An advertising and AdTech software product turns 9.1% of its website visitors into free trial users, and 24.3% of those trials into paying customers. First Page Sage, an SEO agency, published both figures in September 2025 from 86 SaaS clients. It is the only published conversion benchmark with a marketing technology row. For a MarTech company that sells through demos instead of trials, there is no MarTech row anywhere, and the nearest figure is the same agency's 1.1% visitor-to-lead rate for B2B SaaS.
This page sets out both routes, the spread around them and how each traffic source converts. Every figure carries its publisher and date, and every proxy is labelled as one.
No one publishes a MarTech median, so start with two proxies
MarTech covers email platforms, marketing automation, analytics and attribution, ad platforms, content tools and customer data platforms. Most sell to marketing teams, and most offer either a free trial, a freemium tier or a demo. None of the large benchmark publishers gives MarTech its own row for whole-site lead generation. Unbounce's 2024 report covers nine industries, with SaaS as the closest. First Page Sage has a B2B SaaS row for sales-led sites and an Advertising and AdTech row for trials. Ruler Analytics has a "Marketing & Advertising" row but does not define it.
| Source | Dataset | What counts | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Page Sage, 2025 | Agency clients, 25 B2B industries, January 2022 to August 2025 | Any conversion action per unique visitor | B2B SaaS 1.1% |
| First Page Sage, 2025 | 86 SaaS companies, Q1 2022 to Q3 2025 | Visitor to free trial; trial to paid | Advertising and AdTech 9.1%; 24.3% |
| Ruler Analytics, 2026 | 110M+ sessions, 5M+ conversions, 13 industries | Qualified lead or sale, including calls, multi-touch | Software 7.6%; marketing and advertising 6.2%; all 5.13% |
| Unbounce, 2024 | 41,000+ landing pages, 464M+ visitors | Landing page conversions | SaaS median 3.8%; all-industry 6.6% |
Source: the publishers named in column one
The rates disagree because the definitions do. First Page Sage divides conversions by unique visitors across a whole site. Ruler counts qualified leads and sales, including calls, with multi-touch credit, which runs higher. Unbounce measures single landing pages, usually built for one campaign and one action. Ruler's marketing and advertising row most likely mixes agencies with software vendors: its 2025 tables listed agencies as their own row, and it says the sector is "almost entirely form-driven".
Trial-led MarTech: the AdTech and CRM rows
First Page Sage's trial report splits its 86 SaaS clients into 16 verticals where it had at least five clients. Two are close to MarTech: Advertising and AdTech, and CRM, which many marketing platforms now sit next to or inside.
| Vertical | Visitor to trial | Trial to paid | Paid accounts per 10,000 visitors |
|---|---|---|---|
| IoT | 12.6% | 25.2% | 318 |
| Healthcare and medtech | 12.3% | 21.5% | 264 |
| CRM | 9.7% | 29.0% | 281 |
| Advertising and AdTech | 9.1% | 24.3% | 221 |
| Communications | 8.3% | 23.4% | 194 |
| HR | 8.1% | 22.7% | 184 |
| Cybersecurity | 7.4% | 21.9% | 162 |
| Enterprise | 5.5% | 18.6% | 102 |
Source: First Page Sage, SaaS free trial conversion rate benchmarks, Q1 2022 to Q3 2025, published 2025-09-05; the last column is our arithmetic
AdTech sits in the middle on visitor to trial and in the upper half on trial to paid. CRM has the highest trial-to-paid rate of all 16 verticals, at 29.0%. A MarTech tool that plugs into a CRM, or sells to the same buyer, can reasonably plan between the two rows.
Trial design changes the number more than the vertical does. The same report gives opt-in trials, with no card, 8.5% organic and 7.1% paid visitor-to-trial conversion, and opt-out trials, with a card, 2.5% and 2.2%. Opt-out trials then convert to paid at 48.8% organic and 51%. Freemium converts 13.3% of organic visitors and only 2.6% of them to paid. A MarTech team comparing its rate to 9.1% should first check which model it runs.
