While we absolutely hate trying to guess a websites conversion rate for campaign estimation purposes, it seems our figures are smack in line with a new study from WebSideStory, and the good thing, search comes out with flying colours compared to other customer acquisition techniques.

During the last three months of 2005, the search engine conversion rate at business-to-consumer e-commerce web sites was 2.30 percent, more than twice the conversion rate of other acquisition sources (0.96 percent), which include banner ads, affiliate marketing links, shopping search engines and other referring links, according to the WebSideStory Index.

However direct navigation links, where someone might have bookmarked the website or typed in the URL performed the highest of all. In my experience this could be a factor of the surprisingly long lead time we sometimes see, so a % of these could also be attributed to search, while not to be overlooked the repeat customer is definitely one to hold on to and might also fall into this category.

Conversion Rate by Acquisition Source at Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce
Sites, Q4 2005

    Online Acquisition Source        Conversion Rate
    Direct Navigation/Bookmarks 4.23%
    Search Engines                        2.30%
    Internet Links (Other)                0.96%