What is a good conversion rate?

[Johnathan]

Hi,

I was curious/interested in getting an idea from the experienced copywriters here, what is considered a 'good' conversion ratio, and what would you be happy with? I.e., if you ONLY have a sales letter, and are say trying to sell a software product, what kind of conversion rate would you expect?

Thanks!

Johnathan

[Kevin Lam]

I'm surprised no one has said anything.

John, I bet you're asking this just to gloat, lol. Kidding, I don't know. I can't help but think that because of your avatar. Makes me want to laugh.

Anyway, if anyone answers, it's going to vary from 1% to 100%. To me, even 4% is a good conversion, but it all depends on the sale price and profit margin. I'd much rather get a 5% conversion on a product that sells for $97 and profit about $90 of that than 10% on a product that sells for $37 and profit about $35. Just my 2 cents.

[Johnathan]

Originally Posted by netdebut

I'm surprised no one has said anything.

John, I bet you're asking this just to gloat, lol. Kidding, I don't know. I can't help but think that because of your avatar. Makes me want to laugh.

Anyway, if anyone answers, it's going to vary from 1% to 100%. To me, even 4% is a good conversion, but it all depends on the sale price and profit margin. I'd much rather get a 5% conversion on a product that sells for $97 and profit about $90 of that than 10% on a product that sells for $37 and profit about $35. Just my 2 cents.

Lol, thanks, no, definitely not trying to gloat at all... I'm actually sincerely interested in improving some of the writing for a few of my products... I have a 'try before you buy' model, but tend to get a conversion rate of about 0.2-0.5% (sometimes 1%)... so I'm wondering if improving the sales copy would result in a significant increase in sales. I definiitely have the traffic, and have the product, just need to improve conversions.

I was thinking about 4%... Not sure if that is the norm though, and yes, I was hoping more would respond so I could get a better idea/feel for that... I'm not sure though if it would "work" in my case (since the customers are actually able to 'try' before buying...)

Johnathan

[Easy Cash]

Sales copy will make a big difference.

If your not using the Google Optimizer to test - highly recommended. Test every page to improve your sales copy. It is very useful to compare pages.

If you get a 4% conversion rate - I would say you are doing very well.

[Johnathan]

Originally Posted by Easy Cash

Sales copy will make a big difference.

If your not using the Google Optimizer to test - highly recommended. Test every page to improve your sales copy. It is very useful to compare pages.

If you get a 4% conversion rate - I would say you are doing very well.

Hmm, ok, thanks. Well, for one of my sites I have about a 0.2% conversion rate, so assuming something can be done there I think I have that for a couple sites, so need to work on the copy... :P

[David Raybould]

Hi Johnathan,

I read that the average online conversion
is 2%. I guess you could consider anything
above that as "good".

Realistically though, many salespages are
really, truly awful, so there's an argument
that 2% is actually pretty good for an
"average" marketer (ie someone who hasn't
spent $5k on a writer)

[Raydal]

Good question. We hear a lot about conversion rate without
knowing what is considered good. Of course, the bottom line is
profit and conversion rate but as a copywriter it's nice to know
what's considered standard according to the latest online
research.

Consider this ...

Conversion rates, or the percentage of shoppers that
actually make a purchase, varies quite a bit from one online
e-commerce site to another. In August 1999, Nua Internet Surveys
reported a study by Intermarket Online that the average online
shopper-to-buyer conversion rate is 2.7%, and that 62% of
merchants have a conversion rate of 2% or less, while 5% have in
excess of a 6% conversion rate.

A Forrester Research study of 41 online merchants found that
conversion rates typically vary from 1% to 4%, with under 2% for
70% of merchants. Amazon and CDNow get 6% to 8% rates. These are
general statistics for online stores. Direct e-mail campaigns to
very targeted lists, of course, can bring spikes of much higher
conversion rates.

(Conversion Rate Statistics -- Doctor Ebiz, 11/29/00)

As you can see anything above 2% is "good"
Above 3-5% is very good.
And above 5% you're flying high!

Your landing page should have above 65% optin rate to be
considered good in my estimation.

For a $47 product I would expect >3% conversion rate.

