CTR (click-through rate)

Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions: of all the times something was shown, the share of times someone clicked. It measures whether a creative earns the action it asks for.

CTR is the native language of ads (every ad platform reports it) but applies to anything with a link: a bio link, a story sticker, a post's card. The same creative can have a healthy CTR at low impressions and a collapsing one at scale, because broader distribution reaches less interested people.

Benchmarks vary enormously by placement and industry, and pasting a global average into your report mostly imports noise. The comparison that means something is between your own creatives, same placement, same audience, same period.

A high CTR with poor results downstream (bounces, no signups) usually means the creative over-promises. The click is a question; the landing page is the answer, and they are graded together.

Related terms: Impressions · CPM (cost per mille)