What is Minimum CTR for a keyword to get stay showed without having to increase bid? Lastly, what can be considered as a good CTR?. CTR on one of my campaigns is 0.40 %, is it good or not? Thx!
I can answer all those questions with one word - depends! Sorry to be obtuse but thats the true answer. However, you CTR of 0.4% does not sound at all good. Even in a very competitive space I would be looking at 5% as a minimum. However it's really the conversion rate that is important and your return on investment for that conversion. For example, if you only get 10 clicks a day each one converted at a cost of one dollar but each conversion brought in $1000, would you worry about the click through rate?
There is no minimum CTR. Your keywords will keep triggering ads even with a zero CTR. If a keyword has very few impressions and no clicks it will not harm the QS or your bid. However, if it is getting a lot of impressions and no clicks it will effect the QS and thus require higher bids to maintain position. It will also drag down your account history and have a detrimental effect on all your keywords.
As mikesed said, it depends. I have a few keyword phrases where there are usually only three or four ads listed on the first page of the search results and Google still says I need to increase the bid. They apparently don't want to show an ad 1,000 times for twenty cents, which is all they would get if you bid a nickel and had a 0.4% CTR.
Are you referring to the 1st page bid estimate? If so, it seems the best policy is to ignore it. I have lots of keywords that Google says I am bidding below the 1st page estimate yet get first page impressions as high as ave. position 2. The only time it seems to apply is if you have very low QS when they do sometimes stop showing ads. Even so, I have one keyword, QS2 (with good reason) that was getting shown at bid £0.15. Google slowly increased the 1st page bid to £4 at which point it stopped getting impressions. I left the bid at £0.15. After a week the estimate dropped to £0.50 and it started getting impressions again in position 3 at ave. CPC of £0.09! You are far better basing your bid on the actual results you are getting rather than Google's recommendations
I have ads that have minimum bid $3.50 and I'm getting my ad on first page for a lot less than this. This whole "bid is below" adwords "antic" has made something (active inactive) that was very workable a complete pain in the neck. Also if my ads are on the first page despite the "bid is below" adwords "antic" then it just proves that this "improvement" is total rubbish other than to spook advertisers to raise their bids when they don't have to.