I believe that conventional guidelines for profitablility are that you should be making the money at least 20% of the time, and winning 2% of what you enter.
Of course, if you play at different buy-ins, you should be tracking this based on the cost of the tournament, and not lumping them all together. Ideally, you play at levels that you can meet or exceed this goal.
Overall, I'm 18.51% ITM with 0.65% wins on Full Tilt, and my ROI is +19.38%, so perhaps the above guidelines are more strict than they need to be - I certainly think if you can achieve them, you will be showing a nice profit.
I don't think you need to worry so much about making a certain place in the ladder - there is very little difference between 18th and 8th in a 180 player tourney (on FT it's 10.80 vs. 3.60). The key is getting into the top 3 on occasion, that's where the bread and butter is.
I think about my tournaments in stages. While I never play "just to cash", I do realize that sometimes the cards just fall badly and I'm not likely to make it much past the bubble. When that happens, I try to at least make it to the money if possible.
Once I'm in the money, I'm playing with the objective of making the final table, and I'm willing to go out by taking chances that have decent
odds of moving me ahead toward that goal.
Once you get there, the final table is all about outplaying each other, picking your spots, and letting other people make mistakes if they want to. It's no different than a SNG, with the exception that some people have more chips to start. Every elimination is a pay raise for you, so just play solid and smart, and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to move up.
