CTR Calculator
Work out your click-through rate. Enter ad impressions and clicks to get CTR as a percentage, clicks per 1,000 impressions, and the impressions you'd need for your next 1,000 clicks.
Example: with Impressions 10000 · Clicks 250 → Click-through rate: 2.50%.
- Per 1,000 impressions25 clicks per 1,000 impressions
- Reach for 1,000 clicks40,000 impressions for 1,000 clicks at this CTR
Computed by the calculator below using its default values. Change any input to see your own numbers.
CTR = clicks ÷ impressions × 100. A CTR over 100% usually means clicks are being counted against the wrong impression total.
What CTR actually measures
Click-through rate is the share of people who saw your ad, listing, or email link and clicked it. It answers one question only: did the creative and the placement earn the click? What happens after the click — signups, sales — is the conversion rate's job, not CTR's.
Because it is a simple ratio, CTR is most useful as a comparison tool: this headline versus that one, this keyword versus that one, this week versus last. A rising CTR at constant impressions means the message is landing better; a falling one often means ad fatigue or a relevance drop.
Reading your number honestly
CTR varies enormously by channel and position. Search ads shown to someone actively looking typically click at several times the rate of display banners, and the first organic result far outclicks the tenth. Comparing your display CTR to a search benchmark tells you nothing.
Sample size matters too. Three clicks on 150 impressions is a 2% CTR, but the next 150 impressions could easily produce zero. Judge CTR on hundreds of clicks, not handfuls, before declaring a winner.
How it’s calculated
CTR = clicks ÷ impressions × 100, shown to two decimals. Clicks per 1,000 impressions = clicks ÷ impressions × 1,000. Impressions needed for 1,000 clicks = 1,000 × impressions ÷ clicks, which assumes your current CTR holds at larger scale.
Assumes every click is counted against the same impression pool; platforms that dedupe clicks or count viewable impressions differently will report slightly different rates.
CTR math at a glance (per 1,000 impressions)
| Clicks | CTR | Clicks per 10,000 impressions |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 0.5% | 50 |
| 10 | 1.0% | 100 |
| 20 | 2.0% | 200 |
| 50 | 5.0% | 500 |
| 100 | 10.0% | 1,000 |
Computed with CTR = clicks ÷ impressions × 100.
Common mistakes
- Dividing clicks by users, sessions, or emails delivered instead of impressions — CTR is clicks ÷ impressions, always.
- Comparing display CTR against search CTR: search users are actively looking, so those rates run far higher by nature.
- Acting on tiny samples — a 2% CTR from 3 clicks on 150 impressions is statistical noise, not a signal.
- Forgetting the × 100: a proportion of 0.025 is a 2.5% CTR, not 0.025%.
Frequently asked questions
What is the CTR formula?
CTR = clicks ÷ impressions × 100. If 250 people clicked out of 10,000 who saw the ad, CTR is 250 ÷ 10,000 × 100 = 2.5%.
What is a good CTR?
It depends entirely on channel, position, and intent — search ads usually run in the low single digits while display often sits below 1%. The most useful benchmark is your own historical CTR on the same placement.
What's the difference between CTR and conversion rate?
CTR measures who clicked among those who saw; conversion rate measures who acted (bought, signed up) among those who clicked. A great CTR with a poor conversion rate points to a landing-page problem, not an ad problem.
Can CTR be over 100%?
Mathematically yes, if one impression can generate multiple counted clicks or if clicks and impressions come from mismatched date ranges. In practice a CTR above 100% is a sign your two numbers don't describe the same pool.
Why show clicks per 1,000 impressions?
Small percentages are hard to feel. Saying 25 clicks per 1,000 impressions is the same as 2.5%, but it makes comparing campaigns and estimating traffic from a planned buy much more concrete.