It’s kind of a mysterious animal, and difficult to get a hold of.

In this very information dense interview filled with practical tips, you’ll learn some of Rocket Clicks best practices for setting it up, and maximizing your changes for profitable conversion.

Listen now please…

G

PS – Remarketing Cheat Sheet Here

I frequently hear people talking about so and so as an “AdWords Genius.”

But when someone says that, I immediately know that they don’t thoroughly  understand AdWords.   Because saying someone is an “AdWords Genius” is very much akin to pointing out a good French speaker and saying “Look at him, he’s a French Genius!”

There aren’t any French Geniuses.  ”Genius” implies an innate ability unattainable by the average person.

In French, there’s  a basic level of fluency which becomes progressively more natural and embedded in a speaker’s brain the more time they spend in France interacting with native speakers in the culture.

Pretty much ANYONE could attain this level of fluency if they decided to spend enough time in France.  (Or Montreal!)

It might APPEAR to an outsider, struggling in their first few hundred hours of studying the language that this other person was a French Genius, but the truth is, it’s just a reflection of the time and energy they spent in France.

Moreover, an argument could be made that the person who chose to spend just a few hundred hours studying French to achieve basic fluency has a more balanced life, and will achieve more in their business dealings in France than the one who dedicated all their time and energy to appearing like a French Genius.

You wouldn’t spend a lifetime studying French if your goal was only to be  comfortable enough in the culture to do business profitably with the locals. There’s definitely a point of diminishing returns… there might be 80,000+ words in the French Dictionary (I’m guessing), but the masses rarely use more than 5,000 or so.

It’s the difference between efficiency and effectiveness!

Similarly, there are NO AdWords Geniuses.

Rather, there’s a basic level of fluency which most people reach by spending a few  months immersed in the machine.  From there, there’s only an incremental ease with which they work in AdWords depending upon how much time and energy they put into practicing.

There certainly ARE hundreds of nuances to AdWords, but many of them can’t be leveraged by anyone who properly considers AdWords only PART of their business and doesn’t intend to be a full time PPC manager.  There are only about a dozen AdWords things you really need to master to achieve a basic fluency. (Campaign Settings, Keyword Groupings, Match Types, Spit Testing, Basic Content Network Logic, Placement Targeting, Conversion Tracking, etc)

Anyone can do it. (Well, any detail oriented person… a lot of purely creative, right-brain types have trouble, in my experience)

The REAL leverage point in AdWords isn’t in AdWords at all.

To maximize your AdWords profits you really need to understand what’s on the customer’s mind BEFORE AND AFTER the click.

Knowing what’s on their mind BEFORE they click helps you get the customer at the most efficient rate (high CTR, OPT IN, and SALES RATES), but more importantly shows you how to TAKE THE PROSPECT OUT OF THE COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT.

(AdWords is brutal… you want the customer to feel that you’ve almost psychically read their mind so they stop their search and start studying what you’ve got to offer in the context of a “go to relationship” with you, and hopefully you alone!)

Knowing what’s on their mind AFTER the click is critical so you can maximize the value of every customer.

And THIS is perhaps the most important part.  Because Adwords is such a competitive auction environment, no matter how good you get at efficiency, it’s effectiveness, or maximum visitor value, which wins the game in the long run.

In other words, if you’re running Adwords at only a small profit and plan to just let it ride, you’re probably planning a losing game.  To truly dominate your market in Adwords, you’ve got to engineer your whole business such that you’re the one who can afford to pay the MOST for clicks.

Yes, you read that right.

Sure you want to buy them efficiently, but you want to be making so much from every visitor that no matter what happens in the auction you can afford to outbid the next guy.

And here’s the thing…

YOU control what happens after you’ve got the opt in or the customer, NOT GOOGLE!

So why get sucked into spending all your time inside a machine someone else controls?   Get it running profitably and then turn it over to an agency to achieve maximum efficiency and volume (e.g. Rocket Clicks), then spend the majority of your resources maximizing the VALUE of each visitor by researching what they want, building back end products and services, segmenting and servicing your list, doing joint ventures, etc.

