The Average CTR for Facebook Ads (and How to Surpass It)

Trying to define the average click-through rate for Facebook ads can be tricky—it seems everyone has a different take on which benchmarks you should strive for.

Get ready to dive deep into the different types of click-through rates (yes, there's more than one!), benchmarks from over $9B in ad spend, and tips on how to improve your lackluster CTRs.

What is the CTR for Facebook ads?

Click-through rates are everywhere in digital marketing—emails, ads, social posts, you name it. But what does it actually mean?

Easily enough, the definition is all in the name. Click-through rate (or CTR for short) is a calculation of people who click through to your link in any of your online campaigns. In our case, we'll be focusing on people who click on your Facebook ads.

With a name that easy, you'd think the calculations would be simple as well. However, there are actually several different types of clicks that Facebook defines, and each has its own unique CTR.

Link clicks. This is the typical metric most marketers tend to look at when viewing their Facebook ads. Link clicks are clicks from users who take them on or off Facebook. This includes things like:

• A user clicking call-to-action buttons or images in your ad
• Clicks that lead to a user opening a lead gen form or Instant Experience ad
• A click from a link in the copy of your ad

Clicks (all). This one trips up quite a few people. Clicks (all) represents any click on any part of your Facebook ad. In addition to all of the actions under link clicks, it adds on the following actions:

• Clicks on your Facebook or Instagram page name
• Social proof (likes, comments, shares)
• Clicks that expand photos or videos

Outbound clicks. While often ignored (or unheard-of), outbound clicks only take into consideration clicks that take someone off of Facebook entirely. Some examples are:

• Clicks on call-to-action buttons or links on ads that take someone to an external website
• Clicks from links on lead generation forms, Instant Experience, or collection ads that take the user off of Facebook

Here's a quick comparison of them altogether:

Each of these metrics has its specific uses. However, for those who want to focus solely on clicks that lead to their website, outbound clicks will be the best choice.

How do I calculate my CTR on Facebook?

Now that we've learned what the different types of clicks are, it's time to dig a bit deeper into how they come up with that metric in the first place.

Click-through rates are typically calculated as the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions, expressed as a percentage.

alt: Click-through rate for Facebook ads definition

Each type of click is calculated using the same formula, the difference lies in what is considered a click as we explained above.

How to find your CTR on Facebook Ads Manager

Luckily for us, Facebook has all of these calculations done for us to make our lives easier. To figure out your average Facebook ads CTR, head over to Ads Manager.

In the default view, Facebook will let us know how many unique clicks we received (which is the number of people who clicked on your ad). However, we want to be able to look at the click-through rate, not just the number of clicks.

To get that information, select the Performance and Clicks option under the Columns tab:

With this view, we now have access to both the link clicks and clicks (all) click-through rates.

Unfortunately, outbound clicks are not included in any of the standard views, so we need to do a bit more leg work for those. Under the same Columns tab, select Customize Columns near the end of the list.

From here, type 'Outbound' in the search bar and tick both the outbound clicks and outbound click-through rate boxes to add them to this view.

Et voilà! You now have all of your Facebook ads CTR data in one place, which will help us for the next step.

What is the average CTR for Facebook ads?

As we’ve just covered, there are several different types of click-through rates, so finding CTR benchmarks is difficult as you don’t always know which type of click an article is referring to.

In this section, we’ll break down each type of click and their respective benchmarks so you have a clear understanding of where your campaigns lie within each metric.

Clicks (all) benchmarks

First up is the clicks (all) benchmark. Again, this refers to any and every click on your ad—be it to your website, a reaction to the ad, or image/video interactions.

Since clicks (all) encompasses so many types of interactions, this metric will have the highest click-through rate of the three. From our charts, you can see a high of 1.84% and a low of 1.33%, for an average of 1.62%.

Link clicks benchmarks

Continuing on is link clicks. As we learned earlier, link clicks refer to clicks that take the user off of Facebook or into an instant experience or lead gen form.

Here we see that the numbers for this metric are smaller than before, again due to the increased filters on what’s considered a click. For Link clicks, we have a high of 1.13% and a low of .72%. This makes for an average link click CTR of .93%.

Outbound CTR benchmarks

Finally, we come to the outbound click-through rate. With outbound CTR, we’re only taking a look at clicks that lead the user outside of Facebook. These could be clicks on your CTA, instant experience links, or links found at the end of a lead gen form.

Again, we get even smaller numbers than before due to how restrictive this metric is. Our benchmarks saw highs from .99% at the most to .61% at the lowest. This gives us an average outbound CTR of .79%.

To sum up all of the 3 graphs above, the averages are:

Clicks (all) CTR - 1.62%

Link clicks CTR - .93%

Outbound CTR - .79%

What is a good CTR for Facebook ads?

Everyone wants an easy answer to their questions, especially when it comes to Facebook ads.

In reality, the average CTR for Facebook ads varies across all industries and campaign types, so if you've read conflicting reports about it, you're not just seeing things.

All in all, there are a couple of ways to see if you have a good CTR for Facebook ads depending on how you choose to analyze that data.

Overall campaign CTR. As you can see from our different CTR benchmarks above, the general average of all campaigns across every industry, funnel stage, and click type is anywhere between .75%-1.5%. If you're looking at your overall account health, aiming anywhere between those figures would likely classify as good. Anything under that, however, deserves a second look.

Industry. The next segment you need to consider is your specific industry benchmarks. Some industries are more 'clicky' than others, so judging yourself against industries with naturally higher click-through rates can make you feel disheartened. Here's a quick overview of Facebook ad CTRs by industry to give you an idea:

As you can see from the chart, there are some extremes in regard to industry. Employment and job training has a low CTR of .46%, while retail and legal industries are above 1.5%. If your CTR lies within the realm of your industry average, consider it a positive sign.

Funnel stage. Yet another crucial piece of data to consider is the stage of the funnel your campaign is in. Campaigns that are geared towards cold audiences tend to have lower CTRs than ones targeting warmer audiences as you're targeting those who have never heard of you and are harder to win over with a single touch.

If you're looking for other Facebook ad benchmarks, check out our guide to the top 6 Facebook ad metrics you need to know.

How to increase CTR for Facebook ads

If you're reading this guide and have realized your CTRs are below average, know that there's still hope! There are several ways you can take your CTR from zero to hero.

Create engaging visual content

Every time I write about how to fix x part of your Facebook campaign, design is always one of the top factors I choose and the reason is simple.

In this day and age, we're absolutely overwhelmed with ads in every form in every facet of our life—emails, billboards, tv, newspaper, blogs, you name it.

We're consuming content at such a rapid pace that some estimate the human attention span to be around 8 seconds at max, which means if your ad can't capture the attention of your prospects, it might as well not even exist in the first place. (#harshtruths)

The goal here is to create thumb-stopping visual content to get the attention of your audience as soon as your ad hits their feed.

If you're struggling with creating these graphics (or lack the experience to do it yourself), Madgicx's Sparkle offers unlimited ad design and revisions delivered within 48 hours—and you can even try it for free!

Use value-based copy

You've created your thumb-stopping design, and you have your audience's attention. Now, what do you have to say to them?

Having a great design is just half the battle when it comes to creating ads that drive clicks. The other part is giving them a reason to click on your ads in the first place, and that's something only the copy can do.

Good ad copy should:

• Be personalized according to the audience you're targeting
• Hit on a pain point or problem they need to solve
• Quickly explain what they will expect to learn or gain by clicking on your ad

Once again, Madgicx has your back. With our AI Copywriter, our machine learning tech will analyze your ads and create high-converting ad copy for you with a single click.

It'll also help you craft unique content for every audience and stage of the funnel, so you can ensure you're speaking to the right person with the right offer every time.

Optimize your audiences

You can have the best design and copy in the world, but if the person viewing your ad has no need for your product or service, all your hard work will go to waste.

For that reason, you always want to ensure you're properly optimizing your Facebook ad audiences and working within a funnel system.

As we mentioned briefly before, different funnel stages will have different click-through rates. The warmer the audience is (aka the more they know you), the higher chance you have of getting those coveted clicks, and therefore, a higher CTR.

Here's an example of a typical Facebook ad funnel:

As you can see, the messaging and offers differ depending on each audience segment you're targeting. By using this method, you can ensure the messaging and offer you have is personalized toward your target audience, resulting in a more engaging (and clicky) experience for them.

Madgicx has an answer for everything—especially audience targeting.

With Audience Launcher, you can select from over 100+ audiences that cover every step of your sales funnel and launch them from one central place. We'll also give you all the information you need to determine your best-performing demographics, ad placements, and even regions in one dashboard.

Combine that with the graphic design and ad copy features we mentioned above, and your campaign is essentially on autopilot. ;)

Conclusion

Today we've covered everything you need to know about CTR for your Facebook ads, including how to determine if your ads match up and tips on increasing your click-through rates across the board.

If you want a high CTR, you must have killer ads. Period. If you're not satisfied with your CTR, Madgicx's Creative Suite will help you produce high-converting content to beat your competition and get a kickass CTR ;)