Paid ads benchmarks 2026: CPM, CTR and CPA by platform
What good looks like this year on Meta, Google, LinkedIn and TikTok. Every number is sourced, the disagreements between sources are flagged, and there's a guide to reading benchmarks without fooling yourself.
"Is this CPA good?" is the question I hear most in paid media, and it's the easiest one to answer badly. The real answer is always a range with conditions attached. Meta's median CPM ran $14.19 in 2025, up 20% year over year across roughly 35,000 tracked brands,¹ while an impression-weighted tracker covering tens of billions of impressions put the same platform at $8.19 in October 2025,⁹ and US-only estimates run near $23.⁴ All three numbers are correct, they're just measuring different samples.
This piece collects the most credible published benchmarks for Meta, Google search, LinkedIn and TikTok as of mid-2026, flags where the sources disagree, and explains how to use the numbers without getting misled by them. Most figures below come from full-year 2025 datasets, which is the latest complete data available. Where a source publishes 2026 figures, I say so.
The short version
- Meta, 2025 medians: CPM $14.19 (+20% YoY), CTR 2.19%, CPA $38.19, lead CPL $27.66. Costs went up but performance held roughly flat.
- Google search: CPC $5.26 (+12.9%), CTR 6.66%, CVR 7.52%, CPL $70.11. The clicks are expensive because the person was already searching for you.
- LinkedIn: CPM ~$33.80, CPC ~$5.58, CTR 0.44–0.65%. The premium makes sense above roughly $5k deal size and rarely below it.
- TikTok: CPM somewhere between $4.80 and $9.16 depending on whose data you trust. Either way it's the cheapest broad reach among the major platforms.
- Vertical matters more than platform. The spread between industries on one platform is wider than the spread between platforms, so benchmark against your vertical or not at all.
How to read benchmarks without fooling yourself
Benchmark reports disagree with each other constantly, and the disagreement itself tells you something. Before you use any number in this article (or anywhere else), run it through four filters:
- Whose accounts are in the sample? Triple Whale's medians come from ~35,000 mostly DTC e-commerce brands;¹ WordStream/LocaliQ's come from thousands of SMB lead-gen accounts;² Gupta Media's tracker weights by impressions, so big-budget brand spend dominates.⁹ That single difference explains most of the Meta CPM spread above.
- Median or mean? A median hides the variance: a $38 median CPA across all industries contains verticals living at $15 and verticals living at $120. The middle of a distribution that wide is a weak target.
- Which geography? Global Meta CPM averages around $6.59; the US runs near $23.⁴ A "global benchmark" flatters every Tier-1 advertiser into thinking they're overpaying.
- What's your unit economics? A $230 cost per lead is a catastrophe for a $40 product and a rounding error against a $50k contract. Your AOV or ACV matters more than any platform average, which is why comparing against accounts in your own vertical beats comparing against "the internet."
When one of our numbers looks off against a benchmark, the first thing I check is whose accounts the benchmark was built on. About half the time, the gap disappears once the sample matches our situation.
Used well, benchmarks point you at the right thing to investigate when a metric looks off. Used badly, they turn into targets, and teams end up optimizing toward the median of a sample they aren't even in.
Meta benchmarks
The clearest picture of Meta in 2025 comes from Triple Whale's full-year dataset (~35,000 brands, primarily DTC):¹ every cost metric rose, every efficiency metric held or improved slightly, and the two roughly cancelled each other out.
