PPC
The 7 Pillars of Building a Future-Proof PPC Account Structure
Navigating the ever-changing landscape of pay-per-click (PPC) account structure management can be overwhelming. However, you want to iron out your account structure now to avoid future headaches that could leave you feeling like this:
Given the constant shifts in the rules of audience engagement coupled with economic fluctuations, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of how to set up and manage your accounts with agility.
There are seven fundamental pillars to consider when future-proofing your PPC account structure. Let’s delve into each!
🤓Totally new to PPC account structures and not sure where to start? Our free PPC 101 guide can help!
How to build a future-proof PPC account structure
Follow these seven steps to create a PPC account structure that can keep up with the demands of your industry now and in the future.
1. Be mindful of your budget allocation
An effective PPC account structure strategy should be financially sustainable. It’s crucial to ensure your budget can support all your campaign initiatives. A golden rule of thumb is to have enough budget to accommodate at least 10 clicks per day for non-branded searches. This helps offset the costs of lower conversion rates often associated with non-branded traffic—since those types of website visitors tend to have less commercial intent.
Although branded traffic generally boasts higher conversion rates and is typically cheaper, budgeting for less than 10 clicks per day could put undue pressure on your campaigns to deliver an impractical 10% conversion rate. Additionally, the advent of Google Ads Performance Max campaigns brings new budget considerations. For example, Google Ads auction prices will vary across multiple channels, including display, search, video, and local.
In short, you’ll need to set realistic budget goals for your PPC account. It’s best to limit your account structure to a few campaigns to start to avoid stretching your budget too thin. On top of that, be ready to flex or reallocate budgets as you go.
Our latest Google Ads benchmarks can be a helpful starting point when deciding what type of account structure your budget can afford:
💸 In order to budget mindfully in PPC, you need to know what costs to expect. Find out the average CPC, CPL, and more for your industry using our 2023 search advertising benchmarks data.
2. Adhere to current audience engagement best practices
Understanding and adapting to the changing rules of audience engagement in PPC advertising can be challenging. However, it’s crucial to ensure your Google Ads account is always in compliance with the latest targeting best practices and policies.
For example, you may want to structure your account to incorporate placement exclusions for display or video campaigns. First off, this can boost your account’s performance since you won’t waste any impressions or clicks on someone who might be irrelevant to your business. More importantly, this can stop your ads from showing to sensitive audiences. Your placement exclusions could be a proactive measure using a list of sites or apps you prefer not to show on, or they can be reactive, informed by past data from the “where ads showed” report.
In another example, Google’s upcoming update that will factor search volume into the search terms report offers an exciting opportunity to gauge the potential reach of a keyword in relation to its cost. This allows you to make informed decisions about which keyword concepts to prioritize within your account’s search campaign structure.
3. Strike a balance between human control and Google’s AI machine learning
A contentious issue in Google Ads for small businesses is striking the right balance between human control and AI (artificial intelligence). As AI in marketing becomes more popular, both the positive and negative impacts AI has on PPC have come to light.
For example, generative AI can help you create assets for your PPC account, like images, videos, and ad copy. Meanwhile, Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) may cause ads to show lower on the page, so your Google Ads Quality Score should be a priority when considering your PPC account structure.
Whether you choose a PPC account structure that relies more heavily on AI control or on manual control, know that each side has its merits and drawbacks. It’s crucial to find the blend that best suits your specific needs and circumstances.
However, finding ways to work AI into your PPC account structure to some degree is no longer a nice-to-have option, it’s needed. For example, the manual-based single keyword ad group (SKAG) PPC account structure has fallen out of favor.
Firstly, keywords are no longer the guiding light; they have essentially become an “audience” due to Google’s updated keyword-matching logic.
Secondly, from a budget allocation perspective, it’s challenging to support multiple ad groups with a manual bidding strategy, especially when campaigns have insufficient data to help estimate your bids. A better PPC account structure strategy in this situation would be a few core ad groups under one campaign that uses one of the automatic bidding strategies—which are powered by Google’s machine learning.
4. Remember the importance of negatives
Negative keywords are invaluable in protecting your costs and directing traffic. They can help you narrow in the searches you show for, so that you’re only hitting your core keyword terms.
You can brainstorm more negative keywords using a keyword research tool, like this:
An example of how WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool can help you sort through which terms may or may not be relevant to your business.
Moreover, the use of negative audiences alongside placements is an essential strategy often overlooked. If you only use audiences to target, you miss out on the opportunity to proactively protect your budget from unforeseen variables.
5. Ignore audiences and placements at your peril
Audiences in Google Ads provide a unique chance to target or exclude potential traffic based on exhibited behaviors or predictive signs of future actions. Audiences can be applied at both the campaign and ad group levels of your PPC account structure as well as baked into broad match targeting.
As keyword targeting becomes less about the syntax of the keyword and more about the implied meaning and associated audiences, the significance of audiences only increases.
When building your PPC account’s campaigns, it’s imperative to identify your most critical buyer personas and understand the creative strategies best suited to engage them. As a general rule of thumb, you should have unique ad copy and visual strategies for each primary persona. This could mean having several ad groups per audience so that you can have tailored ads that fit each one accordingly.
