Recent Ad Words Select Change?

Non-US click pricing

[steveb]

I've had on ad words selct [keyword], with a bid of .90 that has been costing me .88, which is the minimum bid allowed...

... or at least was until a few days ago. Now I am showing my average cost per click has gone down to .34 yesterday and is at .49 today. I appear to get the #2 position regardless of the price due to high clickthroughs (the top one is almost certainly cheating).

So I go to change my bid to .50, but this brings up a message that by bidding this low I will be unable to get clicks from the USA where .88 is the minimum.

It appears then that for about a week now clicks garnered from non-google.com search results cost significantly less. While that is obviously fine, and while Google appears to be policing this in-house, I don't know what (if anything) should be done to exploit this drastic difference in pricing. Has anyone else noticed this major change, and thought about how to make use of it (aside from just declining clicks from the USA)?

[ciml]

My feeling about this is that it's better not to over-think. If you stick to a realistic bid, giving a decent ROI, then as AdWords becomes more realistic you can get more clicks.

This change is a significant move in the direction of pricing realism, IMO.

[steveb]

My main concern stems from ad words being dramatically cheaper than any other pay per click. My .90 word costs $20 on Overture. If I can now get clicks for as little as .25 on Google, it's only a matter of time before the folks paying 80 times as much (!) on Overture will figure out what a great deal Ad words select is in comparison. I'm glad to have this jewel mostly to myself now, but eventually the other places wasting money on Overture are going to discover Ad Words Select and I'd like to be ready for them.