In SaaS, customer retention is often the difference between sustainable growth and a constantly leaking bucket. Even a small improvement in churn rate can dramatically impact your bottom line and valuation.

But the challenge is knowing exactly where to look. Is it product usage patterns? Customer support interactions? Billing issues? Or perhaps something less obvious like team adoption rates or feature usage? This is also where churn risk becomes visible—by spotting it early, you can act before customers decide to leave.

That’s what we set out to discover when we ran this survey. We collected feedback from over 40 SaaS companies to better understand the most effective strategies for spotting churn risk factors and implementing proactive retention measures.

We got valuable insights into which indicators most reliably predict churn and how top-performing companies are turning potential churn situations into opportunities for stronger customer relationships. These early signs of churn risk can help you determine which customers need proactive outreach.

Let’s check out the details.

• What Is Customer Churn
• SaaS Benchmark KPIs
• Key Insights From Our Research
• Most Effective Predictors of Customer Churning
• Most Successful Initiatives to Reduce Churn Rates
• Stay on Top of Your SaaS Performance Data with Databox

What Is Customer Churn?

Customer churn is the percentage of customers who stop using your product during a specific period. In the context of SaaS, churn typically occurs when customers cancel their subscriptions, downgrade to a free plan, or simply fail to renew.

Churn is often measured as a rate—the number of customers lost during a period divided by the total number of customers at the beginning of that period.

For example, if you start a month with 1,000 customers and lose 50 by the end of the month, your monthly churn rate would be 5 percent. This straightforward churn calculation measures how many customers you lose in relation to how many you had at the start.
While monthly churn is common, some businesses also track annual churn to measure long-term retention patterns.

While some level of churn is inevitable in any business, high churn rates can severely impact a SaaS company’s growth and profitability. Each lost customer represents not just lost recurring revenue, but also wasted acquisition costs and unrealized lifetime value. Keeping customers engaged and preventing churn has a direct impact on CLV (customer lifetime value). Every lost customer also makes your CAC (customer acquisition cost) harder to recoup, since you have to replace that lost revenue all over again.

It’s important to understand these three types of customer churn:

• Voluntary churn occurs when customers actively decide to cancel their subscription
• Involuntary churn happens due to payment failures, overlooked renewal notices or other technical issues
• Net churn factors in both lost customers and expansion revenue from existing customers

SaaS Benchmark KPIs

To better understand how SaaS companies are performing, we analyzed data from the SaaS Benchmark KPIs group, which tracks key metrics across various performance indicators.

This dataset allows SaaS companies to compare their results with the median value, as well as the top and bottom quartiles. It provides insights into essential KPIs such as sessions, new customers, churn rate, churn, recurring revenue (MRR), net profit margin, average revenue per user, and more.

According to data provided by the Benchmark Group SaaS Benchmark KPIs, in February 2025, the median churn value in February 2025 was 7.

If you’re running a SaaS business and want even more actionable insights into churn metrics and other key performance indicators, you can join our free Benchmark Group SaaS Benchmark KPIs.

By joining, you’ll be able to anonymously compare your churn rate, customer retention, MRR, and other important SaaS metrics with other similar companies at no cost.

All it takes is connecting your account to the group—completely anonymous and secure. You can even create your own Benchmark Group, giving you full control over who accesses it and shares data.

Whether you’re focused primarily on reducing churn or tracking a broader set of business metrics, Benchmark Groups cover a wide range of other categories, including marketing, finance, accounting, and many more—providing valuable performance benchmarks across all aspects of your business operations.

Key Insights From Our Research

Our research helped us find several key insights about how SaaS companies identify and address churn risks, as well as the strategies they use to improve customer retention.

Interestingly, most surveyed companies have fewer than 50 employees, meaning many teams are likely balancing customer retention efforts with limited resources.

When it comes to identifying churn risks, 76% of the companies segment and analyze churned customers to identify patterns, while 64% analyze customer feedback and reviews, and 60% monitor product usage and activity.

Pinpointing risk at the individual account level often comes down to recognizing warning signs. Tracking the count of at-risk accounts helps teams prioritize which customers need attention first.

The most common signals include negative customer feedback or public complaints (76%), decreased product usage or engagement (52%), and cancellations or non-renewals (52%).

But identifying risk is just the first step — what happens next is equally important.

Once companies spot potential churn, they often take immediate action by reviewing analytics to better understand the situation and initiating personalized outreach to gather feedback, address concerns, and offer support.

For longer-term churn prevention, companies are getting more proactive. Over the past 12 months, many have focused on collaborating with cross-functional teams to develop holistic solutions and add or improve features based on feedback from churned customers.

Measuring engagement levels also plays a major role in retention. While there’s no single method that works for everyone, 36% of respondents rely on customer surveys and feedback to assess satisfaction and engagement.

Onboarding also emerged as a crucial factor in retention, with 44% of respondents rating their onboarding process as very effective. This suggests that companies investing in clear, helpful onboarding processes are seeing stronger retention rates.

To ensure customers fully utilize their platform’s features, SaaS teams commonly lean on customer education and training (64%) as well as personalized, automated recommendations (56%). Both strategies help users discover the product’s full potential and prevent disengagement.

Finally, when it comes to feature requests, SaaS companies tend to prioritize organization and action.

Most respondents reported using regular review and consideration (72%), proactive implementation of new features (64%), and collecting and organizing requests in an internal project management tool (52%).

This structured approach ensures customer feedback is heard—and acted upon—before it turns into a churn risk.

Most Effective Predictors of Customer Churning

While churn can sometimes feel unpredictable, certain behaviors and patterns often signal when a customer is at risk of leaving.

Here are some of the most effective predictors to watch for:

• Negative Customer Sentiment Based on Call Summaries
• Engagement Level Drop
• Declining Product Usage
• Increase in Support Tickets

Negative Customer Sentiment Based on Call Summaries

Customer calls are often a goldmine of insight, especially when frustration starts to build. Negative sentiment expressed during support calls, account reviews, or success check-ins can be an early warning sign that a customer is considering leaving.

SaaS companies that track call summaries—often using AI tools that analyze tone, language, and key phrases—can flag at-risk accounts before issues escalate.

If a once-positive client starts voicing repeated concerns about product performance, pricing, or unmet expectations, it’s a clear signal that proactive intervention is needed.

Arielle Kimmer of CallTrackingMetrics says that they’ve found that “our AI-generated call summaries are among the most effective predictors of churn. These summaries can often identify unresolved support needs and negative customer sentiment, and signal potential churn months before it’s detected by our account managers.”

Engagement Level Drop

A sudden or gradual decline in how customers engage with your product often precedes churn by weeks or even months. This engagement drop can manifest in various ways, depending on your specific product.

Metrics worth monitoring include:

• Decreased login frequency
• Shorter session durations
• Lower user counts within a customer account
• Declining participation in webinars or training sessions

Particularly concerning is when admin or decision-maker engagement drops while regular users continue normal usage patterns. This often means that the account administrator may be evaluating alternatives.

Andre Oentoro of Breadnbeyond says that they’ve found “that the best indicator of a customer potentially leaving us is their level of engagement.”

“When customers actively participate in the production process, share feedback, and stay in touch, they’re usually happier with our services and less likely to churn. Engaged customers understand the value we offer and are committed to achieving their goals with us.

Conversely, if customers seem disengaged—like taking longer to respond or not participating in meetings—it often signals they’re not satisfied. By keeping a close eye on engagement levels and addressing any concerns promptly, we can reduce the risk of losing customers and maintain strong relationships.”

Mateusz Calik of Delante is another respondent who pointed out that “if the engagement rate goes down, they are going to churn.”

“There’s a very simple rule behind it – if you don’t use something it means you don’t need it or have found a better replacement for it. So I’d also divide churning cases into two categories: people who stopped needing the provided solution and people who weren’t satisfied with the product. With the first category, you can’t really prevent it from happening, but you definitely should pay attention to reasons why your product is worse than the other ones.”

Declining Product Usage

While similar to engagement drops, declining product usage focuses specifically on the core value metrics specific to your product. These are the actions that directly correlate with customers receiving value from your solution.

For example:

• A project management tool might track the number of projects created
• A communication platform would monitor message volume
• An analytics solution would measure report generation and sharing

Companies with sophisticated retention strategies map the entire customer journey and identify ‘success milestones’ for each stage. When customers fall behind on reaching these milestones, it can be a strong indicator of potential churn.

Michal Kierul of INTechHouse says that “if I had to choose one factor, it would be definitely be sustained decrease in product usage.”

“Our platform’s analytics enable us to track user activity levels, alerting us to any notable declines that could signal dissatisfaction or disengagement. This is how we deal with it effectively. We implemented these features after years of analyzing things on our own and trying to approach each issue directly.

But as our business grew, it became increasingly difficult to care about each customer in such detail. Analytics are the best solution to this, as they pose a system that’s manageable and simple. It’s easier to notice bigger mistakes and solutions of problems looking at the current situation from a wider perspective.”

Hyfa K of Empxtrack also mentioned that “one common predictor that tends to be highly effective is declining product usage or activity.”

“When customers start using our product less often or engaging with its features less actively, it’s usually a sign that they might be considering leaving. This makes sense because if someone isn’t using a product as much as before, it could mean they’re not finding it as useful or valuable as they once did. For instance, think about when you stopped using an app on your phone because you found a better one or because it just didn’t do what you needed anymore. It’s kind of like that. When customers stop using our product as much, it’s often because their needs have changed or they’ve found another solution that works better for them.

So, by keeping an eye on how much our customers are using our product and how active they are with it, we can get a good sense of whether they might be thinking about leaving. Then, we can reach out to them, see if there’s anything we can do to help, or maybe even offer them some new features or improvements to keep them happy. It’s all about making sure we’re giving our customers what they need and keeping them satisfied so they stick around.”

Increase in Support Tickets

A sudden spike in support tickets—especially for previously stable accounts—shows growing frustration that could lead to churn. However, the nature and pattern of these tickets matter as well.

An increase in “how-to” questions actually indicates healthy engagement, while tickets about product limitations, bugs, or feature requests might show growing dissatisfaction.

Another important pattern involves the seniority of ticket submitters. When executives who rarely interact with support suddenly start submitting tickets, this often indicates escalating concerns that may lead to cancellation decisions.

“An increase in support tickets, especially regarding the same issues repeatedly, can signify deeper problems with product satisfaction. We try to analyze support ticket patterns to identify and address underlying issues as often and as thoroughly as we can. I think customers will want to tell you what’s wrong, it’s human nature. If they won’t do it out of empathy, they will do it out of anger. So as a CEO, I try to urge my workers to pay close attention to listening to customers (not just literally, but through some non-obvious signals).”

Kamil Rejent

CEO at Survicate

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PRO TIP: Want an easier way to track and monitor support tickets and similar CS metrics? You can download our free HubSpot Service (Tickets Overview) Dashboard Template and compile all of your most important customer support metrics in one place.

