Ahhh, what happened to the good old days, when I could get a keyword for 4c
It's definitely a lot more expensive for keywords than it used to be, but used right and knowing what your main keywords are can help dramatically.
I have and still maintain Google Ad campaigns for many of our clients, it definitely works better for some businesses than others. Used right it can be an insightful medium and depending on clients objective can be used in a number of ways like driving traffic for related industry service, building brand awareness and testing marketing headlines and copy.
I'm seeing some interesting results at the moment from FaceBooks ads
cheers
Mark