A good landing page conversion rate is one that beats your own previous results for the same traffic and offer. Published benchmarks give a rough reference point: Unbounce's 2024 Conversion Benchmark Report puts the median landing page conversion rate across all industries at 6.6%, and WordStream's Google Ads benchmarks put the average Google Ads conversion rate at 8.18%. But those figures mix very different pages, offers and traffic, so treat them as a sanity check rather than a target.
How to calculate your conversion rate
The basic formula is:
Conversion rate = conversions ÷ visitors × 100
If 1,200 people visit your landing page and 54 of them submit the form, your conversion rate is 54 ÷ 1,200 × 100 = 4.5%.
That looks simple, but two choices change the number a lot:
- What you count as a visitor. Unique visitors, sessions and ad clicks are all different. Someone who visits three times and converts once counts as one in three sessions but one in one unique visitors. Pick one definition and keep it.
- What you count as a conversion. A form submission, a purchase, a booked call, a trial sign-up, a phone call from the page and a click on a button are all "conversions" in different tools. A page measured on button clicks will always look better than one measured on completed purchases.
The conversion rate calculator does the arithmetic and shows how many extra conversions a given improvement would produce at your traffic level.
Published benchmarks and what they actually measure
Unbounce Conversion Benchmark Report (2024)
Unbounce analysed landing pages built on its platform. According to the 2024 report:
- The median conversion rate across all industries is 6.6%.
- The analysis covered more than 41,000 landing pages and more than 57 million conversions.
- Medians for individual industries ranged from 3.8% to 12.3%.
- Conversions counted were form submissions and click-through events, not the value of each conversion.
The report also breaks results down by traffic source and device, which shows how much the context matters:
- Email traffic was the highest-converting channel, at 19.3% on average.
- Google paid search averaged 11.3%.
- 83% of the visits analysed were on mobile, but desktop visitors converted 8% better than mobile visitors.
Unbounce also found that pages written at a 5th to 7th grade reading level converted at 11.1%, compared with 5.3% for pages written at a professional level. That is a correlation in their data rather than proof that simpler copy causes higher conversions, but it is consistent with the general advice to write plainly. You can check your own copy with the readability checker.
WordStream Google Ads benchmarks
WordStream (by LocaliQ) publishes annual Google Ads benchmarks based on search campaigns it manages or analyses. In its conversion rate benchmarks article, last updated in October 2026, WordStream gives an average Google Ads conversion rate of 8.18% and an average Facebook Ads leads-campaign conversion rate of 8.54%.
Its Google Ads figures by industry include:
| Industry | Average Google Ads conversion rate |
|---|---|
| Dentists and dental services | 10.67% |
| Home and home improvement | 8.05% |
| Attorneys and legal services | 5.55% |
| Business services | 4.85% |
| Shopping, collectibles and gifts | 4.01% |
| Real estate | 3.70% |
These are ad-platform conversion rates: conversions divided by ad clicks, where a "conversion" is whatever each advertiser chose to track. That can include phone calls, form fills and purchases, and it is measured per click rather than per landing page visitor.
Why the two sources disagree
Unbounce reports a median of landing pages; WordStream reports an average of ad campaigns. A median is the middle value and is not pulled up by a few very high performers. An average can be. The populations are also different (pages built on one landing page builder versus accounts running Google Ads), and so are the definitions of a conversion. Neither is wrong. They are answering slightly different questions, which is exactly why no single benchmark should be your target.
Why conversion rates vary so much
Traffic source
Visitors from an email list already know you. Visitors from a cold social ad have never heard of you. Unbounce's data shows email traffic converting far higher than paid search or display for this reason. Comparing a page that gets mostly email traffic with one that gets mostly display traffic tells you very little about the pages themselves.
The offer
Asking for an email address in exchange for a free checklist is a small commitment. Asking someone to book a sales call, start a paid plan or buy a £500 product is a big one. Lower-commitment offers will almost always convert at a higher rate, but each conversion may be worth less.
Industry
The industry ranges in both reports show this clearly. In WordStream's figures, dental services convert at nearly three times the rate of real estate. Urgent local needs (an emergency plumber, a dental appointment) convert differently from slow, high-value decisions (buying a house, hiring a law firm).
Device
Most traffic is now mobile, but many people still research on a phone and complete forms or purchases on a desktop. If your page performs poorly on mobile, your overall rate will suffer more than you might expect from a quick desktop check.
The definition of a conversion
As covered above, counting button clicks, form submissions, qualified leads or closed sales will give very different numbers for the same page. When you compare yourself to a benchmark, check that you are measuring the same thing.
How to set your own baseline
Your own history is a better benchmark than anyone else's average. To set a baseline you can trust:
- Define the conversion precisely. For example, "completed contact form submissions, excluding spam" or "paid orders".
- Pick a visitor definition (unique visitors or sessions) and stick to it in every report.
- Segment by traffic source. Track paid search, paid social, email and organic separately. A change in traffic mix can move your overall rate even if the page has not changed.
- Segment by device. Look at mobile and desktop separately.
- Use a long enough window. A few days of data is noisy. Two to four weeks, or at least a few hundred visitors per segment, gives a steadier picture.
- Write it down. Record the rate, the date range and the traffic mix, so you can compare like with like after you make changes.
Once you have a baseline, compare it with the relevant benchmark. If you run Google Ads for a dental practice and your page converts well below the industry figure, that is a useful signal. If you are above it, your best benchmark from now on is your own previous result.
How to improve your conversion rate
The changes that tend to move conversion rates are the ones that make the offer clearer, the action easier and the claims more believable. In rough order of where to look first:
Match the page to the traffic
The headline should echo the ad, email or search term that brought the visitor. A mismatch makes people think they have landed in the wrong place. See how to write a landing page headline.
Make the call to action obvious and specific
Put a button on the first screen on mobile, use wording that says what the visitor gets, and repeat it down the page. See call-to-action best practices.
Reduce form friction
Ask only for what you need to follow up. Each extra field is another reason to leave. The form friction calculator helps you weigh which fields to cut.
Add believable proof near the button
Named testimonials, third-party reviews, client logos, result figures and a guarantee all reduce doubt at the moment of decision. See trust signals.
Fix mobile speed
A slow hero image or layout jumps on a phone cost you visitors before they read anything. See landing page speed and Core Web Vitals.
Test changes properly
When you change something, compare the new rate with your baseline for the same traffic sources. If you run a split test, wait until the result reaches statistical significance before deciding. The A/B test significance calculator tells you whether a difference is likely to be real.
A note on conversion rate versus value
A higher conversion rate is not always better. Removing the phone number field from a lead form might raise your conversion rate and lower the share of leads your sales team can reach. Offering a bigger discount might lift purchases and shrink your margin. Track what happens after the conversion as well (qualified leads, booked appointments, revenue) so that you are improving the business, not just the percentage.
Next step
A free PageScore audit checks the page-level factors behind your conversion rate, including your headline, CTA, form, trust signals and mobile speed, and ranks the fixes most likely to help. For industry-specific checks, see audits by industry.