Most Successful Initiatives to Reduce Churn Rates

Identifying at-risk customers is only half the battle. Here’s what top-performing SaaS companies are doing to actually prevent those customers from leaving:

• Create Loyalty Programs
• Personalized Email Campaigns Targeting Inactive Users
• Offering Special Deals to Users Who Stopped Using the Product
• Building a “Customer Success” Program

Create Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs create extra value that makes customers think twice before canceling their subscriptions. For SaaS businesses, these programs can take various forms aside from traditional points systems.

They could include tiered membership benefits that activate additional features or support options based on subscription length or exclusive access to beta features for long-term customers.

Many companies find success by gamifying product usage with achievement badges, leaderboards, or status levels that users are reluctant to abandon. Others focus on tangible benefits like usage credits, expanded storage, or complimentary training sessions that increase in value the longer a customer maintains their subscription.

Manoj Kumar of Orderific says that they’ve “rolled out a loyalty program for restaurants using our SaaS technology, aimed at boosting customer retention through rewards.”

“This initiative addressed a critical challenge – helping restaurants build strong, lasting connections with their diners. The program led to increased repeat visits and higher revenue for restaurants. Plus, the insights from this program let them understand their customers better so they can offer exactly what their guests want. As a result, our clients enjoyed stronger relationships with their customers and higher overall satisfaction.”

Personalized Email Campaigns Targeting Inactive Users

Strategic, personalized outreach to dormant accounts can help re-engage users before they churn. These campaigns are successful because they respond directly to specific usage patterns and behaviors.

Re-engagement emails typically focus on specific features the user hasn’t explored, success stories from similar customers, or personalized tips based on the user’s historical interaction with the product.

Irene Graham of Spylix talked about this strategy and mentioned that they “incorporated a personalized email campaign targeting inactive users into our mix of efforts to re-engage them. Via user behavior data analysis, we found out about the customers who have not engaged with our platform for a specific period.”

“After that, we sent a number of emails with specially tailored content and deals to persuade them to re-visit. This measure brought the churn rate down almost by a quarter, also with a 20% increase in re-activation of even the previous non-users.”

PRO TIP: Do you use Mailchimp for email marketing, but still struggle with the platform’s main interface? You can use our Mailchimp Overview Dashboard to keep track of all your key metrics easily, from email open rates to deliverability.

Offering Special Deals to Users Who Stopped Using the Product

When usage has already dropped, special offers can sometimes prevent imminent churn. These actions acknowledge the customer’s disengagement and provide incentives to give the product another chance.

Successful approaches include temporary discounts tied to renewed usage commitments, free access to premium features that might better address the customer’s needs, or credits that extend the subscription period to allow more time for demonstrating value.

Some companies offer complimentary consulting sessions to understand the customer’s needs and reconfigure their product experience accordingly. Others temporarily adjust service tiers to better match current usage patterns without requiring customers to downgrade.

“To prevent customers from leaving, target those who stopped using the software after trying it for free. These are individuals who gave the software a try but didn’t continue using it. Reaching out to them again and offering special deals or extended trial periods can be quite effective.”

Hyfa K.

Marketing Manager at Empxtrack

Want to get highlighted in our next report? Become a contributor now

Building a “Customer Success” Program

Many SaaS companies assign Customer Success Managers (CSMs) to proactively guide users through onboarding, adoption, and expansion.

This team can spot potential blockers, provide tailored recommendations, and offer advice to ensure customers achieve their goals. Regular check-ins, success reviews, and proactive outreach ensure customers feel supported throughout their journey, so they’re far less likely to leave.

Michal Kierul of INTechHouse says that they’ve “launched a ‘customer success program’ designed to proactively engage with customers at every stage of their journey with our software.”

“We decided to create a separate team that does onboarding and we have a step-by-step guide of displaying and learning different options on your own. We also actively promote giving feedback on features and quality of our service.”

Stay on Top of Your SaaS Performance Data with Databox

Keeping track of key SaaS metrics—from churn rates to customer retention and product engagement —is critical for maintaining healthy growth.

But how do you know if your retention strategies are actually working or if your churn rate is competitive in your industry?

Databox can help.

Databox offers a comprehensive SaaS Benchmark Group that covers key churn metrics and other critical SaaS KPIs. By joining this group, you’ll get instant access to industry-specific benchmarks, so you can compare your churn rate, customer engagement, and retention metrics against similar companies.

This comparative analysis helps you see where you’re excelling, spot areas that need improvement, and refine your retention strategy accordingly.

That’s just one small fraction of our Benchmark Group product – there are 50+ groups you can join for free, covering everything from marketing and sales to customer success and finance.

But that’s just one part of what Databox offers. With Databox Dashboards, you can consolidate all your critical SaaS metrics—including data from tools like HubSpot, Stripe, and Google Analytics—into a centralized, real-time view. No more bouncing between platforms or struggling with manual reports.

We have 130+ integrations – all you have to do is select the key metrics you want to track and generate one-click visuals.

Sign up for a free trial and finally get the insights you need to transform your approach to customer retention and build a more resilient SaaS business.

The post Best Strategies to Identify Churn Risk Factors in SaaS (Insights from 40+ Companies) appeared first on Databox.

And what’s that missing piece? We say—benchmarks.

Knowing how companies similar to yours have performed helps you build a complete picture of your performance and potentially attribute some dips and increases to seasonality, industry trends, and more.

Databox compiled a selection of B2B marketing benchmarks to help you evaluate performance from 2023 and set attainable but challenging goals for 2024.

Let’s dive into the data.

• Website and SEO
• Paid Advertising
• Organic Social Media

Website and SEO

B2B has a lower position on average (30.61) compared to all industries (28.78), but it manages to attract a proportionate number of clicks (997.5) relative to the general average (1.41K for all industries).

B2B businesses also have a relatively good level of engagement despite a lower ranking. This could mean they’re targeting niche keywords that have lower search volumes, but attract high-quality leads, improving the probability of conversion.

Let’s take a closer look at specific metrics for the following sources:

Google Analytics 4

Google Search Console

Google Analytics 4

• Sessions
• Session Conversion Rate
• User Conversion Rate

Sessions

The median value of the number of sessions across the B2B industry in November was 3.23K, which is slightly lower than the median value for all industries.

B2B businesses often target a more specialized audience. The slightly lower median could indicate that B2B industries are engaging with a more targeted audience, leading to slightly fewer overall sessions but potentially higher-quality interactions.

Expert recommendation: Tracking sessions and how their number relates to other important website metrics can be easy with this Google Analytics 4 Website Engagement Overview dashboard template. Here, you can monitor Sessions. Events and even find out what devices users use the most to visit your website.

Session Conversion Rate

Our benchmark data shows that the median session conversion rate across B2B businesses was 2.3% in November 2023. In August, the median value of this metric was 2.01% across all industries, so we can see that B2B is experiencing an upward trend in session conversions.

Expert recommendation: Diversify your CTAs to make the most of them. In long-form content, several calls to action are a must, whether text-based, in form of a banner, button, pop-up, etc. Repeating CTAs as the user scrolls down the page improves your chances of converting them.

User Conversion Rate

Based on the data we collected from B2B businesses in our benchmark group, the median value of user conversion rate for all companies in November this year was 2.5%.

Expert recommendation: Databox dashboards let you track conversions filtered by different traffic sources, so you can identify the best-converting ones and invest in them further. If you want to track conversion rates for different sources, such as social media or organic search, select metrics like Customer Conversion Rate by Source or Contact Conversion Rate by Source when building your dashboard.

Google Search Console

• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR 
• Position

Impressions

The median value of impressions across B2B companies within our benchmark group was 73.29K in November.

Expert recommendation: Although businesses typically focus on conversions as they’re what brings in revenue, impressions can be equally important if you’re looking to assess your SEO efforts. Use Google Search Console to identify pages that have generated significantly more impressions compared to previous three months. This could reveal an exploding topic and keywords that are gaining search volume that you can try and leverage early.

Clicks

The median number of clicks B2B businesses generated in November was 997.5 based on our benchmark group data, which is slightly lower than the median value across all industries we had in August.

Expert recommendation: There are many elements of a page that can contribute to a higher number of organic clicks, and one is often overlooked: URLs. The URL should be short, human-readable (meaning that it shouldn’t be a random string of numbers and letters), and contain the primary keyword.

CTR

The median CTR across B2B companies was 1.44% based on the data we collected in November 2023.

Expert recommendation: If you have various pages competing to rank for the same keyword, it could hurt your organic CTR. You can fix keyword cannibalization and improve your CTR by auditing your content and identifying content that’s optimized for the same keywords and search intent. Then, you can merge these pages, remove obsolete ones, or rewrite and optimize one of the pages for another keyword.

Position

The median value of the average position in Google search results across B2B businesses was 30.61 in November, about the same as the median value for all industries in August this year.

Expert recommendation: About a year ago, Google updated its E-A-T framework by adding another E: for experience. This means your content should demonstrate that the author has at least some experience with the topic they’re writing about: they’re used the product, visited the place, etc. Boost your content by providing examples and opinions that demonstrate experience, showing Google (and human readers) that you know what you’re talking about—and you may significantly improve your ranking.

Instantly and Anonymously Benchmark Your Company’s Performance Against Others Just Like You

If you ever asked yourself:

• How does our marketing stack up against our competitors?
• Are our salespeople as productive as reps from similar companies?
• Are our profit margins as high as our peers?

Databox Benchmark Groups can finally help you answer these questions and discover how your company measures up against similar companies based on your KPIs.

When you join Benchmark Groups, you will:

• Get instant, up-to-date data on how your company stacks up against similar companies based on the metrics most important to you. Explore benchmarks for dozens of metrics, built on anonymized data from thousands of companies and get a full 360° view of your company’s KPIs across sales, marketing, finance, and more.
• Understand where your business excels and where you may be falling behind so you can shift to what will make the biggest impact. Leverage industry insights to set more effective, competitive business strategies. Explore where exactly you have room for growth within your business based on objective market data.
• Keep your clients happy by using data to back up your expertise. Show your clients where you’re helping them overperform against similar companies. Use the data to show prospects where they really are… and the potential of where they could be.
• Get a valuable asset for improving yearly and quarterly planning. Get valuable insights into areas that need more work. Gain more context for strategic planning.

The best part?

• Benchmark Groups are free to access.
• The data is 100% anonymized. No other company will be able to see your performance, and you won’t be able to see the performance of individual companies either.

When it comes to showing you how your performance compares to others, here is what it might look like for the metric Average Session Duration:

And here is an example of an open group you could join:

And this is just a fraction of what you’ll get. With Databox Benchmarks, you will need only one spot to see how all of your teams stack up — marketing, sales, customer service, product development, finance, and more. 

• Choose criteria so that the Benchmark is calculated using only companies like yours
• Narrow the benchmark sample using criteria that describe your company
• Display benchmarks right on your Databox dashboards

Sounds like something you want to try out? Join a Databox Benchmark Group today!