Meanwhile, audiences and placements play slightly different roles when optimizing any Performance Max (PMax) campaigns within your PPC account. In standard campaigns, audiences function as active targets or exclusions, while in PMax, they serve simply as signals for Google to know which placements are best for you. However, we are increasingly being offered more opportunities to exclude incorrect targets.
6. Harness the power of first-party data (or, at minimum, pretend to)
First-party data plays a pivotal role in determining where your ads serve and who they are served to. If you’re unsure whether you can leverage first-party data—that is, having consent from your prospects to track them and hold their emails—consider using algorithmically learned audiences like in-market or custom intent based on search terms in the meantime.
While these audiences may not perform as effectively as ones sourced from your first-party data, they at least provide a fighting chance compared to not using audiences at all.
7. Manage your privacy and conversion tracking practices
The final component in future-proofing your PPC account structure lies in your conversion tracking setup. It’s crucial to strike a balance between being privacy-compliant and maintaining visibility into your campaign’s performance.
Consider the pros and cons of using GA4 events or other analytic events versus the native advertising conversion actions Google Ads provides. Although native ad platform tracking can capture more information, the moment you use external sources, like GA4, you’ll have to grapple with some degree of attribution data modeling.
However, we saw at Google Marketing Live 2023 that Google is rolling out updates to make building and tracking your PPC account’s audiences via GA4 more doable:
Recently, there has been a new development allowing the use of enhanced conversions to build a customer-match audience list. If you decide to leverage this intriguing tool, remember that your audiences from enhanced conversions still need to meet minimum targeting requirements—typically at least a thousand people on the list. However, this strategy can be a potent way to build those lists if you didn’t have one before, and to back up the data that the ad platform is seeing.
In conclusion, ignoring audiences and placements in your PPC account structure could be detrimental. Harnessing their potential while considering the importance of first-party data and balancing privacy with conversion tracking will set you up for success in this ever-evolving digital advertising landscape.
Your PPC account structure matters now more than ever
Creating a future-proof PPC account structure may be challenging, but focusing on these seven core pillars will help you navigate the terrain. Remember to continuously review and update your strategies to keep up with evolving trends and changes in the industry. Work on your PPC account structure now, your future self will thank you!
To recap, here are the seven components of a future-proof PPC account structure:
- Mindful budget allocation
- Engaging the right audiences
- Both AI-powered and manual assets
- Negative keywords and audiences
- Strong audience and placement strategies
- Using audiences sourced from first-party data or in-market and custom-intent audiences
- Solid privacy management and conversion tracking
PPC
5 Quick & Easy Ways to Get More Referral Traffic (+Examples)
Search engines (mostly Google) are still the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to generating clicks to your website. But ignoring referral traffic from other sources like directories, social media, and other websites would be a huge mistake.
This is especially true as younger audiences increasingly search for businesses on social media and as referral traffic increased from 3% to over 10% of total traffic for the average website in 2022.
In this guide, you’ll learn the most popular sources of referral traffic, how it helps your business grow, and what you can do to get more clicks from places outside of search engines.
Table of contents
What is referral traffic?
Referral traffic refers to traffic coming from a link on a site that’s not your own. If you clicked the link we added to the introduction of this guide, the website you landed on would count your visit as referral traffic.
By comparison, the other common website traffic sources are search and direct traffic. Search traffic comes from visitors clicking on search engine results. Direct traffic is from visitors that go directly to your website, like if they type your URL into their browser.
Examples of referral traffic sources can include:
- Social media apps like Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)
- Online directories like Yelp or Angi
- Just about any non-search engine website like a blog post
👋 Need to get more website visitors? These 25 ways to increase traffic to your website will help you attract interested buyers in droves!
Why is referral traffic beneficial?
If you want to grow your business, attracting more referral traffic is an important step. Here are three reasons why.
Generate more potential leads
At the most basic level, increasing referral traffic means increasing the number of potential customers who visit your website.
But it’s not just more people coming in through your virtual door. It’s people that found you by actively clicking a link that interested them. So if the backlink they clicked is relevant to your website, those visitors have a high intent to learn about, and maybe purchase, what you sell.
Get more traffic from search engines
Backlinks from high-quality websites are a signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy.
Backlinks are still an influential search engine ranking factor, as shown in this graph from FirstPageSage.
As your backlink profile and referral traffic grow, you’ll land on more search engine results pages and generate more traffic from them.
Reduce your reliance on Google
Google is a fantastic source of traffic. But relying too much on a single source is dangerous—especially as Google’s constant updates can greatly affect your traffic overnight.
Headlines like this one from Search Engine Journal show why it’s important to diversify your website traffic sources.
As you diversify your sources of referral traffic, you gain more control over the success of your site. If one source, like search, takes a hit, you can buffer the dip with more traffic from another source like directories.
5 ways to get more referral traffic
So generating more referral traffic is important. But how do we go about getting more of it? Let’s dive in.
1. Get listed in online directories
Online directories are like the phonebooks of the digital age. People look to websites like Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and Angi (formerly Angi’s List) to find the services and business they need.
Yelp is one of the most popular business directories, but there are dozens of others that will help increase your online footprint.
Ideally, you want exposure on as many directories as possible. But you also want to make sure that your information is current, so no one gets frustrated trying to reach you. You can even optimize your listings with things like images, service descriptions, and reviews.
