How many clicks per thousand impressions should one get from Adwords? Or I'm guessing clicks per hundred thousand impressions? Is there a general rule of thumb?
CTR depends on so many factors... including the following (and so many more): the vertical, your average position, the strength of competition, how well your ad is written, how close your ad matches the query, the match type of the keyword, seasonality, the day of week/time of day, the particular syndication partners that drive traffic to this keyword, what country you're in, who you're targeting, and more.
It'll be difficult to get a useful reply to your question as there are no general rules on this topic. In fact, if you do get a specific reply or even a range - I wouldn't grant it any merit without having most of the aforementioned issues clarified.
I say - spend your free $20! You'll know more afterwards than you do now...
You really hit the nail on the head. ;)
I wish you the best of success with AdWords, wrmahaff. To give yourself a running start, I'd suggest learning as much as you can by reading this forum, as well as the AdWords Help Center and the AdWords Learning Center.
AWA
