I stoped bidding on that keyword months ago......
Impressions from the Content network have cut by 1/3 this last two weeks..... plus the quality of the traffic is horrible.
After 3 straight days of losing money, I finaly had to reduce most of my bid amounts today. Funny thing is I'm seeing almost the same amount of traffic as yesterday....
I'm sure hoping things can get back to NORMAL (what ever that is) soon.
By far this is the WORST it has been for us in 3 years.
heyday
I have a site with about 75 sets of words, 5 or 6 sets are constantly being "messed with" by the top 5-7 bidders. My spending limit is super-low (compared to others I've seen here) at around $100-$150 a day. My unscrupulous competitors (I guess, but I can't prove it) are constantly depleting my balance: I set the highest bid, they go right under me and click away, killing my account when the balance dries up. Then the bids are magically lowered back down to earth once I'm off the SERP.
Some of those words are selling for $6-$7 or more now, were between $1-$3 when I started doing this a few weeks ago. And they change with the wind.
My time does not allow me to constantly monitor the bidtool, and do the constant click fraud checking.
At least on Google I can write good ads and still be seen.