For a positive finite measure  
 $d\mu \left( \mathbf{u} \right)$  on  
 ${{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}$  normalized to satisfy  
 $\int{_{{{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}}d\mu \left( \mathbf{u} \right)}=1$ , the dilated average of  
 $f\left( \mathbf{x} \right)$  is given by
  
 $${{A}_{t}}\,f\left( \mathbf{x} \right)\,=\,\int{_{{{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}}\,f\left( \mathbf{x}\,-\,t\mathbf{u}\, \right)}d\mu \left( \mathbf{u} \right)$$  
It will be shown that under some mild assumptions on  
 $d\mu \left( \mathbf{u} \right)$  one has the equivalence
  
 $$||{A_t}f - f|{|_B} \approx \inf \left\{ {\left( {||f - g|{|_B} + {t^2}||P\left( D \right)g|{|_B}} \right):P\left( D \right)g \in B} \right\}{\mkern 1mu} {\mkern 1mu} {\mkern 1mu} {\mkern 1mu} {\mkern 1mu} {\mkern 1mu} {\rm{for}}{\mkern 1mu} {\mkern 1mu} {\rm{t}}{\mkern 1mu} {\rm{> }}\,{\rm{0,}}$$  
where  
 $\varphi \left( t \right)\approx \psi \left( t \right)$ means  
 ${{c}^{-1}}\le \varphi \left( t \right)/\psi \left( t \right)\le c$ ,  
 $B$  is a Banach space of functions for which translations are continuous isometries and  
 $P\left( D \right)$  is an elliptic differential operator induced by  
 $\mu $ . Many applications are given, notable among which is the averaging operator with  
 $d\mu \left( \mathbf{u} \right)\,=\,\frac{1}{m\left( S \right)}{{\chi }_{S}}\left( \mathbf{u} \right)d\mathbf{u},$ where  
 $S$  is a bounded convex set in  
 ${{\mathbb{R}}^{d}}$  with an interior point,  
 $m\left( S \right)$  is the Lebesgue measure of  
 $S$ , and  
 ${{\chi }_{S}}\left( \mathbf{u} \right)$  is the characteristic function of  
 $S$ . The rate of approximation by averages on the boundary of a convex set under more restrictive conditions is also shown to be equivalent to an appropriate  
 $K$ -functional.