| Metric | 2025 median | YoY change | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPM | $14.19 | +20.0% | DTC brands¹ |
| CTR | 2.19% | +13.5% | DTC brands¹ |
| CVR | 1.6% | +8.3% | DTC brands¹ |
| CPA | $38.19 | +1.0% | DTC brands¹ |
| ROAS | 1.86 | +1.3% | DTC brands¹ |
| CPC (traffic objective) | $0.70 | −6.7% | SMB accounts² |
| CPC (leads objective) | $1.92 | +2.1% | SMB accounts² |
| Cost per lead | $27.66 | +20.9% | SMB accounts² |
The CPM inflation is broad-based, with every tracked industry getting more expensive year over year and increases ranging from +8% to +38%; health and wellness took the worst of it, with its median CPM reaching $20.70.¹ Independent data agrees on the direction: Varos benchmarking put Q1 2025 Meta CPM at $10.88, up 19.2% year over year.³ The seasonality is brutal too, since the global median CPM peaked at $25.22 in November 2025 before falling back to $15.74 by January 2026.⁴
By vertical, the differences that matter show up in conversion economics rather than clicks:
| Vertical (Meta, 2025) | CPA | CTR | CVR | ROAS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifestyle & boutique | $29.99 | 2.28% | 1.74% | 1.93 |
| Automotive | $34.15 | 2.22% | 1.30% | 2.54 |
| Apparel & accessories | $36.76 | 2.25% | 1.46% | 2.18 |
| Beauty | $37.92 | 2.27% | 1.94% | 1.57 |
| Health & wellness | $38.55 | 2.70% | 1.72% | 1.50 |
| Home & garden | $46.46 | 2.22% | 1.32% | 2.18 |
| Electronics | $49.48 | 2.19% | 1.20% | 1.92 |
Notice how narrow the CTR band is (2.19–2.70%) compared to how wide the CPA band is ($30–$49). The Meta auction prices attention fairly evenly across verticals; what separates them is what happens after the click. Source: Triple Whale, full-year 2025.¹
For lead generation specifically, WordStream's 2025 data shows the extremes: dentists pay $9.78 per click and $76.71 per lead at a 1.05% CTR, while restaurants pay $0.74 per click and $3.16 per lead. That's a 24× CPL spread inside one platform,² and it's the strongest argument against cross-industry medians you'll find anywhere in this article.
Google Ads benchmarks
Google search is still the most expensive mainstream click and the best-converting one, because the person typed their problem into a search box before seeing your ad. WordStream/LocaliQ's 2025 study of search campaigns puts the overall averages at:⁵
| Vertical (Google search, 2025) | CPC | CTR | CVR | CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All industries | $5.26 | 6.66% | 7.52% | $70.11 |
| Shopping, collectibles & gifts | $3.49 | 8.92% | 3.83% | $47.94 |
| Physicians & surgeons | $5.00 | 6.73% | 11.62% | $56.83 |
| Finance & insurance | $3.46 | 8.33% | 2.55% | $83.93 |
| Education & instruction | $6.23 | 5.74% | 11.38% | $90.02 |
| Home & home improvement | $7.85 | 6.37% | 7.33% | $90.92 |
| Real estate | $2.53 | 8.43% | 3.28% | $100.48 |
| Business services | $5.58 | 5.65% | 5.14% | $103.54 |
| Attorneys & legal services | $8.58 | 5.97% | 5.09% | $131.63 |
Three things stand out in the year-over-year movement. CPC rose 12.9% overall and increased in 87% of industries, with education and beauty seeing jumps above 40%. Conversion rates improved in 65% of industries, which is why CPL growth slowed to +5.1% after a +25% year. And the cheap-CPC verticals aren't bargains: real estate's $2.53 clicks convert at 3.28%, which works out to a $100+ CPL.⁵
Then there's the comparison everyone wants: Facebook's median lead costs $27.66 against Google's $70.11.² ⁵ Keep in mind these are different products though. A Google lead searched for you; a Facebook lead got interrupted mid-scroll. If your sales team scores lead quality, expect the gap to narrow at the opportunity stage, sometimes all the way to zero.
LinkedIn benchmarks
LinkedIn is the most expensive major ad platform per impression and per click, and for a specific slice of advertisers it's still the best deal available. Here's the 2026 benchmark picture:⁶
| Metric (LinkedIn, 2026) | Benchmark | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| CPM | $33.80 | Narrow enterprise audiences can run far higher |
| CPC | $5.58 | ~$6.40 for senior decision-makers, ~$4.40 for junior titles |
| CTR (single image) | 0.56% | Carousel 0.40%, video 0.44%; global average 0.44–0.65% |
| Cost per lead | $15–$350 | North America ~$230; lead-gen forms cut CPL vs landing pages |
| Lead-gen form completion | ~10% | Forms submitted ÷ forms opened |
Those CTRs deserve a second look: LinkedIn users click about a quarter as often as Meta users, at four to five times the CPM. The math only closes when the thing you're selling is large. At a $230 North American CPL,⁶ a 10:1 lead-to-deal ratio means $2,300 in media per closed deal, which is absurd for a $1,000 product and immaterial for a $50,000 contract. What the premium buys is targeting by job title, seniority and company, verified by the users themselves, and no other platform sells that cleanly. If your ICP is "VP of Engineering at a 200+ person company," LinkedIn is the only place you can buy that audience directly, so the price can be worth paying.
