Better than Adwords (or at least Cheaper)

Hey, i have only used adwords for all my advertising needs, but i am wondering if anyone else has experience with another advertiser that has a similar CPC program as google, and the same quality targeted traffic, but is just a little cheaper.
I figure that the keywords i would like to advertise on Google are awfully competitive and if i go to a smaller advertiser i could get the same quality of clicks but for cheaper because there would be less competition. Have you found this to be true?

Original post by batman4444