You can give acruxads.com a try. Browse our marketplace to check out the highly ranked sites posting their own competitive prices.
Adwords ? really I dont use stuff from Google, when you read there Privacy Policy you find out there is non and the data or everything you do is kept forever. Thats not a nice way to handle a customer.
I saw an interview with the CEO last night on HULU (CNBC) where he said the data becomes 'anonymous' after a period of time...8 months (I think) I run display ads on the Top 5ish sites in a micro niche and that does it for me. If they don't have Google running its the only way to go sometimes. For the sites that run AdWords I simply target their site and get top placement that way.