Below roughly $5k ACV, the same auction just drains budget. Most B2B accounts we see do better using LinkedIn for named-account programs and Meta's cheaper reach for everything broader.
TikTok benchmarks
TikTok is where the sources disagree most, so I'll give you the spread instead of pretending there's a consensus. Lebesgue's 2026 update puts average CPM at $4.80 with a 0.61% CTR and 1.92% CVR;⁸ Gupta Media's impression-weighted tracker had it at $4.82 in October 2025;⁹ Digital Applied's Q1 2026 in-feed composite runs higher at $9.16 CPM, $1.02 CPC, ~1.0% CTR, 1.8% CVR.⁷ Even at the top of that range, TikTok is still the cheapest broad reach of the four platforms here.
It's strongest on awareness and top-of-funnel for broad consumer audiences, with retail ($0.79 CPC, 2.45% CVR) and beauty ($0.74 CPC, 2.62% CVR) the most efficient verticals. When it does convert, it's usually through native-feeling formats: Spark Ads (boosted creator posts) convert at 2.6% versus 1.8% for studio-built in-feed ads, a 44% lift, with 2.4× the CTR at a 38% CPC premium.⁷ High-consideration and regulated categories struggle there; legal services pay $1.92 per click and convert at 0.88%.⁷
One encouraging trend: TikTok CPAs fell roughly 19% year over year into 2026, the largest single-year improvement among the major paid-social platforms, even as CPCs rose ~9%.⁷ The platform is getting better at finding people who actually buy, which for a long time was its weak spot.
Cross-platform comparison
Put side by side, the four platforms look less like competitors and more like different products that happen to share a billing model:
| Platform | CPM | CPC | CTR | Lead cost | What you're buying |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta | $8.19–$14.19¹ ⁹ | $0.70–$1.92 by objective² | 1.7–2.6%² | $27.66 median² | Efficient demand creation at scale |
| Google search | — (priced per click) | $5.26⁵ | 6.66%⁵ | $70.11⁵ | Capture of existing intent |
| $33.80⁶ | $5.58⁶ | 0.44–0.65%⁶ | $100–$230+⁶ | Verified professional targeting | |
| TikTok | $4.80–$9.16⁷ ⁸ | $0.20–$2.00 (avg ~$1.02)⁷ | 0.6–1.0%⁷ | CPA down ~19% YoY⁷ | Cheapest broad reach, impulse commerce |
The CPM ladder, drawn from the same sources (Meta and TikTok shown at the top of their published ranges; YouTube and Snapchat from Gupta Media's October 2025 tracker for context⁹):
A 7× CPM spread doesn't mean a 7× value spread. A LinkedIn impression reaches a person you chose by job title; a TikTok impression reaches whoever the algorithm predicts will watch. Which one is worth more depends entirely on what you sell, and that's the whole argument for benchmarking within your vertical and channel mix instead of across the industry.
When you're above or below benchmark
A benchmark gap is a reason to investigate, nothing more. When a metric runs meaningfully worse than your vertical's range, work the diagnosis in this order, starting with the cheapest explanation:
- Tracking. Before touching the account, confirm the number is real. Broken pixels, double-firing events, consent-mode gaps and attribution-window mismatches produce more "benchmark failures" than bad media buying does. A CPA that doubled overnight is almost always measurement.
- Creative. If tracking is clean, look at engagement next. CTR and hook rate below vertical norms mean the auction is repricing weak creative, so a high CPM is often a creative problem in disguise. This is also where pre-flight scoring tools like a creative performance predictor earn their keep, by catching the weak ad before it spends anything.
- Audience. Healthy CTR but poor CVR suggests you're reaching people who like the ad and don't need the product. Check audience size, overlap and frequency before concluding anything about the landing page.
