Four Numbers Worth Knowing Before You Spend Another Dollar
Published research, redrawn so an owner can read it in a minute. Every figure links to the study it came from. None of it is ROILadder's own data.
Google Ads Search Conversion Rate by Industry, 2025
Average conversion rate of search campaigns, all 23 industries WordStream tracks, with the all-industry average in gold at the top.
Source: WordStream, Google Ads Benchmarks 2025, based on 16,446 US search campaigns running April 2024 to March 2025. Retrieved 7 September 2026. WordStream's data, not ROILadder's.
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| Industry | Conversion rate |
|---|---|
| Automotive: repair, service and parts | 14.67% |
| Animals and pets | 13.07% |
| Physicians and surgeons | 11.62% |
| Education and instruction | 11.38% |
| Personal services | 9.74% |
| Dentists and dental services | 9.08% |
| Beauty and personal care | 7.82% |
| Automotive: for sale | 7.76% |
| Sports and recreation | 7.62% |
| Home and home improvement | 7.33% |
| Industrial and commercial | 7.17% |
| Restaurants and food | 7.09% |
| Health and fitness | 6.80% |
| Travel | 5.75% |
| Business services | 5.14% |
| Attorneys and legal services | 5.09% |
| Arts and entertainment | 4.84% |
| Career and employment | 4.33% |
| Apparel, fashion and jewelry | 3.99% |
| Shopping, collectibles and gifts | 3.83% |
| Real estate | 3.28% |
| Furniture | 2.73% |
| Finance and insurance | 2.55% |
| All industries | 7.52% |
What Local Customers Do With Reviews, 2026
Why the Google Business Profile check on the free audit matters. Five findings from BrightLocal's annual consumer survey.
Source: BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026. Retrieved 7 September 2026. BrightLocal's survey, not ROILadder's.
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| Finding | Share of consumers |
|---|---|
| of consumers read reviews for local businesses | 97% |
| will only use a business rated 4 stars or higher | 68% |
| will only use a business rated 4.5 stars or higher | 31% |
| trust reviews from strangers as much as personal recommendations | 49% |
| always read reviews when searching for a business, up from 29% a year earlier | 41% |
Mobile Brings the Visits, Desktop Brings the Orders
Mobile carries seven visits in ten. Contentsquare reports desktop converting at 3.4 percent, 74 percent higher than mobile web, which puts mobile at about 2.0 percent. On a store with real traffic, half a point of mobile conversion is where the money is.
Share of visits
Conversion rate
Source: Contentsquare, 2026 Digital Experience Benchmark, 99 billion sessions across 6,500 sites, Q4 2024 against Q4 2025. Retrieved 7 September 2026. Contentsquare's data, not ROILadder's.
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| Measure | Mobile | Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Share of visits | 70% | 30% |
| Conversion rate | about 2.0% (derived) | 3.4% |
What a Top-Three Local Pack Ranking Is Worth
Businesses in Google's three-slot Local Pack get 126 percent more website traffic and 93 percent more actions (calls, clicks, direction requests) than businesses ranked four to ten. Put another way, a top-three business gets about 2.3 times the traffic and 1.9 times the actions of one ranked four to ten.
Website traffic (index)
Calls, clicks and directions (index)
Source: SOCi, Local SEO Statistics, citing SOCi's own research on local ranking and conversion factors. Retrieved 7 September 2026. SOCi's data, not ROILadder's.
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| Position | Traffic (index) | Actions (index) |
|---|---|---|
| Local Pack, top 3 | 226 | 193 |
| Ranks 4 to 10 | 100 | 100 |
Industry averages describe a market, not your business. Your numbers depend on what you sell, what it costs, and how you bring people to the site. The useful question is not whether you match the average but where the largest gap is, and the checkout leak calculator and the 12-point audit are the two free tools for finding it. Figures are reproduced from the linked studies without alteration; if a source updates, this page follows it.
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