How to Calculate Click Through Rate (CTR): Formula and Examples

CTR shows up almost everywhere in digital marketing, from Google Ads dashboards to Google Search Console reports to email platform analytics. The formula never changes, but what counts as a "good" CTR shifts a lot depending on the channel, the industry, and even the exact position a result appears in. Below is the full formula, several worked examples, the factors that move CTR up or down, and the mistakes that trip people up when they calculate it by hand.

The click through rate formula

CTR compares two numbers you already have in almost any ad platform, search console, or email tool: how many times something was shown, and how many times someone clicked it.

"Impressions" means the number of times the ad, link, listing, or email subject line was displayed to someone. "Clicks" means how many of those displays resulted in an actual click. Dividing clicks by impressions gives you a decimal, and multiplying by 100 converts that decimal into a percentage, which is the standard way CTR is reported across every major platform.

Worked examples

Seeing the formula applied a few times makes it easy to reuse on your own numbers.

1. Basic example. 250 clicks on 10,000 impressions: 250 / 10,000 = 0.025, then 0.025 x 100 = 2.5% CTR.
2. Small campaign. 18 clicks on 900 impressions: 18 / 900 = 0.02, then 0.02 x 100 = 2% CTR.
3. Large-scale example. 4,800 clicks on 320,000 impressions: 4,800 / 320,000 = 0.015, then 0.015 x 100 = 1.5% CTR.
4. Very low volume. 3 clicks on 40 impressions: 3 / 40 = 0.075, then 0.075 x 100 = 7.5% CTR. Note how few impressions can swing the percentage wildly, which matters when you interpret small samples.

If you would rather skip the arithmetic entirely, plug your own clicks and impressions into the tool below.

Where CTR is used

CTR is a channel-agnostic metric, which is part of why it is so widely reported. The same formula applies in several very different contexts:

• Paid search and PPC (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads). CTR measures how often an ad gets clicked relative to how often it is shown, and it directly feeds into Quality Score and ad rank calculations.
• Organic SEO. Google Search Console reports impressions and clicks for every query and page, so you can calculate CTR for organic listings. CTR here tends to drop sharply the further down the results page a listing ranks, since fewer people scroll or click past the top results.
• Email marketing. CTR (sometimes called click-to-open rate when measured against opens instead of sends) shows what share of recipients clicked a link inside the email, which is a stronger signal of interest than opens alone.
• Social and display ads. Banner ads, social feed ads, and retargeting campaigns all report CTR as a core performance metric, though the typical range looks very different from search ads.

What counts as a "good" CTR

There is no single universal "good" CTR. It varies enormously by channel, industry, ad format, keyword competitiveness, and position on the page, so treat any number you see quoted online as a general, widely varying reference point rather than a target to hit exactly. That said, a few broad patterns hold up across most reporting:

• Paid search ads generally see meaningfully higher CTRs than display ads, often landing somewhere in the low-to-mid single-digit percentages, though this swings a lot by industry and keyword intent.
• Display and banner ads typically see CTRs well under 1%, since they interrupt content rather than respond to an active search.
• Organic search CTR is heavily tied to ranking position. A listing in position 1 typically earns a dramatically higher CTR than the same query ranking in position 10, and CTR usually falls off further once a result drops to page two.
• Email CTR depends heavily on list quality, subject line relevance, and how many links are in the email, so benchmarks vary widely between industries and list sizes.

Because ranges vary this much, the most useful comparison is usually your own historical CTR for the same channel and page, not an outside benchmark. If your organic CTR for a query drops from 6% to 3% month over month with no ranking change, that is a more actionable signal than comparing yourself to an industry-wide figure. For a related metric that measures what happens after the click, see our guide on how to calculate conversion rate.

What moves CTR up or down

A handful of factors consistently influence CTR across channels:

• Position and placement. Higher positions on a search results page or higher in an ad rotation get seen first and clicked more.
• Relevance to the searcher's or reader's intent. A headline or title tag that closely matches what someone is looking for earns more clicks than a vague one.
• Title and description quality. In search and ads, the visible title, meta description, or ad copy is often the only thing standing between an impression and a click. Small wording changes can move CTR noticeably.
• Rich elements. Star ratings, sitelinks, images, or extensions can make a listing stand out and pull CTR higher, even without a ranking change.
• Branding and trust. Well-known brands often see higher CTR than unfamiliar ones at the same position, simply because people recognize and trust the name.
• Device and context. Mobile and desktop CTR patterns differ, since mobile screens show fewer results at once and layouts vary.

Common mistakes when calculating CTR

• Dividing impressions by clicks instead of clicks by impressions. This inverts the ratio and produces a nonsensical result. Clicks always go on top.
• Forgetting to multiply by 100. Clicks / impressions gives a decimal like 0.025, not a percentage. Multiply by 100 to get 2.5%.
• Drawing conclusions from tiny sample sizes. 3 clicks on 40 impressions is technically 7.5% CTR, but that number can swing wildly with just one more or one fewer click. Wait for a reasonable volume of impressions before trusting the percentage.
• Mixing up CTR with click-to-open rate in email. Standard CTR uses total sends (or impressions) as the denominator; click-to-open rate uses opens instead. They answer different questions and are not interchangeable.
• Comparing CTR across very different positions or formats without context. A position 1 organic listing and a position 8 listing are not on a level playing field, so comparing their raw CTR without accounting for position can be misleading.

Good to know: CTR is a rate, not a full picture

A high CTR tells you a title, ad, or subject line is compelling enough to earn a click, but it does not tell you what happens afterward. A page can pull in strong clicks and still convert poorly if the landing experience does not match what was promised. That is why CTR is almost always read alongside a downstream metric like conversion rate or engagement rate rather than in isolation. If you are tracking where those clicks came from across campaigns, tagging links with UTM parameters makes it much easier to attribute CTR and conversions back to the right source.

It is also worth remembering that impressions and clicks are counted slightly differently across platforms. Google Ads, Search Console, and email tools each have their own rules for what qualifies as an impression (for example, whether a result has to be visible on screen or just present in the returned results), so CTR figures are best compared within the same platform rather than across different ones.

Once you have your clicks and impressions, calculating CTR takes seconds: divide clicks by impressions and multiply by 100. The harder part is interpreting the result correctly, which means comparing it against your own history, accounting for position and format, and pairing it with what happens after the click rather than treating CTR as the whole story.