Sales-led MarTech: one month through the funnel
Enterprise marketing platforms, attribution tools and data platforms usually sell through a demo. First Page Sage gives the average B2B SaaS site 21,410 monthly unique sessions, a figure HubSpot republished in August 2026. Running that through the agency's stage rates shows what an average month produces.
| Stage | Stage rate | Count, funnel report | Count, using the 13% MQL-to-SQL figure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unique visitors | 21,410 | 21,410 | |
| Leads | 1.1% | 236 | 236 |
| MQLs | 39% | 92 | 92 |
| SQLs | 38% or 13% | 35 | 12 |
| Opportunities | 42% | 15 | 5 |
| Closed won | 37% | 5 | 2 |
Source: First Page Sage industry, funnel and MQL-to-SQL reports, 2024 to 2026; HubSpot web trends report, 2026; the arithmetic is ours
The two First Page Sage reports disagree on the middle step. The funnel report, updated August 2026, gives B2B SaaS 38% from MQL to SQL. The separate MQL-to-SQL report, on client data from 2019 to 2025, gives 13% and points to longer cycles with more decision makers. The gap turns five deals a month into two.
HubSpot's page also quotes AgencyAnalytics' 2025 benchmarks, which put a typical software and IT site at 1,500 to 4,000 monthly sessions, with 40% to 55% bounce rates. At 1.1%, that is 17 to 44 leads a month. Most MarTech start-ups sit nearer this range than First Page Sage's client average.
The spread: where marketing and software sit against other industries
Neither publisher gives a range inside an industry, so there is no published top-quartile MarTech figure. Ruler's 2026 table does show where software and marketing sit among its 13 industries.
| Industry | Average conversion rate | Conversions by phone |
|---|---|---|
| Legal | 7.9% | 56.3% |
| Software | 7.6% | 11.4% |
| Finance | 6.3% | 23.9% |
| Marketing and advertising | 6.2% | 4.9% |
| Professional services | 6.1% | 52.6% |
| Real estate | 2.8% | 27.6% |
| All industries | 5.13% | Not reported |
Source: Ruler Analytics, conversion rate benchmarks, 2026 (vendor-sourced, includes calls, multi-touch)
Both MarTech-relevant rows sit above the average. The phone column matters more. At 4.9%, marketing and advertising has the lowest call share of all 13 industries, and software is fourth lowest. A MarTech site can count form and booking events and miss very little, unlike a legal or professional services site. That also means the conversion is won or lost on the form and the booking step.
The traffic sources behind the medians
Ruler is the only publisher with channel rates for both software and marketing. Its 2026 rows sit below next to Unbounce's SaaS landing page medians and First Page Sage's all-B2B channel rates.
| Channel | Ruler, software, 2026 | Ruler, marketing and advertising, 2026 | Ruler, all industries, 2026 | Unbounce, SaaS landing pages, 2024 | First Page Sage, all B2B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paid search | 8.2% | 8.9% | 5.4% | 4.1% | 1.5% (PPC and SEM) |
| Organic search | 7.9% | 5.8% | 4.9% | Not reported | 2.6% (thought leadership SEO) |
| AI referral | 7.9% | 4.7% | 5.8% | Not reported | Not reported |
| Direct | 6.4% | 5.9% | 4.7% | Not reported | Not reported |
| Referral | 4.6% | 5.5% | 4.8% | Not reported | Not reported |
| 4.0% | 4.0% | 4.9% | 16.9% | 2.4% | |
| Social | 2.74% organic; 1.7% paid | 1.13% organic; 0.6% paid | 2.23% organic; 2.11% paid | 2.9% paid | 1.7% organic; 0.9% paid |
Source: Ruler Analytics, conversion rate benchmarks, 2026 (vendor-sourced); Unbounce, SaaS conversion benchmarks, 2024 (medians, vendor-sourced); First Page Sage, conversion rate by channel, 2025
Paid search leads, in Ruler's data. Marketing and advertising converts 8.9% of paid search visits, the highest paid search figure of any industry in the 2026 report. Unbounce's SaaS median is far lower, at 4.1%, with Google at 5.1% and Bing at 1.9%. The gap is again a definition: a whole-site multi-touch credit against one landing page.
