Average Conversion Rates, Average Clickthrough Rates
I often see posts on forums asking “What’s the average clickthrough rate for banner ads?”, “What open rate should my emails get?” . This is human nature - wanting to judge yourself by how others perform. Or wanting to get a ‘benchmark guide’ to give yourself the belief that something is possible. It feels comfortable to reach for something ‘normal’…
The truth is though - there are only a couple of cases where knowing the ‘average’ is genuinely useful:
- you find out your results really suck compared to the average, allowing you to question ‘why?’ (and why you didn’t question that already)
- you find out your results are way above average, allowing you to please your boss or stick it on your resume (the downside here is - if you’re so far above average - you’ll probably settle for what you’ve got & never do anything to improve that number again)
In most cases - an ‘industry average’ benchmark is useless. It pushes you to mimic the average tactics. It forces you to try & reach a number that doesn’t take into account your unique situation, your unique objectives, or your unique audience.
Technorati Tags: open rate, clickthrough rate, conversion rate
