This ClickZ article [clickz.com] both confirms and denies those statistics.
The research confirmed that, for high-volume keywords, conversion rates generally fall as rank decreases. However, when looking at the bottom 80 percent of keywords based on click volume, conversion rates often converted at higher levels than the top ranked listings.
Higher paid search rank not always better...
...really sums it up, although the piece is somewhat vague overall. My own findings are that mid-to-lower keywords can perform as well as those in the top three slots.
Is this because well written ads negate the need for a higher cpc - people are intelligent enough to view the serp & ads and then make up their own mind what to click?
Or, do some people perceive that ads shown lower down the page are likely, somehow, to be more pertinant to their needs - in the same way that research in the past has shown that a reasonable percentage of people looking at serps can be somewhat untrusting of the top 2 results returned?
In answer to both questions: Yes - but not always.
More detailed research needs to be done otherwise everything, like my own comments here, are merely anecdotal.
Syzygy