Hope this helps,

-Ray Edwards

[meckal]

Hi,I read that the average online conversion
is 2%. I think you consider anything
above that as "Nice".

thanks you so much.

[Chris Williamson]

Have you done some research on your competitors? Maybe they're finding the exact same software for cheap or even free.. and therefore getting it somewhere else...

Is it complex software or a handy little script? I often find really good free scripts for most simple tasks. Might be worth using it as a lead generation tool to build a relationship with people to sell them other stuff later on.

[esericsu]

ya It all depends on the price and your product. I think a typical $37 product with 5% conversion is usually pretty good.

[ryansjones]

I am still working on getting a conversion rate myself, though it should not be too much longer before I do as my sites are really starting to take shape now, and I am starting to get almost 100 hits a day. By the way, how long did it take all of you to get conversions?

[Warrior Globetrotter]

It depends.

I would say if you are trying to sell something to people who dont know you for around $15-30 USD a 1-2% conversion ratio is average...

if you are just trying to get email addresses from a squeeze page I would say 20-30% would be average.

just my 2 cents from my experience online...take care

[Johnathan]

Hmm...

Interesting... Well, I'll have to retool several of my sites... They are software (not info products), and there is a "try-before-you-buy" (so basically they get the full version before actually having to pay for it)...

Right now my conversion for several of these products seems to be at about 0.1-0.2% (that is 'point' 1, etc, not "1%" or "2%")... And that is relative to my actual visitors (visitor to purchase ratio)...

Johnathan

Originally Posted by Raydal

Good question. We hear a lot about conversion rate without
knowing what is considered good. Of course, the bottom line is
profit and conversion rate but as a copywriter it's nice to know
what's considered standard according to the latest online
research.

Consider this ...




As you can see anything above 2% is "good"
Above 3-5% is very good.
And above 5% you're flying high!

Your landing page should have above 65% optin rate to be
considered good in my estimation.

For a $47 product I would expect >3% conversion rate.

Hope this helps,

-Ray Edwards

[pegasuspress]

From my limited experience it's hard to generalize about conversion rates. What may be a great CR for one product/service may not cut it for another. You have to take into consideration things like profit margin and how much it costs you to get traffic to your site in the first place.

When I marketed my first product online a few years ago my CR was only 0.6%, which may not sound real impressive, but my PPC ads were very inexpensive and the product sold for $97. The bottom line was that I made about $8 for every $1 spent on advertising. Probably nothing to write home about but not bad for a first effort as far as I was concerned.

My gut feeling is that a lot of marketers tend to exagerate their marketing metrics, including CR, to impress potential affiliates and the like. One of the best books I've read on copywriting is Web Copy That Sells by Maria Velosa. It seems to me that she said 0.5% is a preatty good CR and anything above 1.0% is fantastic. I know I've seen similar numbers quoted by other copywriting gurus. Maybe your problem, if you even have one, is not so much your CR but your cost to get visitors to your site.

Just a few thoughts from a part-time copywriter - for what it's worth.

[colmodwyer]

I strive for nothing less than a million percent conversion.

Colm

[Easy Cash]

Johnathan

Sounds like you should be able to squeeze a bit more out of the conversion rate.

Maybe take a close look at your conversion sales page and tweak it.

Rewrite the whole thing.

Are you pointing out the major benefits of your software?

If you post your link here - we can give you some solid feedback.

[Bruce Wedding]

What's a good conversion rate? It's kind of like the old pilot saying, "Any landing you walk away from is a good one."

I'd say any conversion rate that's profitable is a good one.

But conversion rates are simply not something that can be compared on a one to one basis. So much depends on the product, the offer, the traffic, etc.

Whenever you hear a marketer talk about double-digit conversions, he is mailing to a hot, trusting, prepped list. These kind of conversions will never happen on a large scale.

BTW: If you guys are watching "Pitchmen" (highly recommended for any marketer) than you'll see they consider a product a blockbuster if it grosses $3 for each ad dollar spent.

[AnneE]

Originally Posted by pegasuspress

The bottom line was that I made about $8 for every $1 spent on advertising. Probably nothing to write home about

Nothing to write home about? You were able to turn $1 into $8? I'd be shouting it from the mountaintops!!! Well actually what I'd be doing is scraping together as many dollars as I could find to turn each of them into $8.

