Click-through rate (CTR)

Your search ads report a 4% click-through rate. Search Console says 1.2% for your pages. Your email tool says 3.1%, or 19%, depending on which column you read. All of them divide clicks by something. What they divide by is the difference.

CTR tells you whether the ad, the search result or the email earned a click. It doesn't tell you whether the click was worth anything; Conversion Rate does that, and Cost Per Click (CPC) tells you what the click cost. In Google Ads, expected CTR is one of the three parts of Quality Score.

Formula: CTR = clicks ÷ impressions × 100

One formula, four ways to count

So a 3.1% email CTR and a 19% click-to-open rate can describe the same send: 310 people clicked, out of 10,000 delivered and 1,630 opened. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection loads emails automatically and counts as opens, which makes click-to-open the less reliable of the two.

Averaging CTR is the quiet mistake

An ad shown 1,000 times with 80 clicks has an 8% CTR. Another shown 50,000 times with 500 clicks has 1%. The average of the two is 4.5%. Their combined CTR is 580 ÷ 51,000 = 1.1%. Add up the clicks, add up the impressions, then divide.

Paste an export into Claude or ChatGPT and ask for CTR, and the division will almost certainly be right. Two things are less certain. Did it average a column of row-level CTRs instead of dividing totals? And did it use the column you meant? A Meta export has both CTR (all) and link CTR; an email export may have click-to-open next to click rate.

A two-minute check

1. "Which columns did you use as clicks, and as impressions or deliveries?"
2. "Did you divide total clicks by total impressions, or average CTRs across rows?"
3. "Are different campaign types mixed together, such as Search with Display?"

The monthly channel report in Claude for marketing applies the same rules to spend, conversions and ROAS across Google Ads, GA4, Meta and LinkedIn, and shows what Count's audit still catches in it.

A good CTR is a higher one than you had, for the same kind of placement. Comparing across placements tells you little: a brand search ad, a Display banner and a cold Meta ad sit in different ranges entirely, and so do an onboarding email and a newsletter.

We don't publish average CTR by industry. Those tables mix placements, match types, ad positions and definitions of a click, so they can't say whether your 2% is good.

Three comparisons that do mean something:

• The same campaign over time, with the same targeting.
• Ads in the same ad group, where only the copy differs. This is what CTR is best at judging.
• Search Console CTR at the same position. Group queries by average position and compare pages that rank alike. A page with half its neighbours' CTR at position 3 has a title or snippet problem.

For email, compare sends to the same list with similar content. Email Click-Through Rate goes into more detail.

The placement changed. More budget into Display, Performance Max or broad match brings impressions from people who weren't looking, and CTR falls even if nothing got worse.

You started ranking for more terms. In Search Console, new impressions low on the page pull average CTR down. Check CTR by query, not for the whole site.

The ad is tired. Frequency rising while CTR falls on the same audience means people have seen it too often.

The results page changed. An AI Overview, more ads above you, or a competitor with review stars can take clicks without your position moving.

The email went to colder people. A larger, less engaged segment lowers CTR. So does a send that landed in promotions or spam.

A low CTR with a high Conversion Rate can be fine: the people who click are the right ones.

Match the ad to the search. Ad groups built around tight themes let the headline repeat what the person typed.

Test one change at a time in the same ad group, and judge it on clicks and impressions summed over the test, not on daily averages.

Rewrite titles and descriptions for pages that rank but don't get clicked. In Search Console, sort by impressions and look for low CTR in positions 1 to 5.

Use what the platform gives you: sitelinks and other assets in Google Ads, structured data in search results.

For email, write the subject for the click, not the open, and put one clear link near the top. Email Click-Through Rate has more.

Then watch Cost Per Click (CPC) and conversion rate. Clickbait raises CTR and wastes the clicks.