Click-Through Rate
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on a link, ad, or search result after seeing it, calculated by dividing clicks by impressions and multiplying by 100.
Click-through rate is one of the most fundamental metrics in digital marketing. It measures the effectiveness of anything that can be clicked, search results, email links, display ads, social media posts, CTAs, and more. A high CTR means your content is compelling and relevant; a low CTR means something isn't resonating.
Email CTR averages 2-5% across industries. Google Ads search average is 3-5%, while display ads average 0.5-1%. Social media organic CTR typically ranges from 1-3%.
In practice
- A B2B company rewrote their Google Ads headlines from feature-focused to benefit-focused and increased CTR from 2.8% to 5.1%, reducing their cost per lead by 35%
- A blog tested 5 different title tag formats for their top-performing posts and found that 'How to' titles had 25% higher CTR than 'Complete Guide' titles
- An e-commerce brand added star ratings to their Google Shopping ads using structured data, increasing CTR by 17% compared to competitors without ratings
- A newsletter improved their email CTR from 1.8% to 4.2% by replacing generic 'Learn More' buttons with specific CTAs like 'See the 5 Strategies'
Not sure how this applies to you?
A senior engineer walks your site, your search presence and the way enquiries reach you, then writes down the three things worth fixing first. You keep the document either way.