PPC
What Is Organic Traffic? (+5 Ways to Drive It Fast)
When it comes to driving traffic, leads, and revenue, online advertising gets the glory. And for good reason. Pay-per-click is still, pound-for-pound, the fastest way to drive qualified prospects to your small business. Target the right keyword, set your bidding strategy, write your ad copy, and bang: people actively searching for your product or service are going to start seeing your business at or near the top of the search results.
That’s all well and good. But what about scale? Sure, plenty of businesses scale really effectively with paid media. But it’s sort of like a faucet. You have to keep the faucet running (i.e. continue injecting capital) to keep getting results. And aside from having a solid ad strategy, you better hope you have a strong product-market fit, strong margins, and a strong CAC (customer acquisition cost), or your bottom line is going to suffer.
The remedy to this problem of scale? Organic traffic. Investing in organic traffic is like investing in a retirement account. It’s not sexy, but if you put in the work now, you set yourself up for some serious dividends down the road. And while SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t quite as simple as “set it and forget it,” it is, in my opinion, the most sustainable way to scale a small business–this year, and beyond.
In this post, I’m going to walk you through the art of driving organic traffic to your website, broken down into five basic steps. By the end, you’ll have a good understanding of the kind of investment you need to make to set yourself up for long-term organic growth.
Let’s rock and roll.
What is organic traffic?
Organic traffic is any unpaid session that occurs on your site. Typically, when we talk about organic traffic, we’re delineating between two types: organic search, and organic social. Organic social traffic comes from unpaid posting on social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), while organic search traffic comes from search engines (most notably, Google and Bing).
For the purposes of this post, we’re going to be focusing on organic search traffic driven through SEO. When businesses are able to achieve high organic rankings in the search results, they set themselves up to drive high-intent clicks for the long term without continuously spending money on ads.
Benefits of organic traffic
Before we dive into some top strategies for driving organic traffic, let’s look a little closer at the importance and benefits of organic traffic and discuss why it’s such a crucial channel to invest in.
Benefit #1: Free, evergreen clicks
We’ve talked a little bit about the “free” nature of organic traffic, but what exactly does that look like?
Let’s say you’re a brand that sells crochet kits. You want to drive as much traffic as possible to your high-converting product pages, but you don’t have the budget to consistently outbid your competitors on keywords related to crochet kits.
In your keyword research, you notice that the keyword “best crochet kits for beginners” is a bit more informational in nature (vs. commercial), and that it has a pretty good monthly search volume.
You think it would make a good blog post. So, adhering to SEO best practices, you write a blog post targeting that keyword, making sure to link to your best-selling crochet kits throughout the post.
Bloggers find your “best of” list, think it’s useful, and start linking to it across the web. Soon, you see your listing climbing to the top of the search results.
This is the magic of SEO. By creating one quality piece of content that is genuinely useful to users, you now have essentially a free billboard for your product living at the top of the search results. The 480 or so people that search for that keyword on a monthly basis are going to see your brand. Many of them will click. And probably about 2-5% of them will make a purchase. All for the low, one-time cost of creating a blog post.
Benefit #2: Trust and authority
Depending on the nature of their search query, a user is often going to find both paid and organic listings in the search results. Why, you might be asking at this point, would a user click on an organic listing over a paid listing?
Trust and authority. Many people don’t know the difference between a paid and an organic listing. But many do. And those that do, know that any brand can pay to play. It’s a lot more challenging to have a listing rise to a prominent ranking based on quality and merit, and therefore, a lot more trustworthy. Especially with Google doubling down on signals around expertise, authority, and trust, and especially when people today get blitzed with multimedia advertising pretty much from the moment they wake up in the morning until they go to sleep at night.
Benefit #3: Traffic quality
We talked a little bit about intent already. When a user finds your website via a search engine, they are actively searching for keywords related to your product or service. Whether that is via an informational search (like “how to tie your shoes”) or a commercial search (like “buy shoes near me”), showing up organically for a search query means meeting your customer at a moment in which they need you.
Compare that to display advertising or social media advertising, and it’s easy to see the difference. Marketing via those channels means using audience targeting to try to find users that most closely resemble your ideal customers. But even if you find them, there’s no guarantee they’re in the mood to consume the thing you’re promoting. Often, they’re just passively browsing, and your ad is more an interruption than an asset.
With organic traffic, there’s no danger of that. And that’s why traffic quality, which you can measure via metrics like average time on site or engagement rate, is consistently stronger from organic search than it is from most other channels.
5 ways to drive organic traffic to your website
Okay. Now that we’ve defined organic traffic and discussed why it’s important, let’s walk through five time-honored strategies you can use to drive organic traffic to your website.
