This article provides benchmarks and averages for conversion rates according to marketing channel, traffic source, and industry. In addition to these more general categories, we also provide data on conversion rates within the SaaS industry. This data includes benchmarks according to free trial types and the respective industries that SaaS companies commonly work with.
Marketing Channels and Conversion
Choosing the right marketing channel often means the difference between your target audience seeing your content or not. Our team gathered data from 100+ B2B and B2C companies between 2018 to establish conversion rate benchmarks for the 10 most commonly used marketing channels.
Conversion Rate by Channel
| Channel | B2C Conversion Rate | B2B Conversion Rate |
| SEO | 2.1% | 2.6% |
| SEM / PPC | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| Email Marketing | 2.8% | 2.4% |
| Organic Social | 2.4% | 1.7% |
| Paid Social | 2.1% | 0.9% |
| Display Ads | 0.7% | 0.3% |
| Influencer Marketing | 1.1% | .8% |
| Affiliate Marketing | 2.0% | 1.2% |
| Online PR | 1.4% | 1.1% |
| Webinars | 1.3% | 2.3% |
This table assumes that best practices are being followed for each channel, averaged out over the course of a year. For example, a B2C affiliate marketing campaign might make well below the standard 2% conversion rate when run by an inexperienced team. By contrast, an extremely well-targeted SEO campaign might achieve a significantly higher rate than the average 2.6%.
Traffic Source
Traffic source differs from marketing channel in that channel refers to the content type the visitor is on, while traffic source refers to the content type they came from. The table below, for example, provides conversion rates for someone arriving onto a page from SEO, PPC, or another channel entirely.
As in the previous table, the chart below highlights conversion rates between B2C and B2B campaigns.
Conversion Rate by Google Analytics Traffic Source
| Traffic Source | B2C Conversion Rate | B2B Conversion Rate |
| SEO (Organic Search) | 2.1% | 2.6% |
| PPC/SEM (Paid Search) | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| 2.8% | 2.4% | |
| Direct | 1.6% | 1.9% |
| Referral | 1.8% | 1.1% |
| Organic Social | 2.4% | 1.7% |
| Paid Social (Other) | 2.1% | 0.9% |
| Paid Ads (Display) | 0.7% | 0.3% |
Conversion Rates by Industry
The final consideration when thinking about conversion rate benchmarks is the industry that your target audience is in. For example, someone in biotech is significantly less likely to respond to email marketing, despite the channel having a good conversion rate by its own accord. They would be much more likely to convert, however, if presented with expert insights on a niche field in an interactive medium, like a webinar.
Knowing your audience can greatly impact the makeup of your marketing campaign. The table below provides conversion rate benchmarks by industry, broken down according to the three highest performing channels for each one.
Highest Conversion Rate Channels by Industry
| Industry | Highest Conversion Rate Channels | ||
| #1 | #2 | #3 | |
| Addiction Treatment | SEO – 2.8% | Affiliate Marketing – 1.9% | Paid Social (Facebook) – 1.4% |
| Automotive (B2B) | SEM / PPC – 1.4% | Email Marketing – 1.3% | Paid Social (LinkedIn) – 1.0% |
| Biotech | Webinars – 2.5% | SEO – 2.1% | Email – 1.6% |
| Business Insurance | SEO – 1.9% | Paid Social (LinkedIn) – 1.4% | Email Marketing – 1.1% |
| Construction (B2B) | Webinars – 1.7% | Paid Social (LinkedIn) – 1.1% | Email Marketing – 0.8% |
| eCommerce (B2C) | SEO – 1.6% | Influencer Marketing – 1.1% | Affiliate Marketing – 0.9% |
| Financial Services (B2B) | SEO – 1.9% | Webinars – 1.2% | Email Marketing – 1.2% |
| Financial Services (B2C) | SEO – 2.4% | Paid Social (Facebook) – 1.3% | SEM / PPC – 1.1% |
| Fintech | Organic Social (LinkedIn) – 1.6% | SEO – 1.4% | Online PR – 1.0% |
| Healthcare (B2B) | Email Marketing – 1.7% | Webinars – 1.5% | SEM / PPC – 1.4% |
| Heavy Equipment | SEO – 1.9% | Paid Social (LinkedIn) – 1.4% | Email Marketing – 1.0% |
| Higher Education | Online PR – 1.3% | SEO – 1.2% | Email Marketing – 0.7% |
| HVAC (Combined B2B and B2C) | SEO – 2.1% | Email Marketing – 1.6% | SEM / PPC – 1.2 % |
| Industrial IOT | Email Marketing – 1.7% | SEO – 1.6% | Webinars – 1.1% |
| IT & Managed Services | Email Marketing – 1.4% | Paid Social (LinkedIn) – 1.1% | SEO – 1.1% |
| Law Firms & Legal Services (B2B) | SEO – 1.5% | Webinars – 1.4% | LinkedIn Organic – 0.9% |
| Manufacturing & Distribution | Email Marketing – 1.4% | SEO – 1.4% | Paid Social (LinkedIn) – 1.1% |
| Medical Device | SEO – 1.8% | Webinars – 1.5% | Online PR – 0.9% |
| Oil & Gas | Webinars – 2.1% | SEO – 1.7% | Email Marketing – 1.1% |
| SaaS (B2B) | SEO – 1.9% | Webinars – 1.2% | Email Marketing – 1.1% |
The key takeaway when considering industry as a factor in measuring conversion rate benchmarks is understanding your audience. For a more specific breakdown of how this works, let’s look at these factors together as they function in the SaaS industry.
