Facebook ad benchmarks 2026: traffic clicks now cost 60 cents

A click on a Facebook traffic ad cost 60 cents in the year to June 2026. That is 14 per cent less than a year earlier. The figure comes from the WordStream benchmark study published by LocaliQ, which looked at 1,829 campaigns in the United States.

Traffic clicks cost 60 cents, down 14% on last year

Click-through rates went up while prices went down. Traffic campaigns reached 1.93 per cent, against 1.71 per cent a year before. Lead campaigns moved from 2.59 to 2.70 per cent.

Lead clicks cost 1.80 dollars, down 6 per cent. The share of clicks that turned into a lead was 8.54 per cent. A lead cost 27.39 dollars on average, almost exactly what it cost a year earlier.

Dentists pay $61.56 a lead, career sites pay $12.30

The spread between industries is wider than the year-on-year move. Dentists and dental services had the dearest leads at 61.56 dollars. Beauty and personal care followed at 50.91 dollars. At the cheap end sat career and employment at 12.30 dollars and real estate at 13.74 dollars.

Click prices split the same way. Arts and entertainment paid 34 cents a click, travel 42 cents. Finance and insurance paid 86 cents, the most of any group, and also had one of the weakest click-through rates at 1.46 per cent.

WordStream used 1,829 US campaigns and median values

The traffic figures rest on 1,377 campaigns and the lead figures on 452. All are United States accounts, measured from 1 April 2025 to 30 June 2026. WordStream used medians rather than means, so one very large spender cannot pull a number along.

Two limits matter before anyone quotes this. The data is American, so European costs will differ. And it covers two objectives only, traffic and leads, not sales campaigns. Prices elsewhere in the market are moving too: private deals now take 70% of Microsoft’s exchange spend, and the IAB has lifted its US forecast to 12.3% growth.

Anyone running these campaigns can do one check today. Open the last four quarters in Ads Manager, split traffic and lead campaigns, and put your own cost per click and cost per lead next to the numbers above. If your lead cost sits well above 27 dollars and your industry is not dentistry or beauty, the gap is worth a look before the next budget round.