That’s where your leverage point really is, and that’s how you build a solid and secure business.

Ask yourself this question… no matter what the price of the highest end product you’re currently selling in your business, how can you add a zero?  What would you need to find out from your market?  What would you have to deliver to  be worth 10x what people are currently paying?

And if that’s TOO outrageous for you, how about, what would it take to achieve  DOUBLE OR TRIPLE the price?

Because that’ll change the whole economics of your business, and you’ll find yourself thinking quite differently about the Google PPC auction.  (You’ll probably also find other advertising vehicles open to you which you previously thought were not cost effective)

Worth thinking about, right?

Your humble (OK, not so humble) AdWords servant,

Dr. G

Things which Google themselves point out in the depth of their documentation…

Which have dramatic implications for how you manage the content network… it’s a real paradigm shift.  Without question, it’s the most valuable thing I’ve learned about Adwords this year, and it’ll only take you 15 minutes to go through.

Highly Recommended,

Glenn

Rocket Clicks PPC Management |    Beat the $20/mo Price Increase (2/26/10)

PS – The thematic shift Jered presents is entirely consistent with the focus of my hyper-responsive club.  Essentially, you need to start thinking THEMATICALLY, which requires you to more tightly define what your entire site is about than ever before.  In fact, one way of understanding Quality Score is a recognition that if you don’t take the time to clearly outline your exact place in the world of keyword conversations, Google will define it for you!

I’ve thought long and hard about the best way to define your space, then conquer it with focus and determination in Google (both Search and Content) and beyond.   This is NOT  a technique or a fad, but a set of principles you implement with a step by step over-my-shoulder system.

I’m implementing one last price raise on February 26st, jumping from $77 to $97.   So if you’ve been on the fence following me, consider this your limited opportunity to LOCK IN YOUR RATES FOREVER.  (Note: I never raise rates on active members ) Beat the $20/mo Price Increase (2/26/10)

Hey… I just wanted to give you the heads up that Perry’s doing another free content network teleseminar with Shelley Ellis tomorrow.

I’ve known Perry a LONG time, and there’s one very important thing I’ve learned about him… he rarely promotes ANY other marketer CONSISTENTLY (besides me that is).    So when he started repeatedly driving people to Shelley’s work last year, I stood up and took notice.

I’d strongly recommend you listen to the free teleseminar, even if you’re not at all interested in the intermediate content network bootcamp she’ll be offering at the end. (Which, by the way, there are only 29 seats left for so if you ARE interested in one of them, pay close attention to the post opt in page and grab your spot)

Anyway… the call is FREE, and if you know Perry, you know he ALWAYS provides genuinely valuable and immediately usable information on these calls. So why not?

Of course, yes, I’ll make a commission if you buy anything after clicking this link. So you have to ask yourself, does Glenn really mean what he’s saying? I guess, short of giving you my Mom’s telephone number as a character reference, you’ll just have to make up your own mind. Seriously though, it’s kind of a no brainer:

* FREE CONTENT NETWORK TELESEMINAR: Perry Marshall

http://www.PayPerClickSearchMarketing.com/ContentNetworkCall.php

He’s also the host of “PPC Rockstars”, a weekly pay per click podcast with some truly valuable guests and marketing gems.

David not only agreed to an exciting interview for my listeners (36 minute free MP3 below), but also graciously donated his content advertising book (and this is a REAL, meaty book with detailed examples) for you all to freely download.

Enjoy!

Dr G

Glenn Club |   Coaching |  A to Z Product for Newbies |   Advanced Adwords Seminar

