What is Click-Through Rate (CTR)?

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who clicked on an ad after seeing it.

For example, if 10,000 people see an ad and 500 click on it, the CTR is 5%. It tells you how effective your ad is at generating interest or engagement.

CTR is a core performance metric for any paid acquisition campaign across platforms like Meta, Google, TikTok, or programmatic channels.

How does it work?

The formula is simple:

CTR = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100

You can track CTR across:

• Ads

• Creatives

• Channels

• Audiences

• Platforms (iOS vs Android)

It’s often used at the top of the funnel to measure how compelling your messaging and creative are. A low CTR usually signals that your ad is not catching attention, or that there’s a mismatch between the audience and the offer.

Benchmarks vary widely by platform and vertical, but most UA teams monitor CTR closely to identify winning (or underperforming) ads quickly.

Why it matters

CTR is one of the first signals of campaign effectiveness. It affects:

• Cost efficiency (high CTR can lower CPMs in auction-based systems)

• Traffic quality (a high CTR with low conversion may indicate misaligned messaging)

• Creative testing (comparing CTR helps optimize ad variations)

While CTR alone doesn’t guarantee results, it’s a fast feedback loop that helps UA teams iterate, allocate spend, and test messaging.

In short: if nobody’s clicking, nothing else happens.