START BENCHMARKING

Paid Advertising

Let’s see what the B2B marketing benchmarks are when it comes to paid advertising across the most popular platforms:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Microsoft Ads
• LinkedIn Ads

Google Ads

In terms of trends in paid advertising, Google Ads lead in engagement. They generate the highest CTR, indicating top engagement and proving this is a high-quality channel for B2B companies.

Here’s the breakdown of individual metrics:

Cost

The median amount of money spent on Google Ads in November was $1,763.78 across B2B businesses from our benchmark group.

Expert recommendation: Google Ads offers an unmatched audience size, a variety of ad formats, and remarketing capabilities. If you’re targeting a broad B2B audience and want to reach users who have already interacted with your brand, to achieve your bottom-funnel goals, Google is the way to go.

CPC

The median CPC for Google Ads across B2B businesses was $1.45 in November, more than for Facebook and Microsoft ads, but significantly lower than for LinkedIn advertising.

Expert recommendation: Leverage more specific, long-tail keywords as they’re less competitive and more focused, allowing you to demonstrate how you stand out from competitors. For instance, instead of “payroll software”, use “payroll software for global teams.” This way, you’re increasing the chances of attracting more qualified leads and decreasing your CPC.

CTR

The median CTR for B2B businesses was 4.37% in November, slightly lower than what we found as the median across all industries two months prior.
Expert recommendation: If you’re looking to increase CTR for your Google Ads, make sure you’re using ad extensions to occupy as much space on Google (and in your audience’s minds) as possible. Ad extensions are additional information you put in your ad to give users more context around your product or services, which can boost your visibility and CTR.

Facebook Ads

Facebook and Microsoft Ads show lower CPCs ($0.54 and $0.88 respectively) with reasonable CTRs (1.54% and 2.1% respectively), indicating cost-efficient engagement opportunities across these platforms.

Take a closer look at all the metrics:

Amount Spent

The median amount of money B2B companies spent on Facebook ads was $1,556.32 in November, according to our benchmark data.

Expert recommendation: Easily track overall engagement of your Facebook campaigns using this Facebook Ads Campaign Performance dashboard template. Connect your data and populate the dashboard in one click, and start monitoring clicks, impressions, amount spent, and other important metrics that answer all the questions about your campaign’s performance. The dashboard is customizable.

CPC

The median CPC for Facebook Ads across the B2B industry was $0.54 in November, notably lower than Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads.

Expert recommendation: Optimizing ad targeting is one of the safest ways to reduce your Facebook CPC. Instead of letting the platform select a random audience for you, always make sure you tailor it based on interests, geographic location, and other factors so that you can target people who will genuinely be interested in your product or service.

CTR

Based on our benchmark data, B2B companies recorded a median CTR of 1.54% in November 2023.

Expert recommendation: A/B testing is the only way you can tell for sure which ad element contributed to a higher CTR. But, we recommend testing one thing at a time: copy, visual, CTA, targeting, ad type, etc., so that you can really be sure what’s working and what’s not. Once you identify the best version of an element you’re testing, you can move on to the next one.

Microsoft Ads

Let’s see how B2B companies performed when it comes to Microsoft Ads.

Spend

The median amount of monthly budget spent on Microsoft Ads by B2B companies was $1,334.64 in November 2023.

Expert recommendation: Although Google is dominant in most locations around the world, it stil makes sense for B2B companies to direct a portion of advertising budget to Microsoft ads—at least in the US, more than 25% of users will turn to Bing rather than Google. These ads could help you bring in new, qualified traffic to your website.  

CPC

Based on the data from our benchmark, the median CPC across the B2B industry in November was $0.88, notably lower than for Google Ads.

Expert recommendation: If you’re running Microsoft ads for your business, here’s how to streamline tracking of your main performance metrics: download this customizable Microsoft Advertising dashboard template created by Databox. Here you can monitor how much you’ve spent and how much has returned to you, make sure your CPC doesn’t skyrocket, see how each ad group is performing, and much more.

CTR

The median CTR that B2B companies recorded for Microsoft Ads in November 2023 was 2.1%, which can be considered successful, especially in combination with fairly low CPC.

Linkedin Ads

Our data shows that LinkedIn Ads lead in cost, with the lowest engagement compared to other platforms, plus a considerably higher CPC. This could mean B2B should consider optimizing LinkedIn ads.

See each metric below:

Spent

The median amount of budget spent on LinkedIn Ads by B2B companies in November 2023 was $1,557.52.

Expert recommendation: Since LinkedIn ads can end up being very expensive, focus on what you can do to optimize your spending, such as using retargeting options to maximize ad efficiency. The first step is to install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website, and then follow the instructions you can find on LinkedIn.

CPC

The median CPC for LinkedIn Ads across B2B businesses was $3.96 in November, higher than for any other advertising platform.

Expert recommendation: Monitor the performance of your LinkedIn Ads campaigns with this streamlined, easy-to-understand overview of your active campaigns: LinkedIn Ads Overview dashboard template. Track metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, and CPC, and answer important questions about your performance, from which campaign generated the most clicks to how many engagements in total your ads had in a specific time frame.

CTR

The median CTR for LinkedIn ads across the B2B industry was 0.63% in November 2023. To make sure their spend on LinkedIn Ads has a decent ROI, B2B businesses should implement different tactics to optimize campaigns on this platform.

Expert recommendation: Are you running Dynamic Ads on LinkedIn? There’s a simple way to give your CTR an almost instant boost: add a background image to the ad instead of running it on a white background. The image will make the ad more eye-catching and help you stand out among your competitors—plus, it’s another ad element you can optimize to appeal to your audience.

Organic Social Media

Facebook and LinkedIn are the most commonly used social media platforms for B2B businesses. Here’s how companies performed in terms of organic reach and engagement across these two networks.

• Facebook Pages
• LinkedIn Company Pages

Facebook Pages

Facebook reach and engagement looked like this for B2B companies:

Page reach organic

The median page reach reported by B2B companies in November 2023 was 4.06K, which was more than double of LinkedIn’s reach.

Expert recommendation: Discover what activities positively affect your reach by tracking the numbers in our Facebook (Page Insights) dashboard template. Monitor the reach of individual posts, page likes, page visits, clicks, reactions, and more, and pinpoint any increases to the exact content that caused them, so that you can reiterate.

Page engagements

The median number of Facebook page engagements across the B2B industry was 222 in November.

Expert recommendation: Each social media platform has its pros and cons, and your choice will depend on your goals. Facebook is the ideal network to grow your brand organically if: 1. You’re aiming for conversions, 2. You’re targeting local audiences, and 3. You’d like to invest in building a community, too.

Linkedin Company Pages

Below you’ll see how companies performed on LinkedIn.

Unique impressions

The median number of unique impressions B2B company pages generated on LinkedIn in November 2023 was 1.54K.

Expert recommendation: Track your company page performance on LinkedIn with this easy-to-understand, customizable LinkedIn Company Page Engagement dashboard template. Monitor all your most important metrics, from impressions to followers, to understand what you can do better or do again to make sure your audience remains engaged.

Reactions

B2B companies recorded a median value of 85 reactions in November 2023.

Boost Your Online Performance with Databox

Have you ever wondered if your peers are seeing the same data fluctuations as you, but had no way to check it? Or have you ever wished you could prove a potential client that your metrics are performing better than most of your peers?

Databox came up with a way to enable you to do just that.

We built a benchmarking tool to help businesses make data-driven decisions around strategy, budgets, goals, and more by measuring how their performance stacks up against other companies of the same size or within the same industry.

This approach helps you discover unique insights and opportunities to improve, hop on trends as soon as they emerge, and leverage the data to build your case in front of new customers.

FAQ

The post B2B Marketing Benchmarks to Help You Set Goals for 2024 appeared first on Databox.

Databox collected and examined data from research to help you understand potential reasons for highs and lows in metrics like sessions, clicks, CTR, CPC, spend, organic reach, reactions, and more, and leverage these benchmarks when creating a strategy for the next year.

Ready to dive into SaaS marketing benchmarks?

• Website and SEO
• Paid Advertising
• Organic Social Media

Website and SEO

The median number of sessions across all industries in November was 3.93K, according to 6,412 contributors from our benchmark group. This indicates that SaaS companies, on average, were drawing slightly higher traffic to their websites compared to businesses across all other industries. 

SaaS companies should continue exploring strategies to increase their rankings, keeping in mind their position, the median being 28.78 across all industries, based on the data from 2706 benchmark group contributors.

Let’s dive into the metrics.

• Google Analytics 4
• Google Search Console

Google Analytics 4

Let’s explore each metric.

• Sessions
• Session Conversion Rate
• User Conversion Rate

Sessions

The median number of sessions per month within the SaaS industry was 4.12K in November 2023. As we mentioned above, this number is higher than the median number for all industries.

The higher session count might indicate a more digitally literate user base that is comfortable navigating and utilizing online platforms. For SaaS companies, this could mean that investing in a well-functioning website with a great user experience is a must.

Expert recommendation: Track your website sessions and other relevant metrics in this Google Analytics Website Engagement dashboard template and get insights into your website performance at a glance. This dashboard will help you understand your average session duration, which channels generate the most sessions, what percent of your website sessions end with a conversion, and much more.

Session Conversion Rate

The median conversion rate across SaaS companies in November was 2.09%, which is an improvement compared to our data from August 2023, possibly indicating an upward trend across the SaaS industry.

Expert recommendation: To improve your session conversion rate, identify top-performing content on your website and run an SEO analysis to learn how you can improve it even more. Refresh these pages with up-to-date information, optimize meta tags, add visual elements, and make sure the content is aligned with search intent and easy to navigate. You can also analyze your top performers to discover what works well for your audience in terms of topics, messaging, and design.

User Conversion Rate

The median conversion rate across the SaaS industry in November was 2.45%.

Expert recommendation: In Databox databoards, you can easily monitor conversions with different filters applied, to discover the best converting traffic sources. To see your conversion rate for, let’s say, organic search, email marketing, or social, simply include “Customer Conversion Rate by Source” metric and specify a time frame for which you want to check the numbers.

Google Search Console

Let’s get more insights into each listed metric.

• Impressions
• Organic Clicks
• CTR (Click-Through Rate)
• Average Position

Impressions

The median number of impressions SaaS companies in our benchmark group had in November is 95.82K, which is slightly lower than what they had in August this year.

Expert recommendation: Looking at impressions and clicks can reveal if you’re leaving money on the table. Use the data from Google Search Console to improve the effects of your pages appearing in search results. Is your impression-click ratio off? Think about modifying titles and meta descriptions of your articles to draw more attention from your users. You can easily connect your GSC account with Databox and track these metrics in a streamlined databoard.

Organic Clicks

The median number of organic clicks SaaS websites received in November is 1.05K, dropping a little compared to our August data.

Expert recommendation: Want to increase the number of organic clicks? Target specific, longer phrases that are more specific to your audience’s intent. They often have less competition and can attract highly relevant traffic. Make sure you include these keywords throughout your text, including titles and meta descriptions.

CTR (Click-Through Rate)

In November, SaaS companies from our research had a median CTR of 1.25%. 