- Offer. If people click eagerly and then never convert, the problem is usually the offer itself. No amount of media optimization fixes a price or a promise the market doesn't want.
And if you're below benchmark (beating it), hold off on the victory lap until you've checked volume and quality. A CPL at half the vertical median on 30 leads a month sometimes means you've found an efficient pocket; sometimes it means you're harvesting easy bottom-of-funnel demand while a competitor builds the audience you'll need next year. Don't chase a platform average from outside your vertical either. A $70 CPL is a failure in e-commerce and excellent in legal. The benchmark that deserves a permanent slot in your reporting dashboard is your own trailing performance, with vertical medians as a sanity check around it.
Vertical benchmarks make a good sanity check, but your own trailing 30 days is the baseline that tells you when something actually changed. Keep both on the dashboard and use them for different questions.
FAQ
What is a good ROAS in 2026?
The median platform-reported ROAS on Meta across roughly 35,000 mostly DTC brands was 1.86 in 2025. Whether that's good depends entirely on your margin: a 1.86 is profitable at 65% gross margin and ruinous at 30%. Work backwards from contribution margin to your own break-even ROAS, then judge campaigns against that instead of a cross-industry median.
Why is my CPM higher than benchmark?
Usually because the benchmark wasn't measuring your situation. US Meta CPMs run around $23 against a global average near $6.59; competitive verticals like health and wellness carry CPMs near $20.70 against a $14 cross-industry median; and narrow audiences, Q4 seasonality and weak creative engagement all add premiums on top. Before treating a high CPM as a problem, check geography, vertical, audience size and time of year, in that order.
How often do benchmarks shift?
The big reports refresh annually, but actual auction prices move quarterly and seasonally. Meta's median CPM rose about 20% across 2025, and the global median spiked to $25.22 in November 2025 before falling to $15.74 by January 2026. So always check a benchmark's data window before you use it, and expect Q4 to run 26% or more above Q1.
Are Facebook leads cheaper than Google leads?
On median price, yes: $27.66 per lead on Facebook versus $70.11 on Google search in 2025 data, but they are different products. Google captures people actively searching for a solution, while Facebook interrupts people who weren't. Facebook leads typically need more nurture and close at lower rates, so compare cost per qualified opportunity rather than cost per form fill.
Which platform has the cheapest clicks in 2026?
TikTok and Meta traffic campaigns. TikTok in-feed CPCs average around $1.02 with a typical range of $0.20–$2.00, and Meta traffic-objective CPCs average $0.70. Google search ($5.26) and LinkedIn ($5.58) cost five to eight times more per click, but those clicks carry declared intent or precise professional targeting. Cheap clicks are only a bargain if they convert downstream.
Sources
- Meta medians (CPM, CTR, CVR, CPA, ROAS) and vertical breakdowns, full-year 2025, ~35,000 brands — Triple Whale, Facebook Ad Benchmarks by Industry
- Facebook traffic/lead CPC, lead CVR and CPL by industry, 2025 — WordStream/LocaliQ, Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2025
- Meta Q1 2025 CPM $10.88, +19.2% YoY (Varos benchmarking data) — Right Side Up, Meta CPM Analysis: Q1 2025 Review
- Meta CPM/CPC by country (US ~$23, global ~$6.59) and seasonal peak data — AdAmigo, Meta Ads CPM and CPC Benchmarks by Country in 2026
- Google search CPC, CTR, CVR, CPL overall and by industry, 2025 — WordStream/LocaliQ, Google Ads Benchmarks 2025
- LinkedIn CPC, CPM, CTR by format, CPL and lead-gen form rates, 2026 — The B2B House, LinkedIn Ad Benchmarks 2026
- TikTok in-feed CPC/CPM/CTR/CVR, Spark Ads lift and vertical data, Q1 2026 — Digital Applied, TikTok Ads Benchmarks 2026
- TikTok average CPM $4.80, CTR 0.61%, CVR 1.92%, 2026 update — Lebesgue, TikTok Ads Benchmarks for CTR, CR and CPM
- Impression-weighted CPMs across Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, October 2025 — Gupta Media, Social Media CPM Tracker