There are many ways in being able to get into getting a high rank, or beating your competition in Ad numbers. The factors that may come into consideration would include having good keywords, an ad copy, and how much money you are willing to pay for the ads. So the question becomes, does money play a factor in the end?
Keywords
Having a good keyword for your ads are very much an important factor to contributing to your ad search. By having simpler keyword choices, this allows people who are impatient to search for what they need right away because the more specific your key words are, the harder it is for people to find your ads. People use key words that will be the most beneficial to find what they are looking for and if they use easier keywords then your ads will be able to be shown more often then specific ads.
Can you beat your competition by spending the most money on ads?
Contributing as much money as you can to your search ads does in a way help the over all ranking of your ads, but if your ads are something that people are not interested in then there was a waste in money if no one is looking for your ads in they keyword search options.
Conclusion
Ads are a way for your to give out information and by using words that are easier for people to think about when looking for search options, you are more likely to be at a higher ranking because of the keywords used not because of how much money was put in the make an extravagant ad.