• Don’t judge the success of the content network without cleaning it up first.  Aggressively look for site and category exclusions (in the content placement report AND the standard user interface for the campaign).  As a last resort consider managing effective placements discovered on a CPM basis while you gradually throttle  down the automatic placement campaign (you can drag and drop placements between two campaigns using the Adwords Editor)
• In your most profitable adgroups, don’t necessarily split test a new ad with 50% of your traffic unless you’re very early in the game and you’re fairly sure you’ve got a good change to beat the control. Instead, use the Adwords Editor to make several copies of the existing ad, and change only ONE of them.  This way, you’re only exposing the TEST to a small percentage of your otherwise profitable traffic… if it’s a bomb, you lose a lot less.  If it starts to look like a winner, you can delete many of the other copies to increase the exposure frequency of the test ad (but be careful not to delete the CONTROL copy with all the history until the winner has been firmly declared)
• Don’t be content using just text ads. Local Business Ads, Ad Extensions, and Ad Site Links are very effective yet underutilized media for many businesses.  (And in the content network, don’t forget to test display advertising)
• Test something wildly and insanely different from your existing control ad. I mean, something which kind of irks you to try.   Onesentance.org is a good source of inspiration for ad copy in this light (thanks to David Bullock for pointing this out).   Another good source is to write a controversial ad which goes 100% against all the benefits your competitors are touting.  For example, in the adwords market itself you used to see ads saying “You will make money tonight”… so what you’d do instead is say “Some of these animals are lying!  Be the tortoise, not the hare”… see where I’m going?
• Take advantage of Google’s Betas, especially if you’re a more traditional e-commerce marketing with an actual catalog of products sold through a shopping cart.
• Don’t use the same copy or landing pages  in the content network as you do in search. Content surfers are READERS, searchers are SCANNERS.  (We’ll do more on this in a future audio)
• Go through the reporting center once a week to see if there are new metrics available which could be of use. (These days, new data points seem to be accelerating on an almost monthly basis)

And for heaven’s sake, if you’re not a member of my Hyper Responsive Club already, get out there and join before the price increases forever on Friday (or when I hit 1,000 members, which is looking like it might happen before then since Perry Marshall decided to tell his list of 250,000+ people to jump on board today).

Because without the information in this club, I can virtually guarantee you haven’t carefully defined a very specific keyword target to conquer online with focus and determination.  And if you haven’t done that, I know you’re suffering with much lower click through, conversion, and quality scores than you’d otherwise have. Join now

I know everyone hesitates to join a new monthly club, and no one wants to commit to a new monthly expense. (Note: you can cancel any time, and even the first month is refundable if you decide you don’t like it for any reason, or no reason at all)

But the thing is, hardly anyone is sorry once they’ve joined mine.  Join now

That’s because:

1) YOU’LL SEE A REAL BUSINESS BEING DEVELOPED: This club is one of the very, very few places you can actually watch a real business being developed from scratch. In other words, I don’t only TALK about what to do in some electronic classroom in the sky, I actually SHOW YOU me DOING it as I develop a REAL business.  Join now

2) YOU GET 6 To 12 HOURS FOR MUCH LESS THAN WHAT OTHERS CHARGE FOR ONLY 1 HOUR: While most other gurus are charging $97/mo for only an hour or two of  THEORY, Glenn’s delivering virtually a whole seminar (6 to 12 hours/mo) for much less.  Join now

3) YOU’LL LEARN FROM AN AGENCY OWNER: I’m not only a marketing educator, I’m a Rocket Clicks founder and I’ve seen hundreds of business models from the inside out. Which means, I don’t just guess about what’s working and what’s not, I’ve seen the dollars in vs. dollars out reports. I’m not talking theory, and I’m not going to pee on your back while I tell you it’s raining.  You’ll get the straight truth, even when it’s not sexy.  Which is what you NEED in order to succeed, rather than just to feel good for a few months while you consume another piece of intellectual entertainment.  Join now

4) I’VE LIVED IN THE REAL WORLD: I’ve consulted for dozens of real companies … Lipton, AT&T, Novartis, Panasonic, Whirlpool, Colgate-Palmolive, Bausch & Lomb, Nextel, etc. I might be known in our circles as “the guinea pig direct response guy”, but my techniques are explosive in these circles because they come from an entirely different industry.  Join now

5) I’VE DONE WHAT I’M TEACHING: I’ve launched over 17 markets profitably, the vast majority of which had nothing to do with the IM crowd. I’m not a guru who’s done nothing but be a guru.