Email depends on who counts it. Unbounce's SaaS email median of 16.9% is over four times its next channel, because those visitors already know the product. Ruler's whole-site email rate for both rows is 4.0%. Both agree that email traffic converts. They disagree on how much.
Social is weak for marketing sellers. Paid social converts 0.6% for marketing and advertising in Ruler's data, the third lowest of 13 industries. For MarTech brands that market mainly on LinkedIn, that is a reason to judge social on pipeline, not on same-session conversions.
Year-to-year swings are large. Ruler's 2025 full-year rows for "B2B Tech" were far lower: 1.5% for paid search and direct, 2.5% for organic search and email, 1.9% for referral. Its 2026 overall average is higher than earlier years, which it says itself. Use the order of channels, not the exact rate.
Paid search costs. WordStream by LocaliQ's 2026 benchmarks have no software row. The nearest, business services, shows a 4.85% conversion rate, a $93.69 cost per lead and a $5.87 cost per click, against an all-industry 8.18%, $66.69 and $5.42. Treat this as a loose proxy only.
How MarTech buyers choose
MarTech is one of the most crowded software markets. Scott Brinker's 2025 landscape at chiefmartec lists 15,384 products in 49 categories, up 9% from 14,106 the year before, with 1,211 removed through acquisition or closure, a churn rate of 8.6%. Buyer surveys show what that crowding does to a website's job.
| Finding | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Products in the marketing technology landscape | 15,384, up 9% | chiefmartec, 2025 |
| Buyers who rank their shortlist before contacting any vendor | 94% | 6sense 2025 Buyer Experience Study, nearly 4,000 buyers, via CustomerThink |
| Point in the buying journey at first contact with a seller | 61%, down from 69% | Same |
| Average buying cycle | 10.1 months globally | Same |
| Software buyers who shortlist three or fewer products | 83% | TrustRadius 2026, 1,862 buyers, via MarketScale |
| Buyers who had heard of their chosen tool before research | 79% | TrustRadius 2026, via Agile Brand Guide |
| Influence of free trials; of product demos | 77%; 73% | Same |
| Buyers who used AI in the purchase; of those, who fact-checked it | 63%; 94% | TrustRadius 2026, via MarketScale |
Source: the publishers named in the table; 6sense and TrustRadius figures are reported second-hand
The shortlist forms before the visit. In the 6sense study, buyers rank their shortlist before they speak to anyone, and contact the top-ranked vendor first about 80% of the time. A MarTech site rarely wins a buyer who has never heard of it. Its job is to confirm the choice for buyers who already have it on their list.
Trials and demos carry the decision. In the TrustRadius summary, free trials influence 77% of buyers and demos 73%. Transparent pricing has topped the buyer wish list for four years, at 45% in 2026. A MarTech site that hides both behind a sales call asks the buyer to give up the two things they value most.
AI is now a research channel. 63% of buyers used AI tools in their purchase, and Ruler already reports AI referral traffic converting at 7.9% for software. Give it its own channel grouping now.
What this means for a MarTech site: a five-page test order
The sales-led proxy is about 1.1%, the trial-led benchmark is 9.1% to trial, and MarTech buyers arrive with a shortlist already made. No published dataset measures page-level traffic for MarTech sites, so this order rests on the channel and buyer data above rather than page benchmarks.
1. Trial or demo sign-up page. Every route ends here. Test fewer fields, an opt-in trial against an opt-out one, and a calendar booking on the same page as the demo form. Report trials and demos as separate goals.
2. Pricing page. Buyers have asked for transparent pricing four years running. Test a published starting price or a calculator against "contact sales", measured on qualified demos, not form fills.
3. Integration pages. MarTech is bought to fit a stack. Test one page per major integration, CRM first, each with a setup summary and a trial link.
4. Comparison pages. Buyers rank a shortlist of three or fewer. Test honest comparison pages against your two closest rivals, measured on trial or demo starts.
5. Homepage. Most visitors already know the name. Test proof and the first step, a logo row and a live product view, ahead of a category explanation.
Run the order with AI referral as its own channel and email reported apart from paid traffic. Our marketing website service explains how we scope and track that on a new Webflow build.
