Good article Randy. I'll add my 2 cents (although with the Google update I dont know if I can afford it lol).
When I entered the industry about 3 yrs ago there were obviously more marketing channels that were open online. I have tried about 20 ppc's over that time. This was while I was waiting to get somewhere in the rankings.
I got quite comfie with Adwords and Overture (now of course blocked for gambling ads). I conistently got up to about $40K per month in adspend and got a decent return (it was hard work though). In that time I toyed with 7 Search, Go Click, Genie Knows, Roar, Mama, Searchfeed and, dare I say, some contextual ppc stuff.
When G and Overture dropped the bomb. I started focussing on the smaller PPC's.
These are my observations:
Fraud is still a major issue here. The discrepancy between clicks they report, and visitors to my sites were pretty huge at times (with Google a 20% "loss of cliks" was OK, less with Overture).
Conversion was much lower (less that half). They almost always deny fraud and that they "were in control. I left a few as they actually got quite aggressive about it (even though click scmas in India were exposed at that time).
The best of the lot imho was 7 search, but when the G shutdown came, their click prices went sky high. I am of the opinion that some of the bigger casinos and poker rooms push up prices to keep affiliates out. Conspiracy theory I guess but anyway.
Now I know some people still make good cash out of PPC's however, I can't see an affiliate doing much. You can justify a $200 CPA if you are a casino / poker room. As an affiliate you can't.
So all in all, I am quite sceptical.
Indeed as Andy suggest, you have to do toms of work to figure out keywords that work for you. It will cost you a bit though.
OK that has grown into 3 cents (I definitely can't afford that!) :P
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