Internet Marketing Tycoon

#1 (permalink)

Hello -

I am looking to find out what a decent or respectable conversion rate for a cell phone repair website would be. The prices would be the same, or slightly less than the competition, with website quality equal to the competition.

What sort of click to conversion ratio should I expect? The clicks appear to cost around $1.5 to $2 per click for the targeted keywords "iphone repair" etc.

I realize this is a huge shot in the dark but any, even if vague, estimates would be appreciated. I was thinking maybe 1/10 would purchase a repair service provided the website quality and price is equal or better to the competition.

This would essentially mean that each customer costs $15-$20 in marketing. Does this sound about right?

Any help would make my day!

Thanks

#2 (permalink)

Hi ryanw777

Welcome to the forums!! I hope you enjoy your stay.

As you said your question is a big shot in the dark. I presume you are talking about getting traffic from PPC sources like Google Adwords and you are asking about the conversion rate you'll receive.

This is almost impossible to answer without any data to look at.

Basically when running a PPC campaign there are a lot of different variables to consider which can all change conversion rates.

Keywords that you bid on will determine the type of traffic that you receive. You can expect higher conversions on more targeted keywords.

Ad copy will also impact on conversions. Does the ad copy encourage the right people to click on your ad.

Landing Page - Does the landing page resonate with the visitors that you have reaching it? Is it pointing your visitors to your primary goal?

In order to gauge numbers and optimize them you'll need to let your campaign run and run experiments to test the different variables.

A 10% or 1/10 conversion rate is extremely high but not impossible. It is extremely unlikely to get such a high conversion rate straight off without any optimization. Typically I would expect around a 1-2% conversion rate.

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#3 (permalink)

Ya, I had always thought a 1-2% conversion rate was more reasonable. But since it is such a directed service website (ie people dont usually search "iphzne repair" without looking to get their iphznes repaired) so I was hoping that the rate would be a little higher.

I am just trying to get some feel if my business plan is feasible. But at the 1-2% @ $1 per click could cost $100 to get a customer. Since my services are in the $100 range, it would not make economic sense.

I know I could always use different methods of marketing, but I was hoping that ppc would work at least for temporary.

#4 (permalink)

Conversion rates are always keyword/phrase use & landing page specific, there is no average conversion rate that is "right".

The ideal conversion ratio is one that makes more profit per conversion than it costs to get the the converting AND non-converting clicks.

So with a 1% conversion ratio where the clicks cost 10u (u being the unit of whatever currency), each conversion has to be worth 1000u to break even on the campaign.

99 non-converting @ 10u = 990u + 1 converting @ 10u = 1000u

Only by doing the mathematics with your own campaign data can you tell what a "good" conversion ratio will be.

You also need to apply the reverse calculation to your keyword selection, if a conversion earns 100u, with a 10u click you need conversions to be better than 1%

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#5 (permalink)

Thanks for your informative post.

I was really more interested in what a somewhat acceptable conversion rate was rather than my break even point. I know that a conversion rate of 100% is probably pretty much laughable in this industry, and a conversion rate of 0% is possible, but certainly not in the long term for any current standing business.

For a directed service that is pretty specific to what the customer is searching (Almost all customers searching phone repair are looking to get their phones repaired). So I would figure there will be some inflation over a normal click to conversion rate.

My breakeven would be at about a 8-10% conversion rate, but this seems awfully high to me. I was hoping that I could get an answer to seeming how farfetched a conversion rate of that calibur is.


Is it laughable? Does it seem possible? Does it seem on the high scale of average conversion rates?


I am just trying to get a feel to see if it is even worth going forth with my business plan (as initial investments will be several thousand dollars).

Dont want to be selling a $100 product that costs me $80 and spend $20 on advertising...

Thanks for any help as always!!

#6 (permalink)

Why not do more word research and find cheaper, more specific words and phrases?

There is no way you will get 8or-10% conversions on what seems to be a high volume, competitive phrase, unless you are incredibly brilliant at writing ad copy and a genius at writing landing pages of course.

A close match gives over 300 phrases with 700+ phrases for a broad match and that is just seeding with "ipod repair".
Chasing the "golden phrase" is expensive and it make far more sense to bid on the "long tail" phrases, yes I know the muppets all think "long tail" is what you "optimise" for but in reality long tail words and phrases are the way to make PPC advertising truly profitable.

Look in your site logs or analytics for phrases that people use to find your PAGES and see what they cost.

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