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Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Definition
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click a link, ad, email, or search result out of everyone who saw it, calculated as clicks divided by impressions multiplied by 100.
Why it matters
CTR is the fastest signal of whether your message earns attention. In paid search, a higher CTR lowers your cost per click and raises Quality Score. In organic search, CTR reflects how compelling your title and meta description are against competitors on the same SERP. In email, it separates opens from genuine interest. Because it isolates the “did the promise land?” question from everything downstream, CTR is where most B2B teams start when diagnosing a funnel that generates impressions but not pipeline.
How it works
The formula is simple: CTR = (clicks ÷ impressions) × 100. An ad shown 10,000 times that earns 250 clicks has a 2.5% CTR.
Benchmarks vary by channel and intent:
| Channel | Typical B2B CTR |
|---|---|
| Google Search ads | 2–5% |
| Google Display ads | 0.4–0.9% |
| Organic search (position 1) | 25–35% |
| B2B email | 2–4% |
| LinkedIn ads | 0.4–0.8% |
To lift CTR, sharpen the headline against searcher intent, add specificity and numbers, match ad copy to the query, and use structured data or rich snippets to stand out. Watch CTR alongside conversion rate — a high CTR with low conversion usually means the click promise and the landing page disagree. For an audit of where clicks leak in your funnel, see our free audit.
Related terms
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Reading the metric
What CTR does and does not tell you.
Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions. It is useful as a comparison between things competing for the same attention, and misleading the moment you compare across positions, devices or result types.
Position dominates
A result in the first position earns a far higher rate than one in the fifth. Comparing pages at different positions measures position, not persuasion.
Intent changes the baseline
Informational queries answered inside the results page produce low rates by nature — the user got what they needed without clicking.
Snippet is the lever
Title and description are the part you control. Specificity — numbers, scope, conditions — usually outperforms adjectives.
Beware averages
A single branded query with a high rate can hide a whole section performing badly. Segment before drawing conclusions.
Use it as a diagnostic: high impressions with a low rate points at the snippet or at a mismatch between the query and the page. Related terms: impressions, average position, snippet, conversion rate.
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