My understanding is that it is still 0.5% ctr for ads showing on Google, but if you syndicate the ads on AOL etc.. that they have a higher standard for relevancy and insist on 1% as the ctr.
But, as lazerzubb points out the 0.5% (or even 1%) shouldn't be hard to achieve, if you have words with lots of impressions and few clicks, try using phrase match or exact match, or better still get rid of the keyword altogether. These words with high impressions and low clicks normally need to be in an group on their own.
Is this still true? In Edit campaign settings, there are two checkboxes. One is for content and the other search. I'm assuming that shutting off content turns off adsense sites (and gmail?). If you shut off search will that mean google searches won't work? Or is that for AOL search partners?
So if I shut off both, then I can go with .5% ctr?
I usually start like this:
1. Build my campaigns and run them with neither checked, only strict google ads.
I see how they do.
2. I then turn on search partners
3. I then turn on all 3
If you want to be real picky, turn off search, and turn on content. This way you can see the true benefits of each. I personally always seem to end up turning them both off for my high end campaigns. When spending Huge dollars on clicks alone, you can't sacrifice a webmaster clicking his own adsense. So keep that in mind. If you are working with niche markets, and cheap markets, do the testing.
Good Luck
KG
Google Adwords is definitely a game that must be played over days and weeks, rather than hours and minutes. To start, you can't even usually get statistics for a few hours. I usually don't count on them being accurate unless I am using the "yesterday" feature. So with this, keep your budgets moderately set and raise the groups that are doing better. You will quickly see what is working and what isn't.
A quick example. I have a campaign in probably THE most competitive PPC industry running. While I was testing with content targetting and search networks checked, I eventually learned that most groups had both checks off, while some I left search on, and a very few the content targetting checked.
So google posts a special offer saying they have tweaked their system, and the content portion has been reworked in favor of the advertiser (Not in all those words, but sorta) So I figured I would try them out. Within 1 day I had enough and I've turned them back off.
So as you see, depending on your market, the content and search network may be your best avenue while in others, strict google results are best.
Let me know your market and I'd be happy to get together some info
Thanks
KG
Your Ad's CTR on network sites and ad sense does not affect the deliverability of your google ads.
Your terms get disabled if your CTR is below 0.5% on Google.com only
The Google CTR is shown in your account as Keyword Status [webmasterworld.com]
Bear in mind that the 0.5% is also position dependent and is only valid when you have a top position. If your position is lower the min CTR is lowered as well (by which formula I do not know but I have quite a few 0.4% at pos 3-6)
More info about that here [webmasterworld.com]