Expert recommendation:Organic CTR depends on many factors, including search intent. Sometimes, people search for queries with simple answers that can be answered in the featured snippet, so they don’t need to click on any links in the search results. To keep your business top-of-mind, optimize your pages to win featured snippets and show up at the top of SERPs. These may not bring you clicks, but are a factor that positively affects your SEO performance.

Average Position

SaaS companies recorded a median average position of 33.44 in Google search results. According to our August data, it used to be 33.89, so there’s a slight improvement in rankings across the SaaS industry.

Expert recommendation: We often think that “beautiful writing” equals quality content. In reality, we need to bear in mind that a reader visits our page to get information, not to enjoy poetry. This is why it’s key to keep your content accessible—through informative visuals, bullet points, short paragraphs, and text that actually answers the reader’s questions without fluff. This will help improve your rankings, drive more traffic to your pages, and open the door for more conversions.

This is also why our users love Databox dashboards: a snapshot of your performance is available at a glance and in real time.

Paid Advertising

Paid ads across different platforms were another marketing channel for which we extracted data from our research. Here’s how each of the most popular platforms performed:

Microsoft Ads were the biggest surprise of our research, with a substantial investment surpassing spending on other platforms.

LinkedIn Ads, while having the lowest engagement compared to other platforms, have a considerably higher CPC. This higher cost could be due to the platform’s specific audience, making reaching this target group more expensive.

Let’s dive deeper into each platform.

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Microsoft Ads
• LinkedIn Ads

Google Ads

Despite a higher cost, Google Ads still generate the highest CTR, indicating top engagement. This indicates that it is a high-quality channel for SaaS.

Cost

The median value for the cost of Google Ads for SaaS companies in November was $1,978.68.

Expert recommendation: If you’re unsure whether to invest in Google Ads over some other advertising platforms, think of it this way: if you aim for purchases as your main conversions, work with a relatively broad audience, and want to run retargeting campaigns, Google is a good choice. You can also choose among a variety of ad formats, increasing your chances to appeal to your audience, whatever their preferences are.

Average CPC

According to our data, the median value for the Avg. CPC metric for Google Ads for SaaS companies in November was $1.52.

Expert recommendation: Filter your data to see CPC for different locations, devices, and times. Identify locations and times of the day and days of the week when you have the lowest CPC, but with good CTR and conversion rate. Then, for maximum campaign efficiency, set your ad to show during that most successful time instead of 24/7.

CTR

The median Google Ads CTR across the SaaS industry was 4.28% in November, which is an increase compared to our August data, when the average CTR for SaaS was 3.72%.
Expert recommendation: There’s little room for compelling copy in Google ads, so you should make sure you’ve made the most out of that space to increase your CTR. Effective copy is concise, contains your unique value proposition, and triggers an emotion in the user. You can achieve this by using relevant keywords (including long-tail ones) and showing exactly how your product or service solve the user’s problem.

Facebook Ads

SaaS companies spent a similar amount of money on Facebook ads as on Google Ads. However, the Facebook ads CTR was only higher than the one on LinkedIn, indicating that SaaS companies may benefit from improving targeting to make the ads relevant for more specific audiences on Facebook.

Amount Spent

The median amount spent for Facebook ads across SaaS companies in our research was $1,906.79 in November.

Expert recommendation: Track how much money you spend on Facebook ads with this Facebook Ads Campaign Performance dashboard template. Populated with other relevant metrics, such as clicks, impressions, CPM, CPC, and deep dives into more granular data, like amount spent by country, this dashboard will provide you a complete overview of your Facebook campaign performance so that you can tweak it to maximize success.

CPC

Based on the data from our research, the median value of Facebook Ads CPC in November was $0.66 across all SaaS businesses.

Expert recommendation: If you’re launching several ads simultaneously, try to avoid overlapping multiple audiences because it essentially makes you bid against yourself. This is a common mistake among marketers, but it drives your CPC higher than it should be. Make sure that all factors, including location, gender, interested, and others are different for all the ads you run.

CTR

Our benchmark data shows that the median CTR for Facebook ads for SaaS companies was 1.43% in November, essentially the same as earlier this year.
Expert recommendation: Social proof is one of the biggest purchase motivators, and it can help boost your ad’s CTR. You can use customer reviews and quotes both as text and in visual form, but also show your ad to loyal customers to get likes, positive comments, and shares on your ad. When new users who are unfamiliar with your product or service see an ad with high engagement, they may be more likely to click it.

Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads were the biggest surprise of our research, with a substantial investment surpassing spending on other platforms.

Spend

The median value of Microsoft Ads spend across the SaaS industry was $2,836.72 in November, around $1,000 more than for any other advertising platform.

Expert recommendation: We’ve found through surveys thats B2B businesses like SaaS believe they may benefit from Microsoft Ads in terms of driving new traffic to their website, as well as boosting customer retention. This advertising platform lets you reach new users through its precise targeting features of niche audiences and ability to show your ads across smartphones and tablets. Given that over 25% of users in the US and over 35% of users in China use Bing more than Google, so running ads on Bing makes perfect sense.

Average CPC

The median value of the average CPC for Microsoft Ads for SaaS companies was $1.04 in November, very similar to Google Ads.

Expert recommendation: if you’re running ads on Bing, here’s a simplified way to track your spend, impressions, clicks, and more—all in a single screen. Check out our Microsoft Advertising Overview dashboard template: it’s customizable and allows you to monitor how many people have seen your ads, which campaigns have been the most successful at driving clicks, which ads have the best performance, etc.

CTR

When it comes to Microsoft Ads, the median CTR across SaaS companies was 2.87% in November.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads, while having the lowest engagement compared to other platforms, have a considerably higher CPC. This higher cost could be due to the platform’s specific audience, making it more expensive to reach this specific target group.

Spent

The median value of SaaS budgets spent on LinkedIn ads in November was $1,878.82, relatively similar to the median value across all industries.

Expert recommendation: To optimize your LinkedIn ad spend in 2024, rely on audience and creative data to discover the most engaged combination that you can reiterate and support further. Pause low-performing ads and allocate spend toward those that are driving the most clicks and conversions.

Average CPC

Based on our benchmark data, the value of the Average CPC metric for LinkedIn ads was $4.04 for SaaS businesses in November this year.

Expert recommendation: Databox’s LinkedIn Ads Overview dashboard template is an excellent way to streamline monitoring and reporting on your LinkedIn ad campaigns. With this customizable dashboard, you can answer some key questions about your ad performance, such as: how many users are seeing your ads and clicking on them? How much have you spent on LinkedIn ads this month? Which of your campaigns has the best performance? And much more.

Average CTR

We found that the median value of the Average CTR metric for LinkedIn ads was 0.62% in November across all SaaS companies, which is the lowest value compared to other platforms.

Expert recommendation: Among the several types of ads on LinkedIn, video ads typically generate a lot of engagement. To enhance your CTR for LinkedIn video ads even further, focus on the first few seconds of your video. These are key to generating interest in your audience so that they keep watching. To keep them hooked, use storytelling techniques to grab their attention, and make sure you always use subtitles.

Organic Social Media

Many claim that Facebook is dead, but is it? Our benchmark data shows that SaaS companies can still find relevant audiences on Facebook and build their brand organically.

Let’s take a closer look at the data.

• Facebook Pages
• LinkedIn Company Pages

Facebook Pages

Facebook pages even outperformed LinkedIn when it comes to reach and engagement. Here are the median values across the SaaS industry:

Page Reach Organic

When it comes to organic reach, we found that Facebook Pages had a median value of 2.39K in November.

Expert recommendation: To stay on top of your Facebook page performance, get this customizable Facebook (Page Insights) dashboard template and track metrics such as: total page likes, post reach, page visits, impressions, and much more. This dashboard will let you get an overview of your page’s performance at a glance and understand what works best for your audience.

Page Engagements

Our benchmark data shows that the median value of page engagements in November was 140 across all SaaS businesses.

Expert recommendation: If you can’t decide between running ads on Facebook and Instagram, base your decision on your primary goals. Aiming for conversions? Facebook is the platform to go with. Marketing experts claim that Facebook helps you generate qualified traffic and typically outperforms Instagram in terms of converting users into paying customers.

Linkedin Company Pages

LinkedIn offers a variety of ways to engage with prospects and to reach a professional audience and relevant decisionmakers. It’s an excellent way to promote your business and increase sales, but our benchmark data shows that SaaS companies had more success with other platforms in November.

Unique Impressions

SaaS companies saw a median value of 1.36K unique impressions in November, based on the data from our research.

Expert recommendation: To fully understand how your company page is performing on LinkedIn, you need a streamlined way to track relevant metrics. Enter this LinkedIn Company Page Engagement dashboard template. Here, you can easily monitor the total number of followers, impressions (even broken down by post), engagement, and other KPIs that will help you identify any trends and pinpoint posts that have performed exceptionally well.

Reactions

Our bresearch recorded that the median value of reactions on LinkedIn pages across the SaaS industry was 76.5 in November, which is lower than in October of the same year.

The post SaaS Marketing Benchmarks to Help You Set Your Goals for 2024 appeared first on Databox.

And if you’re only relying on your own data and have no insight into how your competition is performing… things get that much harder.

Are your ads getting enough clicks? Is your profit margin in line with what others in the industry are saying?

These are just some questions you’ll need answers to in order to optimize your PPC strategies accordingly.

That’s why in this report, we examined PPC advertising metrics such as clicks, CTR, CPC, and impressions, across all the biggest PPC advertising networks like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads and compiled benchmarks that can shed more light on the competitive landscape right now.

For more insight into other benchmarks, you can join our Benchmark Groups for free and get instant access to a variety of groups most relevant to your business.

We’ve divided the insights into:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• CPC

Impressions

First, let’s start with the number of impressions advertisers are seeing across the board:

• Google Ads Impressions
• Facebook Ads Impressions
• LinkedIn Ads Impressions

Google Ads Impressions

Across all industries, the median number of impressions on Google Ads for October 2023 was 42.87K.

Let’s take a closer look at Google Ads impressions across different industries:

Apparel & Footwear and Ecommerce and Marketplaces have the highest number of impressions, indicating a strong focus on Google as an advertising platform.

Apparel & Footwear present regular purchases and consumers frequently browse online for the latest trends and deals. This is especially true in the last few years in which we’ve seen a huge shift toward online shopping.

And Ecommerce platforms, in general, cater to a wide range of products, making them a common destination for online shoppers that are looking for different products – from dog toys to beauty products.

Expert recommendation: Are you taking advantage of responsive search ads (RSA) on Google Ads? This feature can be a great way to quickly find winning headlines and copy and boost your Google Ads impressions. You write several headlines and Meta descriptions that you want to test out, and then let Google automatically test the different combinations to optimize for the best-performing ad.

Facebook Ads Impressions

Across all industries, the median number of impressions on Facebook Ads for October 2023 was 250.71K.

