What's a Good CTR for Microsoft (Bing) Ads by Industry in 2026?

A good click-through rate (CTR) for Microsoft (Bing) Ads in 2026 is 3.1% or higher — the current all-industry average, up from 2.83% in prior benchmarks. That average sits roughly 50% above the equivalent all-industry average on Google Ads, according to SHNO's 2026 Bing Ads statistics analysis.

CTR by Industry on Microsoft Ads

Performance varies meaningfully by vertical:

• Employment/Career Services: 3.53% average CTR
• Finance & Insurance: 3.51% average CTR
• Apparel & Accessories: 3.33% average CTR
• Retail: 3.06% average CTR
• B2B: 3.01% average CTR
• Real Estate: 2.20% average CTR
• B2C Services: 2.12% average CTR

If your Microsoft Ads account is running in B2C services or real estate and posting a 2.5% CTR, you're actually beating the category average — even though that same 2.5% would sit below average in employment or finance.

Why Bing's CTR Runs Higher Than Google's

A large part of the gap comes down to audience and ad density. Bing's search audience skews older and more likely to click ads at the top of results, and Bing search results pages have historically carried less visual competition from Google-specific features like the extensive local pack, shopping carousels, and AI Overviews that pull clicks away from paid results. The net effect is a search engine where a well-built ad often earns a higher share of clicks for the same query volume.

Where to Use This Benchmark

This CTR benchmark is most useful as a directional sanity check, not a hard pass/fail line. A campaign in a low-CTR-average industry like B2C services that's underperforming its own historical CTR is a real signal to investigate ad copy or targeting; a campaign that's simply in a naturally lower-CTR category isn't necessarily broken just because it sits below the 3.1% blended average.

How This Interacts with Quality Score

CTR is one of the inputs Microsoft Ads uses to calculate Quality Score, which in turn affects both cost-per-click and ad rank. A campaign with a below-category CTR isn't just losing clicks — it's also likely paying more per click than a competitor in the same auction with a higher CTR, since a stronger CTR signals to the algorithm that the ad is relevant to the query. This is part of why chasing CTR improvements through better ad copy and tighter keyword-to-ad matching tends to pay off twice: more clicks, and a lower price per click.

Bottom Line

Benchmark your Microsoft Ads CTR against your specific industry average, not the flat 3.1% all-account figure. A Real Estate or B2C Services campaign at 2.2%-2.5% CTR is performing normally for its category, while the same number in Employment or Finance would signal underperforming ad copy.

Source: SHNO, "Bing Ads Statistics for 2026."