I use to do PPC abotu 5 years ago when it wa a bidding war I am starting to use it again with Google But i am lost Once you list your keywords, money you want spent, and have your ad all set up How do yo more up in spots or place higher than the rest of the competition Who determines this? What can I do to palce higher or is it all in Googles hands now
Ad position is determined by CTR and bid. The two are multiplied, highest value gets highest spot. Google wraps CTR inside their quality score. Same principle. Therefore, increase click rate and you will move up in position at the same bid. Download Adwords FAQ for more details.
if I were you I won't even go into emotional bidding war, why? because instead of earning money you might be loosing it. For example you have bid for a certain keyword that have a price of $5 per click and your website conversion rate is only 10%, this means you have to get about 50 people before selling something on your site, it's almost worth $250 bucks.. so instead of getting 1 to 3 high ranking keywords, I'd rather suggest that you have a group of words that are suitable for your website, this way you will be receiving traffic from various keywords that you have listed and doesn't cost that much.