A few nights ago I setup 4 new campaigns with Google AdWords.
I was already using Yahoo Search Marketing. I decided to also start with AdWords for two reasons: Firstly, AdWords lets you put minimum bids lower than $0.10. Secondly, I feel Google does more to combat click fraud and provide quality traffic.
Anyway, I use to not want to use PPC advertising because I did not like to spend so much money on advertising. However, I changed my mind about 6 months ago when I tested them out. For one, they did a lot better than I realized. I guess the advertising does so well because the traffic they send is very targeted. They send you people who are genuinely interested in your website, assuming you choose relevant keywords and make appropriate ads in your PPC campaign.
You can set the maximize price you’ll pay for clicks as low as $0.10 on Yahoo. You can set it even lower on Google AdWords. (Though, popular keywords will be inactive unless you bid a certain amount.) If your internet business model does not allow you to spend much on advertising per visitor, then you can just bid low amounts on long tail keywords.
The way I see it is this: If you do not make more than $0.10 per visitor on average, then your website is not monetized well enough which is probably due to it being a poor website.
If you have a good enough website, then users who are introduced to it will come back more often and will spread the word about your website. So, you can pay more to introduce people to your website if your website is better. Also, you may need to monetize your website better in other ways. For example, depending on your internet business model, you may need a better product line, better sales pages, or better ad placement.
If you think your website is not good enough yet, then start improving it and monetizing it better. If you think it is good enough already, then I highly recommend you sign up for AdWords and start by bidding very low amounts. You can set your budget as low as you want, so you can try AdWords without spending too much. So why not try it out?