What is a good clickthrough rate?
It depends entirely on the surface and the intent. A branded search ad and a cold display placement are not the same measurement, and published averages mix them together. Compare against your own history instead.
CTR Calculator
Clickthrough rate from clicks and impressions, or the impressions a click target needs. Fill in two of the three.
Fill in any two of impressions, clicks and rate. The third is worked out, so the same page answers what happened and what it would take.
Everything here is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and there is no account to make.
%
Leave this blank to work it out from the other two.
Optional. Works out the impressions that many clicks would need at this rate.
Result
The numbers below are an example so the tool opens working. Replace them with yours.
How the number is worked out
- Clickthrough rate is a ratio, so it says nothing about volume. A 9% rate on 400 impressions and a 2% rate on 400,000 are not comparable, and only one of them is a business.
- The rate falls as an audience widens, and that is normal rather than a fault. The people most likely to click are reached first.
What comes out
You will see
- Clickthrough rate as a percentage
- Whichever of the three you left blank, worked out from the other two
- Impressions per click, which is the same fact told as a count
- The impressions a click target would need at this rate
- A warning when all three values are entered and they do not agree
How to use it
Three steps, and the third one is the point
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Enter what the report gave you
Impressions and clicks, from an ad platform, Search Console or an email tool. Keep both from the same window.
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Leave the rate blank
Or enter a rate and leave clicks blank, if the question is what a rate would produce rather than what it was.
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Add a click target if you have one
The tool then says how many impressions that many clicks would need, which is usually a bigger number than people expect.
What a clickthrough rate is
Clickthrough rate is clicks divided by impressions, as a percentage. It is the share of the people who saw something who then acted on it.
It is a ratio, which means it says nothing about size. A 9% rate on 400 impressions is 36 clicks. A 2% rate on 400,000 is 8,000. The first number looks far better and the second one is the business.
That is why the result here shows the rate, the clicks and the impressions together rather than the rate alone. A rate without its denominator is a number you cannot act on.
The rate falls as the audience widens, and that is normal
The people most likely to click are reached first. Widen the targeting and the later impressions land on people with less interest, so the rate drops even though nothing about the ad changed.
This catches teams out in two directions. A falling rate on a scaling campaign is often the cost of scale rather than a creative problem, and a rising rate on a shrinking one is often just a smaller, warmer audience.
The click target field is here for the same reason. Enter the clicks you need and the impressions required usually make the plan look different.
The tool
What this one does
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Solves in three directions
Leave impressions, clicks or the rate blank and the tool works out that one.
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Keeps the denominator on screen
The rate never appears on its own. Clicks and impressions sit under it, because a ratio without its size is not a result.
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Gives impressions per click
The same fact as a count. Some conversations go better with "one in thirty three" than with "three percent".
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Works backwards from a click target
Enter the clicks you want and see the impressions needed at the current rate.
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Checks three entered values
If all three are filled and they disagree by more than one percent, the tool says so rather than choosing for you.
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Works for any impression surface
Ads, organic search results, email sends. The arithmetic does not care which one, as long as both numbers come from the same place.
Reading the result
What each line is telling you
- Clickthrough rate
- The share who acted. Only comparable against another rate measured the same way, over the same kind of audience.
- Impressions per click
- How many people have to see it for one to act. Often the more useful version in a conversation about creative.
- Impressions needed
- What a click target costs in reach at this rate. It assumes the rate holds as the audience grows, and it usually will not.
A free tool answers one question.
A search audit answers the rest.
We look at your search visibility across Google and the answer engines, and tell you what is costing you orders. No charge for the first look.
In practice
What you can do with it
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Compare two ads fairly
Run both and look at the rate next to the impressions. A better rate on a tenth of the reach has not proved much yet.
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Check whether a plan is possible
Enter the clicks the plan needs and see the impressions required. Some plans stop here.
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Read a Search Console line
Impressions and clicks for a query give you the rate for that position. Compare it against the same query next month rather than against a published average.
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Set an expectation before launch
Enter the rate you expect and the impressions you can afford, and see the clicks. Doing this after launch is how a campaign gets judged against a hope.
Questions
CTR Calculator questions
Why did my rate fall when the campaign scaled?
Because the people most likely to click were reached first. Later impressions land on people with less interest, so the rate drops without anything about the ad changing. Check the total clicks before treating it as a problem.
Does clickthrough rate affect what I pay?
On Google Ads, expected clickthrough rate is one of the three quality components that feed Ad Rank, so it affects both position and price. It is an input, not a score you optimise directly.
Should I use this for email?
The arithmetic works, but be careful what you divide by. Email tools report clickthrough against sends and against opens, and open counts have been unreliable since privacy protections started prefetching them.
Impressions or eligible impressions?
Whichever the report gives you, used consistently. Mixing an impression count from one definition with clicks from another produces a rate that describes nothing.
Is my data sent anywhere?
No. The calculation runs in your browser, with no account and nothing uploaded.
The rest of the set
Fifteen more, all free, all in the browser
- CPM Calculator Work out what a thousand impressions costs, or what a budget buys at a given CPM.
- Conversion Rate Calculator Conversion rate from visitors and conversions, with revenue per visitor beside it.
- ROAS Calculator Return on ad spend, the ACoS behind it, and whether your margin leaves any profit.
- CPC Calculator What one click costs, and what it costs by the time it becomes an order.
- CPA Calculator Cost per acquisition from media spend, and the ceiling your margin allows.
- CAC Calculator What winning a customer really costs, including the parts a platform cannot see.
- ARR Calculator Annual recurring revenue, with the net new figure that shows the direction.
- AOV Calculator Average order value, and what a target is worth against the same order count.
- Cost Per Lead Calculator What an enquiry costs, and what it costs once the unqualified half is priced in.
- llms.txt Generator Build an llms.txt file that tells AI crawlers which pages on your store matter.
- LTV Calculator Work out what a customer is worth over time, so you know what you can pay to win one.
- Schema Markup Generator Generate the JSON-LD a product, article or FAQ page needs, ready to paste.
- Break-even ROAS Find the return on ad spend where a campaign stops costing you money.
- CRO ROI Calculator See what a conversion rate change is worth against the traffic you already have.
- Hreflang Generator Produce the hreflang tags a multi-country store needs, without the usual mistakes.
Click-through rate is the one number you and the auction are both watching. Google builds an expected version of it into Ad Rank, so a weak rate raises what you pay for the same position instead of simply costing you clicks.
Where this comes up