Jason McDonald - AdWords Workbook: 2017 Edition: Advertising on Google AdWords, YouTube, and the Display Network

Welcome to the AdWords Workbook, 2017 edition ! This book teaches you how to advertise your business via Googles proprietary ad system, AdWords .

AdWords is how to advertise on Google.

The book explains - in plain English - how to use AdWords effectively .

AdWords is powerful ! AdWords is complicated ! AdWords is expensive ! AdWords is fun !

Three quarters of the above statements are true, and AdWords can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Indeed, many people dont realize that AdWords isnt just a way to advertise your product or service on the Google search engine . Its also a way to get your company, product, or service on Googles network of affiliated sites called the Display Network that includes blogs, parked domains, portals, newspapers and even YouTube and Gmail. And its a method of remarketing , tagging your website visitors so you can show and reshow them your ad until theyre ready to buy. Its even a method to advertise on apps on mobile phones.

This workbook will teach you the lies and secrets , tips and tricks , tactics and techniques that will help you leverage AdWords to get your company, product or service to the top of Google, in video ads on YouTube, into email ads on Gmail, and placed on a cornucopia of websites in the Google Display Network (GDN) as both images and text. It will also show you the power of remarketing , how to get your ads in front of potential customers by following them across the Internet. Our goal is to first understand how best to use AdWords, and then to set up AdWords advertising in the most efficient way possible, spending the least while getting the most from each advertising dollar.

A Love / Hate Relationship

I am a lover of AdWords, and I am a powerful critic of AdWords. I love AdWords, and I hate AdWords!

AdWords, you see, is like alcohol. Used wisely and with restraint, it can be quite fun and quite productive. Used poorly and with reckless abandon, it can burn through your budget and drive you to bankruptcy (and more alcohol).

AdWords is Like Alcohol

I am not alone ( especially on the love part ). There are many books on AdWords, and there are literally thousands of AdWords advertising companies and consultants who have all drunk the Google Kool-Aid and will all spout the Google Gospel on AdWords. In Googles own words:

Be seen by customers at the very moment that theyre searching on Google for the things you offer. And only pay when they click to visit your website or call. ( https://adwords.google.com/home ).

Sounds incredible, no? Be seen on the worlds most prolific search engine at the moment of search, and only pay when they click.

Yes, AdWords is effective. AdWords is incredible.

The Dark Side of AdWords

But theres a dark side to AdWords that few people know about, and even fewer talk about, publicly. I am relatively alone in going public to educate the general public, especially small business owners and marketers, about the dark side of AdWords the ways in which AdWords is full of traps, or what I call gotchas, that can literally waste thousands of your hard-earned dollars.

There is a bit of a conspiracy of silence around AdWords

Friends dont let friends drive drunk , and friends dont let friends use AdWords without understanding its pitfalls and problems .

An Advertiser Walks into a Bar

Imagine you go into a bar, looking for a nice beverage to slake your thirst. You ask the bartender, Hey, Bartender! Get me a Whiskey! Now, perhaps you want the cheapest whiskey, or perhaps you want to spend no more than $19.00 a glass (you have a taste for Glenmorangie Milsean whiskey). But, if you do not specify the whiskey, the bartender is incentivized to give you his most expensive whiskey, is he not?

Google is Like a Bartender

Indeed, if you think about the business relationship between the bartender and you the patron in the cold, sober light of day, youll realize that the bartender is incentivized to get you drunk, to run up a big tab, and hell happily serve you his most profitable and expensive whiskey all night long. Then, if you get in your car, and crash against a tree, he may say, its not his fault. Even worse, an unscrupulous bartender might water down the whiskey and serve you an inferior product yet charge you the full price.

The Bartender is incentivized to sell you the most expensive, profitable whiskey.

You, in contrast, may want the cheapest whiskey, or at least to make a pro-active choice as to what you want to drink on the continuum from cheap to expensive when it comes to whiskeys. Or maybe you dont drink, and you want an apple juice or diet Coke. Thats OK, too.

And

The Bartender is not responsible if you drink too much and wreck your car.

You, however, would rather not wreck your car.

Google, you see, is like the bartender, and you are like the patron. Google gets paid by the click , whereas you get paid by the conversion (a sale on your eCommerce site or a sales lead such as a completed feedback form on your website).

Those are not necessarily the same thing, my friend. ( More about this later ).

AdWords is Powerful! Dont Miss Out!

Lest you think I am completely against AdWords, lets not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, or search engine out with the pay-per-click advertising! I wouldnt be writing this book, and I wouldnt be explaining how to use AdWords, if I didnt believe in AdWords as a powerful tool in our marketing toolbox.

Yes, AdWords is complex and confusing, and to be blunt rigged against the little guy, but it has phenomenal opportunities for a small business marketer who knows how to master its magic.

AdWords is powerful!

If you know what youre doing, and you know how to harness AdWords effectively, yes, indeed, AdWords can be a key part of your Internet marketing strategy. AdWords can

• Get your company, product, or service to the top of Google at the precise moment, for the precise keywords that your customers are searching for, just as theyre ready to buy a product or service.
• Get your company, product, or service onto thousands of websites and blogs that participate in the Google Display Network , allowing you to reach customers as they browse the Web for information.
• Follow your customers around the Internet through remarketing , showing them your ads on Google, YouTube, and thousands upon thousands of independent websites in the Google Display Network.
• Get your company, product, or service onto YouTube , the #1 video site on the Internet, and Gmail , the #1 free email service.
• Market your App to interested consumers through in-App advertising.

If you know what youre doing, AdWords can be an incredibly effective tool in your advertising and marketing toolbox.

Enter the AdWords Workbook

To succeed at AdWords without wasting money, you need an expert guide and an expert guidebook. Thats what this Workbook is. It will teach you secrets, tips, tricks, and techniques to effectively use Google AdWords to market your product or service in the most efficient manner possible. We will proceed, together, eyes wide open, understanding that Google is like a bartender or a used car salesman that has good no great products to offer us as advertisers, even if hes incentivized to oversell us just a tad.