The LinkedIn click-through rate, often abbreviated as LinkedIn CTR, is an important metric used to measure the effectiveness of content marketing and advertising campaigns on the LinkedIn platform. LinkedIn CTR specifically refers to the ratio of clicks versus impressions for content posted or ads run on LinkedIn.
Knowing your LinkedIn CTR can provide valuable insights into how well your content is resonating with your target audience and how likely they are to engage with your brand after seeing your content in their feed or in Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail ads. Tracking CTR over time can also show whether changes made to optimize content are having a positive impact.
In this comprehensive guide, we will dig into what exactly LinkedIn CTR is, why it matters for your brand’s LinkedIn marketing, the average benchmark CTRs to aim for, tips to improve your LinkedIn CTR, and tools to track and monitor your LinkedIn click-through rate and other key metrics.
What is LinkedIn Click-Through Rate?
LinkedIn click-through rate is calculated as:
LinkedIn CTR = (Clicks on Content or Ad) / (Impressions)
Impressions refer to the number of times your content or sponsored ad is displayed to LinkedIn users. This occurs every time your post appears in someone’s feed or your sponsored content is served to a user based on targeting criteria.
Clicks refer to the number of times viewers click on the post or ad to visit your LinkedIn page, company website, or landing page.
For example, if your sponsored content ad received 300 impressions and 45 clicks in a given campaign, the LinkedIn CTR would be:
LinkedIn CTR = 45 clicks / 300 impressions = 15%
The higher the CTR, the more engaging and effective your content or advertising is at motivating the desired action from your audience.
LinkedIn CTR for Content Marketing
When tracking LinkedIn CTR for organic content marketing, such as regular LinkedIn posts, you would look specifically at:
Content CTR = (Post clicks) / (Post impressions)
This helps gauge how captivating and click-worthy your status updates, articles, and other content are to your audience. For example, if a post received 500 impressions and 100 post clicks, the content CTR would be 20%.
LinkedIn CTR for Sponsored Content & Advertising
For LinkedIn advertising, including Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail, LinkedIn CTR takes into account:
Ad CTR = (Ad clicks) / (Ad impressions)
The clicks and impressions measured are specifically those occurring when your ads are served, not including any organic reach. This allows you to evaluate how effectively your ads capture user attention to drive clicks and traffic to your site.
Why Is LinkedIn CTR Important?
Monitoring your LinkedIn CTR is crucial for several reasons:
Measures Content Marketing Effectiveness
Your LinkedIn content CTR shows how engaging your content and messaging is for your followers and target demographic. A higher CTR signals your content strategy is effective at piquing interest and attracting clicks.
Compare CTR across different types of posts and topics. This can provide insights into what content resonates most with your audience to guide your strategy.
Gauges Ad Performance & ROI
For LinkedIn advertising, the CTR directly impacts the overall return on investment. Ads with higher CTR tend to drive more relevant website traffic at a lower cost per click.
Evaluating CTR for your LinkedIn ads can help you identify high performing ads worth investing more budget in vs. lower performing ads that may need improvement.
Ongoing CTR monitoring lets you catch dips early and quickly optimize underperforming campaigns.
Ranking Signal for Organic Reach
LinkedIn’s algorithm, like other social platforms, factors in CTR as one signal for determining which content to show higher up in users’ feeds.
This means a higher CTR can help your future content gain more impressions and visibility. So even though CTR represents a ratio rather than total volume, it can still impact overall organic reach.
Informs Content Optimization
Analyzing CTR performance trends over time tied back to specific content topics, formats, and styles provides intelligence to directly improve future content.
For example, you may find short teasers or list posts outperform long articles. Or that posts with questions or polls get more clicks than generic status updates. You can tailor content based on these learnings.
Average Benchmark LinkedIn CTR Rates
Wondering what good CTR numbers are to aim for? Here are the typical LinkedIn CTR benchmark ranges:
Organic LinkedIn Content CTR
Average: 1-2%
Good: 3-5%
Excellent: 6%+
For regular non-promoted posts, an average CTR from 1-2% indicates you are generating a baseline of interest and engagement.
A good organic CTR is between 3-5%, showing your content strategy resonates well with followers. Excellent organic CTR above 6% is possible with very compelling and click-worthy content tailored to audience needs.
Sponsored Content CTR
Average: 0.5-0.9%
Good: 1-2%
Excellent: 3%+
Sponsored content campaigns average 0.5-0.9% CTR since ads compete with organic content for user attention. Good Sponsored Content CTR is 1-2%, while excellent is above 3%.
