Frequently Asked Questions

What is a benchmark?

A benchmark is an average performance that marketers can measure tactics against. Benchmarks can be established for many tactics, and they often vary by industry. For example, a click-through rate for a campaign promoting animal nutrition products to a targeted audience will look very different from one promoting heavy construction equipment to a broader audience.

Without benchmarks, data is just data. Benchmarks give numbers context, helping us understand whether a tactic is performing as expected and where there’s room to improve.

Where do benchmarks come from?

Some platforms and media providers publish industry-wide benchmarks, but these can vary considerably between publishers and industries. The reality is that there is no single, reliable source for tactic- or placement-wide benchmarks, let alone industry-specific benchmarks.

That’s why the LF team creates our own benchmarks. Since 2019, we’ve grouped our clients by like industries and used the data to establish numbers we can confidently measure against for industrial equipment, construction, agriculture and other industries. It helps us understand how clients are performing against what we can accomplish as an agency, rather than relying on inconsistent publisher numbers.

We do use third-party data in some cases, most often when we do not have enough data to establish our own benchmarks or when it makes sense to supplement what we already have. We do not rely on third-party publisher data for industrial/construction or agricultural clients, since we have more than enough performance data of our own to establish reliable benchmarks in those spaces.

Over time, we have identified a few trusted third-party sources for certain tactics, such as WordStream for SEM and Sprout Social for organic social. Each source is vetted to ensure the data reflects accounts of similar size and industries and that benchmarks are updated annually. These give us additional context while keeping our benchmarks as relevant and accurate as possible.

Why don’t WE rely on External, industry-wide benchmarks?

Benchmarks can vary quite a bit depending on the source. More often than not, they set the bar lower than what we see in our own client work. Our results frequently outpace what publishers or industry-wide benchmarks define as average performance. If we judged ourselves only against those external numbers, it would suggest everything we do is above average without showing us where to improve.

Instead, we creates its own benchmarks, categorized by industry, based on client performance data. These internal benchmarks give us a stronger and more relevant standard to measure against, ensure we continue raising the bar, and help us provide more value for our clients.

What do We measure with benchmarks?

It depends on the tactic. There are nearly endless metrics to track, but we don’t track for tracking’s sake. We focus on the benchmarks that will make an impact on client KPIs, and those benchmarks vary by tactic.

For example, we could look at click rates on CTV ads. While clicks are technically possible to measure, they aren’t a meaningful benchmark for CTV because people are watching on a television screen and not expected to click. What we actually want to look at is the completion rate. This way, we’re measuring success based on the way the tactic is actually designed to perform.

Are benchmarks just for digital media placements?

No. We also track benchmarks for other tactics such as website activities, e-newsletters and organic social media.

We don’t collect benchmarks for print tactics because there isn’t reliable performance data or trackable from a print ad.

What tools do we use to collect and aggregate data?

We collect data from our campaigns and placements and input them into TapClicks for most clients on a monthly basis. From there, we pull cumulative data for like clients annually and normalize it. This essentially means adjusting the data values to a standard format to be grouped and analyzed. Normalization is commonly performed to ensure that different variables are comparable and have equal influence during benchmarking or analysis.

What does the “-” symbol mean in the charts BELOW?

In our benchmark charts, a dash (“-“) indicates that a measurement is not applicable for that tactic. For example, audio placements do not have a click-through rate, and connected TV (CTV) placements do not have clicks. The dash does not mean the data is missing, it shows that the metric does not apply to that placement type.