<are there any things i should know prior to looking for the best price randomly?>

umm... that you're flying HIGH SEASON?

where in spain are you flying? madrid will probably be cheaper than barcelona (it's closer.)
if you find anything around $1k or less you're doing good.

if you're ok dealing with hassles, you might think about flying to some european hub and finding a low-price european airline to get you to your spanish destination from there. i do NOT recommend ryan air, they usually fly to/from pain-in-the-ass airports where the savings get eaten up by transportation costs to/from the city. look at www.vueling.com/ or www.easyjet.com as examples and read the fine print (e.g., vueling charges for checked luggage.) also, make sure that you leave enough travel/transfer time between arrival & departure if you do this.