🚨 Not sure if your directory listings are up to par? Use our free Listings Grader to instantly check your listing information across 20+ top online directories.
2. Submit guest posts
Guest posts are a great way to build up referral traffic. The idea is to reach out to websites that want content, and offer to write a blog post in exchange for the backlinks they provide.
It’s best to focus your guest posting efforts on sites that are related to your business, which means your content will be in front of a relevant audience providing top-notch referral traffic. If you can set up a regular guest posting schedule, all the better, because that allows you to keep your referral traffic from those sources steady over time and increase traffic to your website.
3. Write press releases
Press releases are a quick and easy way to get a wave of fresh traffic from referring URLs. It’s a great idea to do a press release for an event you’ll be hosting or to announce milestones like executive changes, earnings releases, acquisitions, and product launches.
A press release is great for promoting new products or events while generating valuable referral traffic from the publications that pick it up.
But to be honest, if you are paying for a press release, you can write about pretty much anything and pretend it’s newsworthy. Some businesses even send out press releases whenever they get a new client.
4. Get active on social media
Social media sites are also natural contenders for bringing in referral traffic. Plus, there are several options to fit your brand and audience.
Facebook, for example, is fantastic for an older audience and organizing events. TikTok caters to a younger crowd and lets you show off your video flair. And of course, there’s LinkedIn, if your target customer is of a professional mindset.
No matter which social media platforms you choose, make sure your posts have a clear call to action that leads people to your website. That’s how you drive referral traffic from social media apps.
Depending on the platform, you can add CTA links, buttons, or text in the caption.
5. Create link-worthy content
If you want to catch backlinks and increase the traffic you get from other websites, you need the right bait. In this case, we’re talking about content that other websites want to link to.
Here are a few types of content that writers and marketers love to link to:
- Original data: Statistics from a survey or data your app captures
- Infographics: A roundup of statistics or a visual presentation of a process
- Opinionated blog posts: A fresh take on a common question in your industry
Once you’ve created your backlink magnet, share it with publications and thought leaders in your industry so they can link back to your site.
Referral traffic the easy way
Referral traffic is an important source of new potential customers. As search engines get more finicky, and more people search social media platforms, referrals will be an even bigger factor in your success online.
As you think about how to get more website visitors from more places, remember these five quick and easy ways to get more referral traffic:
- Get listed in online directories
- Submit guest posts
- Write press releases
- Get active on social media
- Create link-worthy content
PPC
5 Quick Tips to Increase Referral Traffic
Search engines (mostly Google) are still the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to generating clicks to your website. But ignoring referral traffic from other sources like directories, social media, and other websites would be a huge mistake.
This is especially true as younger audiences increasingly search for businesses on social media and as referral traffic increased from 3% to over 10% of total traffic for the average website in 2022.
In this guide, you’ll learn the most popular sources of referral traffic, how it helps your business grow, and what you can do to get more clicks from places outside of search engines.
Table of contents
What is referral traffic?
Referral traffic refers to traffic coming from a link on a site that’s not your own. If you clicked the link we added to the introduction of this guide, the website you landed on would count your visit as referral traffic.
By comparison, the other common website traffic sources are search and direct traffic. Search traffic comes from visitors clicking on search engine results. Direct traffic is from visitors that go directly to your website, like if they type your URL into their browser.
Examples of referral traffic sources can include:
- Social media apps like Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)
- Online directories like Yelp or Angi
- Just about any non-search engine website like a blog post
👋 Need to get more website visitors? These 25 ways to increase traffic to your website will help you attract interested buyers in droves!
Why is referral traffic beneficial?
If you want to grow your business, attracting more referral traffic is an important step. Here are three reasons why.
Generate more potential leads
At the most basic level, increasing referral traffic means increasing the number of potential customers who visit your website.
But it’s not just more people coming in through your virtual door. It’s people that found you by actively clicking a link that interested them. So if the backlink they clicked is relevant to your website, those visitors have a high intent to learn about, and maybe purchase, what you sell.
Get more traffic from search engines
Backlinks from high-quality websites are a signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy.
Backlinks are still an influential search engine ranking factor, as shown in this graph from FirstPageSage.
As your backlink profile and referral traffic grow, you’ll land on more search engine results pages and generate more traffic from them.
Reduce your reliance on Google
Google is a fantastic source of traffic. But relying too much on a single source is dangerous—especially as Google’s constant updates can greatly affect your traffic overnight.
Headlines like this one from Search Engine Journal show why it’s important to diversify your website traffic sources.
As you diversify your sources of referral traffic, you gain more control over the success of your site. If one source, like search, takes a hit, you can buffer the dip with more traffic from another source like directories.
5 ways to get more referral traffic
So generating more referral traffic is important. But how do we go about getting more of it? Let’s dive in.
1. Get listed in online directories
Online directories are like the phonebooks of the digital age. People look to websites like Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and Angi (formerly Angi’s List) to find the services and business they need.
Yelp is one of the most popular business directories, but there are dozens of others that will help increase your online footprint.
Ideally, you want exposure on as many directories as possible. But you also want to make sure that your information is current, so no one gets frustrated trying to reach you. You can even optimize your listings with things like images, service descriptions, and reviews.
🚨 Not sure if your directory listings are up to par? Use our free Listings Grader to instantly check your listing information across 20+ top online directories.
