• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 3, 2013

Some call it spying; others call it competitive intelligence. With more than 70% of marketers unaware of competitors' conversion rates, Millward Brown Digital on Thursday introduced Conversion Tracker, allowing marketers to see competitors' onsite activity, and isolate problems that impact their own performance.

It turns out that less than 30% of marketers benchmark conversion rates against the competition, although those who invest in optimization see higher conversion rates. Marketers that invest at least 10% of their time on optimization and competitive intelligence have a higher conversion rate than the 2% average, according to Compete/Millward Brown research.

Many marketers believe their conversion rates are average when they are actually below average. They do not understand the conversion-funnel dynamics for their industry or competitors, and they do not realize that conversion rates are dependent on more than industry, price, and seasonality.

The survey results suggest that marketers using multiple optimization tactics -- 27% of respondents use more than four --  achieve higher overall conversion rates, about 85% of those with greater than 2%. Despite the amount of software used, only 49% of marketers A/B test content on their Web sites. Even less -- at 36% -- specifically copy test.

Survey results show 2% as the median conversion rate and 14% at the lowest rate (which is less than 0.5%) and just 4% converting 10% or more of their traffic. The length of the funnel has little impact. Those with higher conversion rates typically have higher annual sales. Some 71% of those with $25 million in annual sales have conversion rates above the median, versus just 37% of those with less than $25 million in annual sales.

The survey also identifies that nearly one in four marketers spend more than 25% of their time optimizing sales. This investment results in better performance, but 58% of those investing less than 10% of their time have poorer-performing funnels -- a less than 2% conversion rate. Those who spend between 10% and 25% are more likely to have a higher conversion rate of about 60%.

Millward Brown's Conversion Tracker aims to give brands that insight. It provides answers such as how conversion rates compare with other companies in the same industry, how many of the brand's customers also shop with its competitors, and how behavior differs between new and returning customers.