Huge question. Your bid amount depends on: 1) How competitive said KW is 2) Your QS in comparison to competitors on said KW Basically no one can tell you this and I would suggest that before you try Adwords you read A LOT MORE about it on the Adwords guides
I agree with JHardy WV...you'll want to do a little research if you really want to be at the top of the "search" It's not as simple as putting a high CPC....Quality Score does have a lot to do with it as well...especially in terms of impressions. Also, when/if you start your campaign...start small, let your campaign run for a day or so and see what your Avg. Page-Rank is, QS and other stats are. You'll be able to see which key-words are getting you near the top and which ones aren't. Eliminate the ones that aren't working and just focus on the ones that do...helps your QS and ROI. Hope this helps, your best bet is to do a little research and give it a test run, then go from there to optimize.
I signed up for ad words yesterady and my ad is doing better today. I'm on the second page for one of my keywords. My sponsor told me to "prepay with $200 so Google would see I am going to spend money and they'll put me on the first page".
> My sponsor told me to "prepay with $200 so Google would see I am going to spend money and they'll put me on the first page". Your sponsor knows not what he's talking about. He certainly doesn't know much about Adwords with a comment like that. Adwords is an auction. Some keywords have more value than others so telling you to bid $X doesn't mean a thing without knowing a lot more. You may not even be willing to bid $X. Note however that what you bid and what you pay are different things. What you actually pay is influenced by your competitors, their QS (quality score) and your own QS. Here's a free Adwords FAQ that goes into more details.
You have to learn more and try different campaigns before success with Adwords. Use RST. Read, Study and Test
You want to test different ads (types, words used...ect), landing pages, keywords, managed content placements, CPC, daily budgets...ect Make different campaigns so you can monitor which combination works the best depending on what you are looking for (ROI, Impressions, Clicks, Sales, Traffic...ect) That will cost you a little $ and a little time, but once you find out what ads/placements/keywords work the best you can identify what works for you. I wish there was a sure fire way to know right out of the box what works, but it varies depending on what kind of traffic you are competing against. Hope this helps!