Have you ever thought about how you may compare to competitors? If the results you’re achieving on a monthly basis are “good enough”? How “good” are you compared to others within your specific industry? Or even how good you are compared to yourself a year ago? This is where benchmarking in marketing comes in. It’s not simply a buzzword, it’s a truly effective way to evaluate your overall performance, set realistic goals, and uncover areas of opportunity to help your website and company improve quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year and exponentially accelerate growth.
At DASH-SEO, we’ve helped many businesses utilize benchmarking in effective and efficient ways to strategically employ growth marketing tactics, better manage marketing spend and efforts, and make data-backed decisions every step of the way to ensure all marketing campaigns are completed to the highest level of performance. In this post, we’ll break down what marketing benchmarking actually is, why it matters, and how you and your team can start benchmarking effectively (even if you’re not a data scientist). Feel free to request your initial SEO audit by clicking the button below to see where your website stands today and where it can be in the next six months.
So… What Exactly Is Benchmarking in Marketing?
In simplified terms, “benchmarking” is comparing your marketing performance to something or someone else’s performance, including your very own performance. This could be your own past performance, your competitors’ performance, or underlying industry standards.
Benchmarking answers questions such as:
- “Are our email open rates better or worse than others in our niche?”
- “How does our SEO traffic compare to similar-sized businesses?”
- “Is our website conversion rate average—or lagging behind?”
If you think of benchmarking as a true reflective moment with your own marketing, it can help you immediately address problem areas and develop solutions on how to best improve going forward. Benchmarking is not about beating yourself up and saying “We could have done this…” or “We could have done that…”, it’s about gaining clarity on what actually is working, what is not working, and what you can do to best level up your game. At DASH-SEO, we’re able to utilize benchmarking with our clients to best determine where they stand today, where they’ll be standing six months from now, and where they’ll be thriving a year from now.
Why Should You Bother With Benchmarking?
Without benchmarking, you’re essentially going into a marketing initiative with no foundation or guidance. Here’s why benchmarking matters in marketing:
🎯 Benchmarking Shows You Where You Currently Stand
You may believe your 3% overall conversion rate is great, until you come to find out the industry average is double at 6%. With benchmarking, you can now determine where you’re at today, and where you can be in the future with dedicated effort and efficient workflow.
📈 Benchmarking Helps You Set Smarter Goals
Instead of just tossing a number out and hoping it lands, with benchmarking you can actually set realistic goals based on true data points. No more “throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks”.
🚀 Benchmarking Exposes Opportunities
Benchmarking, when done correctly, often reveals quick win opportunities. These quick win opportunities could be anything from identifying content gaps in your competitor’s blog to establishing a new monthly minimum for your overall sitewide CTR with organic traffic.
🏆 Benchmarking Keeps You Competitive
In today’s ultra competitive, ultra digital world, your competitors are most likely already benchmarking their performance metrics against even larger competitors. You should be there right with them to better understand how your business compares to everyone involved in your specific niche. Maintain competitiveness with proper benchmarking today and see how much it can improve your bottom line performance.
The 3 Main Types of Marketing Benchmarking
Not all benchmarking is created equal. Let’s break down the three main types of benchmarking you should implement to see the best results:
1️⃣ Internal Benchmarking
Internal benchmarking is where you compare your performance against…yourself.
Example:
- How does your Q1 organic traffic compare to last year’s Q1?
- Are your Google rankings improving month-over-month?
At DASH-SEO, we always encourage clients to initially start here, as it’s one of the quickest ways to see results, as you’re reflecting on yourself and your business, two things you have immediate control over, and it’s the easiest way to track progress over time.
2️⃣ Competitive Benchmarking
Comparing your performance to your direct competitors is usually a bit more involved.
Example:
- Is their blog traffic higher than yours?
- Are they ranking for keywords you’ve never even thought about targeting?
Tools such as Ahrefs (which we use every day here at DASH-SEO) allow this type of benchmarking to become surprisingly doable, even if you’re not a marketing whiz yourself.
