Click-through rate (CTR) is a key performance metric that measures the percentage of users who click on a link, advertisement, or search result after seeing it. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions and multiplying by 100.
A high click-through rate generally indicates that an ad or organic listing is relevant and engaging to users. CTR is commonly used to assess the effectiveness of digital advertising, email marketing, and organic search performance.
CTR data is available in various analytics and advertising platforms, including:
Regularly reviewing CTR in these tools helps identify opportunities for optimisation and campaign improvements.
What counts as a good CTR depends on the platform and context. Paid search often sees strong performance at 3-5%, while display ads typically range from 0.5-1%. In email marketing, average CTRs fall between 2-5%, depending on the industry. For organic search, CTR is heavily influenced by ranking, where top results generally receive far more clicks. Branded queries also tend to have higher CTRs than non-branded ones.