SaaS Conversion Rate Benchmarks
SaaS companies often offer free trials of their software in order to entice users to commit to a full purchase. Over the last decade, in particular, the industry has developed several unique methods by which these trials are offered, which our team has measured in the tables below:
SaaS Free Trial Conversion Rate by Free Trial Type
| Conversion | Traffic Source | Conversion Rate Benchmark | Notes |
| Visitor to Free Trial (Opt-In) | Organic | 8.5% | Opt-in free trials have significantly higher organic conversion rates than opt-out free trials because they don’t require the user to input payment information.
Newer SaaS businesses are better served by the low barrier-to-entry of opt-in free trials as they need to prove the value of their software. |
| Paid | 7.1% | ||
| Free Trial (Opt-In) to Paid | Organic | 18.2% | Because opt-in free trials do not automatically convert to paid subscriptions at the end of the trial period, fewer trial users will convert to full users. |
| Paid | 17.4% | ||
| Visitor to Free Trial (Opt-Out) | Organic | 2.5% | Opt-out free trials convert at a lower rate than opt-in free trials because they require the user to proactively enter payment information. |
| Paid | 2.2% | ||
| Free Trial (Opt-Out) to Paid | Organic | 48.8% | Opt-out free trials require the user to submit payment information, and thus their decision to pay the subscription fee is often passive. Thus, they yield a far higher conversion rate than opt-in free trials.
A conversion is defined as even a single paid month, so you will want to consider this statistic alongside retention / churn rate as well as Customer LTV to determine the true value of an average conversion. |
| Paid | 51% | ||
| Visitor to Freemium | Organic | 13.3% | Freemium models have higher visitor conversion rates than free trials because most users value indefinite access to some software features over any other value proposition (free trial or paid). Of course, a higher conversion rate to free use of the software does not mean more long term revenue. |
| Paid | 15.9% | ||
| Freemium to Paid | Organic | 2.6% | Freemium trials convert to paid at the lowest rates because a significant percentage of users will find that the free features are sufficient for their purposes. This effect is partially offset by conversions among long-time users whose needs grow beyond the free featureset. |
| Paid | 2.8% |
In addition to initial considerations about the effectiveness of their free trial models, SaaS companies also have to affect their long-term conversion funnels. The table below shows both what percentage of visitors are likely to sign up for the free trial as well as how many of those move on to an actual hard conversion.
SaaS Free Trial Conversion Rate Benchmarks by Industry
| Industry | Visitor to Trial Conversion Rate | Trial to Paid Conversion Rate |
| Advertising / AdTech | 9.1% | 24.3% |
| Agriculture / Agtech | 8.8% | 21.5% |
| Communications | 8.3% | 23.4% |
| CRM | 9.7% | 29.0% |
| Cybersecurity | 7.4% | 21.9% |
| Education / Edtech | 10.3% | 24.8% |
| Enterprise | 5.5% | 18.6% |
| ERP | 9.4% | 23.7% |
| Environmental / CleanTech | 11.1% | 22.9% |
| Financial / Fintech | 9.0% | 19.4% |
| Healthcare / Medtech | 12.3% | 21.5% |
| HR | 8.1% | 22.7% |
| IoT | 12.6% | 25.2% |
| Legal / Legaltech | 9.7% | 23.1% |
| Real Estate / Proptech | 7.1% | 22.7% |
| Regtech | 11.7% | 23.6% |
Improving Your Conversion Rate
If your company finds itself below the average rate posted for one or several of the criteria listed above, it’s time to start considering your options. One choice is to take a in-house approach to your overall marketing strategy, your CRO practices, and how your content is created. This approach can save your company time and money, but it can also cost both if done incorrectly.
Another approach is to outsource your marketing strategy to a capable partner. First Page Sage is the largest SEO firm in the United States specializing in thought leadership content and SEO strategy for lead generation. Contact us if you’d like to discuss a future partnership.
