On paid social the typical B2B advertiser ran a click-through rate between 0.65% and 0.79% in 2025. On Google Ads the same dataset shows 6.33%. Those two numbers should never be compared, and this page explains why.
What is a good CTR for B2B ads?
On paid social, between 0.65% and 0.79%. LinkedIn ran 0.67% across 138 advertisers, Facebook 0.79% across 71, and Instagram 0.65% across 49. These are medians across advertisers for 2025 campaigns, not platform-reported averages.
If your paid social CTR sits in that band, it is normal. That is a less exciting answer than most published benchmarks give, and it is the one the data supports.
Why is Google Ads CTR so much higher than LinkedIn?
Because they measure different acts. Google Ads ran 6.33% across 56 advertisers against LinkedIn’s 0.67% — roughly nine times higher. A search ad answers a question someone has already typed. A feed ad interrupts someone doing something else.
Holding social to a search benchmark is the single most common way a CTR comparison misdirects budget. The two belong in separate tables, which is why they are in separate rows below with the channel named.
What every channel's CTR was in 2025
| Channel | CTR | Cost per click | CPM | Advertisers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Ads (search) | 6.33% | $9.76 | $617.91 | 56 |
| Facebook (social) | 0.79% | $1.95 | $15.50 | 71 |
| LinkedIn (social) | 0.67% | $9.39 | $63.19 | 138 |
| Instagram (social) | 0.65% | $2.82 | $18.25 | 49 |
Metadata 2026 B2B Paid Media Benchmark. Medians across advertisers, 2025 campaigns. Google’s CPM looks extreme because search impressions and feed impressions are not the same unit; read it alongside its CTR, or ignore it and read cost per click.
Does a higher CTR mean more leads?
No, and the gap is large. On 2025 cold LinkedIn campaigns, document ads turned 10.6% of clicks into leads across 37 advertisers. Carousel ads turned 1.5% across 19.
| Ad format | Click-to-lead rate | Cost per lead | Advertisers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Document | 10.6% | $148 | 37 |
| Image | 4.7% | $177 | 99 |
| Video | 2.5% | $358 | 48 |
| Carousel | 1.5% | $617 | 19 |
Cold prospecting audiences on LinkedIn, 2025. Click-to-lead is leads divided by clicks, so it measures what happened after the click CTR was counting.
A campaign can win on CTR and lose on every metric that follows it. That is why CTR belongs on a diagnostic dashboard and not in a goal.
How to use a CTR benchmark honestly
Compare within a channel, never across one. Compare medians to medians — if your figure is a spend-weighted average, one large campaign is setting it. And state the advertiser count, because a benchmark drawn from nine accounts is one company’s quarter wearing an industry label.
Then move on to the number CTR was standing in for. What a LinkedIn lead actually cost and what those leads paid back decide budget; click-through rate only tells you the ad was seen and clicked.
Every figure here is drawn from Metadata’s 2026 B2B Paid Media Benchmark, built on $57.6M of 2025 ad spend across 153 B2B advertisers, with every published number gated on a minimum advertiser count and a concentration cap. See also why document ads convert.