Newsletter click-through rate
The share of people who click a sponsor’s link out of the number who saw the ad. In a newsletter, it tells you how many readers acted on your placement, not how many became customers.
What click-through rates do newsletters report?
Across the 13 newsletters on Discover that report an average click-through rate, the median is 1%.
- median
- 1%
- middle half of newsletters
- 0.4–1%
- full range
- 0.15–3.5%
Publisher-reported figures on BuySellAds Discover profiles, as of November 2026, as each publisher labels them. A figure given as 1%+ counts as 1%, and a range counts as its lower end. Updated with each site release.
Show all 13 figures
| Publisher | Reported | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Daily Dose of Data Science | 3.5%+ | Avg. CTR |
| ByteSize Newsletter by Experts Exchange | 1.5%+ | Average CTR |
| AI Valley | 1%+ | Average Ad CTR |
| Alts.co | 1% | Average CTR |
| Software Engineering Daily | 1% | CTR |
| The Code | 1%+ | Avg. CTR |
| theSkimm | 1%+ | Average Ad CTR |
| Stacked Marketer | 0.5% | CTR |
| Tech Scoop | 0.5%+ | Avg. CTR |
| Finxter AI | 0.4%+ | Average CTR |
| CNN | 0.35% | Average CTR |
| The Daily Upside | 0.3% | Avg. CTR |
| Indie Hackers | 0.15%+ | Average Ad CTR |
How it’s calculated
click-through rate = clicks ÷ people who saw the ad
The question is what counts as “saw”. Some newsletters divide by opens, some by delivered emails, and websites divide by impressions. Each gives a very different number for the same campaign, so ask which one a figure uses.
How to use it when you buy
- Watch clicks after each send, so you can fix the creative mid-run if something is off.
- Give readers one next step they can take right away, such as your docs, a free tier or a quickstart.
- Judge the run on signups, installs or qualified leads across every send, not on clicks from one issue.
Questions advertisers ask
Is a 1% click-through rate good?
On Discover, 7 of the 13 newsletters that report a CTR report 1% or more, and the median is 1%. Check what the figure divides by before you compare it with your own campaigns.
Why judge a newsletter on signups, not clicks?
Clicks are easy to get and often misleading. Developers often see an ad, wait, and come back later through search or a direct visit, so a report on signups, installs or qualified leads across the full run tells you more.
How do I track clicks from each newsletter?
Give each newsletter and issue its own tracking link, with UTM parameters, and add a “How did you hear about us?” field to your signup form to catch the visits that come later.
Read next
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