Click-through rate calculator
Click-through rate is the clearest signal of whether your creative and your audience match. Everything else in an ad account is downstream of it.
The number that diagnoses the top of the funnel
CTR is clicks divided by impressions. A low rate almost always means one of two things: the creative is not compelling, or it is reaching people who were never going to be interested. Those have different fixes, which is why CTR is a diagnostic rather than a score — it tells you something is wrong at the top of the funnel before you waste budget finding out from your conversion numbers.
Benchmarks vary hugely by format. Display advertising often runs well under one percent and that is normal. Search ads on high-intent keywords can run several percent because the person actively asked for what you sell. Email and social sit in between. Comparing your display CTR against a search benchmark will make a perfectly healthy campaign look broken.
Be a little wary of chasing CTR alone. Clickbait creative raises it and lowers conversion rate at the same time, producing more traffic that costs more and buys less. The pairing to watch is CTR alongside conversion rate.
Questions
What is a good CTR?
It depends on the format. Display commonly sits below one percent, search on strong keywords can reach several percent. Compare against your own history and against the same format, not a generic benchmark.
My CTR is high but sales are flat. Why?
Usually a mismatch between the promise in the ad and what the page delivers. Check conversion rate alongside CTR — misleading creative raises one and sinks the other.
Does CTR affect what I pay?
On most auction platforms, yes. Higher engagement generally improves your quality signals, which can lower costs for the same placement.