I found the following comment from a March 5 San Francisco Chronicle article really compelling. It reads: Clearly, there is more to it than just advertising. They have obviously researched their key words and are getting relevent responses. But, it is nice to hear from an actual advertiser than this system does work.
Of course it works. It's just up to the advertiser to select the proper keywords, drawing the most targetted audience to their site. And the site must be designed and programmed to convert into sales. It cracks me up to no end when people complain that Adwords doesn't work. It's basically saying that in a general sense, "Paid Advertising", doesn't work. Everyone else must just enjoy throwing their money out the window if it doesn't.
Maybe the guy that drives around my neighborhood selling steaks out of the back of his pickup truck isn't such a doofus afterall.