Let’s take a closer look at Facebook Ads impressions across different industries:

Again, we see Apparel & Footwear and Ecommerce & Marketplaces industries record the highest number of impressions on the platform. One big reason for this could be the visual appeal of Facebook.

These two industries often involve visually appealing products and industries that can showcase their products through high-quality images or videos tend to attract more attention on Facebook.

Facebook Ads generally show higher impressions across industries compared to Google and LinkedIn, indicating a wider reach or higher user engagement on Facebook.

Expert recommendation: If you haven’t used it before, try out the “Reach” objective to potentially increase your number of impressions with Facebook Ads. Most brands opt for the Brand Awareness campaign and never even experiment with the reach option. But if you have quality creative, good copy, and top-notch images, there’s a good chance you’ll reach a larger number of people.

LinkedIn Ads Impressions

Across all industries, the median number of impressions on LinkedIn Ads for October 2023 was 54.07K.

Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn Ads impressions across different industries:

When it comes to LinkedIn Ads, Information Technology and Services show a strong presence, which is in line with LinkedIn’s professional network nature.

LinkedIn is primarily used by professionals for networking and career-related activities.

Industries related to information technology and technology services are inherently tied to professional development, making LinkedIn a natural fit for advertising in these sectors.

Expert recommendation: Want to stay on top of your LinkedIn Ads performance? In that case, you’ll need to track a lot more than impressions. But unfortunately, LinkedIn’s campaign manager doesn’t make the monitoring process easy on the users. Users tend to spend more time collecting data than actually analyzing it. But with our LinkedIn Ads Campaign Performance Dashboard, that’s not an issue anymore. You can compile all of your most relevant insights into one comprehensive dashboard and then make them even more understandable by transforming the data into professional visuals.

Clicks

Next up, let’s check out how many clicks businesses are recording.

• Google Ads Clicks
• Facebook Ads Clicks
• LinkedIn Ads Clicks

Google Ads Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on Google Ads for October 2023 was 1.18K.

Let’s take a closer look at Google Ads clicks across different industries:

Apparel & Footwear lead in clicks, aligning with their high impression rates. In the second spot, we have Ecommerce & Marketplaces with 5.39K clicks in October.

It’s not surprising that these two industries have the highest number of clicks seeing that they outperform other industries by a wide margin when it comes to impressions.

Expert recommendation: If you’re looking for a streamlined way to manage your Google Ads performance data and stop monitoring key metrics in spreadsheets, you can download our Google Ads Dashboard Template. In this customizable template, you can drag and drop your most relevant Google Ads metrics and track changes as they occur in real time. No more slouching over several spreadsheets to figure out what’s going on with your numbers.

Facebook Ads Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on Facebook Ads for October 2023 was 2.77K.

Let’s take a closer look at Facebook Ads clicks across different industries:

Just like with Google Ads, we can notice similar trends with Apparel & Footwear getting more clicks on Facebook Ads as well.

On the other side of the spectrum, we have Health & Wellness with the lowest number of clicks (779). This can be because the Health & Wellness industry is often subject to strict regulations and compliance requirements.

Advertisers in this sector may face limitations on the type of claims they can make or the language they can use in their ads, which can impact the overall effectiveness of the campaign.

Expert recommendation: You’re probably using social proof on your landing page, but are you leveraging it on the Facebook ad as well? Using social proof in the first touch point of your ad can be a great way to increase your CTR and get more people into your funnel. Especially nowadays, when users are looking for more credibility and trust before they engage with a certain brand and purchase their products.

LinkedIn Ads Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on LinkedIn Ads for October 2023 was 452.

Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn Ads clicks across different industries:

On LinkedIn Ads in general, we’re seeing fewer clicks, possibly due to its more niche and professional audience.

Users might be more selective about the content they engage with, and ads may need to be particularly relevant and targeted to capture their attention.

Expert recommendation: On PPC platforms like Facebook and Google, hyper-targeting is usually a good idea. But that’s not always the case with LinkedIn. On LinkedIn Ads, one best practice is to limit your targeting to two specific options (not including the location). This way, you’re not limiting your reach on LinkedIn. If your audience is too narrowly defined, your ads may not be shown to a sufficient number of users, reducing the overall visibility of your campaign.

CTR

What about the click-through rate (CTR)? Let’s see how businesses are performing with this metric.

• Google Ads CTR
• Facebook Ads CTR
• LinkedIn Ads CTR

Google Ads CTR

Across all industries, the median CTR on Google Ads for October 2023 was 3.8%.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads CTR across different industries:

The Travel & Leisure industry has the highest CTR on Google Ads and part of the reason for this is that many users that search these keywords have high commercial intent.

People actively searching for travel-related information are likely to click on ads that closely match their search intent.

Health-related industries (Healthcare and Health & Wellness) have also shown impressive CTR in our research.

Expert recommendation: One great way to secure more clicks on your Google Ads is to utilize ad extensions. Not only are you taking up more valuable space, but you’re also able to provide more information about your business and solutions to your potential customers. For example, if you’re a local business, you can use ad extensions to directly provide a phone number or customer reviews.

Facebook Ads CTR

Across all industries, the median CTR on Facebook Ads for October 2023 was 1.63%.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads CTR across different industries:

On Facebook Ads as well, Travel & Leisure has the highest CTR. This suggests better audience targeting or visually attractive content.

The travel industry often involves visually stunning destinations and seeing that Facebook is a highly visual platform, engaging imagery or videos of exotic locations can capture users’ attention and prompt them to click.

Facebook also offers robust targeting options, allowing advertisers to tailor their ads to specific audiences based on their travel history, interests, or online behavior, making the ads more relevant.

Expert recommendation: No matter what industry you’re in, it’s rare for users to buy something from your ads after just one touchpoint. That’s why retargeting is so crucial in boosting your Facebook Ads CTR. Retargeting on Facebook can boost your CTR by re-engaging users who have previously visited your website or interacted with your content. By targeting this audience, you’re reaching users who have already shown interest, increasing the likelihood of getting a click.

LinkedIn Ads CTR

Across all industries, the median CTR on LinkedIn Ads for October 2023 was 0.74%.

Let’s take a closer look at the LinkedIn Ads CTR across different industries:

For LinkedIn Ads, no specific industry in our research stood out and none have a CTR higher than 1%.

Expert recommendation: If you’re running video ads on LinkedIn, make sure you use subtitles. There are two reasons for this – the default option on LinkedIn videos is “mute” and people generally start the video with the audio turned off. And considering how crucial those first few seconds are, you don’t want to risk the audience missing your initial hook.

CPC

Lastly, let’s talk about the CPC on these different platforms.

• Google Ads CPC
• Facebook Ads CPC
• LinkedIn Ads CPC

Google Ads CPC

Across all industries, the median CPC on Google Ads for October 2023 was $1.22.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads CPC across different industries:

Health Care and Health & Wellness have higher CPC, potentially due to strong competition.

The Health Care and Health & Wellness industries are typically competitive, with numerous businesses fighting for attention. Increased competition can drive up CPC as advertisers bid against each other for premium ad placements on the network.

Expert recommendation: Google wants to make sure users have the best possible experience on their platform, which means you’ll need to improve your ad relevance if you want to lower your Google Ads CPC. The best way to do this is to ensure that your keywords are closely related to your ad copy and landing page content. Another big factor is to craft compelling ad copy that aligns with the intent of the user’s search query.

Facebook Ads CPC

Across all industries, the median CPC on Facebook Ads for October 2023 was $0.44.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads CPC across different industries:

Similar to Google Ads, Health Care and Health & Wellness industries also lead Facebook Ads when it comes to CPC (both over $1).

The travel industry has a broad target audience, allowing for more extensive targeting options. Advertisers can reach a wide range of people, potentially resulting in lower CPC.

Plus, the travel industry often experiences seasonal fluctuations in demand. During off-peak seasons like October, advertisers may face less competition, leading to lower CPC.

Expert recommendation: Are your ads engaging? Are there any areas for improvement? What metrics need to be optimized ASAP? Getting answers to these questions can be difficult if you’re only tracking your performance through the Facebook Ads Manager. Luckily, there’s an easier way to do it – download our Facebook Ads Campaign Performance Dashboard. In just a few minutes, you can compile all of your key Facebook Ads metrics in one place and track your performance from one place. No more digging through several reports to get the information you need.

LinkedIn Ads CPC

Across all industries, the median CPC on LinkedIn Ads for October 2023 was $3.37.

Let’s take a closer look at the LinkedIn Ads CPC across different industries:

For LinkedIn Ads, Health Care and Real Estate have the highest CPC, aligning with the platform’s professional focus.

Both Health Care and Real Estate industries often require highly targeted advertising to reach specific professional audiences. The nature of these industries may lead advertisers to narrow down their audience criteria significantly, resulting in a smaller pool of potential clicks but a higher CPC.

But for both industries, the potential customer lifetime value is often high. Advertisers are willing to invest more in acquiring a customer because the long-term value of that customer can justify higher advertising costs.

Expert recommendation: Many businesses overlook ad scheduling on LinkedIn Ads for some reason. But if you use it properly, it’s possible to see lower CPC on the platform. To do this, you need to analyze your audience’s behavior patterns and see at which time they’re likely to be active on LinkedIn. Then, use this data to schedule your ads to appear during the high-traffic periods.

PPC B

FAQ

The post PPC Industry Benchmarks for 2024 appeared first on Databox.

This report will clear up the confusion for you. We analyzed clicks, impressions, ad spend, engagement, and reactions for LinkedIn organic posts and ads for 15 industries. All LinkedIn industry benchmarks mentioned in this report are from October 2023.

While benchmarks help you compare performance against peers, they don’t always explain why your numbers look the way they do. Teams now use AI data analysts, like Databox MCP, to ask specific questions about their LinkedIn performance in plain English and get answers based on their actual campaign data, definitions, and historical trends. Instead of just seeing that engagement dropped or CPC increased, you can understand what changed, when it shifted, and how it compares to your usual patterns—making benchmark comparisons far more actionable.

Keep reading to find out where your LinkedIn account stands.

• Organic LinkedIn Impressions
• Organic LinkedIn Clicks
• Organic LinkedIn Reactions
• LinkedIn Ads Impressions
• LinkedIn Ads Clicks
• LinkedIn Ads Engagement
• LinkedIn Ads Spent
• LinkedIn Benchmarks for Your Industry

Organic LinkedIn Impressions

The median number of organic impressions for LinkedIn Pages was 3.72K in October 2023.

Here are the totals for different industries:

The median for all industries is noticeably lower than a lot of the median values for individual industries, so pay careful attention to how those numbers differ for your sector. Automotive had by far the highest median number of impressions at 7.39, which could suggest that it has good organic reach. Meanwhile, Healthcare and Health & Wellness had the lowest median impressions, indicating they could struggle with organic performance.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATION: If you’d like to improve your organic impressions on LinkedIn, make sure you’re putting plenty of time and thought into your posts. When we talked to LinkedIn power users about using LinkedIn for marketing, they mentioned tips like planning out your content and investing in audio and video.

