PS – In my opinion, anyone spending more than $1,500/mo in AdWords should at some point have Bryan review their campaigns.   Perry Marshall himself suggests there are many things Bryan knows about AdWords that Perry does not.  Here’s my sneaky affiliate link for the consultation with Bryan Todd.  Oh, and just in case you’ve never heard it, here’s a link to a very revealing interview I did with Bryan a few years back about what distinguishes the winners from those who continue to flop and flounder in Adwords

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

It’s entirely my fault.

My sincere apologies.

G

PS – There WERE quite a few creative entires, and I will post a winner from those previously entered on Friday, as promised. But please don’t post anymore (and I’ve deleted the 72 entries previously made).

Unlike everyone else, I urge people to have the patience to do their research and competitive intelligence thoroughly and precisely, so they’ll have the RIGHT INPUTS for their tests, to maximize the probability of results.

But here’s something I haven’t talked much about, which I really should (but Howie beat me to the punch)…

“Testing Juice” is a limited resource.  We only have so much traffic and money to pay for it, and every test we do eats some of it for a while.    Accordingly, it’s vitally important to PRIORITIZE your tests correctly.

Howie Jacobson, author of Adwords for Dummies, has developed an excellent paradigm for doing just that.  In this MP3 interview (and accompanying slides) you’ll hear him walk you through it.

Of course, I won’t hide the fact that this is also a blatant attempt to get you to attend Camp Checkmate via my affiliate link (which entitles you to the EARLY BIRD pricing if you order soon, even though the deadline’s passed). But as always, both Howie and I took extra special care to ensure the content itself should be immediately valuable to you.

Enjoy!

Dr. G

In any case, it’s definitely THE starting point for understanding the components of Quality Score, especially the key role Click Through Rates play, and the VERY specific economic impact Quality Score has on bid price.  It’s something which EVERY AdWords advertiser should watch.  (Especially since it’s under 10 minutes!)

In my humble opinion, Quality Score is all about “Getting them there and keeping them there with relevant content”… which means (mathematically) a high Click Through Rate, a Long Time Spent on the Site, and a Low Bounce Rate.  What that means in Plain English, however, is that you simply have to know what your best prospects want, on an adgroup by adgroup level, if not down to the keyword.  What’s the best way to do that?  Join the hyper-responsive marketing club of course!

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)

Enjoy

Rocket Clicks |    Beat the $20/mo Glenn Club Price Increase (2/26/10) |  Coaching Priority List

But what about getting higher scores on keywords which are already performing for you?

What about moving from 6s and 7s to 9s and 10s?

And more importantly, how do you maximize your PROFITABLE IMPRESSIONS on keywords which are already performing well for you?

Other than Google, I think perhaps no one knows better than Rob Sieracki, recently promoted to Chief Operating Officer at Rocket Clicks.

If you’ve got even one keyword which runs profitably in AdWords, I guarantee you’re going to kiss me for putting this interview together. (No complaints about the beard please)

Enjoy!

Dr. Glenn

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