How to Use Advertising Benchmarks to Prove Client Success

When running an agency, your role might jump from campaign upkeep to upsells, account management, internal training, new client onboarding, and more on any given week. But throughout all of that, your day-to-day probably feels pretty data-heavy. To be a trustworthy marketing partner for your clients, you have to constantly analyze and report on their managed campaign performance and prove how much better those efforts are with your services than without.

A solid marketing partner has the right data and insights to track client campaign progress. That’s where our industry-standard benchmarks come in. With reliable benchmark data, you can:

• Accurately measure how your managed advertising efforts are pacing against averages in your core markets.
• Use aggregate data as a baseline for core advertising metrics to know what your clients should shoot for.
• Establish your agency as a trusted authority backed by real data.

In this guide, we’ll share a peek at our search and social benchmarks data, informed by thousands of campaigns across over 20 different industries. But first, we’ll share strategic advice on how you and your agency can leverage this data to your advantage when working with clients.

🛑 Want a deep dive into the data + tips right in your inbox? Download our free guide >> Search & Social Ad Benchmarks to Support Client Success

Contents

• How to use advertising benchmarks for your agency clients
• Google Ads benchmarks for clearer client account management
• Meta Ads benchmarks to inform your client strategy

How to use these benchmarks when working with clients

Before we get into the data, we wanted to talk about how you can use it to establish your agency as a trusted marketing partner.

For example, Sophie Logan, PPC Lead at Beauhurst and Top 50 Most Influential PPC Expert, shared that she frequently refers folks to the data and keeps it on hand for day-to-day campaign management.

“INCREDIBLY helpful content. I’ve referred more people to this content than I can count over the years, and it will forever be one of my top bookmarks,” Sophie said.

Source

Here are some ideas to help you get started.

1. Compare your clients’ campaign results to showcase account success

When you’re checking in with your clients to review any account progress, be sure to have these benchmarks on hand. These resources can help you and your clients manage campaign performance expectations with data-backed confidence.

“You can pull the data into recommendation conversations with clients to prove that the results you’re delivering are in line with industry standards,” said Erin Rose, Senior Director of Partner Development and Strategic Sales at LocaliQ.

Alternatively, if the topic of competitors comes up in client conversations, as it often does, you’ll be ready with data to gauge the market. This can help you avoid client churn.

“Our agency partners often use these benchmarks to poke holes in the competition, either when existing customers are questioning results, or to help close new clients,” Erin said. “For example, you could show that results from competing agencies are not as good as these averages.”

2. Include benchmark data in sales pitches

Sales conversations for digital marketing services are anything but easy–however, they could be a little easier with reliable benchmarks data by your side.

Potential clients may be wondering what to expect from partnering with your agency, and you can’t promise specific numbers up front. Instead, use the overall averages in your client’s industry to set a guideline for what they can shoot for when working with you.

“Benchmarks can be an essential part of your agency’s sales process to pitch campaigns, show what good performance looks like, and what types of results to expect,” Erin said.

3. Know which clients to prospect next

Scaling your agency requires a data-backed strategy. You can use our ad benchmarks to evaluate which industries perform well in search and social advertising campaigns, so your sales team can prospect accordingly.

For example, Physicians & Surgeons had conversion rates on the higher end in both Google and Meta Ads, making these types of practices ideal for healthcare-focused agencies. When you approach your prospecting with these benchmarks in mind, you’re targeting the clients with the most potential to grow with your agency.

Google and Microsoft Ads benchmarks for clearer account management

Search advertising still reigns as one of the most popular digital marketing channels in 2026, so it’s likely a foundational tactic for many of your agency’s prospective clients. In fact, 76% of businesses report being satisfied with their search advertising results, and almost half are planning to invest more in search advertising this year.

We analyzed over 16,000 campaigns to create an easy-to-use report that paints a picture of how businesses in your clients’ industries are performing on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads.

Here are all the overall performance averages for search ads:

Here’s a look at the search advertising benchmarks by industry:

Key trends to watch for in client Google and Microsoft accounts

Search advertising costs have been increasing year over year for the last five years, and our latest data shows this trend continuing. However, cost per lead did not increase as drastically in 2025 as it did from 2023 to 2024, suggesting a little more stability in the paid ad space (after an extremely volatile year for organic rankings).

In short, 87% of industries saw an increase in cost per click (CPC), and 65% of industries saw an increase in conversion rate (CVR).

As for cost per lead (CPL), Industries that saw the highest increases in cost per lead included Beauty & Personal Care (+24.62%), Education & Instruction (+25.87%), and Apparel, Fashion, & Jewelry (+23.36%).

The three industries with the largest decreases in cost per lead were Career & Employment (-46.74%), Arts & Entertainment (-32.28%), and Automotive—Repair, Services, & Parts (-9.52%).

⬇️ Get even more Google Ads data broken down by industry (+see which industries experienced the biggest improvements and losses year over year) >> Search & Social Ad Benchmarks to Support Client Success

Meta Ads benchmarks to inform your client strategy

Advertising on key social platforms like Meta Ads, which allows your clients to target users on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other Meta-owned apps, remains a top strategy for marketing partners looking to separate their services from the competition.

To inform your Meta Ads service offerings, we’ve got data from over 1,000 campaigns to provide you with industry-specific KPIs, including CTR, CPC, CVR, and CPL, for two core Facebook ads campaign objectives: traffic and leads.

Here are all the industry averages for Facebook ad traffic campaigns. Since this campaign objective is specifically designed to drive traffic, we’ve omitted CTR and CPC:

Here’s the industry-specific data for Facebook leads campaigns:

Key trends to watch for in client Meta Ads accounts

A bird’s-eye view of our benchmarks data shows that Facebook ads continue to be a cost-effective way to drive leads, website visits, and awareness for businesses.

You or your team might be noticing that Facebook ads with a traffic objective saw strong performance year over year, with both higher CTR and lower CPC compared to 2024.

Conversely, you may have seen Facebook lead campaigns experience declines, with a 20% increase in CPL. But CPC and CPL for this ad type are still significantly lower than comparable ads on Google.

Despite rising advertising costs and economic challenges, Facebook Lead Ads maintain a cost advantage over Google Ads.

🔎 Get even more data to prove your clients’ Facebook ads performance >> Search & Social Ad Benchmarks to Support Client Success

Use these benchmarks to prove your agency’s prowess

These benchmarks can help you understand how campaign performance compares to what you’re delivering for your accounts and contextualize the results your clients are seeing in their own reports. As industry trends evolve, you’ll be ready to flex and shift strategies for your clients.

And remember, you don’t have to handle your client account growth all alone. Reach out to see how our solutions can help transform your agency’s strategy.

Meet The Author

Susie Marino

Susie is the Senior Content Marketing Specialist for LocaliQ and WordStream, where she uses her experience as a PPC consultant to share tips, tactics, and best practices in the ever-evolving marketing and advertising space. Susie's work has been featured in publications such as Search Engine Land, MediaPost, Social Media Today, and others. Outside of work, Susie loves to get outside for some snowboarding or (once the cold weather melts away) hiking!

Other posts by Susie Marino