I agree with the comment regarding whether the site was in google’s sandbox. Both of my sites are in there so i decided against paying $50 per month per link on well established sites, simply because a)just because sites have high PR they don’t necessarily have high traffic, and b)paying to increase your PR has no relevance until you are out of the sandbox in order to increase search engine rankings…it’s kind of like catch 22.
I also tried ppc on overture UK and wasn’t happy with the results. I got some of the top spots for some popular search terms but they didnt convert . It’s a good thing i kept a tight budget! But maybe thats just my experience with PC, don’t think I was too lucky.
I think the best thing if its a new site is to target MSN and realise it’s going to take some time.