Understanding your conversion rates is absolutely crucial for Google ads success.
The conversion rate reflects the percentage of people who click on your Google ad and then take a conversion action, such as submitting an enquiry or requesting a quote.
- High conversion rate = more sales.
- Low conversion rate = less sales.
If your conversion rate is low, then you’ll end up spending a ton of money on Google ad clicks only to realize that nobody is converting into a new customer.
On the other hand, if your conversion rate is higher, then you’ll end up getting a better return on your Google ads investment and acquiring many more customers.
What’s a Good Conversion Rate for Google Ads?
The average conversion rate for Google Ads across all industries is 4.2%, according to the latest 2023 study by Databox.
Important
We’re counting Google search ads in this case, and NOT Google display ads.
This is because conversion rates for Google display ads are significantly lower at around 0.55%, which ends up massively skewing the average conversion rates downwards after you take that into consideration.
Google Ads Conversion Rates By Industry
Our methodology involved looking at all of the latest studies compiled by various reputable sources, including Wordstream, SmartInsights and Local IQ, all of whom have access to reliable Google ads conversion data for each industry.
Average Google ad conversion rates in each category from highest to lowest:
- Animals & Pets: 13.41%
- Physicians & Surgeons: 13.12%
- Cars — For Sale: 12.61%
- Dentists: 10.40%
- Home & Home Improvement: 10.22%
- Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts: 10.22%
- Personal Services: 8.70%
- Health & Fitness: 8.40%
- Beauty & Personal Care: 8.16%
- Industrial & Commercial: 7.91%
- Education & Instruction: 7.07%
- Arts & Entertainment: 7.00%
- Attorneys & Legal Services: 5.72%
- Sports & Recreation: 5.69%
- Restaurants & Food: 5.06%
- B2B & Business Services: 4.94%
- Finance & Insurance: 4.11%
- Travel: 3.87%
- Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts: 3.69%
- Career & Employment: 3.11%
- Real Estate: 2.88%
- Furniture: 2.57%
- Apparel / Fashion & Jewelry: 1.57%
How Buyer Behavior Impacts Conversion Rates
Certain industries such as home services, physicians and dentists have a higher Google ad conversion rate than others.
This is because all of these industries solve a problem that people typically want to solve very fast.
If you have a problem at your home that needs fixed - Let’s say your AC unit is broken or you have a faulty appliance - You’re going to need to purchase a local service very fast.
On the other hand, with industries like travel and furniture shopping, buyes are much more methodical and research-driven. You’re far more likely to shop around and spend more time before making your final purchase decision.
So it’s important to consider the buyer’s psychology, because that plays a massive role in Google ad conversion rates.
👉 Now let’s do a deeper dive into high converting industries vs. low converting industries for Google ads.
High Converting Industries For Google Ads
- Urgency and Immediate Need:
- Home Services (e.g. Plumbing, Pest Control, HVAC): When people need urgent home repairs or someone to take control of a pest problem, they want a fast solution! For example, a broken HVAC system during a heatwave is something people always want to get fast. This urgency naturally drives higher conversion rates because people don't have time to shop around.
- Healthcare Services (e.g. Dentists, Emergency Care): If someone is in physical discomfort, then time is of the essence - That's why a ton of health-related services will see incredibly high conversion rates from Google ads.
- Specific and Local Services:
- Physicians & Surgeons: Usually these are local AND specific, which means people want to find a reputable provider near them. They also often plan on booking a consultation quite quickly, leading to relatively high conversion rates.
- Auto Sales & Servicing: People searching for cars or car repairs tend to be further along in the buying process, having already made a decision on what they want to do with their vehicle or what type of vehicle they want to purchase.
Lower Converting Industries For Google Ads
- Long Sales Cycles and High Consideration:
- Real Estate: Buying a home is a major financial decision that involves significant research, comparison, and time. People will often click on adverts to gather information, but they're far less likely to immediately convert or take immediate action, leading to lower conversion rates.
- Furniture and Home Goods: Buying furniture involves a lot of evenings spent browsing the internet and carefully deciding how you're going to create the perfect interior design! For that reason, it's the kind of industry that sees lower conversion rates from Google ads.
- B2B Services: In the B2B sector, the buying process is often more complex - It involves multiple decision makers, contracts and longer periods to evaluate what the best service is. Customers may often click on Google ads to 'discover' brands and gather information, but they are very unlikely to convert immediately.
- Non-Essential Purchases:
- Fashion & Jewelry: Clothing and jewelry purchases are not driven by necessity, and people love to shop around! Consumers will browse multiple brands and websites for style, fit, price comparison etc. So the chances of them converting immediately after clicking a Google ad are lower.
- Travel: Travel planning involves multiple factors like destination, budget, timing, and accommodations. Consumers typically take time to compare options and deliberate things very carefully. They'll often click on several ads before making a final decision, leading to lower conversion rates.
- High Competition and Price Sensitive:
- Finance & Insurance: These industries often involve complex products with very long term commitments, like a home loan or insurance policy. Consumers are far more likely to shop around carefully, and most brands will be Nationwide rather than local meaning a wide selection of choice.
Let’s look more specifically into some of the sub-niches and their average conversion rates, so that we can examine what the cause of different conversion rates would be for these Google ad campaigns.
Home Services Google Ad Conversion Rates
More reliable data from LocalIQ shows us the conversion rates for Google ads in the healthcare space.
