Advergent Ads Benchmarks
Meta feed placements average 0.8-1.2% CTR and Stories or Reels 1-3%, at a US CPM of roughly $5-15 — and frequency above 3-4 per user per week is where fatigue begins.
Meta's click-through rates look alarming next to search until the context is clear: these ads interrupt content rather than answer a query. Roughly one click per hundred impressions in feed is normal, and the more visual Stories and Reels placements return 1-3%. Judged against Google Search's 5-7% average, every healthy Meta campaign looks broken.
Inventory is priced per thousand impressions. Feed, Stories and Reels run at a US CPM of roughly $5-15, while campaigns optimised for video views see about $5-20. An implied CPC falls out of the arithmetic: at a $10 CPM and a 1% CTR, a thousand impressions produce ten clicks at $1.00 each.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
Conversion rates on Meta traffic run 1-3%, below the 2-5% search band, because the click is curiosity rather than intent. Pages built around a lead form convert 5-15% of the traffic that reaches them, which is why lead campaigns can work on social traffic that would never convert to a direct sale.
Frequency is the metric that predicts decline. Prospecting ads saturate at 3-4 impressions per user per week; past that line, CTR commonly falls 15-25% relative to launch. The decline is measured against the campaign's own launch CTR, not against an account average, and it shows up over weeks rather than days.
The response to fatigue is rotation, not budget. New creative or a wider audience resets the frequency clock; more spend into the same saturated audience buys more of the declining impressions. For the search-side equivalents of these ranges, see the Google Search benchmarks page, and for what these costs mean for profit, the break-even ROAS procedure.
Further reading