Guide · 4 min read
What is a good CTR? Click-through rate, explained simply.
CTR tells you one thing: of everyone who saw your ad or link, how many cared enough to click. Here's how to read that number without fooling yourself.
The formula
If your ad was shown 2,000 times and 80 people clicked, your CTR is
80 ÷ 2000 × 100 = 4%. That's it — no magic.
So what counts as "good"?
It depends entirely on where the ad runs. A 1% CTR is weak for a search ad and excellent for a display banner. Typical ranges look like this:
| Channel | Typical CTR | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Search ads (Google) | 4–8% | People are actively looking for what you sell |
| Social ads (Meta, TikTok) | 0.8–2% | People are scrolling for fun, not shopping |
| Display / banner ads | 0.3–1% | Ads sit beside content people came to read |
| Email (clicks per delivered) | 1–3% | Depends heavily on how the list was built |
These ranges are based on 2025–26 industry reports (Google search ads averaged about 6.6% in 2026). Treat them as rough landmarks, not laws — your product, audience, and country all move the needle. The most useful benchmark is always your own last campaign.
My CTR is low — what do I fix?
- The match between ad and audience. The most common cause. Showing running-shoe ads to everyone in your city will always underperform showing them to people who follow running pages.
- The first line and the image. People decide in about a second. Test a different opening line or a different photo before changing anything else.
- The offer. "Check out our shop" is not a reason to click. "Bracelets from $5 — shipped tomorrow" is.
- Ad fatigue. If CTR was fine and slowly sank, the same people have seen your ad too many times. Refresh the creative or the audience.
Calculate your CTR in seconds
Paste your spend, impressions and clicks into our free calculator and get CTR, CPC, CPM and ROAS — with a plain-English verdict on your campaign.
Open the ad metrics calculator