Time flies. Been 23 years since the 9/11 attacks. A reminder that real people working in the government do care about folks - first responders, firefighters, police, etc. Also, a reminder that people at the top of government on both “sides” do not.

Today’s Feature Story gives you the highlight reel for Unbounce’s New Conversion Rate Report. It’s thick. I give you the skinny. Then soak up the following sections…

• Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (hazardous pressure)

• Facts & Stats 

• Get Hacking (a sea of content wins)

Alright, let’s dig into that report.

Biggest Conversion Rate Highlights

I’ll run through these, then shovel deeper for you.

• Mobile drives landing page visits (17M mobile vs 3.5M desktop)

• Email led all channels in conversion rate 19.3% (not even close)

• Simple, easy-to-digest copy converts 2x better than “professional language” (fancy words)

• 6.6% was median conversion rate across 9 industries

• Top conversion rate was in Events & Entertainment

• Financial Services is often an outlier with conversion averages / medians

• Instagram converts 6x better than LinkedIn (explained below)

Full report here, BTW. 44,000 landing pages and 33 million conversions tracked from July 2023 to July 2024.

What can brands do with these conversion rate findings?

Fix up mediocre mobile landing pages… but don’t depend only on mobile. Turns out desktop’s lower web traffic still adds up to 8% higher conversion rates than mobile traffic.

Next, put more effort into email marketing. Work on deliverability, then simplify the copy used in email campaigns — and all your messaging while you’re at it (except financial services—sometimes).

Also, aim to beat that 6.6% benchmark, then aim to beat the median conversion rate in your specific industry.

Lastly, it’d be wise to investigate why Events / Entertainment has such a high conversion rate. The inherent urgency, limited number of tickets, and rabid nature of fandom drive conversions→ go deeper with this industry breakdown.

Why LinkedIn Sucked it Up on Conversion Rates

The Unbounce folks made it clear that fewer conversions don’t matter as much if you're slinging big-money goods and services. 

Since LinkedIn is the only place for truly professional and B2B social media connections, the platform’s flat conversion rates seem logical.

I will say - peeps on LinkedIn prolly keep it too professional. 

Too buttoned up isn’t likely to fire anyone up to comment or share a brand’s content. 

There are two LinkedIn profiles that stand out to me and neither are boring or stuffy but they know their stuff (I’m a one-man case study so take with grain of salt).

5 Odd Findings in Unbounce’s Conversion Rate Report

A lot of the benchmarks are logical in this report. Some are pretty baffling and might reveal openings you can take advantage of:

1. Why does Yahoo Search convert better than Google in Health / Wellness category?

2. Why do any brands advertise on Snapchat with a 1.6% conversion rate?

3. What skyrockets the already high email channel conversions to 28.6% for E-commerce?

4. Why does complex language convert well for some Financial Services, when other studies show even highly-educated folks prefer simple language?

5. Why do SaaS companies use display ads at all, with a piddly 0.32% conversion rate?

A little more on SaaS findings. Simple language in this arena is even more crucial as it converts 514% better than overly difficult copy. Finally, conversion rates were nearly identical on mobile (6.4%) and desktop (6.2%) SaaS landing pages. 

Unbounce’s theory on some Financial Services bucking the simple copy trend…

“Someone already financially savvy and looking for investment services may value more professional-level language, whereas someone looking to borrow money for the first time may appreciate simplicity.”

Hope those highlights help. Set aside thirty minutes to scan the full report - maybe during a blowout game this Saturday (i.e., Georgia mauling Kentucky at 7:30 PM Saturday).

An Email List Revival

Identify active segments of your email list using inbox metrics your ESP does not have.

Inbox Activity Checker has those metrics! Use them to target only your active subscribers and avoid inactive ones—potential Spam Traps.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are right behind Halloween→ spooky decorations are already up. So why wait?

Use Inbox Activity Checker to find the subscribers most likely to open and click on your emails to make purchases, especially this holiday season. Upload your list to get started.

Questions? Schedule a 1:1 demo.

Self-Help

At no age does peer pressure / social pressure stop working.

Don’t believe it? Watch it in traffic. Drivers who get honked at often make dangerous moves to appease the jerk behind them rushing them to pull out into traffic.

Another example is someone not wanting to rock the boat or be wrong about pointing out a plainly dangerous individual.

I’m not sure what you can do with this heads-up about social pressure being dangerous, except remind yourself it’s ok to be wrong, embarrassed, or make the jackass behind you later than they already are because they shoulda left sooner in the first place!

Extra help: Chair yoga not just for relics like myself.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: Nearly 70% of U.S. hospitals affiliated with a medical school have at least one ___________ inside their facilities. Answer at end of post. 

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

I promise you, somewhere one of your competitors has produced a piece of content that’s ripe for…

Simplifying. Hunt down a few of those articles, videos, or infographics, then make them easier to understand. 

Maybe they used complex language or didn’t format the article for easy scanning or their visual aid tried to show gobs of data all at once. 

This is an easy content win. Correction, content wins - because overly-complicated content is everywhere. The bonus is you don’t have to hurt your head coming up with content ideas. They’re already there. The execution just sucks. So, improve it with simplification.

Inbox Hacking is read and shared by high-IQ-having marketers from Mastercard, Allstate, and ESPN. Please share this newsletter - it helps us out and we might one day cure jerkitis😜.

Shane McLendon, Copy Kingpin - Inbox Hacking 

Bonus Answer from Facts & Stats section: Fast food restaurant (StudyFinds)

P.S. 10x your lead generation. Smart Recognition feeds your PPC network audiences and email list growth. Get a free Demo. Don’t let Fortune 500 companies be the only ones to leverage this type of lead gen.*

_{*In partnership with Smart Recognition.}