Well I don't know if they do penalize, but since you have the opportunity to filter where your ads appear thus improving your CTR, I'm pretty sure they do, just not as strict as for the search engines..
no, extremely low ctr is expected within the content network, so google does NOT penalize based on content ctr.
Google Does not Punish If you have low clickthrou in the content. http://www.dirtystreetadvertising.com
Really? I thought I'd been getting lower priced clicks since I stopped showing for content, maybe it was something else. I have very low bids on a recent campaign which is both content and search, perhaps I'll learn more.
Most of you are completely wrong - content network ads DO have a quality rating, but it is separate from the 'search' Quality Score, and a much lower ctr is expected in 'content' http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48863 "A Quality Score is calculated for your ad each time it's eligible to appear on a content network placement. The following factors are considered: * The relevance of the ad and keywords to the placement * Your ad's performance history on that and similar placements * The quality of your ad's landing page" "As part of our goal to improve and maintain advertising quality within AdWords, our performance review system frequently evaluates the quality of keywords and ads in campaigns that are opted in to our content network. The system then assigns Quality Scores to your ads that influences their rank and price on the content network." "Lower-quality ads may require a higher bid to compete in the auction. Fewer impressions on the content network may mean your Quality Score isn't high enough for your ads to be shown at your current maximum CPC or CPM bid. If you'd like to receive more impressions without working to improve your ad quality, you'll need to increase your maximum bid."
magda - thank you about this info - what you mean is that google dont penalize - but if my ctr is very very bad in content network - then google will incrase the bids for me. thanks - that info i want to know!