Google Ads is one of the primary services when creating and publishing ads across a series of different platforms like the Google Search Engine, Google Display Network, and YouTube. However, regardless of the size of Google Ads and its reach, the effectiveness of marketing strategies through Google Ads varies based on many factors, including the industry and the quality of the ad.
The final result is a conversion rate that determines the effectiveness of the Google Ads campaign. At the end of the day, sales are the most relevant for most businesses out there. This is when the Google Ads conversion rates gain special relevance since you need to know the effectiveness of your businesses when turning leads into buyers.
The lines below discuss this important metric and how good search campaigns, a good bidding strategy, and an excellent copy can increase the conversion rate of the campaign and your business.
This article is a segment of a more extensive piece about What Are Conversions in Google Ads.
- What is Google Ads Conversion Rate?
- What Is a Good Google Ads Conversion Rate?
- Average Conversion Rates of Google Ads
- How to Optimize Google Ads Conversion Rates
- Landing Page Conversion Rates from Google Ads
- What Is the Average Cost per Conversion for Google Ads?
- Conversion Rates: Organic vs. Google Ads
- Do Conversion Rates Influence the Quality Scores in Google Ads?
- The Bottom Line
- FAQ
What is Google Ads Conversion Rate?
Source: Databox.
Conversion refers to the total number of visitors or potential customers that finally complete a purchase on your website or ecommerce site through your landing page. In this sense, the conversion rate refers to the percentage of visitors to your pages that effectively complete the purchase of a particular product.
The Google Ads conversion rates formula is the following:
Conversion rate = (Total number of Conversions x 100) / Total Website Visitors
You can use this Google Ads conversion rate calculator method to get a certain percentage of how many users effectively complete a purchase. This number provides you with a clear insight into whether you’re performing a good advertising marketing strategy or not.
For conversion tracking and knowing if you need to improve efforts to get better conversions, you can check out the average conversion rate in the subsequent sections. If you want to track conversions, you need to know where to find the conversion id and how to setup conversion tracking in Google Ads.
If your business conversion rate is lower than the average, then you must adopt a new perspective in your advertising marketing strategy.
What Is a Good Google Ads Conversion Rate?
The average conversion rate in Google Ads depends on the industry, the media through which you entice customers, and the average CTR (click-through rate) you achieve with ads. Although industry benchmarks vary, being the highest in the automotive industry, experts agree that 10% is a desirable conversion rate. It means 1 person out of every 10 who visits your landing page completes a purchase or any other action that gives value to your brand.
The average conversion rate (CVR) across all industries on the search network for Google Ads is 3.75% and 0.77% on the display network, according to Wordstream, much below expectations. To improve this percentage, it is crucial you learn to create the best campaign through your Google Ads account or work together with a professional marketing agency like GamerSEO.
GamerSEO will prioritize the conversion rate optimization of your landing page by creating the best ad copy for your purposes and promoting the ad interaction to encourage customers to finish the purchase.
Having said this, let’s check the average conversion rates across the most relevant industries.
Average Conversion Rates of Google Ads
Even though you will find nine industries in the table below, we need to pay special attention to the computer & electronics industry conversion rate. It’s 3.16%, which is much less than other industries. This is why the promotion and the creation of excellent ads and landing pages are crucial to improving not only the conversion rate but also the average click-through rate.
| Industry | Average Google Ads CVR on Search | Average Google Ads CVR on Display Network |
| Arts & Entertainment | 4.51% | 0.75% |
| Dining & Nightlife | 4.74% | 0.56% |
| Apparel | 2.77% | 0.58% |
| Computers & Electronics | 3.16% | 0.50% |
| Finance | 4.17% | 0.80% |
| Health | 4.63% | 0.75% |
| Law & Government | 7.45% | 0.46% |
| Real Estate | 3.40% | 0.36% |
| Vehicles | 7.98% | 0.51% |
As you already know the average conversion rates of your business, you should learn how your conversion rate compares to your direct competition to establish a new strategy to help you increase numbers.
There are different approaches you can adopt to increase this conversion value. The first is to improve the ad copy of the content you’re creating. It means to improve the headers and description by including more relevant keywords and mentioning direct benefits for prospects.
