Is Perry Marshall’s “The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords” worth buying?
Short answer: Yes, but don’t bother buying the add-on guides (Expanded and Deluxe versions) he sells for an excessive additional cost.
The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords on its own costs $49. Buying all the additional modules adds $150 to the cost.
I purchased Perry Marshall’s 2011 Definitive Guide to Google Adwords (the Deluxe package) and devoured it. The Guide itself is truly loaded with incredible tips and concrete step-by-step instructions for setting up effective Google Adwords campaigns.
I also bought the Deluxe package which included add-on products which are (in addition to the Definitive Guide):
- Copywriting Module
- Beginners Module
- UK Marketing Module
- Info Marketing Module
- Content Network Module
These 5 additional modules, which cost an additional $150, were not worth the cost. However, I’m not too upset because the actual Definitive Guide to Google Adwords was worth far more than the $197. Yet, the Definitive Guide when bought on its own only costs $49 (I could have saved $150 … live and learn).
My Adwords experience when I bought the Definitive Guide
When I bought Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Adwords, I had little experience with Adwords Campaigns. Perhaps this is why I found the Guide so helpful. It goes through beginner tips for setting up campaigns quickly and then moves into advanced techniques once you get some experience under your belt.
Why I decided to branch into PPC
The bulk of my traffic generation efforts in the past was attracting organic traffic from the search engines. This works great once you know how to do SEO, but I was getting nervous having all my eggs in one basket. I asked myself: “what would happen to my business if my sites disappeared from the search engines?”
The thought of that happening was frightening. I practice white-hat SEO techniques, but you never know if the search engines will radically change the way they rank websites. The 2011 Panda update by Google hurt many sites (fortunately I came out fine). Being entirely dependent on one traffic source is not a sound online Web marketing strategy.
The Definitive Guide is filled with examples
One of the most effective teaching methods is using examples. The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords supports many of the concepts and techniques with concrete examples of ads, campaigns, and results. I found it uncanny how even the slightest tweak to an ad or landing page can have profound effects on the degree of success with a campaign. PPC is truly a trial and error process.
But, and this is the point of the entire Guide, once you’ve tweaked your way into a successful campaign where you earn more than you spend, you can CRANK up your investment so that net income rises quickly.
PPC can provide an instant boatload of traffic. The scary part is you can sink your boat quickly by spending way more than you earn. That’s why starting small doing plenty of testing using the Guide’s techniques can help turn unprofitable Adwords campaigns into highly profitable campaigns.
PPC is different than SEO on 3 levels
1. Landing page ROI is critical
Making PPC work for you is different than SEO. ROI is so important. Yes, it’s important that the pages attracting traffic from the search engines convert and ultimately earn you money, but it’s not as important as a PPC campaign. It’s more important with a PPC campaign because you pay for every click; sometimes paying dearly for each click (although the Definitive Guide gives many tips for paying less than your competition).
2. Ad copywriting
Moreover, with PPC marketing, you must hone your copywriting skills for your ads or hire a capable copywriter. If your ads don’t get clicked, your Adwords quality score (which counts for a lot … something I had no idea about before reading the Definitive Guide)
3. You gotta play by the rules
Finally, PPC requires strict adherence to the Adwords (or whatever PPC network you use) terms of service. If you breach the terms, it could hurt your ad placement frequency and location. In the worst-case-scenario, you could have your Adwords account terminated. Having an Adwords account terminated eliminates a potentially lucrative source of traffic.
The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords provides information that is in-line with the Adwords terms of service. It’s better not to guess or try and figure it out yourself and instead learn from Perry Marshall, who is an authority on the subject.
That said, organic SEO has rules as well. Google sets out terms and conditions for ranking in their search engine. If you do SEO, it’s good to know what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. Sure, it may take a little while for Google to bring down the hammer, but if/when the Google SEO hammer slaps your site, the traffic flow is over … unless your traffic sources are diversified.
