How to use PPC the right way

I just read a great post over at Performancing, it is written by Brian Clark, and it´s about five steps to PPC ads that work. I have actually been doing PPC (pay per click) campaigns on both Overture and Google Adsense without any success (hopefully this is all in the past), and I should have read the five steps a long time ago. My biggest problem back then was that I didn`t use a landing page, I either used the front page of the business I tried to promote, or I used the front page of my blog. None worked really well, the key for me has been to always use a landing page when I promote at various search engines.