What is considered a good CTR?
Still have a question, spotted an error, or have a better explanation or a source we should cite?
It depends heavily on what kind of email you're sending. "Good" looks very different for a newsletter than for a cold outreach sequence.
Some rough benchmarks:
- Marketing newsletters: 1-3% is typical. Highly engaged niche audiences can push this to 5-8%.
- Promotional campaigns: 2-5% if the offer is strong and the list is well-segmented.
- Transactional emails (receipts, shipping notifications, password resets): often 5-15%, because there's a built-in reason to click.
- Cold outreach: 1-2% is solid. If you're seeing consistent clicks on cold email, your targeting is working.
Industry matters too. B2B audiences in focused niches tend to have higher CTRs than broad consumer lists, because the content is more immediately relevant to decisions they're actively making.
Here's the thing though: the most useful benchmark isn't an industry average. It's your own history. A "good" CTR for your specific list is one that's improving over time. If your average sits at 1.5% and a campaign hits 3.2%, that's more meaningful than any industry stat. It tells you something specific about what resonated with your audience.
If you want to understand engagement specifically among the openers (not the full list), check your click-to-open rate alongside CTR. And if you're seeing clicks spike at send time with no conversions, read about bot click inflation.
Contributors
Who worked on this answer
Every name links to their profile. Every company links to their site. Real people, real accountability.
