What is CTR?
Click-through rate
CTR is the percentage of people who click your ad after seeing it — clicks divided by impressions.
Formula
CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100
Meta feed ads commonly run 0.8–1.8%, and anything above 2% is strong. Google Search is much higher — 3–5% is normal, and a top position on a branded term can exceed 10% — because the searcher explicitly asked for what you sell.
CTR is one of the few metrics that improves cost and volume at the same time. Google folds expected click-through rate into Quality Score, so a better rate directly lowers your cost per click. Meta's auction similarly rewards ads people engage with by delivering them more cheaply.
A high CTR with few conversions is its own diagnosis: the ad is promising something the destination doesn't deliver, or it's attracting curiosity rather than intent. Judge CTR against your own history rather than an industry average, since it's driven as much by how narrowly you target as by how good the ad is.