2. Submit guest posts
Guest posts are a great way to build up referral traffic. The idea is to reach out to websites that want content, and offer to write a blog post in exchange for the backlinks they provide.
It’s best to focus your guest posting efforts on sites that are related to your business, which means your content will be in front of a relevant audience providing top-notch referral traffic. If you can set up a regular guest posting schedule, all the better, because that allows you to keep your referral traffic from those sources steady over time and increase traffic to your website.
3. Write press releases
Press releases are a quick and easy way to get a wave of fresh traffic from referring URLs. It’s a great idea to do a press release for an event you’ll be hosting or to announce milestones like executive changes, earnings releases, acquisitions, and product launches.
A press release is great for promoting new products or events while generating valuable referral traffic from the publications that pick it up.
But to be honest, if you are paying for a press release, you can write about pretty much anything and pretend it’s newsworthy. Some businesses even send out press releases whenever they get a new client.
4. Get active on social media
Social media sites are also natural contenders for bringing in referral traffic. Plus, there are several options to fit your brand and audience.
Facebook, for example, is fantastic for an older audience and organizing events. TikTok caters to a younger crowd and lets you show off your video flair. And of course, there’s LinkedIn, if your target customer is of a professional mindset.
No matter which social media platforms you choose, make sure your posts have a clear call to action that leads people to your website. That’s how you drive referral traffic from social media apps.
Depending on the platform, you can add CTA links, buttons, or text in the caption.
5. Create link-worthy content
If you want to catch backlinks and increase the traffic you get from other websites, you need the right bait. In this case, we’re talking about content that other websites want to link to.
Here are a few types of content that writers and marketers love to link to:
- Original data: Statistics from a survey or data your app captures
- Infographics: A roundup of statistics or a visual presentation of a process
- Opinionated blog posts: A fresh take on a common question in your industry
Once you’ve created your backlink magnet, share it with publications and thought leaders in your industry so they can link back to your site.
Referral traffic the easy way
Referral traffic is an important source of new potential customers. As search engines get more finicky, and more people search social media platforms, referrals will be an even bigger factor in your success online.
As you think about how to get more website visitors from more places, remember these five quick and easy ways to get more referral traffic:
- Get listed in online directories
- Submit guest posts
- Write press releases
- Get active on social media
- Create link-worthy content
PPC
Facebook Ads Benchmarks for 2024: NEW Data + Insights for Your Industry
With over 2 billion daily active users, Facebook still reigns supreme as the most popular social media platform. And that’s part of the reason that Facebook ads continue to be an extremely popular solution for businesses looking to raise brand awareness, connect with prospects, and get new customers.
So how do you know if your Facebook ads are really working? We’ve got the data to answer your questions!
Just in time to inform your 2024 planning and help you better understand how your Facebook advertising campaigns are performing now, we’re sharing Facebook ads benchmarks across 20 industries, including benchmarks for click-through rate, cost per click, conversion rate, and more for two popular Facebook ads campaign objectives.
Table of contents
Key trends: The big picture
Over the last year, most businesses have seen their Facebook ads results improve, meaning their engagement metrics are going up and their advertising costs are going down. Here’s a deeper look:
- Click-through rate (CTR) increased year over year for 9 out of 19 industries using Facebook Lead Ads. Some of those increases were fairly significant, especially for Arts & Entertainment and Education & Instruction. CTR decreased YOY for 15 out of 23 industries in the traffic objective, but average CTR still remains higher than other available data shows (1.51% vs. 0.9%).
- Cost per click (CPC) largely decreased year over year. 9 industries saw a decrease in CPC YOY for the leads objective, while 14 saw a decrease YOY for the traffic objective. And for each objective, the increases weren’t drastic. This is interesting given the drastic increase in CPC across most (91%) industries for search advertising.
- For the leads objective, 13 out of 19 industries saw conversion rate (CVR) increase year over year. The economy could play a role in the industries that saw decreases YOY. For example, with a volatile housing market, fewer people may have been looking to buy or sell, leading to a decrease in CVR for real estate businesses.
- For the leads objective, cost per lead (CPL) stayed the same or decreased for 12 out of 19 industries. Again, it’s interesting to see this trend given the drastic increase in CPL on the search ads side, where 91% of industries saw increases in CPL in 2023.
The overall key takeaway? Facebook advertising continues to offer complementary advantages to search ads because of lower and more stable costs.
“One of the biggest things I’m always impressed with on Facebook is that, although advertising CPCs generally fluctuate across the board, Facebook ads CPCs differ so much less than what you might see on Google Ads or other search networks,” said Mark Irvine, Director of Paid Media at Search Labs.
Facebook ads benchmarks for traffic campaigns by industry
Facebook advertising allows you to choose specific ad objectives for each campaign. It then optimizes your campaigns against that objective, which helps you reach specific goals with your Facebook ads.
