Make Every Website Visitor Count

Website ROI is dropping and visitors are demanding more

2025 is developing into a challenging year for marketers.  On average, marketing teams and reporting budgets have reduced by 15% while lead generation targets have increased by an average of 30% across all B2B sectors.

The cost of website visitor acquisition has, simultaneously, increased dramatically, further impacting marketing budgets and squeezing SMEs out of the rankings.  The 2025 Digital Experience Benchmark Report from ContentSquare has been released and shows that while businesses are paying more for their website traffic, they're seeing less return on their lead generation costs. 

Your website should be your strongest performing sales channel for inbound leads.  Now more than ever, you should be focusing on making every visitor count.  Look closely at user journeys, website content and on-site engagement to map the customer experience and ensure your visitors aren't dropping out of the sales funnel. 

Website visitors cost more and engage less

The Digital Benchmark Report shows that the cost of acquiring website visitors has increased by 19% since 2022 across all industries, but this spend, despite costing significantly more, is now converting at -10.8% less than in 2023. 

Websites with an acquisition budget are seeing as much as 40% of traffic being generated through their PPC campaigns, but paid visitors suffer from a higher bounce rate and consume fewer pages on the website.  If this trend continues, we could see precious marketing budget wasted when there are other ways to ensure your marketing budget goes further without missing out on targets.

If PPC is attracting visitors to your site, and you are not seeing leads come through at the rate you expect, then it's time to look at the balance between both paid and organic and acquisition and conversion for your digital marketing.  Invest some of your acquisition budget into conversion optimisation and improve the efficiency of your website - for every 0.1% you increase your conversion rate, you reduce the impact on your marketing acquisition costs by £11,000!

Prioritise investment in the user journey, UX design and organic search before pumping more money into expensive paid media campaigns.

Encourage website visitors to come back - time after time

Website visitor retention is something that is often overlooked during data analysis and reporting.  Seeing an increase in website users is a good sign, however, B2B customers need to visit a brand at least four times before they will make a purchasing decision.  This means you need to give your prospective clients reasons to come back again and again.

Contentsquare's report shows that returning website visitors consume 19% more website content than new users, they are also more likely to download whitepapers, reports or dwell on blogs before moving to one of your conversion pages.  When analysing your data, take action if you find your retention rate has dropped below 15%, your website will be relying too heavily on a perfect conversion on the first visit and ultimately will see a drop in ROI.  Prioritise increasing reasons to return and engage, such as multi-part blogs, whitepapers or insight pieces and create ways to capture first-party data as much as you can.

Remember, each time you create a returning website visitor, you reduce your reliance on PPC or expensive acquisition tactics.

Re-balance your website visitors organically

The report shows that organic traffic is 45% more likely to convert than paid traffic.  Just read that again - 45% more likely.  But because SEO is a long-term strategy, complex and requires resources to create content, it is often under-resourced.  SEO skillsets are often undervalued or under-represented in marketing departments, too.

With marketing budget now under such a tight focus, search engine optimisation needs to move higher up the priority list.  Ensure your website has had a technical SEO audit, and measure your website development agency's performance against search engine core vitals.  Build an achievable but comprehensive keyword strategy based on your target client's intent and track both your real-world competitors AND your search engine results competition to make sure you are chasing ranking performance that will deliver.

Results will come, and each time a lead comes through organically, you've relieved pressure on your PPC campaigns and your marketing budget.  Plus, organic traffic is much more likely to generate qualified traffic to your site, rather than drag anyone in who clicks an advert.  You can then redeploy your PPC campaigns to target the keywords too difficult for SEO. This approach will maximise your ROI.

Engagement Is the New Conversion Lever

There is a clear, direct link between website engagement time and conversions. A 10% increase in engagement time results in a 5% uplift in conversions, while a 10% reduction leads to a 13.1% decrease in conversions.

This insight highlights why website performance isn't just a UX consideration – it's a lead generation strategy. In a year where lead generation targets are so challenging, increasing website engagement could make the difference.  Website efficiency is key here, you are already attracting traffic to your site, the aim is to keep them there longer and convert more often – and you benefit from a reduced paid media spend requirement at the top of the funnel.

Audit your website to identify high-traffic, low-engagement pages. Prioritise improvements to product or service pages, especially those acting as common landing pages. Introduce clearer CTAs, reduce page load times, and ensure content directly addresses user needs. Small improvements in how content is presented could unlock higher conversion rates without any additional traffic spend.

What This Means for Marketing Performance in 2025

The biggest challenge for marketing teams this year will be to generate more leads with less budget. The insight provided by Contentsquare shows businesses are still chasing traffic rather than optimising the users they already have.

Simply driving more visitors to your website – particularly through paid media – will only deliver diminishing returns if your site is not performing.

The opportunity lies in switching focus to engagement, retention, and organic performance. By making these three areas the priority, marketing teams can generate more leads without requiring more budget.

Final Thoughts

If there’s one takeaway from the 2025 Digital Experience Benchmark, it’s that traffic alone doesn’t drive growth – engagement does. Businesses that invest in improving their website experience, rather than simply driving more users, will see the greatest gains this year.

Website efficiency should be a clear priority for marketing teams in 2025. Departments under pressure to deliver more with less will find breathing space by focusing on the best route to an improved online user journey.

Now is the time to stop paying more for less – and start making every visit count.