Another approach is addressing the customers at all levels of the sales funnel with different strategies that attract them to your landing page or website. The idea is to motivate customers to continue through the sales path. It’s also important to give the last push to customers through a call-to-action or offers they can’t reject.
Of course, things are not so simple, so we motivate you to contact GamerSEO to implement all the marketing strategies your business needs to increase its conversion rate.
You can also try entering Google Ads Exchange, the Google marketplace where advertisers and publishers agree to work together through a system of private auctions and directly. Here, participants exchange impressions in real-time and according to the best bid carried out by competitors.
Google Ads Exchange has highly relevant sites across all industries where your ads will be displayed in the case of winning the auction. However, the Google Ads Exchange rates for conversion are higher since websites are well-positioned in the industry.
How to Optimize Google Ads Conversion Rates
The final goal of implementing Google Ads campaigns, either through search or display ads, is increasing conversions. Okay, some campaigns, especially implemented for small companies or startups, look to increase brand awareness or create leads, but let’s be honest: all businesses want to achieve more sales.
At this point, we need to differentiate between optimization for search ads and optimization for display ads.
Optimizing Search Ads
Source: Demandsage.
Since search ads are built with a heading, a brief description, and a URL, they should include relevant keywords on the industry as well as benefits and how the product will solve the searcher’s issues.
Besides, since search ads work through a bidding strategy in which you bid for certain keywords in your field, you should try to bid higher than the average to ensure your ad gets a better position on SERPs. In this sense, the daily budget needs to align with the market and establish a higher cost-per-click CPC strategy.
The relevance of your website is also another crucial aspect that Google takes into consideration when ranking your bid. For this reason, the general SEO of your site is also a factor you shouldn’t overpass.
Optimizing Display Ads
Since display ads are totally “optical” and engage customers thanks to their visual impact, message, and power to encourage witnesses to click the ad, the relevance of the images you use is crucial from the very beginning.
Still, when looking to maximize conversions, you can adopt automated bidding since, through this strategy, Google will adjust bids according to the algorithms and keywords you have established, predicting which clicks can turn leads into clients.
It would help if you created multiple formats of the same advertisement. The more formats you include, the more chances a user clicks your ad. This way, the client is one step closer to achieving.
The Google Ads conversion rate optimization is more related to the optimization of ads rather than the particularities of your product or service. However, another relevant factor that can determine a high conversion rate is the quality of your landing pages. Let’s discuss this point in the following section.
Landing Page Conversion Rates from Google Ads
The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 5.89%.
Keep in mind that one of the main factors when it comes to reaching a good conversion rate is a great landing page that resonates with customers and encourages them to complete the purchase.
In this regard, a good landing page conversion rate would be 10%, which is high but a benchmark you should consider.
But what are the characteristics that any landing page should have to push potential customers who come from Google search ads to complete a purchase? The best practices in this regard are the following:
- The language of the advertisement and the landing page should be similar.
- The landing page should be a continuation of the customer’s experience.
- A landing page should be clear and easy to understand and facilitate the purchasing process.
- It should be optimized for mobile devices since a big part of purchases are carried out on these devices.
- Your landing pages should consider SEO, i.e., a great ad copy, the inclusion of main, secondary, and negative keywords, and be optimized for search engines.
- Your landing pages should convey positive emotions and engage with customers.
- It would be best if you tried driving traffic to your landing pages through different media, such as the following:
- Paid advertising;
- Search engine optimization;
- Link building;
- Email marketing;
- Social media promotion;
- Internal links in blog posts.
Long vs. Short Landing Pages
Source: Klientboost.
You can create long and short landing pages to convert total ad interactions into purchases. Long and short landing pages have their advantages and disadvantages. In this regard, the best choice to boost conversion is short pages since these have fewer distractions for customers completing the purchasing process.
With less information, a short landing page that only highlights crucial points and includes a call-to-action button is the right choice for boosting conversions to desktop and mobile users.
Besides, a short landing page means less confusion and questions, just including the contact details to generate a quick purchase. Besides, users who want to acquire your product quickly will appreciate a landing page of this nature.