The traffic objective in Facebook ads optimizes your campaign to drive clicks from your ads to your landing page, app, or event. Traffic campaigns are popular among many small business advertisers because they help to drive more visitors (and potential customers!) to your website.
| Business category | Avg. click-through rate | Avg. cost per click |
| Animals & Pets | 1.63% | $0.76 |
| Apparel / Fashion & Jewelry | 1.13% | $1.11 |
| Arts & Entertainment | 2.55% | $0.44 |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | 0.99% | $1.15 |
| Automotive — For Sale | 1.18% | $0.70 |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | 0.99% | $0.99 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 1.34% | $0.88 |
| Business Services | 1.37% | $0.84 |
| Career & Employment | 1.31% | $0.70 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | 0.81% | $1.27 |
| Education & Instruction | 1.20% | $0.79 |
| Finance & Insurance | 0.88% | $1.11 |
| Furniture | 1.15% | $1.19 |
| Health & Fitness | 1.68% | $0.90 |
| Home & Home Improvement | 1.23% | $0.95 |
| Industrial & Commercial | 1.03% | $0.80 |
| Personal Services | 1.28% | $0.87 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | 1.02% | $1.08 |
| Real Estate | 2.45% | $0.65 |
| Restaurants & Food | 2.29% | $0.52 |
| Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts | 1.82% | $0.65 |
| Sports & Recreation | 1.30% | $0.77 |
| Travel | 2.06% | $0.43 |
Note: Since this campaign objective is specifically designed to drive traffic, cost per lead and conversion rate metrics tend to be on the higher side. It’s important to focus on the metrics that matter most for your ad objective, so we’ve omitted those metrics here.
Average click-through rate in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns
CTR or click-through rate is a measure of how frequently viewers click on your ad. Essentially, your campaign’s CTR indicates how compelling and click-worthy viewers deem your Facebook ads. For this reason, higher CTRs are a sign of strong Facebook ad copy and creative.
The average click-through rate in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns across all industries is 1.51%.
|
Business category |
Avg. click-through rate |
| Animals & Pets | 1.63% |
| Apparel / Fashion & Jewelry | 1.13% |
| Arts & Entertainment | 2.55% |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | 0.99% |
| Automotive — For Sale | 1.18% |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | 0.99% |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 1.34% |
| Business Services | 1.37% |
| Career & Employment | 1.31% |
| Dentists & Dental Services | 0.81% |
| Education & Instruction | 1.20% |
| Finance & Insurance | 0.88% |
| Furniture | 1.15% |
| Health & Fitness | 1.68% |
| Home & Home Improvement | 1.23% |
| Industrial & Commercial | 1.03% |
| Personal Services | 1.28% |
| Physicians & Surgeons | 1.02% |
| Real Estate | 2.45% |
| Restaurants & Food | 2.29% |
| Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts | 1.82% |
| Sports & Recreation | 1.30% |
| Travel | 2.06% |
The industries with the highest CTR were Arts & Entertainment at 2.55%, Real Estate at 2.45%, and Restaurants & Food at 2.29%.
The industries with lower average CTR were Dentists & Dental Services at 0.81%, Finance & Insurance at 0.88%, and Attorneys & Legal Services at 0.99%.
“CTRs differ strongly between different business types across Facebook, even more so than on Google Ads. Successful Facebook Ads require impressive, visual proof to attract attention from the scrolling audience—and that’s why you see some of the best Facebook ads CTRs from those industries that can wow us with the promise of a good time, like Travel, Arts & Entertainment, and Sports,” said Irvine.
“These industries both fit in with the content we’re used to seeing on our feeds from our friends,” he added. “A night out or tropical getaway can be far more attractive than a visual portrayal of an automotive repair or a visit to the dentist. We see those strong divides in the Facebook ads CTR performance in these types of industries.”
Average cost per click in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns
Cost per click or CPC is a calculation of your total spend divided by your total number of clicks. Maintaining a lower average CPC on your traffic campaign means you can catch and convert website visitors at an overall cheaper cost.
For the traffic objective, a click would be a click from your ad to your website or whatever destination you set for your ad.
The average cost per click in Facebook ads for traffic campaigns across all industries is $0.83. This is much lower than the average cost per click in Google Ads of $4.22.
| Business category | Avg. cost per click |
| Animals & Pets | $0.76 |
| Apparel / Fashion & Jewelry | $1.11 |
| Arts & Entertainment | $0.44 |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | $1.15 |
| Automotive — For Sale | $0.70 |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | $0.99 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | $0.88 |
| Business Services | $0.84 |
| Career & Employment | $0.70 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | $1.27 |
| Education & Instruction | $0.79 |
| Finance & Insurance | $1.11 |
| Furniture | $1.19 |
| Health & Fitness | $0.90 |
| Home & Home Improvement | $0.95 |
| Industrial & Commercial | $0.80 |
| Personal Services | $0.87 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | $1.08 |
| Real Estate | $0.65 |
| Restaurants & Food | $0.52 |
| Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts | $0.65 |
| Sports & Recreation | $0.77 |
| Travel | $0.43 |
The industries that saw the lowest cost per click were Travel at $0.43, Arts & Entertainment at $0.44, and Restaurants & Food at $0.52.
The industries that saw higher-than-average costs per click were Dentists & Dental Services at $1.27, Furniture at $1.19, and Attorneys & Legal Services at $1.15. Again, these CPCs are still lower than the average CPC for Google Ads at over $4. Plus, these industries have fairly high lifetime average customer costs, so it makes sense that their advertising costs would be higher than a restaurant or entertainment venue.
