A week or so back my google adwords ads started to appear in the blue bit at top of search results page, and the click thro's (and sales) shot up! Then I got clever and tried reducing my standard CPC from 50p (I'm UK) to 40p to see what would happen. And what happened was that I got no more blue bar exposure, my ads were back in the sidebar (but right at the top as usual), with far less clickthro's. I've increased my CPC back to 50p but I do not appear in the blue bit now. How can I get back into the blue??? Thanks MikeyP ----
My understanding is that ads at the top of the page ("the blue") are a random event. There's no way to guarantee your ad will always be displayed there.
Also, Adwords has a behavior component that penalizes decreases in CPC. Or so it's rumoured. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050922.html In this case, the player increased his bid, got more traffic, then put it back and his traffic was below it's original level. I've experimented with pricing low and then raising it. It seemed to work.