchase, which is a conversion.

Local searches need to be used when it’s relevant to your industry.

(SUSO)

22. A Ranking of Number One on Mobile Results in An Average of 27.7% Clicks Compared to 19.3% on Desktop. 

A good SEO strategy can get you to the top of rankings in search, which is more likely to turn into conversions.

On mobile, 27.7% is the average percentage of clicks you can get when you rank in the number one spot on mobile searches within your industry or niche.

If your audience is using desktop more, ranking number one in searches gets you 19.3% of clicks on average.

All this data shows that mobile searches get more traffic (from clicks), but you don’t always get the most conversions.

We have already discussed the fact that desktop conversions are higher.  

(Convert)

23. A Brightlocal Survey Revealed that 98% of Online Consumers Read Reviews for Local Businesses. 

Conversions can come from reviews. When there are a reported 98% of consumers reading online reviews about local businesses, that can boost conversion rates.

Another 76% regularly read reviews online when they are browsing the web for local businesses.

In 2021, this figure was 77%. 

According to the brightlocal survey, 87% of consumers read Google reviews for local businesses.

In 2021, this figure was 81%, so there is a rise in this segment.

Among consumers who write reviews 37% leave positive reviews, 6% leave negative reviews, and 4% of them leave no reviews.

This survey also showed us that many consumers can recognize a fake review, so avoid hiring review writers with bias. 

(brightlocal survey 2023) 

CRO & Social Media Statistics 

Social Media Marketing

Now, let’s have a look at the CRO and social media statistics and see how these figures hold up to PPC and SEO.

24. 89% of Business-To-Business (B2B) Marketers Depend on LinkedIn For Their Lead Generation. 

Lead generation is one of the key factors for conversions. More specifically, targeted lead generation plays a significant role in achieving better conversions.

LinkedIn B2B marketers depend on lead generation at 89%. 

In case you were unaware, there are over 57 million companies listed on the LinkedIn platform.

Lead generation forms used on LinkedIn have been known to boost conversions by 3 times than without LinkedIn. 

Moreover, 4 out of 5 LinkedIn users are decision makers in business. 

(SocialPilot 2023)

25. User-Generated Content (UGC) Results in A 4.5% Higher Conversion Rate on Instagram Compared to Other Content. 

Instagram is winning in terms of conversion rates via UGC (user-generated content) as it generates a 4.5% higher conversion rate compared to other types of content on the platform.  

Therefore, when UGC is used properly on Instagram, you will see more conversions and get more leads from this marketing channel.

This is because there is so much potential to reach over 920 million users on the platform, depending on your niche and target audience. 

There’s power in knowledge, so it’s worth learning everything you can about all social media platforms and how to effectively market them. 

(Gitnux 2023, TrueList 2023) 

26. Pinterest’s Shopping Ads Produce Three Times the Conversions and Increase the Positive Progressive Return on Ad Spend.

Pinterest has around 445 million monthly active users across the globe. The United States is the biggest user with 86 million monthly active users.

There are also around 200 million users who are also advertisers on the platform.

For perspective, Pinterest’s ad revenue is predicted to surpass the $4 billion mark by 2026.

That said, it’s no surprise that the shopping ads on Pinterest are converting three times better than other social platforms. 

 Also, Pinterest ads are seeing a higher positive gradual return on ad spend by double.

 (SocialPilot 2023)

27. 61% of Consumers Say They Trust Influencer-Generated Brands and Product Recommendations. 

Influencers are widely used by brands to achieve improved brand awareness.

In part this is since 61% of consumers say they trust influencer-generated content and recommendations. 

In contrast, 38% of consumers trust brand-generated content, which is significantly lower than that of influencer-generated content.

That doesn’t mean brands shouldn’t create their own content.

It does mean that by adding influencer-generated content, brands can improve their marketing game. 

The data shows that 60% of marketers have found that influencer-generated content performs better on their branded content posts and also drives more engagement.

More engagement improves conversion rates.

 (Influencer Marketing Hub 2023)

28. 42% of Consumers Who Use Facebook Said They Have Seen Fake Reviews on The Platform. 

In 2021, 37% of consumers reported that they saw fake reviews on Facebook.

As more consumers become aware, we saw a rise in this figure to 42% on Facebook in 2022.

Facebook reviews fall in the middle of the fake review recognition among consumers with Amazon at the top with 54% in 2022.

Google is second among the places where consumers see fake reviews with 50% in both 2021 and 2022.

It’s the only space that hasn’t changed over the years. Facebook saw a rise of 5% and Amazon of 2%. 

Even reviews on Yelp (25%), Tripadvisor (13%), Apple Maps (8%), and the BBB (7%) saw changes (either more or less) in fake reviews seen by consumers. 

Fake reviews or any review that looks fake won’t get you high conversions. In fact, it may adversely impact your reputation.

(brightlocal 2023)

29. On LinkedIn, 33% of Posts Convert Better when The Subject Line Is Phrased in Question Form. 

When you post a question on LinkedIn in your B2B groups, you’re likely to see a 33% higher conversion rate.

