Competitor Bids on Adwords

how to determine before a camaign

[clickthinker]

Hi

Is there any way to determine what your competitors bids are before running an Ad on Adwords?
Does one first have to set up an Ad and once its up, play around with your max CPC to move up?
thanks

[bcc1234]

If their CTR is higher - their ad might appear above the others even if the cost per click is lower.

[clickthinker]

Ok.
and how long does it take to move up? Say we start at the bottom with a but by some fluke we have a high CTR, how long does it take to move higher up?

[chiyo]

if you have a higher max bid AND a higher CTR you will outrank the pesty guy straight away in a couple of hours! But also depends on what the exact keywords are.

For me however, 1, 2, or 3 position are all ok.

Remember depending on where you quey google from, people get diff results as you can filter for countries and languages.

[clickthinker]

THanks guys!
One more question: what about tracking - does one put up pages specifically for a campaign - pages that normally aren't viewed?

(Sorry - I've been asked to put together a proposal and have never even looked at Adwords before - No one to blame but my own time management skills, I mean lack thereof...20 minutes to go!)