You can also work around your LinkedIn page’s limitations in the algorithm by starting an employee advocacy program. Ask your team members to post about your company and content to direct their followers to your page.

Organic LinkedIn Clicks

The median number of organic LinkedIn Page clicks throughout all industries was 161.5 in October 2023.

Here’s what medians by industry looked like:

Like with impressions, the overall median skewed lower than most industry medians. Automotive also won out here with a median of 510 clicks, indicating more of its potential for organic engagement on LinkedIn. Healthcare and Health & Wellness also earned the lowest median clicks at 108 and 112 clicks, respectively.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATION: If your content isn’t earning as many clicks as you’d like, revisit the best practices for making your posts more engaging. Some of these strategies include encouraging engagement, getting your employees involved, and posting consistently. As you try these new tactics, keep measuring your performance to see which approaches get you the most clicks.

Organic LinkedIn Reactions

In October 2023, the median number of organic reactions for LinkedIn Pages was 98 across all industries.

These were the medians per industry:

Despite having one of the lowest medians for impressions and clicks, the Health & Wellness industry had the highest median number of reactions at 158. This could mean that even though the industry has less reach, the visitors who do see posts are more likely to engage through LinkedIn.

With impressions, clicks, and reactions having such a strong relationship with each other, it’s ideal to track all three metrics together. Our LinkedIn Company Page Engagement Dashboard Template brings these performance factors together into one databoard.

LinkedIn Ads Impressions

Throughout all industries, there was a median of 55.38K impressions for LinkedIn Ads in October 2023.

Let’s see how each industry performed:

The technology-related industries, Information Technology & Services, SaaS, and Technology, had the highest medians, clocking at more than 70K. This could be due to the fact that LinkedIn users focus on business, and these are services that businesses in multiple industries use, making them relevant to a lot of users. Real Estate ended up having the lowest median at 73.21K.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATION: If you want more eyes on your LinkedIn ads, follow the best practices for creating engaging ads on LinkedIn — particularly those related to targeting. For example, you could try using LinkedIn’s custom targeting options to better match your audience. Your targeting settings determine who sees your ads in the first place, which influences the reception you’ll get.

LinkedIn Ads Clicks

Across all industries in October 2023, there was a median of 451 clicks for LinkedIn Ads.

Take a look at the median number of clicks by industry:

Tech industries also thrived in this metric, with all three earning more than a median of 550 clicks in October.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATION: When we consulted frequent LinkedIn Ads users about the strategies that work best for improving metrics like clicks, their preferred strategies involved personalized and highly targeted ads. Even though you’re getting your ads out to a lot of people, speak to the exact customer you want to click on your ad.

The best strategies for improving LinkedIn Ads clicks also depend on the format of your ad. Our guide to LinkedIn Ads CTR offers tactics for every ad type.

LinkedIn Ads Engagement

The median number of engagement actions (likes, comments, shares, etc.) for all industries’ LinkedIn Ads was 646.5 in October 2023.

Let’s examine medians for each industry: 

Only four industries had enough data to report, with three of those being the tech industries that succeeded in other areas. We need more data from Benchmark Group participants to make any definite conclusions.

One factor behind your LinkedIn Ads that offers insights into your engagement is your audience’s demographics. The LinkedIn (Demographics overview) databoard template breaks down your follower profiles by function, geographic area, seniority, and other traits that influence their content preferences.

LinkedIn Ads Spent

The median LinkedIn Ad spend for companies in all industries was $1,369.88 in October 2023.

Let’s examine medians for each industry: 

The Healthcare industry had the highest median ad spend in October at $2,509.42. This increased spend could suggest a need for targeted advertising, but we can’t determine this for sure without clicks and engagement data.

Information Technology & Services, Technology, and SaaS also had high median spend figures, which aligns with their high impressions and clicks values.

Industrials & Manufacturing had the lowest median ad spend at $616.45.

EXPERT RECOMMENDATION: Your LinkedIn Ads spend should be high enough to reach your intended audience without wasting money on unneeded impressions. The advice we received from LinkedIn Ads professionals on reducing spend related to proper targeting, such as putting retargeting to use and spending more on your highest-performing audiences.

FAQ

The post Organic and Paid LinkedIn Performance Benchmarks by Industry for 2023 appeared first on Databox.

Other than looking at how much you gain back from the ads you run on Google, how can you know if your campaigns are efficient? Do they convert enough? What numbers should you aim for?

When comparing your conversion rate against industry benchmarks, context matters just as much as the number itself. A small dip may look concerning until you see how it aligns with seasonal patterns, campaign changes, or shifts in cost-per-click. Teams now use AI data analysts, like Databox MCP (https://databox.com/mcp), to ask simple questions such as why conversion rates dropped last month or which campaigns improved efficiency. Because it works with your actual metrics and historical performance, it can explain changes clearly and help you interpret trends without guessing.

That’s exactly what you’re going to learn in this article. Find out what you can count as conversion, how to improve your conversion rate, and discover a way to compare your performance directly against your peers.

• Google Ads Conversion Rate Definition
• Google Ads Conversion Rate Formula
• What Qualifies as a Conversion Activity?
• What’s the Average Google Ads Conversion Rate?
• What is a Good Google Ads Conversion Rate?
• 5 Best Practices to Improve Your Conversion Rate for Google Ads

Google Ads Conversion Rate Definition

Conversion rate for Google ads is the percentage of website visitors that complete a desired goal per ad interaction. What you’ll count as a conversion depends on your business goals: it can be anything from a call to your store to a signup or purchase of your product.

Tracking Google ads conversion rate is important because it helps you discover keywords and phrases that your customers use to find products or services like yours, which can boost your other marketing efforts.

You should also measure Google ads conversion rate to optimize your ad spend because you’ll know exactly which ad sets work, and which don’t.

Finally, you’ll learn more about how your customers interact with your ads, like what devices they use.

If your conversion rate for Google ads is high, that typically indicates that your targeting is on point, your ad copy is compelling, and that your offer is attractive to your customers. If it’s low, some aspects of your campaign aren’t working as they should be, so you should think about adjusting your messaging, budget, or CTAs. More on these tactics in the “best practices” section.

Related: Google Ads Click-Through Rate (CTR): What’s Considered “Good” and How Can You Increase It?

Google Ads Conversion Rate Formula

You can easily calculate your conversion rate by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of interactions you can track to a conversion within the same period of time.

Conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) * 100%

For instance, if 10 visitors converted out of 1,000 who interacted with the ad, you’d divide 10 by 1,000, and your conversion rate would be 1%.

Note that sometimes you may end up with a conversion rate over 100% as multiple conversions might be counted for every interaction that happens on your ads.

You will see this happen when you:

1. Track multiple conversion actions, or
2. Select “Every” conversion in your Google ads account.

What Qualifies as a Conversion Activity?

Brand awareness and lead generation are two common marketing goals. For each, you’ll likely be measuring a different set of metrics to evaluate your success. To track these metrics correctly, you need to define the conversion point for the particular campaign you’re running. So, depending on your goal, you might consider some very different activities as conversions.

When a website visitor does any of the following, you can count in as a conversion:

• Makes a direct online purchase
• Upgrades their current subscription plan
• Books a call/demo
• Contacts your company via phone call
• Signs up for a free account on your website
• Requests a quote
• Signs up for a newsletter
• Downloads a gated asset

What’s the Average Google Ads Conversion Rate?

According to Databox’s own Benchmark data, the average conversion rate for Google Ads is 2.85%. This benchmark was calculated from anonymized data from over 2000 companies. Do you want to benchmark your PPC performance, including Impressions, clicks, average CPC, CTR, conversion rate and more, against other companies like yours? Join the Benchmark Group for free.

Databox also surveyed 65 businesses to see how others perform compared to the data we have.

Our respondents are mostly in marketing (46% of them), followed by business and industrial (16.92%), and several more industries.

More than 98% of our respondents use search ads, while 71% also use display ads.

Most of our survey participants report a 3.1-6% conversion rate for search ads.

For display ads, the conversion rate is between 0 and 1%.

The average conversion rate across all industries for search ads is 4.2%, while for display ads, it’s 0.55%.

What is a Good Google Ads Conversion Rate?

It’s difficult to define what a good conversion rate for google ads is as it can depend on many factors: your industry, campaign goals, time of the year, and more. We asked several marketing experts to share what they consider a good conversion rate—you’ll see how their answers vary depending on their experience, type of business, and more.

Overall, most participants in our survey are satisfied with their Google Ads conversion rates.

“For me, anything above 5% is good. There are a few reasons for this: first, Google Ads is a very competitive space, so to be able to have a conversion rate above 5% means that you’re doing something right; second, the average conversion rate for all industries is only about 2.9%, so anything above that is good,” says Nicole Pav of Nccuttingtools.

“I would say that a 10% or better Google Ads conversion rate is respectable. The average conversion is somewhere around 3%, so a 10% rate would indicate that your ad content is compelling enough to convert significantly more than many of your competitors.”

Adam Rossi

CEO at TotalShield

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Generally, marketers agree on one thing: the answer depends.

“Conversion rates vary across Google Ads accounts, and a more important metric is conversion value divided by cost, which shows the actual return on ad spend,” claims Robert Eppinger of MaxAd.

“Generally, you should see a 5-10% conversion rate in high-performing ad accounts. However, there are many cases where it can be under 5%, and the ad account is still in great shape. For example, selling high-ticket items or a B2B service requiring a considered customer purchase and lengthy sales cycle. Here the ad account generates leads, and once the sale is complete, the conversion value is pushed from the CRM back to the ad account to show the return.”

“It depends on the business type and CTA. For a high value offer to consumers, we’ve seen conversion rates between 5% and 30%. In B2B we’re looking at less than 10% for the most part, and very low for any CTA that asks the visitor to book time on their busy calendar (demos, free trials, meetings, free consultations, etc.),” reveals Tommy Landry of Return on Now.

“I’m going to share an unpopular answer: there are so many factors that affect Google Ads conversion rates such as retargeting data, prospect target data, creative, time of year, macroeconomic factors, brand reach and perception, price and offer. So even in the same industry, the “good” conversion rate can be completely different. No blanket answer is right. However, it is a good metric to monitor when managing Google Ads.”

Alyssa Yap

Director & HubSpot Consultant at Gather’n’Grow

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5 Best Practices to Improve Your Conversion Rate for Google Ads

If you’re not seeing the figures you’re happy with, we have good news. There are a few tactics you can use right away to improve your conversion rate for Google ads. We surveyed a number of marketing professionals to find out what their go-to tricks are:

1. Provide a Compelling Landing Page Experience
2. Get Creative with Your CTAs
3. Leverage Negative Keywords
4. Test Different Ad Variations
5. Wait and See Before Modifying

1. Provide a Compelling Landing Page Experience

A compelling ad is critical when it comes to attracting your customers’ attention. However, to ensure a conversion, every step from the ad to the final activity (for example, a purchase) should be optimized, including your landing page. Simple design and powerful messaging will help you convert visitors who already feel enticed enough to click on your ad.

