You've got impressions. You've got clicks. Now you need to know if those numbers actually mean anything.

This click through rate calculator does the math instantly—but more importantly, the content below helps you understand whether your CTR is something to celebrate or a sign you need to rethink your approach. Because a percentage without context is just a number.

Whether you're obsessing over a Google Ads campaign, analyzing your latest email blast, or trying to figure out why your Facebook ads aren't getting traction, your CTR tells you something important: are people interested enough in what you're showing them to actually click?

CTR measures a simple thing: out of everyone who saw your ad, link, or email, what percentage clicked on it?

That's it. No complicated attribution models, no multi-touch analysis. Just: they saw it, did they click?

This makes CTR both incredibly useful and a little dangerous. Useful because it's immediate feedback on whether your message resonates. Dangerous because marketers sometimes chase high CTRs at the expense of everything else (more on that later).

Here's what CTR actually tells you:

• High CTR → Your headline, image, or offer grabbed attention
• Low CTR → Something's not connecting—wrong audience, weak copy, or you're just getting lost in the noise

What CTR doesn't tell you: whether those clicks turned into customers. A 5% CTR means nothing if none of those clickers buy anything.

Dead simple:

CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100

Let's run through one. Say your search ad got 450 clicks from 15,000 impressions:

450 ÷ 15,000 = 0.03 0.03 × 100 = 3.0% CTR

Three out of every hundred people who saw your ad clicked it. Whether that's good or bad depends entirely on where that ad ran—which brings us to the part most calculator pages skip over.

Enter your impressions — That's how many times your ad or content was displayed. Pull this from whatever platform you're using (Google Ads dashboard, email analytics, Facebook Ads Manager, etc.)

Enter your clicks — Total clicks on your ad or link. Make sure you're looking at the same time period as your impressions.

Read your result — You'll get a percentage. Then scroll down, because that number means nothing without the benchmarks below.

Ask most marketers "what's a good CTR?" and they'll say "it depends." Which is true but unhelpful.

So here's the actual data. These aren't aspirational targets—they're realistic ranges based on what campaigns actually achieve.

Notice the massive gap between Search and Display? That's not a typo. Search ads show up when someone's actively looking for something—they're already interested. Display ads interrupt people while they're reading articles or watching videos. Completely different psychology, completely different benchmarks.

Arts and Entertainment at nearly 12%? That's not because their marketers are geniuses—it's because people actively want entertainment content. Meanwhile, someone searching for "enterprise software solutions" is going to click more cautiously. Industry matters.

One thing I'd add: Don't get too hung up on hitting industry averages. Your real benchmark is your own past performance. If you were at 2% last month and you're at 2.8% this month, that's progress—even if your industry average is 5%.

The gold standard for CTR because intent is built in. Someone typed a query, they want an answer. If your ad matches what they're looking for, they click. Simple.

The flip side: competition is brutal for high-value keywords. You're not just fighting for clicks, you're fighting for attention against three other ads that look almost identical to yours.

What actually moves the needle: Including the exact search term in your headline. Sounds obvious, but tons of advertisers use generic headlines and wonder why their CTR lags.

Honestly? Most display CTRs are terrible by search standards. Don't let that discourage you.

Display is a different game—you're building awareness, staying visible, catching people at different stages of the buying journey. A 0.4% CTR on display can still drive meaningful results if your targeting is tight and your retargeting is set up properly.

What actually moves the needle: Better visuals. Seriously. Most display ads look like they were designed in 2010. Invest in creative that doesn't blend into the background.

Social is tricky because you're interrupting the scroll. People aren't searching for solutions—they're looking at photos of their friend's vacation.

Your ad has about 0.5 seconds to earn a pause. That means strong visuals, a hook in the first few words, and (this one's counterintuitive) sometimes being less polished. Overly corporate ads get scrolled past. Ads that look like content get engaged with.

What actually moves the needle: Video. Especially video that doesn't look like an ad in the first frame. And carousel ads—they consistently outperform single images because they invite interaction.

Email CTR has a unique quirk: it depends on what you're measuring against.

• CTR (standard): Clicks ÷ Delivered emails
• CTOR (Click-to-Open Rate): Clicks ÷ Opened emails

A 4% CTR sounds mediocre until you realize only 25% of people opened the email. That's actually a 16% CTOR, which is excellent.

What actually moves the needle: Having one clear call-to-action. Emails with multiple competing links usually see lower click rates than emails with one obvious button.

The lowest CTRs, the highest-value clicks. That's LinkedIn in a nutshell.

B2B buyers on LinkedIn are cautious. They're not clicking on anything that looks remotely like spam. But when they do click, they're often exactly the decision-maker you want.

