2021 Digital Experience Benchmarks by Industry 

Every year, Contentsquare releases a digital experience benchmark report to help businesses see how their digital experience stacks up against the world’s leading brands. This year’s report stands out for a few reasons. 

Firstly, it tracks and measures the change in consumer digital behaviors that took place over the last year and the digital transformation acceleration that many brands experienced after the onset of the pandemic. 

Secondly, this report is the biggest data report we’ve ever done, measuring over 20+ billion user sessions in 25+ different countries for 11+ industries. 

While we encourage you to read the full report to compare your digital performance to our digital experience benchmarks, we also wanted to share a handful of the report’s key findings and industry benchmarks for digital marketing. 

Here are some of the key insights we found in this year’s report:  

Website Traffic Benchmarks by Industry

The last few years have seen an increase in mobile traffic and 2020 was no exception. Last year, smartphones drove the bulk of online traffic, or 64%, across all industries. That’s a +16% increase since 2019. 

All Industry Traffic by Source

More and more consumers are using their mobile devices to discover new brands, research products and services, and even convert. 

“The acceleration of smartphone usage observed in 2020 serves as a reminder that to remain competitive today, you need to offer a seamless experience on both your mobile site and app,” said Niki Hall, CMO at Contentsquare. “Smartphones are no longer just another way for visitors to interact and shop with your brand — they’re becoming the preferred way for consumers to discover and research new products and services.”

Of course, mobile traffic share varies wildly by industry. For example, most B2B visitors prefer to use computers, while customers shopping for clothes tend to favor browsing on their mobile phones. To help you see if your percentage of traffic share is in line with your sector, we’ve put together a list of website traffic benchmarks by industry: 

Website Traffic Benchmarks by Industry

The luxury sector, in particular, seemed to dominate the mobile traffic share last year, with 76% of the industry’s visits originating from a mobile device – an interesting observation for an industry known for its in-person customer service and experience. Online luxury retailers also saw a -26% decrease in desktop traffic, which was offset by a +13% increase in mobile traffic share. Following closely behind were the beauty and apparel industries, which had smartphone users make up 72% and 70% of all online visits, respectively. 

Bounce Rate Benchmarks by Industry

First impressions matter, especially when 47% of website visitors abandon their journeys after viewing just one page on a website. Our 2021 Digital Experience Benchmark Report found that almost 1 in 2 visitors would rather leave than spend time on your site. Ouch. 

Across all industries, tablet users had the lowest bounce rates (42%), followed by desktop users (45%), and, finally, mobile users (49%). 

Average Bounce Rate by Device

As mobile continues to grow its share of internet traffic, brands need to continue to make the mobile experience a priority when designing and building digital experiences. With almost 50% of mobile users bouncing after viewing just one page, there’s still some work that needs to be done to create a mobile-first world. 

Looking at industry-specific bounce rate benchmarks, the B2B (75%), telco (56%), and beauty (47%) sectors had the highest bounce rates. With a bounce rate of 75%, clearly, B2B companies need to figure out why their visitors are unhappy. B2B sites’ bounce rates jumped even higher for mobile (77%) and tablet (83%), but luckily, the industry receives the majority of its traffic from desktop users. 

Average Bounce Rate Benchmark by Industry

The industries with the lowest bounce rates were energy (38%), grocery (40%), and travel (42%), which could be because their visitors are more intentional with their visits – paying bills, buying food, or researching travel deals.  

When splitting bounce rate benchmarks by industry up by device, you can get even more insight into which areas of digital experience companies need to invest in. Here’s a breakdown of bounce rate by industry and by device: 

Bounce Rate Industry Benchmarks by Device

Today’s brands need to understand why their potential customers are leaving after they land. Is your site design confusing? Is your content not what your visitors were expecting? Is your page just taking forever to load? One or all of these factors could be turning off potential customers. Companies need the right tools, like Contentsquare, to analyze user behavior and make data-driven decisions to improve their digital experiences. srv