Agree Multi-Cap.

You have to find a niche, especially in a competitive field like web hosting, otherwise PPC may not work for you.
If PPC was a waste of money, why are so many companies using PPC search engines? and continually using them at that?

Branding? New clients generated? Whole heap of reasons I suppose.
Personally have never used any PPC engines myself, as I prefer pure results.. but if I was, I would be aiming to find the right niche search terms and keyword phrases to target.