What actually moves the needle: Thought leadership content that doesn't feel like an ad. LinkedIn users respond to insights, data, and perspectives—not hard sells.

On Google Ads, CTR directly impacts your Quality Score. Higher Quality Score = lower cost per click. I've seen accounts where improving CTR by 2 percentage points dropped their CPC by 30-40%.

Facebook's relevance score works similarly. The platform rewards ads that get engagement by showing them more often at lower costs.

So yes, CTR is a performance metric. But it's also a cost lever.

Low CTR is a symptom. The question is: of what?

• If CTR is low across all audiences → Your creative or copy probably needs work
• If CTR is low for specific audiences → Your targeting might be off
• If CTR dropped suddenly → Ad fatigue, or a competitor entered the auction
• If CTR is fine but conversions are terrible → Your ad is attracting the wrong clicks

CTR alone doesn't tell you what's broken, but it tells you something is.

You can absolutely game CTR in ways that hurt your business.

Write a clickbait headline? CTR goes up. Add "FREE" to everything? CTR goes up. Use a misleading image? CTR goes up.

And then those clickers land on your page, realize they were misled, and bounce immediately. You've paid for clicks that will never convert.

Chase CTR, but not at the expense of click quality. The goal is interested clicks, not just clicks.

Alright, your CTR's below benchmark and you want to improve it. Here's where I'd start:

Before you touch your creative, make sure you're showing ads to the right people. The best ad copy in the world won't get clicks from an audience that doesn't care about your offer.

Questions to ask:

• Is my audience too broad?
• Am I showing up for irrelevant search terms? (Check your search terms report)
• Am I targeting interests that don't actually correlate with buying intent?

Headlines do 80% of the work. Test headlines that:

• Include specific numbers ("Save 23% on..." not "Save money on...")
• Ask questions your audience is already asking themselves
• Call out the target audience explicitly ("For first-time homebuyers...")
• Create urgency without being spammy

If your ad says one thing and your landing page says another, people learn not to click your ads. Consistency builds trust, trust builds CTR over time.

Ad fatigue is real. The same audience seeing the same ad for weeks will eventually tune it out completely. I typically refresh creative every 2-3 weeks for social campaigns, longer for search (since you're reaching new searchers constantly).

Check what your ads look like on a phone. If your headline gets cut off, if your image is unclear at small sizes, if your call-to-action is hard to tap—you're losing mobile clicks, and mobile is probably half your traffic or more.

Comparing apples to oranges. 2% on search is different from 2% on display is different from 2% on email. Know your benchmarks.

Reacting to noise. CTR fluctuates day-to-day. Making changes based on one bad day is a recipe for chaos. Wait for statistical significance—at least 1,000-2,000 impressions before drawing conclusions.

Ignoring negative keywords. Every irrelevant search that triggers your ad inflates impressions without adding clicks. Your CTR suffers, and you're paying for worthless visibility. Audit your search terms weekly.

Setting and forgetting. The ad that crushed it six months ago is probably tired now. Competitors copied it, audiences saw it too many times, or market conditions changed. Continuous testing isn't optional.

A law firm runs Google Ads for "car accident attorney [city]"

• 12,500 impressions
• 625 clicks
• 5.0% CTR

That's right at industry average for legal—solid but not exceptional. They're doing the basics right. To push higher, they could test headlines emphasizing specific outcomes ("$1.2M recovered for clients") rather than generic claims.

An e-commerce brand runs remarketing display ads to cart abandoners

• 85,000 impressions
• 340 clicks
• 0.4% CTR

Totally normal for display. The question isn't whether that CTR is good—it's whether those 340 clickers convert. For remarketing to warm audiences, this is expected.

A B2B software company sends a product announcement to their subscriber list

• 6,200 delivered
• 310 clicks
• 5.0% CTR

Well above the 2.3% average. This email earned engagement—worth analyzing the subject line, preview text, and content structure to replicate in future sends.

A DTC brand runs Facebook ads for a new product launch

• 45,000 impressions
• 225 clicks
• 0.5% CTR

Below Facebook's 0.9% average. This needs attention. First questions: Is the visual stopping the scroll? Does the hook speak to a real pain point? Is the audience too broad?

This calculator uses the universal CTR formula (Clicks ÷ Impressions × 100) recognized across all major advertising platforms.

Industry benchmarks are compiled from published reports by WordStream, Mailchimp, HubSpot, and platform-specific data. Benchmarks shift over time; the figures provided represent recent industry averages.

Different platforms may calculate impressions slightly differently (viewable impressions vs. served impressions). For most accurate comparisons, use data from within the same platform.

This calculator provides general marketing metrics guidance. For specific campaign optimization, consider consulting with a digital marketing professional who can analyze your full campaign data in context.