“Landing page improvement. We can send qualified users to a website all day, but if they’re met with a frustrating site experience, it doesn’t mean much,” says Sam Underwood of Futurety.

To improve your conversion rate and the results of your campaigns, examine your landing page to determine which elements can be enhanced for a better user experience.

Michael Perry of Fitness Fixed Gear shares that ads and landing pages need to be aligned. “You can’t merely make a promise in your ads and then break it on your landing page. Even worse, you advertise something while offering something else on your landing page,” says Perry.

“For instance, you broadcast a 20% discount while providing a 10% discount. To make a smooth transition, there must be continuity from your ads to your landing page. Low conversion rates will result from confused visitors that eventually leave your site. It is a surefire way to lose your money.”

PRO TIP: Here Is Your Go-To Dashboard for Monitoring Your Google Ads Campaigns in One Place

To monitor and improve the performance of your Google Ads campaigns, you can spend hours running a variety of reports and compiling selected metrics manually into one dashboard. Or, you can pull all your data automatically into one dashboard with Databox.

You can instantly review all of your campaigns and drill down on important metrics, such as:

1. Campaign overview. Which ads generate the most engagement? Get complete insight into your active Google Ads campaigns and easily track their performance.
2. Impressions. View the total number of times your ad was shown/seen on Google or the Google Network daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or within the specified date range.
3. Clicks. Visually monitor the number of clicks your ad receives daily. It helps track this data as it is a good indicator that your ad is compelling and valuable to the people who come across it.
4. Cost. How much do I pay for each click on my ads? See the amount you pay on average for each click your ad receives.
5. Conversions. How many users completed the desired action after clicking on my ads? Learn whether your ad clicks are resulting in users taking some desired action.
6. Cost per Conversion (CPC). How much on average does conversion on my ads cost? See how much you get charged for each desired action taken by a user after coming across your ad.

Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Ads experts, who have put together a plug-and-play Databox template showing all the key insights you need to optimize your Google Ads campaigns for conversion and ROI. It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in PPC reports!

You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.

To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Get the template 

Step 2: Connect your Google Ads account with Databox. 

Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.

Try this template

2. Get Creative with Your CTAs

Specific and unusual CTA copy that shows your audience exactly what they will be getting can drive more conversions than the old, boring “sign up” or “click here.” People act on emotions so if a CTA button prompts an emotional response in your visitors, they will be more likely to click.

For example, you may react to “Discover your escape” rather than to “Explore vacation homes”: the “your escape” phrase triggers images in your head as you read the CTA and you immediately start imagining what the escape would look like for you.

“We find that switching away from generic CTAs like “Sign up” creates a more emotional response, more clicks, and more conversions,” agrees Maximilian Wühr of FINN.

“We’ve experimented with limited-time offers and discount rates to increase conversions, using CTAs like “Sign up and save 20%” or “Limited time offer – save 20% now.” Customers who understand what they’re getting or giving up are more likely to convert ASAP. By A/B testing different CTAs, you’ll quickly see which performs best for your brand,” explains Wühr.

3. Leverage Negative Keywords

Reaching the right people is just as important as sending out the right message about your business. If you’re aiming for more purchases, the right people are those ready to buy, with a high purchasing intent, not those who are at the awareness stage, only browsing through the web.

Using negative keywords will help you ensure your ads will be shown to the right people only, which can increase your conversion rate.

“When you employ negative keywords, your advertisement will not appear when people search for such terms. This is important if you’re wanting to restrict your ad so that it doesn’t appear for those who are simply looking and not ready to purchase,” explains Zephyr Chan of Better Marketer.

“Some advertisers, for instance, use “free” as a negative phrase. If your site does not offer free products or trials, you may want to add this as a negative keyword to reduce the number of visitors who are only seeking free products. People who hunt for free items are typically less inclined to make purchases,” says Chan.

Matthew Martinez of Diamond Real Estate Group confirms using negative keywords is his tactic for ensuring high-quality leads.

“We started testing the use of negative keywords so our ads won’t show up when people search for those particular keywords. We do this to limit the ad so that it doesn’t show up for people who are just browsing around and aren’t ready to purchase anything yet. We want high quality and motivated leads! Google Ads show us how well the individual keywords are doing, but it can also show you the exact words that our customers searched for when our ad showed up.”

4. Test Different Ad Variations

Split testing is one of the key activities for every marketer: unless you test different variations of design, copy, CTA positioning, and other elements of your campaigns and landing pages, you won’t know what works best to attract leads. A/B testing is also crucial for improving your conversion rate.

“If you are running an ad to appear when someone searches for “emergency plumber near me”, then your ad should direct them towards where they can get help from an emergency plumber, not to your homepage or an unrelated service page. They just want to see your emergency number.”

Jess Percival

Digital Marketer at Exposure Ninja

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Rory Mason of 21 Degrees Digital agrees: “It’s very easy to make assumptions with Google Ads. At 21 Degrees, we take out the assumption by testing different copy, creatives, bid strategies and keyword targeting to ensure that we build on any successes and continually improve. In this regard there is not one thing that has dramatically increased performance but incremental changes to the campaign that constantly perform and generate a stronger ROI,” concludes Mason.

5. Wait and See Before Modifying

When you introduce a change to your marketing strategy or a campaign, it takes time until you see if the change generates the desired effect. If you measure the results and make new adjustments too quickly, you won’t be giving your campaigns enough time to improve.

“We let new campaigns run as is for a little while before we start making changes, as we want to see what the benchmark is for that specific account. Once that is established, it’s about narrowing down and researching. What terms are we bidding on & what are we actually showing up for? Would testing another campaign format help with lifting performance?” advises Ameet Khabra of Hop Skip Media.

Karan Rawal of Ace Infoway believes balancing campaign objectives with the budget you have is crucial, especially if it’s limited, because you need to spend enough to see meaningful results.

“The advertising budget is often arbitrary. Instead of basing the advertising budget on a percentage of revenue, our marketers base the campaign budget on either what is available or on a budget we are comfortable with,” says Rawal.

“But is it enough to see results? The truth is, no. Very low budgets are problematic for the following reasons: 1. Your campaign doesn’t cost enough to last long. 2. Your spending is too low to generate enough clicks. 3. Your campaign may not generate enough traffic and may not see a conversion rate. The third is particularly important.”

Benchmark Your Paid Ads Performance Against Hundreds of Companies Like Yours

Knowing your conversion rate is great. Knowing how your conversion rate compares to your last year’s results is better. But knowing how your conversion rate compares to your competitors’ performance is the best!

Have you ever wondered how your marketing stacks up against your competition? Or if your sales reps are closing as many deals as your competitors’ reps?

We found a way to help you answer these questions. Benchmark Groups allow you to learn how you compare to others in your industry in a simple way, instantly, and for free.

You can get:

• Real-time insights into how your performance stacks up to the performance of companies of similar size and from your industry
• A deep understanding of what areas you excel in and what activities you need to double down on to improve your results
• Extensive context for making data-driven business decisions and improved strategic planning

You can access Benchmark Groups for free. Other companies won’t be able to see your performance as the data is 100% anonymized. You’re free to opt-out at any time.

Did we mention that as a Benchmark Groups user you also get access to a free Databox plan? And if you already use Databox, you don’t need to reconnect your data sources to get started.What’s not to like? We can’t think of a single thing, and if you can’t either, it’s time to explore all the benefits of Benchmark Groups. Sign up for a free trial and start building context around your performance.

The post What Is a Good Google Ads Conversion Rate and How to Improve It? appeared first on Databox.

In today’s data-driven world, the success of any digital advertising campaign hinges on the ability to measure, analyze, and optimize performance.

It’s no longer enough to simply launch an ad and hope for the best – the key to staying competitive in this dynamic environment is benchmarking.

Digital advertising benchmarks offer valuable insights into what constitutes a successful campaign within specific industries, shedding light on key performance indicators, such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and ROI.

They point advertisers in the right direction, helping them set realistic goals, refine strategies, and ultimately achieve optimal results.

In this report, we examined digital advertising metrics such as clicks, CTR, CPC, spend, and more, across all the biggest advertising platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Microsoft Ads.

Let’s get started:

• Google Ads Cost
• Google Ads Clicks
• Google Ads CTR
• Google Ads CPC
• Google Ads Conversions
• Facebook Amount Spent
• Facebook Clicks
• Facebook CTR
• Facebook CPC
• Facebook Purchases
• LinkedIn Spent
• LinkedIn Clicks
• LinkedIn CTR
• LinkedIn CPC
• LinkedIn Conversions
• Microsoft Advertising Spend
• Microsoft Advertising Clicks
• Microsoft Advertising CTR
• Microsoft Advertising CPC
• Microsoft Advertising Conversions

Google Ads Cost

Across all industries, the median cost of Google Ads for September 2023 was $1,749.78.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads cost across different industries:

Apparel & Footwear and e-commerce & Marketplaces have a significantly higher cost than the median across all companies. This could be due to higher competition and customer engagement in online shopping.

Expert recommendation: Don’t allow a good campaign to go to waste by ignoring the dayparting feature in Google Ads. This feature allows you to schedule your ads to show up at a set time when you expect the ad to generate the most clicks and engagement from your target audience. This is especially important if you find that there are peak shopping hours or high online activity during a specific part of the day for your audience.

Google Ads Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on Google Ads for September 2023 was $1.18K.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads clicks across different industries:

Again, the Apparel and Footwear industry records the highest number of clicks in Google Ads. One of the potential reasons is that Apparel and footwear are products with consistently high consumer demand. Many people regularly shop for clothing and shoes, making these industries particularly attractive for advertisers.

Plus, shoppers are usually in a high-intent buying state when they are searching for these items, making it easier to attract them to the product landing page.

Expert recommendation: Before picking a keyword to bid on, thoroughly analyze organizational and market data trends beforehand. When it comes to both your organization and what the competition is doing, there shouldn’t be any stone left unturned. For example, if you find a potentially lucrative keyword to bid on, but you’re the only one doing it, there might be a reason why your competition has chosen to ignore it.

Google Ads CTR

Across all industries, the median Google Ads CTR for September 2023 was 4.84%.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads CTR across different industries:

Travel and Leisure dominate the CTR game. This could be because people often actively seek information on travel destinations, accommodations, and leisure activities, which can lead to higher CTRs when they encounter relevant ads.

Moreover, the travel industry often experiences peak seasons when people plan and book trips, resulting in higher CTRs during these periods. Since our data is from September 2023, this could very well be the case due to summer vacations and holiday travel.

Expert recommendation: How intriguing is your headline? While you might think that the answer is “very,” oftentimes, business owners overestimate their headline copy, which is one of the most important elements in driving your CTR. To improve your ad headline and generate more clicks, you can focus on the old copywriting rule of 4Us – is it useful, urgent, unique, and ultra-specific? Your headline should check at least two of these boxes.