Sponsored InMail CTR
Average: 10-20%
Good: 21-40%
Excellent: 41%+
With Sponsored InMail ads sent directly to user inboxes, open and click-through rates are significantly higher. Expect average CTR between 10-20%. Good Sponsored InMail CTR ranges from 21-40%, with excellent above 41%.
How does your current LinkedIn CTR stack up? If you fall short of these benchmarks, the upcoming sections provide tips to improve results.
How to Increase Your LinkedIn CTR
Here are proven best practices to boost LinkedIn CTR for both organic content and paid advertising:
Create Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Your headline is prime real estate to capture interest and convince the viewer to click. Some headline tips:
- Ask compelling questions
- Use emotional triggers like “How to” or “X Reasons Why”
- Leverage FOMO with “Don’t Miss” or “Regret Missing”
- List the benefits: “Get More Leads With X Tips”
- Target personas and intent: “Help HR Managers Build Better Culture”
Test different headline formulas and analyze the impact on CTR.
Use High-Quality, Relevant Images
Posts with images tend to perform better. Select eye-catching photos and visuals that reinforce your message. Make sure any text on images is readable.
For LinkedIn ads, always use high-resolution display imagery sized 600 x 314 pixels. Consider dynamic Product Ads to showcase your products or services.
Personalize Content for Your Audience
Tailor your posts’ messaging, tone, topics, and examples to the specific needs of your target audience. Leverage LinkedIn’s audience demographics and interests to guide content creation.
For Sponsored Content ads, personalize ad copy with the member’s first name and company to boost relevance. Personalized InMail improves open rates.
Target Content to the Right Audiences
You can waste budget and miss opportunities if you don’t align LinkedIn ad targeting with the audiences most likely to click and convert.
Constantly refine your targeting based on performance. Leverage LinkedIn Matched Audiences to target your audience segments or website visitors.
Craft Easy-to-Scan Posts
Format your posts in digestible sections with ample whitespace, clear headings, bulleted lists, and bolding for skimmability. Break up long blocks of texts with images, videos, or slideshare presentations.
Leverage Calls-to-Action
Prompt viewers how to engage with clear CTAs like “Click here to download our whitepaper” or “Comment below with your thoughts.”
Strong CTAs can boost clicks directly on LinkedIn, as well as drive traffic to your site or desired landing pages.
Promote Fresh, New Content
When a member sees a post for the first time organically, their likelihood of engaging will be much higher than if they’ve already scrolled past it multiple times.
Avoid repurposing the same posts week after week. Consistently create and rotate in fresh content optimized around the strategies above to improve CTR.
Monitor Performance & Iterate
Keep a close pulse on your CTR trends and metrics. Look for patterns in which posts, topics, formats, CTAs, headlines, and targets deliver the highest and lowest CTR. Then double down on what works and refine what doesn’t. Continually testing and optimizing will compound results over time.
Tools to Track LinkedIn Click-Through Rate
To calculate and monitor LinkedIn CTR, leverage both LinkedIn’s analytics and third-party social media and marketing analytics tools.
LinkedIn Analytics
For organic content, check your LinkedIn Company Page analytics under the Content tab to see impressions and post clicks for each update. You can also view follower demographics and interests.
For Sponsored Content, the Campaign Manager shows impressions, clicks, CTR, and other key metrics for each active or completed campaign. Drill-down for details by ad, audience, and more.
Third-Party Tools
Third-party analytics tools provide additional reporting options to track LinkedIn performance:
Google Analytics
Connect your LinkedIn profile and use UTM campaign tracking parameters. View LinkedIn traffic sources, volumes, and attribution with other channels.
Sprout Social
Sprout’s analytics integrate LinkedIn Pages activity. See impressions and engagement metrics across posts.
Simply Measured
Simply Measured’s social analytics include LinkedIn engagement reporting and competitive benchmarking.
Rival IQ
Achieve deep social media competitive analysis with Rival IQ’s benchmarks and insights across content, engagement, and followers.
Hootsuite
Manage your LinkedIn presence and get integrated analytics through Hootsuite’s social media management platform.
Socialbakers
Leverage Socialbakers’ AI-powered social analytics to analyze LinkedIn and other social platforms in one unified dashboard.
SEMrush
View high-level LinkedIn performance trends and metrics in SEMrush alongside SEO, PPC, and broader digital analytics reporting.
Conclusion
Optimizing your LinkedIn CTR is key for cutting through the noise in crowded feeds to grab viewer attention. By consistently tracking and testing content performance, targeting your audience, and employing proven click-generating best practices, you can achieve significant CTR improvements over time.
Use the CTR benchmarks and optimization tips in this guide as a starting point to boost engagement and response from your ideal clients and prospects on LinkedIn.