Click-through rate (CTR)
The percentage of viewers who clicked a link in your post — measured as link clicks divided by impressions or reach.
What is CTR?
Click-through rate is (clicks / impressions) × 100. It tells you how many of the people who saw your post actually clicked a link in it — to your site, your bio link, your product page. On platforms with link previews (X, LinkedIn, Facebook), CTR is the cleanest signal of whether the post drove action versus just decoration.
Why it matters more than likes
Likes are cheap. A like is "I noticed this." A click is "I want to know more." For any post pointing at a destination, CTR is the metric that ties social activity to outcomes — newsletter signups, product views, blog reads.
What's "good"?
Benchmarks vary wildly by network and content type, but rough industry medians:
- X: 1–3% on link posts is healthy
- LinkedIn: 0.4–0.8% organic; 1–2% on company pages with strong content
- Facebook: 0.9% average on link posts
- Pinterest: outbound CTR can hit 5%+ on well-designed pins
These are starting points. What matters more is your own trend: a post with 2× your usual CTR is the post worth analyzing and emulating.
Improving CTR
Front-load the link's value in the caption ("Inside: the 3 mistakes that cost us $20k"), make the destination match the promise, and design the link preview image as if it's the only thing the viewer will see.