What Is the Average Cost per Conversion for Google Ads?
According to Wordstream, the average cost per conversion is $56.11 for Google Ads on the search and $90.80 for the display network. It reflects that the more motivated the searcher is to find a solution to their problems, the less your business will have to pay to complete a conversion.
The Google Ads campaign cost and conversion rates are strictly related. The total cost of your campaign will determine if the conversion is enough to ensure a good ROAS –Return on Ad Spend. Now, let’s check out the average CPC by industry.
| Industry | Average Google Ads CPC on Search | Average Google Ads CPC on Display Network |
| Arts & Entertainment | $36.65 | $70.56 |
| Dining & Nightlife | $35.35 | $81.50 |
| Apparel | $52.45 | $62.83 |
| Computers & Electronics | $101.40 | $124.59 |
| Finance | $71.44 | $84.10 |
| Health | $68.94 | $101.50 |
| Law & Government | $85.29 | $133.43 |
| Real Estate | $77.28 | $110.14 |
| Vehicles | $26.17 | $119.55 |
Conversion Rates: Organic vs. Google Ads
As we mentioned above, a satisfying conversion rate depends on both organic and inorganic marketing, in other words, on SEM or Search Engine Marketing.
As a professional business, you should implement both a good SEO strategy and a good Google Ads strategy.
The optimized content on your website, either on a blog section or on the landing pages, can boost sales since, through it, you can teach users about your brand or product. Besides, thanks to organic optimization, you can entice prospective customers in a parallel way to Google Ads and drive them to your landing page, where they can complete the transaction.
A Google Ads strategy is always a more direct way to attract potential customers who are already interested in acquiring products or finding a solution to their problems. This way, the inclusion of a call to action and good management of the advertising budget is also crucial to getting a good position on SERPs and the display network.
Do Conversion Rates Influence the Quality Scores in Google Ads?
Quality Score is a monitoring metric that Google uses to position your site when releasing a search ads strategy. It corresponds to a way of monitoring different factors that might impact your ads. The Quality Score and the bidding strategy adopted determine the positions of your search ads in SERPs.
In a few words, your conversion rate doesn’t impact your ads. Still, the factors that go into calculating it – the number of visitors and the total number of conversions – might affect the Quality Score and ads.
Each of those factors and individual metrics can be improved. This action will improve the overall Quality Score of your website. It undoubtedly will drive you to more success with your ads.
The conversion rate can help you make changes throughout the campaign and implement other elements of your marketing to improve it.
The Bottom Line
Improving the Google Ads conversion rates of your business is a desired action you should take right now if it’s lower than the average. In this article, we’ve mentioned some strategies you can adopt. Still, you can find out even more by browsing and reading our blog. We’re continuously uploading related articles discussing everything about Google Ads, PPC marketing strategies, and other relevant topics in the industry.
FAQ
What to Do with Low Conversion Rates Google Ads?
A primary objective of your business or the marketing agency you are working with is to increase the conversion rate. It means increasing sales. Some strategies you can adopt are the following:
- Optimize web content, landing pages, and ad copy.
- Bid for crucial keywords of your industry.
- Create offers and generate a FOMO sense to encourage customers to complete purchases.
Are Google Ads Campaign Cost and Conversion Rates Related?
Since the conversion rate indicates the percentage of visitors who complete a transaction, it also determines the ROAS according to the total budget you have spent. In this sense, the total campaign cost indicates whether the conversion rate is enough for your business to get revenue.
Does Google Analytics Work When Calculating the Conversion Rate?
Getting insights into conversion rates from Google ads reports is very useful to understand how the marketing campaign is working. Knowing the conversion rate will help you to adjust strategies and better allocate efforts to improve results.
A PPC specialist who started with organic social media. For several years, the core of his activities are:- Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Twitter Ads, Linkedin Ads. He has led campaigns with a global reach, e.g. for FootballTeam, G2A, ETOTO, as well as many smaller campaigns in the sports, construction and financial industries. Has full focus on ROAS. Privately, a fan of football, history of wars and Star Wars.