6) I’M HONEST: You won’t get rich next month using my work. It’s not even within the realm of possibility. But you WILL learn how to build a secure foundation for your business so it can grow and grow and grow.  Join now

7) YOU’LL LEARN A DIFFERENT WAY TO THINK ABOUT MARKETING: Perhaps most importantly, I’ll teach you a different way to think about marketing which will last you a lifetime.

BEAT THE PRICE RAISE (On January 1st): Join now

And have a Happy New Year!

Dr. G

• For successful content network campaigns, never turn them off for a few days during a slow period (for example during the Holidays).  Instead, use bid scheduling and/or reduce your budget somewhat to slow your traffic. (When you turn OFF a successful content network campaign, you have to fight for your placements again when you turn it back on)
• Never let a successful content network text ad run in a high traffic adgroup without testing a display version of same.  You may find (especially if you’re willing to increase your bid at first) that you’re able to garner 300% more profitable traffic with a display ad.
• Never run content network campaigns without regularly processing the content placement report, at minimum to identify poorly performing sites and pages to exclude as negatives.  (Simple, yet a surprising number of people don’t do it).   If a site gets 500 impressions and zero clicks it probably doesn’t belong in your campaign.  Oh, and be sure you’ve evaluated whether Gmail and/or MySpace is performing for you in content, and switch them off if they’re not!

More tomorrow,

PS –The hyper-responsive club price is going up again on January 1st or when I reach 1,000 active members, whichever comes first.   Lock in your rates today.  hyper-responsive club

PPS – I’ll be SPEAKING in Hawaii at Perry Marshall’s Advanced Adwords Seminar.

PPPS – If you’re a content network advertiser, you might seriously consider signing up for Perry Marshall and Shelly Ellis’ Intermediate and/or Advanced Content Network Bootcamps.    The content network really still is a wonderful opportunity for those who know how to use it.

PPPPS – Thanks to Rob, Loreen, Jered, and Nicole at Rocket Clicks for today’s tips.

You may THINK you know what I mean, and on the surface, you probably do.  But when you watch the video below, you’ll see the IMPLICATIONS are much further reaching, and in many ways the opposite of what you currently think they are.

I can’t recommend you watch this one more highly (I know that’s kind of immodest, please don’t tell my Mom):

Center of Gravity Part ONE:

How to Do It Yourself | Coach with Glenn

Center of Gravity Part TWO:

How to Do It Yourself | Coach with Glenn

If you think your business might qualify for this type of advertising, please submit the paid ppc consultation request and mention this call in the comments section.   If you’re not quite ready for our services but are interested in improving your results yourself, please click here

This interview was inspired by a recent article in Wired Magazine.

To celebrate, I’ve zipped up 6 of the BEST interviews I’ve done with Perry and his office over the years into one big “Fill Up Your MP3 Player Perry Marshall Mega-Download” (there’s an important interview with Bryan Todd, his co-author too.

Perry’s NEW Definitive Guide includes intensive MULTIMEDIA modules on:

• Affiliate Marketing
• The Content Network
• “Just Getting Started”
• Information Marketing
• Marketing in the UK
• Copywriting (with Michael Fortin)

Here’s more specific list of changes to the Definitive Guide:

• Over a dozen brand new chapters covering things like the Content Network, Analytics, Quality Score, and the new interface
• Over 15 hours of brand new audio files (supplementary content included with purchase)
• Video presentations on targeted AdWords sections (supplementary content included with purchase)
• PDF documents and reports never released to the general public before – in other words, stuff from Perry’s private AdWords Vault.
• Niche specific modules that elaborate on how you can specifically use AdWords to profit in your industry. (Think modules for affiliates, info marketers, etc… )
• A brand-new “Beginner’s Guide to eCommerce” that takes Definitive Guide owners from zero to building a website, picking a niche, and launching and AdWords campaign profitably.
• And, of course, Perry and Bryan take you deep inside the AdWords machine, crack the code and reveal how to attract millions of potential buyers in a matter of minutes at the lowest cost possible. With all new tactics and insights, they’ve completely cracked the code anew.

It also includes up to $75 in free traffic from Google for new advertisers.

If you’re marketing in AdWords, you really need to keep up with these changes (personal opinion).   You can pick it up here today

Dr. G