Product Review : Definitive Guide to Google Adwords

I've been doing Pay Per Click advertising for about a year now, without any real training or advice. To be honest, I didn't really think there was that much of a science to it, but after reading Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, I've had my eyes opened.

Perry is apparently a professional advertising exec who has been working with online clients for quite some time, and was one of the first to use Google Adwords, when the program was introduced in 2002. To say that he is an "expert" puts it mildly, in my opinion.

I bought the "ebook only" version of his guide, which is also offered in an expanded package, which includes some CDs and other goodies.

The ebook is well organized, well-written, and easy to follow and understand. For raw beginners, he starts out taking you step-by-step through setting up your campaigns, and includes some screenshots to make it easier for you.

The book hardly stops there, however. This is not some over-priced, over-simplified "guide" to setting up a PPC account. It is a comprehensive, step-by-step "how to" guide that will teach you the art of advertising as it applies to the internet. Not only that, it give specific plain english recommendations on how to maximize the return on your advertising dollars.

Most of this ebook is about advanced techniques that you need to know to avoid losing your shirt doing worthless Pay Per Click advertising. He goes into considerable detail on how he goes about modifying his campaigns to maximize their return, and minimize his costs. Several of the methods he talks about were real eye-openers for me, yet all were simple to implement.

I literally had no idea that one could do what he suggests, which is really very simple, once you get the idea. Three techniques, in particular were brand new to me, and well worth the modest cost of the book. I'll probably save more in the next week than I spent on the ebook, since making some revisions to my Google and Overture campaigns based upon what I learned.

As far as I'm concerned, that's the measure of a great product. I came away from my first reading of it confident that I had learned something more valuable than what I paid for it. I'm also confident that I now have a solid foundation from which to develop my PPC campaigns and make them pay off.

After a second reading, I discovered the real value in this book. I started looking at the logs of my PPC accounts, and noticed that by making a couple of simple changes recommended in the book, I could cut my advertising cost by something like 50% to 75%, depending on the campaign, yet increase my click-through rates by as much as 1500%. Yes, you read that correctly. To be blunt, I was astonished. What the author suggested was hardly rocket science, but I had completely overlooked it.

I give this product my highest recommendation!

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