What's the conversion rate for referrals vs. other marketing channels?

Referrals convert at 25.56% (focus-digital.co/average-sales-call-conversion-rate-by-industry/), making them the strongest acquisition channel, and deliver 3-5x higher conversion rates (blog.propellocloud.com/referral-marketing-statistics) than other marketing methods. 76% of CPAs identify word-of-mouth as their most important marketing technique (cpajournal.com/2025/04/28/digital-marketing-resources-for-cpas/), and 88% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know (investopedia.com/terms/w/word-of-mouth-marketing.asp) more than any other source.