CTR calculator
CTR
1.50%
Share of impressions that became a link click.
- CPC
- $0.42
- CPM
- $6.25
CTR formula: how to calculate CTR
CTR = link clicks ÷ impressions × 100
An impression is one time your ad was shown on a screen. A link click is someone tapping through to your website, shop or form. CTR is the share of impressions that turned into that click, written as a percentage.
If you also enter ad spend, the calculator adds:
- CPC = ad spend ÷ link clicks, what each click cost.
- CPM = ad spend ÷ impressions × 1,000, what 1,000 impressions cost.
The three are linked: CPC = CPM ÷ (CTR × 10). At the same CPM, an ad with twice the CTR pays half as much per click. That is why CTR is the number a better creative moves most directly, and why it shows up in every other cost metric.
A worked example
A gym runs a lead ad for a free first class. After a week, Ads Manager shows 80,000 impressions, 1,200 link clicks and $500 spent.
| Calculation | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| CTR | 1,200 ÷ 80,000 × 100 | 1.50% |
| CPC | 500 ÷ 1,200 | $0.42 |
| CPM | 500 ÷ 80,000 × 1,000 | $6.25 |
The gym tests a second video that opens on a member's before-and-after instead of the logo. At the same CPM of $6.25, the new video gets 1,800 clicks from 80,000 impressions: a 2.25% CTR. Cost per click drops from $0.42 to $0.28 without touching the budget. The ad creative grader scores an image before you spend on it, and the hook generator writes opening lines to test.
What is a good CTR?
There is no single good CTR. It depends on the industry, the objective, the placement and the season. The table next to the calculator shows what published Facebook benchmarks report for 10 industries, with a range where two or more sources report the number and a single labeled value where only one does.
Most industries in those sources report average link CTRs between about 1.6% and 2.7%. Restaurants reach 3.67% at the high end; dentists report 1.55% in the one source that covers them. Treat these as a sanity check, not a target: an audience you have advertised to for months behaves differently from a cold one.
The better comparison is your own history. Compare this week's CTR with the last few weeks for the same audience and objective. A steady fall usually means the audience has seen the ad too often, and a new creative is due.
How to read your result
- CTR below 1% on a traffic or sales objective usually means the creative is not stopping the scroll, or the audience is wrong. Fix the first second of the ad before you change the budget.
- CTR in line with the table means the ad earns attention normally. Look next at cost per click with the CPC calculator and at what happens after the click.
- CTR well above the table is good news only if the clicks convert. Check cost per lead or sale with the CPA calculator before you scale.
What moves CTR
- The creative. The image or the first second of the video decides most clicks. Faces, the product in use and a clear result outperform logos and slogans.
- The offer. A concrete reason to click now, such as a first class, a price or a deadline, lifts CTR more than a better adjective.
- The audience. People who already know you click more. Retargeting audiences usually show higher CTRs than cold ones, so compare like with like.
- Placement. Feeds, Stories and Reels behave differently. Read CTR by placement in Ads Manager before deciding an ad is weak.
- Frequency. The more often the same person sees an ad, the less likely they are to click it again. Rising frequency with falling CTR is the classic sign of creative fatigue.
Limits
CTR measures attention, not money. A clickbait ad can win on CTR and lose on cost per sale, so judge it together with conversions. Meta's link CTR also counts clicks that bounce before the page loads, and published benchmarks mix objectives, countries and placements. That is why the table shows reported values with their sources rather than one average CTR.