What Are Good Google Ads Benchmarks In 2025? [STUDY]

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It’s important to stay updated with the latest Google Ads benchmarks. This helps us answer questions from clients or managers like:

“Is our CTR good?”

“Why is our CPA high?”

“What’s a good conversion rate?”

We hear these questions often, especially when budgets are tight or ad results drop. But without updated benchmark data, it’s hard to answer them clearly. We may end up guessing or using old reports that no longer match today’s ad competition.

Recently, Wordstream by LocaliQ shared updated 2025 benchmarks for Search Ads. They collected real data from many campaigns across Google and Microsoft Ads in 20 different industries.

These industries include:

Arts & Entertainment
Automotive
Education
Finance & Insurance
Health & Fitness
Home Improvement
Shopping & Retail
Travel

These numbers can help us set fair goals and compare our results to others in our industry.

This report includes data from Google & Microsoft Ads for:

Click-through rate (CTR)
Average cost-per-click (CPC)
Conversion rate (CVR)
Cost per lead (CPL)

Let’s look at the numbers.

Average Click-Through Rate (CTR) in Google & Microsoft Ads by Industry

Over the past year, the average CTR across all industries was 6.66%. Back in 2015, when they first collected this data, the average CTR was only 1.35%. Arts & Entertainment had the highest CTR at 13.10%. Dentists and Dental Services had the lowest, at 5.44%.

CTR is one way to measure ad performance—but not the only one.

Many things affect your CTR, like:

How much competition you have (Is the search page crowded?)
Your bidding method
Where your ad shows up on the page
How relevant your ad text is
Who you’re targeting

Having a high CTR doesn’t always mean your ad is successful. It could just mean people are curious and clicking, but not converting. So, we should look at CTR as just one part of the bigger picture.

If our CTR is lower than average, tools like Google’s Quality Score can help. It shows us where to improve, like writing better ads or choosing the right keywords.

Average Cost-Per-Click in Google & Microsoft Ads by Industry

In the last 12 months, the average cost-per-click (CPC) across all industries for Google and Microsoft Ads was $5.26.

The Attorneys and Legal Services industry had one of the lowest CTRs, but it showed the highest average CPC at $8.58 in 2025.

This is not surprising, as getting a customer in this industry usually costs more.

On the other side, Arts & Entertainment had the lowest CPC at $1.60.

Just like CTR, CPC is also only one part of the full picture. For example, if we see a low CPC and also a low CTR, it may mean our bids are too low to compete with others. In that case, we might need to increase our bids. But if our CPC is very high, we should keep a close watch. We need to make sure that we are getting enough results to justify the spend.

Average Conversion Rates in Google & Microsoft Ads by Industry

The average conversion rate (CVR) for all industries over the past year was 7.52%. We calculate CVR by dividing the number of sales or leads by the number of ad clicks. In 2025, conversion rates were very different from one industry to another.

The Automotive industry had the highest CVR at 14.67%. Animals and Pets came next with 13.07%.

Some industries had lower conversion rates, like:

Finance & Insurance: 2.55%
Furniture: 2.73%
Real Estate: 3.28%

These numbers make sense when we think about the type of products these industries sell.

Furniture, for example, is usually expensive. People often do a lot of research before buying. Also, many customers still prefer to buy in stores, not online.

So even if online CVR is low, it’s important to track offline sales, like store visits and in-person purchases. In industries like apparel, there are many new brands appearing all the time.

If we search for Nike sneakers, we’ll find many websites and sellers. This kind of heavy competition can affect the conversion rate, either raising or lowering it, depending on how well we stand out.

Average Cost Per Lead in Google & Microsoft Ads by Industry

Over the past 12 months, the average cost per lead (CPL) for all industries in Google and Microsoft Ads was $70.11.

CPL is an important number to track when we want to see how well our ads are doing. It’s also a number that marketing and finance teams look at very closely. It’s normal to see big differences in CPL between industries.

Some things that affect CPL are:

How much each click costs (CPC)
The click-through rate (CTR), which can affect CPC
Who we are targeting with our ads
Our conversion rate
What kind of product or service we are selling

The average CPL was $70.11 across all industries.

Attorneys and Legal Services had the highest CPL, at $131.63.

Even though that’s high, many businesses in this space find it worth the money, because they earn much more from each new client.

Industries with cheaper products or services usually aim for a lower CPL.

In 2025, the industries with the lowest CPL were:

Automotive Repair, Services & Parts at $28.50
Arts & Entertainment
Restaurants & Food, both around $30.27

When we compare to last year, 13 out of 23 industries showed a higher CPL this year. In recent years, big changes in CPL have happened because of high inflation and economic shifts. But this year, those changes have become more stable.