Should I use always the highest bid?

[levalencia1]

In google adwords the highest bid apparently gets more impressions, but always more clicks?

I wonder if I can save money by not targeting the 1st position, but from example 3-6, the ad will still be visible once the search results come in.

how do you guys usually set the bid?

[Kenn_Gold]

It really depends on whether you are looking for a higher CTR or a lower CPA. This will vary depending on what your goal is. If you are just trying to drive any and all traffic, then generally higher bids and first position will almost always result in more raw traffic.

If you are driving to a landing page though, and your goal is to get qualified traffic to not only click on the add but convert through some sort of call to action, often a lower average ad position can pay off quite well for you. Especially if there are a lot of ads and you have 3 ads on top of the organic listing and several more on the right side of the SERP.  In those cases, I often find a lot of success in qualified clicks with an average position of 4.5.

Of course it does depend on your vertical, and B2B and B2C often act very differently.

[danrawk]

How much time/data do you have in Adwords?

We've lowered our highest bid and seen the same amount of traffic/conversions even though we aren't the "top bid" anymore.

I suspect this will vary greatly depending on what niche you are in and how much you mess with your bid (i..e top bid gets a LOT of eyeballs, middle bid gets some, low bid may not even display).

you have to decide if that sweet spot where the ad displays in the middle generates a better bid price and conversion against the "paying full price" for the top spot.

so in short, test both over a period of time and then go back and check the conversion data! :>)