Free tool
CTR Calculator
Work out what share of your impressions actually clicked. 420 clicks from 30,000 impressions is a 1.4% click-through rate. Fill any two of clicks, impressions and CTR to get the third.
Last updated: 2026-08-06
Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions, expressed as a percent: 420 clicks from 30,000 impressions is 1.4%. It is the only number in an ad account that is purely about whether people wanted what they saw, because it has no money in it at all. Spend can be raised and audiences can be swapped, but the ratio only moves when the thing on screen becomes more worth tapping.
That makes CTR the cleanest read on creative you have. Two ads shown to the same audience at the same cost per thousand differ in exactly one respect, and the one with the higher click-through rate earned more attention from identical delivery. It is also why CTR is the first number to check after a creative refresh: it moves within days, long before conversions have accumulated enough volume to say anything reliable.
The calculator links the three figures both ways. Clicks and impressions give the rate of a campaign that already ran. A rate and an impression count project the clicks a plan produces. A rate and a click target tell you how many impressions that target needs, which is the version most people actually need when they are sizing a campaign. Fill any two boxes and the third fills itself in.
Read the number against the right comparison, though. All-industry blends put Meta near 1.4%, TikTok near 0.9%, and LinkedIn and Pinterest near 0.6%, while Google sits near 4.0% because that figure blends search intent with display. Comparing a feed ad to a search ad on click-through rate is comparing an interruption to an answer, and the interruption will lose every time without being worse.
Fill any two fields, the third one calculates
Click-through rate. Edit whichever box you want to solve for and the calculation moves to the field you touched longest ago.
CTR = clicks / impressions x 100
Enter any two of clicks, impressions and CTR to see the third.
Every benchmark and worked example this page uses is printed below, so the numbers are readable without entering anything.
Everything here runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere and there is no email step: the platform benchmark table and the worked example below are free to read without entering anything at all.
The formula, worked three ways
One relation, solved for each of the three fields in turn. These are the same three solves the calculator above runs, printed here on real numbers so the page works with JavaScript switched off.
- 1What share of impressions clicked?
CTR = clicks / impressions x 100
420 / 30,000 x 100 = 1.4%
The multiplication by a hundred is only there to turn the ratio into a percent. The underlying number is 0.014 clicks per impression.
- 2How many clicks will a plan produce?
clicks = impressions x CTR / 100
200,000 x 1.4% = 2,800 clicks
Use the rate from the same placement you are planning to buy, because feed, search and display rates are not interchangeable.
- 3How many impressions does a click target need?
impressions = clicks x 100 / CTR
2,800 x 100 / 1.4% = 200,000 impressions
This is the version that sizes a campaign, and the one that shows how brutal a low rate is: halving the rate doubles the impressions the same traffic needs.
Click-through rate on each platform
All-industry blended estimates. The Google row is a search and display blend rather than pure search, which is why it sits so far above the feed platforms without describing a single real search account.
| Platform | Benchmark CTR | Clicks from 200,000 impressions | Impressions per 1,000 clicks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta (Facebook and Instagram) | 1.4% | 2,800 | 71,429 |
| Google Ads | 4% | 8,000 | 25,000 |
| TikTok Ads | 0.9% | 1,800 | 111,111 |
| LinkedIn Ads | 0.6% | 1,200 | 166,667 |
| Pinterest Ads | 0.6% | 1,200 | 166,667 |
Benchmarks are estimates blended from public advertising benchmark roundups and platform-published averages, last reviewed 2026-08-03. They are all-industry blends, so your vertical, offer and creative can move every number here. Use them as a planning starting point, not a forecast.
Where these numbers come from
Benchmarks are estimates blended from public advertising benchmark roundups and platform-published averages, last reviewed 2026-08-03. They are all-industry blends, so your vertical, offer and creative can move every number here. Use them as a planning starting point, not a forecast.
The CTR you calculate above is arithmetic on your own numbers and never touches that table: the benchmarks are only there so you have something to compare against. Nothing on this page is measured from your ad account or from any private dataset, and the derived figures are labelled as derived wherever they appear, because a number chained out of three estimates carries the error of all three.
How to use a click-through rate
- Compare click-through rate within one placement and one format. Feed, Stories, search and display are different acts of attention, so a 1% feed rate and a 4% search rate are not evidence about your creative.
- Use CTR as your fastest creative signal. It stabilises in days where cost per customer takes weeks, so it is the right number for deciding which of three new hooks survives the first week of testing.
- Watch it fall as frequency climbs. A rate sliding while the same audience sees the same ad more often is fatigue, and no amount of bidding fixes an audience that has already decided.
- Never optimise for click-through rate on its own. Clickbait raises it reliably and raises the bounce rate with it, and a campaign can post a record rate in the same month its cost per customer doubles.
- Check that the promise in the ad matches the page it lands on. A mismatch shows up as a strong rate followed by a collapse in conversion rate, which is the most expensive way to be good at getting clicks.
- Segment before you conclude anything. A blended account rate hides everything: one strong ad set and three weak ones can average out to a perfectly ordinary number that describes none of them.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate CTR?
CTR = clicks / impressions x 100. Divide clicks by impressions and multiply by a hundred to express it as a percent: 420 clicks from 30,000 impressions is a 1.4% click-through rate. Backwards it is a planning tool, since clicks = impressions x CTR / 100, so 200,000 impressions at 1.4% projects 2,800 clicks.
What is a good CTR?
It depends far more on where the ad runs than on how good it is. All-industry blended estimates put Meta near 1.4%, TikTok near 0.9%, and LinkedIn and Pinterest near 0.6%. Google sits near 4.0%, but that number blends search and display: search alone runs well above it because the person typed the query, and display alone runs under 0.5%. The useful comparison is your own rate last month on the same placement.
Why is my CTR high but my conversions low?
Because the ad is promising something the page does not deliver. A high rate with weak conversion is the signature of a mismatch: a curiosity hook, an offer that is only explained in the ad, or a landing page that answers a different question. It can also be simple friction, since a slow page loses a share of the people who clicked before they ever see it.
Does CTR affect what I pay?
Directly and twice. On a fixed cost per thousand impressions, every extra click is a discount on the cost of a visit, so doubling the rate halves the cost per click without touching the bid. Beyond that, the auction rewards ads people respond to, so a strong rate tends to buy cheaper delivery as well. That is why creative is the biggest cost lever in most accounts.
What is the difference between CTR and conversion rate?
Click-through rate measures the ad: how many of the people who saw it tapped. Conversion rate measures the page: how many of the people who arrived did the thing you wanted. They sit either side of the click and they fail for completely different reasons, which is why the pair together diagnoses an account that neither one does alone.
Is this calculator free, and is anything stored?
It is free, needs no account and runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, there is no email step, and the benchmark table below is server rendered so the numbers are all readable before any JavaScript runs.
See the real number instead of the estimate
Postify Ads runs campaigns across Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and Pinterest from one place, with spend, clicks and conversions from all five in a single view. This calculator prices the plan; that is where the account reports back.
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