Google Ads CPC

Across all industries, the median Google Ads CPC for September 2023 was $1.35.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads CPC across different industries:

The Healthcare industry records the highest CPC, and it can be due to its highly competitive nature, with many medical practices, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare providers fighting for the same audience and keywords.

This increased competition drives up the cost of advertising, as businesses are willing to pay more to secure prominent ad placements.

Expert recommendation: If your keywords are on the mark and you’re getting a good number of clicks to your website – but still face a high CPC – consider testing a few more landing page variations. Make sure your landing page creates a seamless user experience, is relevant and trustworthy, the messaging matches the ad, and the information is easily digestible.

Google Ads Conversions

Across all industries, the median number of conversions on Google Ads for September 2023 was 54.

Let’s take a closer look at the Google Ads conversions across different industries:

E-commerce and Marketplace have by far the highest conversion rates. One reason for this is that users who are searching for these products are high-intent and are often looking to make a purchase, which makes them more likely to convert.

Plus, due to huge competition, e-commerce businesses often target highly specific keywords related to their products. These long-tail keywords can attract users who are further along in the buying process and have a clearer idea of what they want.

E-commerce companies can also take advantage of seasonal trends and promotions to increase conversions. For example, holiday sales, Black Friday, and other special occasions can drive a surge in purchase behavior.

Expert recommendation: Give your campaigns enough time to breathe. What we mean by this is, that even though constant testing is crucial for performance optimization, make sure you’re not rushing it. Let your campaign run for a reasonable time before you decide to switch up the elements and start changing things.

Facebook Amount Spent

Across all industries, the median amount spent on Facebook Ads for September 2023 was $1,496.75.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads amount spent across different industries:

Apparel & Footwear, E-commerce & Marketplaces, and Food have substantially higher amounts spent compared to other industries we examined.

These results could be due to their universal appeal, broad audiences, and ongoing offers/deals.

Expert recommendation: To make the most out of your Facebook Ads amount spent, make sure you diversify your campaigns properly. In other words, you should have different campaigns ready for acquisition, retargeting, etc. This way, you’re making more targeted actions, which can be of huge help if you’re on a tighter advertising budget.

Facebook Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on Facebook Ads for September 2023 was 3.03K.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads clicks across different industries:

A potential reason for Apparel and footwear having the highest number of clicks is the highly visual products, which positively affect user experience. The ability to showcase images and videos of clothing and shoes can be compelling and engaging for users.

Many Apparel & Footwear brands also collaborate with influencers and celebrities to promote their products, which can lead to increased engagement on sponsored posts.

Expert recommendation: If you want a clean, understandable overview of what’s going on with your Facebook Ads campaigns (including all relevant metrics from clicks to CPC), you can download our Facebook Ads Campaign Performance dashboard. Instead of juggling through the not-so-intuitive Facebook Ads Manager interface and tracking your data, you can connect your most relevant metrics in one place and track them in real-time. This way, you’ll quickly be able to spot any burning issues and optimize underperforming elements.

Facebook CTR

Across all industries, the median CTR on Facebook Ads for September 2023 was 1.44%.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads CTR across different industries:

The reason for the Travel & Leisure industry’s high CTR in September is that the travel industry often runs promotions and offers based on seasonality, holidays, or special events.

Limited-time offers and discounts can create a sense of urgency, prompting users to click on ads to take advantage of these deals as the summer holidays are coming to an end.

Expert recommendation: Make sure you sprinkle enough social proof in your Facebook ad to get the user further down your funnel. Nowadays, with so many claims being thrown around in the digital advertising space, being credible and leveraging social proof can put you a few steps ahead of your competition and show your users that your offer is reliable. Then, add more examples of satisfied client testimonials on your landing page to finish off the job.

Facebook CPC

Across all industries, the median CPC on Facebook Ads for September 2023 was $0.49.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads CPC across different industries:

The Health & Wellness industry has the highest CPC, and it could be because it’s highly competitive, with many brands vying for the same audience. As a result, the bidding for ad placements becomes intense, driving up the CPC as advertisers are willing to pay more to reach potential customers.

Expert recommendation: One potential way to reduce your CPC is to stop selling your product via the ad – that’s what the sales page should do. Instead, you should focus on selling the click that leads the user down to the sales page. Build enough curiosity and intrigue that the user can’t help but check out what you have in store for them in the next part of your funnel.

Facebook Purchases

Across all industries, the median number of purchases on Facebook Ads for September 2023 was 24.

Let’s take a closer look at the Facebook Ads number of purchases across different industries:

The Apparel & Footwear industry dominates this metric as well, and it can be due to seasonal trends and promotions that are more common during months like September.

This can drive higher purchase intent, and advertisers can take advantage of these trends to create timely and relevant campaigns.

Expert recommendation: Purchases usually aren’t made on the first impression and this is why remarketing is so crucial in Facebook advertising. Just make sure you set up your remarketing parameters properly – for example, targeting people who have watched 75% of your VSL or have clicked on your ad to go to the landing page.

LinkedIn Spent

Across all industries, the median LinkedIn Ads spent for September 2023 was $1,335.48.

Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn Ads spent across different industries:

Healthcare and Informational Technology and Services spend the most amount of money on LinkedIn Ads, and the reason for that can be that LinkedIn it is particularly well-suited for reaching a B2B audience. Both the Healthcare and Information Technology & Services industries often have specialized and professional target audiences, including healthcare professionals, IT decision-makers, and other professionals.

These industries also tend to deal with high-value customers. Healthcare services can be expensive, and IT solutions in the technology sector often involve significant investments, which makes bigger spending understandable.

Expert recommendation: To make the most out of your ad spent, make sure your LinkedIn company page is properly optimized. The best advice here is to treat your company page like a standalone landing page. Include all the relevant elements, from your unique value proposition to social proof. These are the things your customers will be paying attention to the most when you start advertising on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on LinkedIn Ads for September 2023 was 379.

Let’s take a closer look at LinkedIn Ads clicks across different industries:

With many SaaS companies operating in the B2B space, it’s not that surprising that this industry records the highest number of clicks.

LinkedIn is known for its B2B marketing capabilities, allowing SaaS companies to reach the right businesses and professionals with their ads and get them to click through to the next page.

Expert recommendation: One great way to get more clicks on your LinkedIn ad is to optimize your messaging strategies based on your prospect’s stage of awareness. You’ll need to test and refine this as you go, based on the results you’re seeing for different stages. If your prospects are in the problem-aware stage, you’ll need different messaging than if they were in the product-aware stage.

LinkedIn CTR

Across all industries, the median CTR on LinkedIn Ads for September 2023 was 0.78%.

Let’s take a closer look at the LinkedIn Ads CTR across different industries:

The Industrial and Manufacturing sector is also often B2B-centric, which could explain the highest CTR recorded in our Benchmark data. The ads in this industry may resonate more with LinkedIn users looking for industry-specific solutions or partnerships.

Expert recommendation: No matter if you’re running video ads, text ads, or image ads on LinkedIn, you need to improve your hook in order to maximize your CTR. The last thing you want is that when a user looks at your ad and thinks, “Oh, I’ve seen this before, nothing new.” Follow some of the copywriting best practices and create a proper pattern-interrupt that persuades prospects to learn more about your offer.

LinkedIn CPC

Across all industries, the median CPC on LinkedIn Ads for September 2023 was $2.87.

Let’s take a closer look at the LinkedIn Ads CPC across different industries:

Healthcare has by far the highest CPC on LinkedIn. Healthcare professionals and decision-makers, such as doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators, are a sought-after audience on LinkedIn. These professionals tend to have higher CPCs because advertisers are willing to pay more to reach them.

Some advertisers in the healthcare industry also may be willing to bid higher for ad placements, which can drive up CPC. Aggressive bidding strategies can be common in highly competitive fields such as Healthcare.

Expert recommendation: Are you paying enough attention to your LinkedIn Ads quality score? Advertisers should prioritize aiming for higher quality scores as they directly reflect user experience and let LinkedIn know whether the audience finds your ads engaging. No platform wants to showcase ads that seem to be annoying to the audience and could potentially drive them off the platform.

LinkedIn Conversions

Across all industries, the median number of conversions on LinkedIn Ads for September 2023 was 9.

Let’s take a closer look at the LinkedIn Ads conversions across different industries:

The Technology industry records the highest number of conversions based on our latest Benchmark data, and the reason could be that technology professionals often seek out thought leadership content and industry insights.

LinkedIn provides a platform for sharing whitepapers, webinars, and articles, allowing tech companies to showcase their expertise and attract leads who are interested in learning more.

Expert recommendation: The LinkedIn Ads Manager isn’t exactly the most intuitive interface for digital advertisers… especially if you’re just starting out on the platform. More often than not, you need to run through different reports, compile all your key data, and then transfer it to a spreadsheet to make sense of it. But there’s a much easier way to do it – simply download our LinkedIn Ads Overview Dashboard and streamline this entire process. In just a few minutes, you can connect your LinkedIn account, add your key metrics, and transform them into understandable visuals.

Microsoft Advertising Spend 

Across all industries, the median Microsoft Ads spend for September 2023 was $879.11.

Let’s take a closer look at Microsoft Ads spend metric across different industries:

Based on our Benchmark data, the Health & Wellness industry spends the least amount of money on Microsoft Ads.

This can be because the Health & Wellness industry might target a specific audience that is more active on other platforms. The primary audience for health-related products or services may tend to use other search engines or social media platforms more frequently, while the industry allocates its advertising budget accordingly.

Even though missing Microsoft Ads data for many industries, our data reveals something interesting for a few of them: SaaS, Technology, and Information Technology and Services spent more on Microsoft Ads in September 2023, than on Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Linkedin Ads. They also got more Clicks on Microsoft Ads than on Google Ads and Linkedin Ads.

Expert recommendation: Don’t give up on Microsoft Ads before you give them a proper try. For many keywords, Bing is a lot more cost-effective than compared to Google Ads, which allows you to capture a wider audience at half the price. Sure, you might not get as much traffic, but the quality of it can be good enough to keep you on the platform.

Microsoft Advertising Clicks

Across all industries, the median number of clicks on Microsoft Ads for September 2023 was 561.

Let’s take a closer look at Microsoft Ads clicks across different industries:

Within the industries that we have data for the Technology sector recorded the highest number of clicks on Microsoft Ads per our latest data, while the Construction industry is on the other side of the spectrum.

The reason for this poor performance could be that the Construction industry typically has a more specialized and niche audience. It may not appeal to as broad a demographic as the technology industry, resulting in fewer potential clicks on Bing.

Expert recommendation: While clicks are one of the most relevant metrics you’ll need to track in your campaign, make sure you consider them in context with other PPC metrics. Sometimes, you might even notice that you’re getting fewer clicks, but your conversion rate is amazing. This could mean that you’re messaging is on point and that you’re segmenting the buyers from those who aren’t still serious about their purchase.

Microsoft Advertising CTR

According to data from our survey, the median CTR on Microsoft Ads for September 2023 was 1.81%.

Let’s take a closer look at the Microsoft Ads CTR across different industries: