Myth: There's a native CTR benchmark you should hit.

Myth: There's a native CTR benchmark you should hit.

Wrong. "Average native CTR is 0.2%" is a number assembled from incompatible placements — in-feed social-style units, end-of-article widgets, in-content recommendations, push — across every vertical, device, and geo. The average describes nothing real.

Chasing a benchmark optimizes you toward whatever creative trick lifts CTR in the abstract, which is exactly how you end up with clickbait and post-click collapse.

There is no benchmark. There's only your own cost-per-action by placement, trended against itself. Anyone quoting you an industry native CTR target is selling certainty that doesn't exist. The only number you compete with is last month's you.