- Addiction Recovery - 7.34%
- Assisted Living, Elder & Home Care Services - 6.12%
- Chiropractic Care - 8.18%
- Dentists & Dental Services - 10.40%
- Health Clubs & Gyms - 7.26%
- Hearing Aids & Care - 4.87%
- Hospitals & Clinics (Specialized Services) - 12.33%
- Personal Fitness Trainers - 3.60%
- Cosmetic Surgery - 3.97%
It makes sense that specialized hospitals would be significantly higher, because people know they need a very specific treatment.
Healthcare Conversion Rates Google Ads
More reliable data from LocalIQ shows us the conversion rates for Google ads in the healthcare space.
- Addiction Recovery - 7.34%
- Assisted Living, Elder & Home Care Services - 6.12%
- Chiropractic Care - 8.18%
- Dentists & Dental Services - 10.40%
- Health Clubs & Gyms - 7.26%
- Hearing Aids & Care - 4.87%
- Hospitals & Clinics (Specialized Services) - 12.33%
- Personal Fitness Trainers - 3.60%
- Cosmetic Surgery - 3.97%
It makes sense that specialized hospitals would be significantly higher, because people know they need a very specific treatment.
Legal Conversion Rates Google Ads
Again, more data from LocalIQ reveals that average conversion rates from Google ads for law firms.
- Accidents & Personal Injury Law - 5.45%
- Criminal Law - 9.90%
- Bankruptcy Law - 13.56%
- Estate & Probate Law (incl. Wills) - 9.65%
- Family Law (incl. Divorce) - 8.52%
- Tax Law - 13.30%
- General Practice Law 5.52%
What Qualifies As a Conversion in Google Ads?
Google ads professionals normally talk about macro conversions vs. micro conversions, also known as primary vs. secondary conversions.
Primary conversions are pretty obvious - Somebody buys a product from your website or schedules an appointment.
Secondary conversions are other events that take place, for example if somebody downloads a PDF guide from your website or perhaps adds an item to their shopping cart but doesn’t check out.
It’s very important to track both of these conversion actions within Google ads.
Primary Conversion Actions in Google Ads
- Signs up for a free account on your website
- Adds a product to cart but doesn’t check out
- Signs up for a newsletter
- Downloads a gated content asset
- Live chat engagement with your customer support
- Clicking on key pages e.g. pricing
- Books a call/demo
Secondary Conversion Actions in Google Ads
- Signs up for a free account on your website
- Adds a product to cart but doesn’t check out
- Signs up for a newsletter
- Downloads a gated content asset
- Live chat engagement with your customer support
- Clicking on key pages e.g. pricing
- Books a call/demo
Always Set Up Secondary Conversions!
You should set up secondary conversions (also known as micro conversions) as actions in Google ads.
These secondary conversions will remain for observation purposes only, meaning that they won’t impact your main bidding strategy and won’t count towards primary conversions.
However, they are still incredibly important to track and useful to understand what other secondary conversion actions people are taking after clicking on your adverts.
Additionally if you want, you can in fact attach a value estimate to secondary actions.
For example, if 10% of newsletter signups lead to $100 in revenue, assign a $10 value to each newsletter signup.
Google Ads Conversion Rate Formula
Conversion rates for Google ads are calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of ad interactions that led to those conversions.
For instance, if you had 50 conversions from 1,000 clicks on your advert, your conversion rate would be 5%.
This is calculated by dividing 50 conversions by 1,000 clicks = 5% conversion rate.
How To Improve Your Google Ad Conversion Rates
👉 There are some very simple things you can do to improve your conversion rates.
Optimize Your Landing Pages
We see so many Google advertisers with terrible landing pages.
First and foremost you need to make sure you have the basics right.
Make sure you have incredibly clear call to actions buttons that push the visitor towards a specific action such as filling out a form or making a phone call.
Make sure the messaging on your landing page is consistent with the advert as well, and that you have a well-designed landing page that matches the product or service you’re offering.
Improve Your Offer
This is one under appreciated lever you can pull to massively improve your Google ads conversion rates.
For example, if you’re a dental practice, your offer might be to give a free consultation worth $200 to all new visitors - You can be absolutely certain an attractive offer like this will massively increase your conversion rates!
So consider the offer for your particular industry and come up with something that makes it very difficult for a potential new customer to ignore.
Add Social Proof
People are social creatures, and we all want to know that a product or service we’re buying is well respected and reviewed from others.
To improve conversion rates, add customer testimonials and reviews to your website.
Show real photos of happy customers and real photos of your team - This is the easiest way to instantly build trust with new customers.
A/B Test Your Ad Copy
Testing the ad copy itself can lead to conversion rate gains.
You want to make sure that you add in some headlines in your Google ad copy which stress urgency to the person viewing them.
Think about ad copy headlines such as:
- Limited Time Offer
- 40% Summer Discount
- Free Consultation
- Get a Call Back in 2 Hours
- Book a Meeting Today
These headlines all suggest urgency in solving the problem of the customer, and should therefore lead to higher conversion rates from your Google ads.
Remarketing
Remarketing is where you target people with adverts who have already visited your website.
It’s an incredibly popular strategy for good reason - It works!
People who are already acquainted with your brand and website are much more likely to convert, and remarketing allows you to essentially send a follow up advert with an offer they can’t refuse.