1. Update and optimize local listings
If you’re a local business, local listings are, for my money, the most efficient way to generate immediate results organically. There are a number of online directories that local customers can use to find and evaluate your business–Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp–but Google Business Profile is the most visible and crucial.
Having (and optimizing) a Google Business Profile ensures that when a potential customer for your plumbing business searches for a “plumber near me,” your business shows up.
64% of consumers have used Google Business Profiles to find contact details for a local business. So, taking steps to set up and optimize your listing, using the following strategies, can make a real difference:
- Fill out all the required fields in your profile, including your business name, address, phone number, website URL, business category, hours of operation, etc.
- Make sure your business description is concise, engaging, and highlights your unique selling points.
- Using a keyword tool, make sure to identify and incorporate relevant keywords. This is a huge component of making sure you show up for high-intent searches.
- Upload high-quality, compelling photos.
- Collect and respond to as many reviews as possible. Solicit reviews from happy customers whenever possible, and respond to bad reviews when they inevitably occur.
2. Create quality, keyword-targeted content
There are a ton of factors Google takes into account when ranking content in the index. But the most important thing you can do, time and time again, to make sure your website outranks the competition, is create quality content.
If you’re writing a blog post, make sure it is as long or longer than other blog posts in the search results (and more helpful and useful for searchers!).
You can check for content with a low word count you may need to beef up in a tool like Ahrefs.
Make sure you use plenty of compelling visuals. If you outsource to another author, make sure they have definitive expertise in their field. And above all, make sure you are definitively targeting a high-volume keyword, and that that keyword makes an appearance throughout your post or web page.
3. Follow on-page SEO best practices
On-page SEO concerns the factors that you, as the website owner or business owner, can directly influence when optimizing for search engines. You can’t always control whether or not other websites link to you, which is the crux of off-page SEO. But if you create quality content, and you follow on-page SEO best practices, you will be giving yourself a big leg up.
Here are some key on-page SEO best practices:
- Keyword optimization. As mentioned above, identifying a keyword is only half the battle. You need to make sure your keyword appears throughout your page: in your title tag, meta description, H1, H2s, and throughout the body content.
Including keywords throughout these different page elements tells Google that your page is relevant for a given search query.
- Optimize meta tags. Your meta title should be under 60 characters to ensure it displays fully in the search engine. Your meta descriptions should be around 150-160 characters, and include an enticing call-to-action. Both should contain your target keyword, and should be relevant and compelling.
- Optimize URL structure. Create clean and descriptive URLs that provide a clear indication of the page’s content. Avoid using long and complex URLs with unnecessary characters or numbers. Instead, use hyphens to separate words and keep the URL concise.
We also put together a full on-page SEO checklist you can use here:
4. Optimize page speed
Google made page speed a ranking factor in 2020 when it released its Core Web Vitals. If your website has a slow load time, not only will users hold it against you by leaving at a higher rate, Google will actually rank your site lower than your competitors’ sites.
The first step in optimizing site speed is understanding whether or not you have a speed problem. Sadly, the majority of websites do. You can use tools like GT Metrix and PageSpeed Insights to quickly diagnose how effectively your site is loading.
Overwhelmingly, the most common area of improvement you’re going to see on these reports concerns images. Uncompressed images, or images with old formats (JPG, PNG, etc.), will really slow down your site speed.
Many CMS platforms have bulk compression tools that you can use to compress images across your site. If they don’t, you can use a tool like tinypng.com to do the job. But the gold standard in today’s SEO world is WebP.
When you convert and re-upload your images as WebP, you are ensuring they are at the smallest possible file size. Making this change across your site can give you a massive lift–taking speed scores from mediocre to solid, and enhancing organic traffic along the way.
5. Guest posting
We’ve talked a bit about the importance of off-page SEO, and how, when it comes to generating backlinks, it’s not always in your control. The problem is that, in order to get a link, you typically need to give the other website something significant. If your content is good enough, businesses will link to it naturally. But it’s not always the easiest thing to do.
Guest posting is a natural solution here.
When you write a guest post for another brand, especially one that has good authority in a given space, you not only give your brand exposure with a new audience, you (typically) will be able to link back to your website multiple times. And because the brand you’re working with receives the benefit of a quality piece of content, they’ll be happy to share the wealth.
An investment in organic traffic is an investment in scale
Everyone wants that one hands-off investment that pays off in perpetuity. In marketing, as in business, it doesn’t exist. SEO is no different. In order to see results, you need to constantly create fresh, quality content, update content, and make sure your site is clear of technical inefficiencies.
But, when done correctly, no other channel offers the ability to produce evergreen output with relatively small upfront input. And that’s what makes organic traffic so valuable.
Here are the five best ways to drive organic traffic to your website:
- Update and optimize local listings
- Create quality, keyword-targeted content
- Follow on-page SEO best practices
- Optimize page speed
- Guest posting
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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