If you haven’t tried this yet, it’s worth giving it a go for more conversions. 

When questions are relevant to those who see the B2B post in groups on LinkedIn, you are likely to get more engagement.

These queries may address something that resolves a problem for someone or asks about how they resolve a problem.  

Whatever ethically gets your foot in the door to converting a lead is worth doing. 

(WBL 2022)

CRO & Email-Related Statistics

In this section, we will address a few pertinent email related statistics before concluding this article.

30. Kinsta Says that By 2024, Email Users May Account for 4.48 Billion Users Across the Globe. 

While you see and hear some people saying that email marketing is dead or dying, the statistics tell another story.

In fact, it’s predicted that 4.48 billion people will be using email in 2024. For perspective, in 2023 there will be 4.03 billion people using email all over the world.  

The reach potential in the email marketing realm is massive.

Besides that, the average ROI (return on investment) is 3800%, which translates to $38 for each one dollar invested in email marketing campaigns. 

In 2022, email open rates were at an all-time high at 48.69% while email conversions revealed a rate of 0.09%.

However, conversion rates can be higher when you learn how to do email marketing right. 

(Barlliance,Kinsta) 

31. Oberlo Reports an Email Open Rate of 68.6% Among Welcome Emails. 

The overall average for email open rates is 19.7%. However, welcome emails offer a significantly higher open rate of 68.6%.  

This gives you a grand opportunity to input useful and pertinent information in those welcome emails to make them more enticing to raise conversions. 

It’s wise to take advantage of the massively awesome 68.6% open rates of welcome emails.  

(Oberlo 2023)

32. Mondays Have the Highest Email Open Rates at 22%. 

Conversion Rate Optimization

While email open rates are 22% on Mondays, Tuesday email CTRs are the best at 2.4%.

How does this correlate with conversions?

It can help you decide what to put in your emails on a given day to get the most conversions from your email campaign. 

Moreover, the highest click-to-open rates happen on Monday (10.6%) through Thursday (10.7%), with Tuesday (10.8%) being the highest of those days.

Wednesday is tied with Thursday in terms of click-to-open rates. 

Remember, emails must be opened to engage with them, so put your best persuasive and convincing (without being too salesy) content in them. 

Conversely, the unsubscribe rate stays even across all days. 

(Campaign Monitor)

FAQs

​​​​​​​What’s a Good Website Conversion Rate? 

When exploring website conversion rates across all industries, the consensus is that a good conversion rate falls between 2% and 5%.

In other words, they consider these percentages to be benchmarks.

What Is PPC Advertising? 

PPC stands for pay-per-click. It’s an advertising model where the advertiser pays for the ad only when an internet user clicks on the ad.

PPC ads are easiest to recognize on Google and Bing, though they also appear on social media. 

What Is SEO?

Besides being short for search engine optimization, SEO is a set of tactics and strategies used to improve organic search rankings, using proper keywords (phrases), creating authoritative and quality content, using reputable backlinks, etc.

What Are the Best Ways to Optimize Conversions? 

The three primary ways to achieve better CRO include segmentation, content, and design.

1. Segmentation in marketing means to split consumers and/or prospective customers into groups (segments) with similar needs, preferences, behaviors, etc.

In other words, targeting specific markets.

2. Content, which includes text on a website, eBooks, articles, titles, headlines, videos, images, and other content types can make a good or poor impact on your conversion rates.

Content requires using A/B testing as mentioned in the article.

3. Design can include things like the page layout, letter spacing, color usage, and even the alignment of your content. Testing your design elements isn’t as tedious as it sounds.

Changes in design aren’t often huge. Sometimes just changing the color will improve conversion rates.

Conclusion

These CRO statistics in 2024 should help you learn and understand what you’re doing right and what you should be including in your conversion strategies.

Your goal is to boost your leads and convert new customers. 

By leveraging the above data from multiple reliable sources, you can learn where you may be lacking in your CRO strategy and work to improve it.

You can make small to large enhancements as you test out your latest content. 

If you take away anything from these statistics, please let it be the importance of testing to constantly improve your conversions across all your marketing venues.

Sources

BarllianceBigCommerceBrightEdge 2019
Brightlocal Survey 2023Business News Daily February 2023Campaign Monitor
ConvertCreate ItCXL State of Conversion Optimization 2020 Report
EconsultancyGitnux 2023HubSpot Blog
HubSpot 2020HubSpot November 2022Impact
Inc. 2023Influencer Marketing Hub 2023JJR 2022
KinstaMarx Communications 2022Oberlo 2023
PowerReviewsPromoSocialPilot 2023
SUSOTrueList 2023VentureBeat
Woosuite July 2022WordStream 2023WordStream
WBL 2022Your Marketing People

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Written by Kelly Indah

I’m a statistics researcher here at EarthWeb with a special interest in privacy, tech, diversity, equality and human rights. I have a master’s degree in Computer Science and I have my Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification.