Link CTR is the second number on the list, and the last one that is purely about the ad. It measures how many of the people who saw the creative clicked through to the page, and it is the cleanest read you get on whether the offer in the ad is one business owners want.
| Link CTR | Reading |
|---|---|
| Under 1.5% | The creative or the offer is not landing. Reevaluate before spending more. |
| 2.5 to 3% | The average on our main campaign over the week in the video. Fine. |
| 5 to 5.5% | The best campaigns we have run. Not the target; a sign a creative is unusually good. |
Link clicks, not all clicks
Ads Manager reports several click-through rates and only one of them counts. “CTR (all)” includes clicks to expand the caption, clicks on the page name and clicks on the image that go nowhere. “CTR (link click-through rate)” is the share of impressions that produced a click to your landing page, and it is the one the benchmark refers to. A 6% all-clicks rate with a 1% link rate is a creative people look at and do not act on.
What a low reading means
At this point in the funnel the causes are still narrow. The business owner saw the ad and did not click, so either the creative did not hold them or the offer in it did not apply to them. Both are fixed on the creative side: more angles, an offer stated in the merchant’s terms rather than the funder’s, and a revenue figure that speaks to the merchant you want, remembering that the number in the ad comes back at half. After this number the causes multiply quickly, which is why the list is ordered the way it is.
Questions brokers ask
What is a good click-through rate for MCA Facebook ads?
A link click-through rate of 2.5 to 3% is what our main campaign averaged over the week in the video, and 5 to 5.5% is the best we have seen on a strong campaign. At 2.5% or above the creative is doing its job.
Which CTR should I look at in Ads Manager?
The link click-through rate, not “CTR (all)”. The all-clicks figure counts caption expansions and image clicks that go nowhere. The benchmark refers to clicks that reached your landing page.
What does a low CTR on a business funding ad mean?
That the creative or the offer did not land with the people who saw it. It is early enough in the funnel that the page, the form and the reps cannot be the cause, so the fix is on the creative side: more angles, and an offer written in the merchant’s terms.
Is a very high CTR always good?
No. Rate-led creative clicks well and attracts merchants who cannot be funded. Judge a high CTR by what happens on the page and on the floor afterwards, not on its own.
How is link CTR related to CPM?
They are the two creative-side numbers and they usually move together. A creative that stops people earns a lower CPM from Meta and a higher CTR from the audience. If both are in range, the ad is fine and any problem sits further down the funnel.
Alex Makowski
Founder, Infinite Bookings
Runs the lead generation operation behind Infinite Bookings — paid traffic, the funding application, and the delivery pipeline that puts records into brokers’ CRMs.
Reachable directly at alex@infinitebookings.com or 732-609-7182.