“The biggest trend I am seeing with this Facebook ads CPC data is that consumer demand remains strong despite the uncertain economy. Cost per click is well within range of what we’ve been quoting advertisers for years now, while click-through rate also remains strong,” said Tyler Mask, Senior Manager of Custom Solutions at LocaliQ.
Facebook ads benchmarks for lead generation campaigns by industry
Facebook ads running with the leads objective are meant to drive leads through form fills, messages, calls, and conversions.
In a leads objective campaign, you’ll be running Facebook Lead Ads, which include prompts directly within the ad to help you collect lead information.
An example of the Facebook Lead Ad form creation process.
We’ve included conversion rate and cost per lead as part of these benchmarks since this objective is optimized to drive leads and conversions.
| Business category | Avg. click-through rate | Avg. cost per click | Avg. conversion rate | Avg. cost per lead |
| Arts & Entertainment | 3.70% | $0.87 | 9.77% | $13.46 |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | 1.79% | $5.42 | 5.92% | $78.26 |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | 1.38% | $2.86 | 5.35% | $58.56 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 2.46% | $2.16 | 4.61% | $52.46 |
| Business Services | 2.70% | $1.73 | 7.57% | $22.65 |
| Career & Employment | 2.37% | $1.34 | 7.02% | $18.17 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | 1.80% | $3.82 | 11.34% | $29.08 |
| Education & Instruction | 2.44% | $1.80 | 8.05% | $27.94 |
| Finance & Insurance | 1.98% | $2.94 | 5.62% | $30.88 |
| Furniture | 2.55% | $1.58 | 7.29% | $29.08 |
| Health & Fitness | 1.66% | $3.60 | 5.76% | $60.95 |
| Home & Home Improvement | 1.80% | $2.08 | 8.90% | $20.49 |
| Industrial & Commercial | 1.50% | $2.69 | 10.13% | $37.71 |
| Personal Services (Weddings, Cleaners, etc.) | 2.72% | $1.88 | 8.76% | $19.49 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | 3.17% | $3.63 | 4.99% | $60.95 |
| Real Estate | 3.69% | $1.22 | 9.58% | $12.43 |
| Restaurants & Food | 1.85% | $2.61 | 5.63% | $45.15 |
| Sports & Recreation | 3.29% | $1.11 | 8.24% | $15.33 |
| Travel | 6.62% | $0.96 | 3.95% | $26.05 |
Average click-through rate in Facebook ads for lead gen campaigns
Although Facebook lead ads don’t necessarily require users to click to your website, they’ll have to click on the ad to become a lead. Plus, the option to click to your website still exists on the ad. You should prioritize a high click-through rate for your Facebook leads objective campaigns because it signals that your ad is attracting users to take action.
The average click-through rate in Facebook ads for lead gen campaigns across all industries is 2.50%.
| Business category | Avg. click-through rate |
| Arts & Entertainment | 3.70% |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | 1.79% |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | 1.38% |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 2.46% |
| Business Services | 2.70% |
| Career & Employment | 2.37% |
| Dentists & Dental Services | 1.80% |
| Education & Instruction | 2.44% |
| Finance & Insurance | 1.98% |
| Furniture | 2.55% |
| Health & Fitness | 1.66% |
| Home & Home Improvement | 1.80% |
| Industrial & Commercial | 1.50% |
| Personal Services (Weddings, Cleaners, etc.) | 2.72% |
| Physicians & Surgeons | 3.17% |
| Real Estate | 3.69% |
| Restaurants & Food | 1.85% |
| Sports & Recreation | 3.29% |
| Travel | 6.62% |
The industries that saw the best CTRs on their Facebook ads running with the leads objective were Travel at 6.62%, Arts & Entertainment at 3.70%, and Real Estate at 3.69%.
The industries with the lowest CTRs were Automotive – Repair, Service & Parts at 1.38%, Industrial & Commercial at 1.50%, and Health & Fitness at 1.66%.
Average cost per click in Facebook ads for lead gen campaigns
Every time a user clicks on your Facebook lead ads, you get charged—so trying to keep your average CPC as low as possible is a no-brainer. That said, you’ll also want to take your lead quality into consideration when evaluating your CPC. If your priority is to get the highest quality leads possible, then they may be worth the slightly higher CPC.
The average cost per click in Facebook ads for the leads gen campaign across all industries is $1.92.
| Business category | Avg. cost per click |
| Arts & Entertainment | $0.87 |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | $5.42 |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | $2.86 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | $2.16 |
| Business Services | $1.73 |
| Career & Employment | $1.34 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | $3.82 |
| Education & Instruction | $1.80 |
| Finance & Insurance | $2.94 |
| Furniture | $1.58 |
| Health & Fitness | $3.60 |
| Home & Home Improvement | $2.08 |
| Industrial & Commercial | $2.69 |
| Personal Services (Weddings, Cleaners, etc.) | $1.88 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | $3.63 |
| Real Estate | $1.22 |
| Restaurants & Food | $2.61 |
| Sports & Recreation | $1.11 |
| Travel | $0.96 |
The industries with the lowest CPCs were Arts & Entertainment at $0.87, Travel at $0.96, and Sports & Recreation at $1.11.
The industries that saw the highest CPCs for the leads objective were Attorneys & Legal Services at $5.42, Dentists & Dental Services at $3.82, and Physicians & Surgeons at $3.63. While these were higher compared to the average, they’re still fairly low cost for clicks in these industries.
