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10 Industry Benchmarks For Your Call Tracking Conversion Rate

Elan Mosbacher on October 27, 2011 at 11:04 am

When launching a new marketing initiative, you often set a benchmark or baseline against which you measure success. You can gather a “baseline” before you make improvements, pick a number out of thin air or compare yourself to the industry average.

Since neither picking a number out of thin air nor delaying improvements while you gather a baseline is ideal, finding an industry benchmark is a good way to begin.

In fact, the Direct Marketing Association publishes an annual guide to the “Average Direct Marketing Response Rates” across various marketing channels. For example, here are the stats from their 2010 Response Rate Trend Report.

Call Tracking Conversion Rate Benchmarks By Industry

courtesy of Shutterstock.com

Since we’re in the call tracking business, clients often ask about call tracking industry benchmarks for search.

While results will vary based on the quality of your traffic, offer, design and other factors, having a “benchmark” is important for getting started and evaluating your relative success.

In order to figure that out, I dug into a sample of our account base. I analyzed visits, calls and call duration across ten industries over the past three months.

We looked at how many web visits a client had, how many calls from search (paid and organic) they received, and how long those calls lasted, assuming that a longer call is a better qualified lead.

The result is a general baseline of phone call conversion rates and call duration for companies across these ten industries.

Industry	Avg. Phone Call Conversion Rate	Avg. Phone Call Duration
eCommerce	2.1%	5.6
Food Services	1.3%	4.6
Healthcare	4.5%	4.8
Home Services	14.8%	2.0
Lead Generation	6.0%	2.9
Legal	2.4%	3.0
Marketing	3.5%	3.3
Professional Services	6.7%	2.7
Software	5.3%	5.1
Transportation	5.1%	3.1

Overall, the conversion numbers make sense. The highest conversion rate is in the home services industry. If your pipe bursts, you’re going to search for a plumber on Google and call for help ASAP. You don’t want to send an email and wait 24 hours to hear back. On the other hand, food service and e-commerce websites may lend themselves to more online conversion.

In terms of call duration, the numbers seem reasonable as well. If you call a software company, you’re probably going to have a fair number of questions and a longer conversation. If you call a plumber, there’s a good chance the call will go to voicemail if that plumber is on another job.

What’s your phone call conversion rate? How does your phone call conversion rate compare to your online conversion rate?

Please share your results in the comments below and feel free to use these call tracking conversion rate benchmarks to measure your next campaign.