Google Ads Benchmarks by Industry
Across 22 industry categories, the median category averages a 6.79% CTR, $4.53 CPC, 7.32% conversion rate and $60.98 cost per lead. CPC runs from $1.63 in Arts & Entertainment to $9.87 in Attorneys & Legal Services, so compare against your own category, not the cross-industry figure.
Google Ads search benchmarks by industry
Category averages, ordered from the highest cost per click down.
| Industry category | CTR | CPC | Conversion rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attorneys & Legal Services | 5.87% | $9.87 | 5.55% | $131.63 |
| Home & Home Improvement | 6.47% | $8.33 | 8.05% | $90.92 |
| Dentists & Dental Services | 5.66% | $8.00 | 10.7% | $72.97 |
| Personal Services | 7.16% | $7.17 | 12.3% | $54.60 |
| Health & Fitness | 5.81% | $6.17 | 6.94% | $67.36 |
| Business Services | 6.10% | $5.87 | 4.85% | $93.69 |
| Industrial & Commercial | 6.57% | $5.87 | 8.20% | $75.19 |
| Career & Employment | 5.88% | $5.81 | 3.05% | $67.36 |
| Education & Instruction | 7.56% | $4.81 | 13.1% | $77.48 |
| Physicians & Surgeons | 6.61% | $4.76 | 12.4% | $40.04 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 6.75% | $4.62 | 10.3% | $39.25 |
| Apparel / Fashion & Jewelry | 6.64% | $4.44 | 4.50% | $97.51 |
| Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts | 5.56% | $4.35 | 15.5% | $29.96 |
| Shopping, Collectibles & Gifts | 8.28% | $4.14 | 4.01% | $49.40 |
| Animals & Pets | 7.49% | $4.06 | 16.2% | $31.50 |
| Finance & Insurance | 9.83% | $3.39 | 2.64% | $74.44 |
| Real Estate | 7.61% | $3.22 | 3.70% | $102.51 |
| Sports & Recreation | 8.75% | $2.77 | 7.69% | $44.26 |
| Automotive — For Sale | 8.28% | $2.27 | 6.01% | $44.26 |
| Travel | 9.32% | $2.14 | 5.83% | $44.70 |
| Restaurants & Food | 6.83% | $2.05 | 8.05% | $30.57 |
| Arts & Entertainment | 12.8% | $1.63 | 5.91% | $26.84 |
What these benchmarks mean
Expensive clicks do not always mean expensive leads
The three categories with the highest CPC are Attorneys & Legal Services, Home & Home Improvement, Dentists & Dental Services. The cheapest leads come from Arts & Entertainment at $26.84, where a 5.91% conversion rate offsets a $1.63 click. Cost per lead is roughly CPC divided by conversion rate, so a category with costly clicks can still produce affordable leads when its searchers are ready to act.
CTR spreads wider than you might expect
Category CTR ranges from 5.56% (Automotive — Repair, Service & Parts) to 12.8% (Arts & Entertainment). These are search campaign averages. Display campaigns run far lower CTRs and should be compared against their own benchmarks.
Read these as averages, not targets
Each figure is the mean across advertisers in the category, so a few large or unusual accounts can pull it up or down. Treat the category average as the centre of the field. Beating it on cost per lead matters more than beating it on CTR.
Methodology and sources
LocaliQ Search Advertising Benchmarks 2026
- Statistic: Category averages as published by the source. The source does not publish medians or percentiles, so quartiles on this page are computed across the 22 category averages, not across advertisers.
- Period: 2026 edition, covering the period stated by the source
- Sample: Not published as a single count; the source describes thousands of LocaliQ advertisers
- Geography: Not broken out by the source
- Basis: Google Ads and Microsoft Ads search campaigns across thousands of LocaliQ advertisers. Cost per lead is the source's figure for cost per conversion, where the conversion is a lead.
Common questions
Which industry has the highest Google Ads cost per click?
Attorneys & Legal Services has the highest average CPC in the data, at $9.87. Arts & Entertainment has the lowest, at $1.63.
What is the average Google Ads conversion rate by industry?
The median category converts 7.32% of clicks. The highest is Animals & Pets at 16.2% and the lowest is Finance & Insurance at 2.64%.
Which industry has the cheapest Google Ads leads?
Arts & Entertainment has the lowest average cost per lead at $26.84. Attorneys & Legal Services has the highest at $131.63.
Why do these numbers differ from other Google Ads benchmarks on this site?
This page uses the LocaliQ Search Advertising Benchmarks 2026, which reports averages for 22 categories. The Google Ads hub shows medians and quartiles from our curated cohort for Q1 2023 – Q4 2024. Different sources, periods and statistics give different figures, so compare against one source at a time.