Adwords is great but what are some other PPC programs that are very much the same? What would the next best thing be?
There's no question that Adwords is THE network for many reasons. Yahoo and Bing are next but because Google is more popular, you don't get as much traffic. Depending on what you sell, social networks such as Facebook may work for you. Amazon has their own PPC service called ClickRiver which you may want to look into but available only to US residents. Many others out there but once you get past the big players mentioned, everyone else is small, unless it caters exactly to those who may be interested in your offer, a specialized directory or high traffic site for example.
Yahoo search network and Adcenter, both are nice, you can have hands on them. If you are looking for less cpc you may also try facebook ads
Facebook ads are untapped potential and some ppl are converting form fanpage to promoting them.... great resource to promte businsess
I think niche specialty sites work very effectively, but in general Adwords and Microsoft adcenter...look for places like AdBrite but I would avoid them
Facebook ads are very limiting in terms of targeting. It is very easy to set up and do and can be very effective if you can measure it in terms of goals. But this would need to monitored very closely on a daily basis as bids can change within hours and then can become very costly. There are some great tutorials on Facebook advertising. Hope this help, but Google the information you need (on Facebook advertising) and you will find it.
Clicksor is also effective in the sense that its advertising arena is good. They have got a good bidding system as well.