Does the Definitive Guide apply to Bing and other PPC networks?
Yes. Although the screenshots and samples used throughout are based on Adwords, the principles and concepts equally apply to other PPC networks.
About Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Google Adwords
I obviously can’t give away the many tips, techniques, and information in the Guide, but the following is a brief breakdown of the topics covered (it’s a synopsis of the topics covered – the Guide uses different headings):
Definitive Guide to Google Adwords – Topics CoveredPart 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6:
Part 7:
TOTAL PAGE COUNT OF THE GUIDE: 274 PAGES |
A word about negative keywords
Until reading the Definitive Guide, I never bothered with using the Adwords “negative keywords” tool. Boy, was I naive. This is an important tool to use to improve ROI and quality score. The Definitive Guide discusses using the negative keyword tool in-depth.
What I liked about the Guide’s presentation
The information is solid, comprehensive, and presented in a way that’s easy to follow.
I liked the fact that Part 1 steps you through setting up a basic campaign from start to finish. This way you can dive right in with a basic campaign and start practicing the concepts. As you start having success with the basic concepts, you can start implementing advance techniques discussed in the later part of the Guide.
PPC requires practice and experience
For some reason I often believed there wouldn’t much to doing PPC. I’ve done it on occasion over the years with mixed success. After reading the Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, I discovered I made many mistakes in earlier campaigns that cost me money.
Moreover, and this is about the only useful information I gleaned from the add-on modules, is it takes a good deal of practice, experience, trial and error to get PPC campaigns earning a high ROI. It also takes some practice simply learning how to do PPC effectively.
Now that I understand the PPC traffic generation method requires some practice, I approach it with that mindset. I’m now doing small budget campaigns working on improving my ads and landing pages to the point where they obtain higher ROI.
Is PPC right for you?
If you’re looking for ways to diversify your traffic sources, you have a marketing budget, and are willing to take the time to practice with small budgets, then yes, PPC is a viable option to attract sales.
How not to do PPC
1. On Auto-Pilot
An automated approach to PPC is not good. Some marketing companies (I know because I’ve met with them) hype the fact they use automated software to create keywords and campaigns.
2. Driving traffic to a home page
The Guide teaches you how to cater your campaigns to specific customers. This is critically important because you want to engage a prospective customer immediately. This requires thinking about where you’re driving traffic.
3. Failing to test and tweak campaigns
Setting it and forgetting it is not the way to do PPC campaigns. The Campaign shows you how to extensively test and tweak campaigns (ads, keywords, and landing pages) so that you end up with an acceptable ROI.
4. Copying your competitors
One of the reasons for my delay to using PPC was I saw my competitors simply out-bidding one another. Most drive traffic to their home pages hoping for a sale. I simply didn’t wish to jump into a bidding war. Now that I’m armed with advanced PPC marketing knowledge, I’m now in a position to build campaigns that will return a higher ROI than my competitors, which gives me a HUGE advantage. It’s all about ROI.
Why are the additional modules (optional) not very good?
To recap, the additional modules that are an optional purchase are:
- Copywriting Module
- Beginners Module
- UK Marketing Module
- Info Marketing Module
- Content Network Module
These modules lack the concrete, step-by-step detail you get with the Definitive Guide to Google Adwords. These modules are simply a series of interviews with people who explain in general terms the various topics. I simply didn’t find them terribly helpful and they certainly weren’t worth the addition $150 I spent.
But, the Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is worth $49
If you do PPC with little success, or are thinking of doing PPC, then the Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is worth every penny.
Not sure whether the Definitive Guide is for you?
Perry Marshall offers a FREE 5 day Google Adwords course delivered to your email. It’s a good option to get your feet wet and for you to assess for yourself if Perry knows what he’s talking about and whether it’s worth buying The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords.
Click Here to get Perry Marshall’s FREE 5 Day Adwords Course
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