Low CTR Punishments from Google

[afreydin]

I have quite a few keywords in my campaigns that have low CTR. I know that Google penalizes entire accounts if CTR is below a certain threshold.

My question is this: In order to solve the issue, is it enough to just pause the offending keywords or do they have to be removed from the account entirely?
My hunch is that pausing those keywords would be sufficient but I'm not sure if Google looks and takes into account historical data within the account.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Arthur

[smallcompany]

When you have keywords with any history, you delete them, then you add them again, all the history is back.

There is no way to "really" delete stuff in Google AdWords.

No matter what you do, there is always an option to show deleted stuff.

I would agree on that pausing them is enough.

The other thing you may want to try is to move them into new ad group and see if you can get them going.

[afreydin]

I would have to disagree with your first line. Even a simple action of moving keywords from one adgroup to another will disassociate history with that keyword. The reason for that is that Google doesn't actually "move" the keyword but actually deletes the original and creates a new instance.

The keywords I am referring to are not only low CTR but some are also very low traffic keywords. I am focusing on removing only the low CTR, modest trafficked ones.

[Rehan]

I think smallcompany is right. I've heard Google's own AdWords experts mention that if you copy the same ad, keyword and landing page even to another account then the quality score of those elements is preserved. (The quality score of the account is not preserved, of course.)

[RhinoFish]

I've managed and consulted on projects that were not doing well in the past... the memory of that "penalty" for low ctr is very short, work on improving your performance (not losing your past) and I promise it'll be no worry at all in short order.

[PPC Consultant]

this is a very relative topic. depending on your KW, the ctr could eb low or high and it will be just fine with google if the other ads on page have similar ctrs. If you believe that you are getting penalized (your QS is low), I would first question the KW and the landing page. Is the KW repeated on the LP a few times? Is the content fresh, relevant and unique? Once these are confirmed, look at other ads, an develop ads that stick out.

[koncept]

On the topic of low click through and "punishment"... I have some very low CTRs for a particular campaign (below 1% for search) but the conversions on those clicks is extremely high. In terms of ROI it is one of my BEST performing campaigns. So because of the conversions I cannot pause or delete the low ctr keywords. Also I don't expect I can optimize the campaign any further for better ctr as it is very very focused. (the low ctr is due to the nature of the keywords I am targeting)

So by keeping a couple of these low ctr campaigns around are you saying that I am hurting my entire account somehow? Does a low ctr campaign really affect another high ctr campaign in the account? And if so, how exactly?

[cyberandroid]

have you experimented with trying those great ROI keywords in a PPA (pay per action campaign)

[koncept]

they are no longer offering PPA campaigns... unless you are referring to the conversion optimizer?

[cyberandroid]

no im out of the loop
[adwords.google.com...]
its my understanding they were showing on search to