“The difference in CTR and CPC between the two objectives stands out to me the most. The average CPC is 56% lower for the traffic objective campaigns than that of the leads objective, which, in some ways, makes sense,” said Michelle Morgan, co-founder of Paid Media Pros.
“Facebook is trying to get the lowest cost clicks it can, but I’m a little surprised to see the CTR being 66% higher for the leads objective campaigns. That indicates to me that although they’re more expensive, the users Facebook targets with a leads objective campaign might actually be a better fit for companies (on average) than the traffic objective,” said Morgan.
Average conversion rate in Facebook ads for lead gen campaigns
Conversion rate measures the rate at which your Facebook ads are driving conversions. It’s calculated by dividing the total number of leads by the total number of clicks. A high conversion rate signals that your Facebook ad is compelling users to take the next step to potentially become your customer. A lower conversion rate signals you may need to adjust your ad targeting, copy, or landing page to drive better results.
The average conversion rate in Facebook ads for lead gen campaigns across industries is 8.25%.
| Business category | Avg. conversion rate |
| Arts & Entertainment | 9.77% |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | 5.92% |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | 5.35% |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 4.61% |
| Business Services | 7.57% |
| Career & Employment | 7.02% |
| Dentists & Dental Services | 11.34% |
| Education & Instruction | 8.05% |
| Finance & Insurance | 5.62% |
| Furniture | 7.29% |
| Health & Fitness | 5.76% |
| Home & Home Improvement | 8.90% |
| Industrial & Commercial | 10.13% |
| Personal Services (Weddings, Cleaners, etc.) | 8.76% |
| Physicians & Surgeons | 4.99% |
| Real Estate | 9.58% |
| Restaurants & Food | 5.63% |
| Sports & Recreation | 8.24% |
| Travel | 3.95% |
The industries with the highest CVRs for Facebook ads running the leads objective were Dentists & Dental Services at 11.34%, Industrial & Commercial at 10.13%, and Arts & Entertainment at 9.77%.
The industries that saw lower-than-average conversion rates were Travel at 3.95%, Beauty & Personal Care at 4.61%, and Physicians & Surgeons at 4.99%.
Facebook ads conversion rates are usually dependent on the quality of the ads being put in front of users. “All industries can benefit from taking the time to message map in a meaningful way. Honoring the way your consumers want to be spoken to will increase conversion rates as well as mitigate ‘wasted success.’ Wasted success is when the lead is good but not quite ready or doesn’t qualify,” said Navah Hopkins, Evangelist at Optmyzer. “I strongly recommend building in a creative audit, as well as exploring new audience targeting to make sure your campaigns are set up for success,” said Hopkins.
Average cost per lead in Facebook ads for lead gen campaigns
Cost per lead tells you how much you’re paying to secure a new lead. It’s calculated by dividing your total spend by your total conversions.
The average cost per lead in Facebook ads for the leads objective across industries is $23.10.
| Business category | Avg. cost per lead |
| Arts & Entertainment | $13.46 |
| Attorneys & Legal Services | $78.26 |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | $58.56 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | $52.46 |
| Business Services | $22.65 |
| Career & Employment | $18.17 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | $29.08 |
| Education & Instruction | $27.94 |
| Finance & Insurance | $30.88 |
| Furniture | $29.08 |
| Health & Fitness | $60.95 |
| Home & Home Improvement | $20.49 |
| Industrial & Commercial | $37.71 |
| Personal Services (Weddings, Cleaners, etc.) | $19.49 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | $60.95 |
| Real Estate | $12.43 |
| Restaurants & Food | $45.15 |
| Sports & Recreation | $15.33 |
| Travel | $26.05 |
The industries with the lowest CPLs in the Facebook leads objective were Real Estate at $12.43, Arts & Entertainment at $13.46, and Sports & Recreation at $15.33.
The industries that saw the highest CPLs for the leads objective were Attorneys & Legal Services at $78.26, Health & Fitness at $60.95, and Physicians & Surgeons at $60.95. These industries typically have higher costs for advertising, in general, but also have higher customer values. So a $60 CPL can still have a great return on investment when you look at how much revenue a new customer can bring your business.
While CPL is a critical metric for many Facebook advertisers, there are other factors you’ll want to consider when measuring your Facebook ads progress.
“The most important metric on Facebook for seeing success is…the metric you define as success. If you’re trying to drive engagement, that’s your metric. If you’re trying to drive leads, then some combination of lead volume and CPL is going to be your success metric,” said Morgan.
How to improve your Facebook ads performance
While these benchmarks can serve as a helpful guidepost to compare your results against, they shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all for measuring your Facebook advertising success. Every business is different, and what defines success for your campaigns will be unique to your business needs, budget, and other factors.
However, if you feel like your Facebook ads are not converting or driving traffic as much as they should when compared to industry averages, you’re not alone. There’s always room to improve—especially by following these tips and best practices.
How to use Facebook ads to drive traffic
Here are some tips on how to increase traffic to your website via your Facebook ads:
- Choose the traffic objective. The traffic objective is the clear choice to encourage Facebook’s ad algorithm to strategically show your ad to get the most clicks possible.