3️⃣ Industry Benchmarking
Compare your performance to industry-wide averages or “best in class” standards is another fantastic form of benchmarking.
Example:
- The average organic CTR (click-through-rate) in your niche is 3.5%. Are you above or below that?
- The standard bounce rate for e-commerce sites is 45%. Where are you?
This specific type of benchmarking helps you better set realistic expectations and see how you actually measure up against leaders in your niche.
Key Marketing Metrics Worth Benchmarking
Wondering what you should actually benchmark? Here’s a list of popular metrics we recommend here at DASH-SEO:
📊 Website Performance
- Traffic (sessions, users)
- Bounce rate
- Average session duration
- Conversion rate
📈 SEO Performance
- Organic traffic growth
- Keyword rankings (top 3, top 10 positions)
- Backlink growth
- Domain authority/domain rating
📧 Email Marketing
- Open rates
- Click-through rates (CTR)
- Unsubscribe rates
📱 Social Media
- Engagement rate
- Follower growth
- Click-throughs to your site
💰 Paid Ads
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
At DASH-SEO, we build dashboards to best track these benchmarks for our clients so they can focus on actual strategy, not spreadsheets.
How to Start Benchmarking (Without Becoming Overwhelmed)
Here’s a simple roadmap to help you start off on the right foot:
1️⃣ Define Your Goals
What do you actually want to learn from these benchmarking efforts? Are you trying to see if your SEO is performing well? Your paid ads are generating true ROI? Your whole marketing mix is feeding off of each element simultaneously?
2️⃣ Select Your Metrics
Stick to metrics tied to real business outcomes (like leads or sales). Avoid vanity metrics like “impressions” or “likes.” Try to stick to the metrics which actually matter when it comes to real business outcomes, such as ROI, leads, or overall sales. Try your best to avoid vanity metrics such as impressions or ASD (average-session-duration).
3️⃣ Properly Gather the Data
Use tools such as:
✔️ Google Analytics
✔️ Google Search Console
✔️ Ahrefs
4️⃣ Compare Against Other Benchmarks
- Your past performance
- Competitors
- Industry averages
At DASH-SEO, we’ll often layer all three for a full 360° view to offer the best insights possible.
5️⃣ Take Action
Benchmarking isn’t just about data, it’s about decisions. If you’re underperforming, what’s the plan you’ll implement to fix it? If you’re already making gains and moving ahead, how will you maintain everything?
A Real-World Example from DASH-SEO
One of our clients—a medical device company—was frustrated with “decent” traffic but low conversions.
We benchmarked their site against:
✅ Their own past performance
✅ Competitors in their niche
✅ Overall industry conversion rates
What we found: Their traffic was solid, but their conversion rate was 0.5% (well below the 3% industry average).
What we did: Redesigned their service pages, added stronger CTAs (calls-to-action), and improved page load times.
Result? Conversion rate jumped to 3.5% in 4 months, and revenue doubled.
Tools for Benchmarking Like a Pro
Want to DIY? Here are some tools we use each and every day at DASH-SEO:
- 🔥 Google Analytics 4 (GA4) – Essential for website performance
- 🔥 Google Search Console – For SEO insights
- 🔥 Ahrefs – Competitor and backlink benchmarking
- 🔥 HubSpot – For CRM and email metrics
Benchmarking Can Be Your Guiding Light in a Sea of Competitors
Without establishing proper benchmarks, you’re simply playing a guessing game. When you choose to implement benchmarks, you’re now navigating new frontiers with the right plan of action. Whether you’re attempting to better understand your placement in your industry, or you’re planning to dominate your competitors, benchmarking is one of the most important elements of who achieves your goals. At DASH-SEO, we’re able to help businesses just like yours transform benchmarking insights into actionable performance, yielding amazing results in the form of improved growth and conversion.
Ready to See How You Stack Up?
📞 Call us at 512-202-1264
📧 Email: contact@dash-seo.com
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