The Average B2B Lead Conversion Rates: B2B Benchmarks for 2024

Think fast—what’s one of the biggest challenges facing senior marketers? 

In a survey published in 2020, Attest explored answers to that question. One of the top five challenges marketing professionals (around 42.7% of them) said they faced was “they’re under pressure to make the right decision quicker than ever.” Given everything that’s happened since that survey’s publication, it’s safe to say marketers are under even more pressure to be able to make the smart choices at the drop of a dime.

Making the right choice—quickly?? Pshh. That only takes finding the problem, collecting data and information, brainstorming alternatives, weighing alternatives, making a choice, and creating a plan. Wait, that is a lot of pressure! If you’re currently running around like a headless chicken you’re not alone.

When starting a project, attacking a new marketing channel, planning a campaign, or even just checking you’re still on the right track,  you need to be aware of some key B2B benchmarks for your industry. Your customers’ preferences, habits, and needs change unexpectedly, but knowing the average B2B lead conversion rates can fast track three steps in your decision process: collecting data and information, finding alternatives, and weighing your options. Want a quick lesson on how to make this important metric work for you? Keep reading.

Benchmarks: B2B conversion rate by industry, website page, marketing channel, and device

Sources: ruleranalytics.com, intellimize.com 

Sources:  99firms.com, popupsmart.com 

Sources:  chilipiper.com, firstpagesage.com 

Source: chilipiper.com 

What is the lead conversion rate?

The lead conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who convert to leads, qualified prospects, or sales.

Lead conversion rate is also known as:

• The visitor-to-lead ratio
• Page conversion rate
• Lead-to-customer conversion rate
• Sales conversion rate

This metric is a  key performance indicator for top-of-the-funnel. It tells you right off the bat if the visitors coming in from search engine optimization (SEO), social media channels, or advertising campaigns are the quality you’re looking for. If the conversion rate is low, you know something is wrong with your marketing message, offer, customer targeting, or even website performance. Now, let’s go over the average B2B lead conversion rate formula.

The B2B lead conversion rate formula

To get the conversation rate, just divide the total number of conversions by the number of leads and then multiply by 100.

• Formula: Lead Conversion rate = (total conversions / total leads) * 100%

For instance, if you want to know the conversion rate of visitors who signed up through your lead form for an ebook, just plug in the numbers:

• (2,000 signups / 12,000 visitors) * 100%

Lead conversion rate = 16.66% 

Another example: 

Say you want to calculate the number of sales from your landing page. It brought in 6,500 visitors last month, 156 of whom you’ve converted into paying customers. 

• (156 sales / 6,500 visitors) * 100%

Lead conversion rate = 2.4%

If 156 customers brought in your desired revenue, then you know 2.4% is the average B2B lead conversion rate you need to consistently hit for landing page success. If not, you know you have to aim higher.

Don’t be fooled by the word conversion

You may have noticed we used the words “lead,” “qualified prospects,” and “sales” when referring to a conversion. That’s because the metric can be used to calculate all three in all stages of the funnel and “conversion” can mean a lot of things depending on your goal. The visitor may convert when they decide to:

• Make a phone call
• Engage with your website
• Reshare content
• Download content
• Create an account
• And more.

As you can imagine, this variability opens the door to miscommunication about conversion rates. Your marketing and sales teams need to clearly define what conversion means to them and what problems they’re going to solve.

For example: You run a monthly subscription-based service, and rely on leads signing up for a free trial to become paying users. Thus, an important indicator of conversion is how many leads sign up for a free trial. But measuring how many free-trial users end up becoming paying subscribers is also important.

Each conversion rate provides different insights for your sales and marketing teams. When the conversion rate is low, each one prompts a different action.

• Lead to a free-trial user: If your “promising lead to free-trial user” conversion rate is low, sales might need to contact leads sooner while they’re still fresh and more inclined to sign up for a trial.
• Free-trial to paying customers: If the conversion rate from free to paid user is low, then you will want to consider ways you can get them to stick around, like implementing activity-based alerts or optimizing the user-to-buyer journey.

Without clearly defining your terms, you can get trapped on a hamster wheel: your marketers waste their time on metrics that answer the wrong question, and your sales reps waste time on the wrong closing tactics.

Don’t get too focused on the lead conversion rate by industry.

Sure, C’s get degrees. But if you want a scholarship or awards, you aim for that A+ instead of the average grade. Similarly, meeting these average conversion rates is a good way to check that you’re “passing the class” – but chances are you want your business to excel, not just coast.

These B2B benchmarks are great to have on hand when starting a new project and you’re unfamiliar with the numbers. That way you know what counts as a passing grade. But there’s no universal B2B lead conversion rate that will work as an ultimate goal for every business. A rate that makes sense for one company might not translate into enough sales for another. Check your conversion rates against the average for your industry as a general guideline, but more importantly check your own internal metrics as well to ensure that you’re achieving what you set out to do.

Key Takeaways:

• There are many ways to define what a “lead conversion” is depending on your goal.
• Marketing and sales teams need to align on which conversion rates they are measuring.
• Industry benchmarks for lead conversions are important to track your progress, but don’t consider them end goals. Instead, aim higher.