[Bruce Wedding]

Originally Posted by AnneE

Nothing to write home about? You were able to turn $1 into $8? I'd be shouting it from the mountaintops!!! Well actually what I'd be doing is scraping together as many dollars as I could find to turn each of them into $8.

Ed Zachary!

[AnneE]

Who is Ed Zachary?

[TimCastleman]

I was watching Pitchmen last night and from the sound of it a 4 to 1 return is considered a huge homerun.

They had a saw on last night that made $5 million on it's initial launch.

Great to see how certain copywriting elements apply in infomercial world - proof, offer, testimonials, tell them how to order, etc.

[Bruce Wedding]

Originally Posted by AnneE

Who is Ed Zachary?

How did I know you'd ask? LOL

A woman was very distraught at the fact that she had not had a date or any sex in quite some time.

She was afraid she might have something wrong with her, so she decided to seek the medical expertise of a sex therapist. Her doctor recommended that she see Dr. Chang, the well-known Chinese sex therapist, so she went to see him.

Upon entering the examination room, Dr. Chang said, "OK, take off all you crose." The woman did as she was told. "Now, get down and craw reery, reery fass to odder side of room." Again, the woman did as she was instructed. Dr. Chang then said, "OK, now craw reery, reery fass back to me." So she did.

Dr. Chang shook his head slowly and said, "Your probrem vewy bad. You haf Ed Zachary Disease. Worse case I ever see. Dat why you not haf sex or dates."

Worried, the woman asked anxiously, "Oh my God, Dr. Chang, what is Ed Zachary Disease?"

Dr. Chang looked the woman in the eye and replied, "Ed Zachary Disease is when your face rook Ed Zachary rike your ass."

[pegasuspress]

Originally Posted by AnneE

Nothing to write home about? You were able to turn $1 into $8? I'd be shouting it from the mountaintops!!! Well actually what I'd be doing is scraping together as many dollars as I could find to turn each of them into $8.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. Yes, I was pleased with the ROI but the overall profit potential of the product was very limited because it appealed only to an extremely small target market - you might call it a "micro niche" market. I guess that's why ROIs and CRs and all these metrics can be a little bit misleading at times. In the end I just came to the conclusion that there was better money to be made by focusing on broader niches.

Rich

[Matt Helphrey]

Yeah I would say 1% is average but I try to shoot for 5-10% conversion rate to opt in to my mini-course and then 3% of those optins to buy something.

[Samuel Craig]

I say paid orders 3-5% and lead generation 10-15%.

It depends on how high the ticket price is. But there is remarkable consistency out there when it comes to bottom line metrics. IMHO

[PaulMartinezCopywriting]

In my experience conversion rate will vary widely based on the price of the product (among a ton of other factors, of course). Higher priced products generally have a lower conversion rate and a longer sales process, with a fair amount of thier conversions coming on the back end. I'm curious how those back-end sales figure into how most folks figure conversion rates. If a guy buys your $3500 Forex product after 6 months on your follow-up campaign...how does that figure in?

Assuming you have a hungry market, and decent sales copy, 1-2% is good. That's the average for direct mail offers to a targeted list. 3-4% is very, very good in most cases.

But then again, see above--if you're selling a niche product and making $8 for every $1 you spend...well...that's pretty damn good in my book.

[Sully Chaudry]

I don't think it's the actual percentage that counts as much as the change in percentage that your copywriting makes. For instance, if your client has a 4% conversion percentage and you rewrite their sales letter, your client sends the same amount of traffic as before from the same sources, and the conversion spikes up to 8% then you've increased their conversion 100%! (that sounds really good on a testimonial). Also, always show the data from before and after if you're using that as a selling point.

So, as a matter of experimentation, you should test your copywriting on a client's sales page (or your own), keeping all the other variables the same and see how it changes their conversions. Then hopefully you can brag about how effective your skills are.

[magic456]

I agree that over 2% in general is good but then you also need to take your niche into consideration. Do some research on your competitors as well.
Good Luck with your optimizing!