- A/B test CTA buttons. A powerful call to action can entice users to click on your Facebook ad—increasing your click-through rate. Luckily, Facebook gives you plenty of options to play around with when it comes to choosing an effective CTA button for your ad. Your best bet is to A/B test a few different CTA buttons to see what works. Additionally, you should include popular call-to-action phrases in your ad copy.
- Use compelling creative. People will form an opinion on your Facebook ad instantly—just a few seconds after seeing it, in fact. Be sure your ads stand out and attract clicks with eye-catching creative. To start, check out these Facebook ad examples and learn why they work.
An example of the CTA button options within Facebook ads.
How to use Facebook ads to drive leads
Follow these Facebook ads tips to get more leads:
- Choose the leads objective. While other Facebook ads campaign objectives may end up capturing leads, it’s best to source your leads directly from Facebook with Facebook lead ads.
- Perfect your form fields. You may need to test to see what form style works best to maximize both lead quality and quantity. For example, this year Meta announced that it added conditional logic to the Facebook lead generation form setup. Leveraging conditional logic in your forms can help you pre-qualify your leads.
- Ensure users know they are clicking on a lead ad. Be clear about the action you want viewers to take. That way, those who click know what to expect and genuinely want to work with your business.
An example of conditional logic settings within a Facebook Lead Ad.
How to improve your Facebook ads CTR
Here are a few ways to improve your Facebook ads CTR:
- Pay attention to the right metrics. CTR may not always be the “end all be all” Facebook ads metric for your business. “Consider CTR a helpful guide, but not the only source of truth for success,” said Mask. “Also, you might find other metrics impact the root causes of poor CTR health. Cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and CPC correlate closely to this metric; sometimes one has to be sacrificed for another.”
- Use power words in your copy. Emotional marketing copy can set your business’s Facebook ads apart from the competition. Focusing on compelling ad copy helps to persuade users to click on your ad—increasing your CTR.
A reporting dashboard like this can help you measure the Facebook ad metrics that matter most to your business.
How to lower your Facebook ads costs
Here are some practical ways to lower your costs in Facebook Ads:
- Get strategic with your audience targeting. You may want to target different Facebook audiences for different objectives. For example, you may target a Facebook lookalike audience with a traffic objective, so you can educate a new crop of potential customers about who you are and what you do. Alternatively, you may target specific email addresses or retarget users while using the leads objective because these audiences are already aware of your business and may be more likely to convert.
- Broaden your audience as needed. A broader audience reach has been found to lower your overall cost per thousand impressions (CPM), since you’re casting a wider net.
- Try ad scheduling with a lifetime budget. Ad scheduling is another option that can help limit your costs, since you’re deciding what days or times your ad will show rather than 24/7 coverage.
- Consider all your campaign objective options. If you have experience with Google Ads, you can think of your Facebook campaign objectives like how you would your Google campaign goals and bidding strategies. “The best part about advertising on Facebook is that Facebook has tons of campaign objectives and further customizations for you to choose from to ensure your campaigns are optimizing for exactly the success metric you want to focus on,” said Morgan.
Here’s a breakdown of the Facebook ad objectives you can choose from:
-
- Leads
- Traffic
- Awareness
- Engagement
- App promotion
- Sales
How to increase your Facebook ads conversion rate
Use these tips to optimize your Facebook ads for more conversions and a higher CVR:
- Iron out your tracking with Facebook pixel. Your Facebook ads conversion tracking relies on your Facebook pixel—which connects to your website. Get clear on the conversion actions you want to track to stop conversion data from slipping through the cracks.
- Optimize your landing page. A high conversion rate starts with an optimized landing page. Check that your Facebook ads landing page provides a seamless experience for users.
- Complement your strategy with other channels. Your Facebook ads should play a role in a larger marketing and advertising strategy for your business. Be sure to regularly share organic posts to Facebook to fill any gaps in your paid Facebook ad performance. You’ll likely want to also leverage other social media platforms, as well as channels like SEO and search ads, to supplement your Facebook Ads. For example, your audience members are probably using TikTok and Snapchat in addition to Facebook or Instagram. You could promote your business across these platforms to grow your overall social following. In fact, many marketing channels provide similar benefits to businesses, so it’s best to use as many as possible in tandem for a holistic marketing approach.
A cross-channel marketing campaign that includes social ads, search, and other channels helps you reach your audience no matter where they’re spending time online. But it can be a very manual and challenging process to truly optimize across those channels to yield the desired results and lowest cost,” said Stephanie Asrymbetov, Director of Product at LocaliQ. “LocaliQ’s cross-media optimization (XMO) technology simplifies this approach by leveraging AI and automation to optimize your campaigns across channels based on what’s driving the best performance to your business’s goals—and your budget.”
Put these Facebook ads benchmarks to work in 2024
Tracking your Facebook ad performance against these industry benchmarks can help you gauge how your business is pacing compared to the competition. This can be especially helpful when you don’t have a ton of data or you’re unsure of how to best measure your Facebook ads ROI.
However, every business is unique, and no two Facebook ad accounts are the same. So, be sure to align your advertising expectations with what’s achievable for your business. That said, if you tried our suggested tips above and still find your business’s performance isn’t up to the industry standards outlined here, that’s okay! See how our solutions can help you improve your Facebook ads strategy.
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