Andy's AdWords Course - Get found by the people already looking for you

[Andy Black]

Some advice I just gave someone:

Go more granular than everyone else. Dig under them.

Do what they don't think to do, don't know how to do, or don't want to do.

 

[johnp]

@johnp ? I believe you're running Bing ads as well as AdWords ads. Has the course helped with both?

Yep, I run a couple thousand dollars per month through Bing and everything in the course pretty much applies.

Obviously the UI is a little different and there are some differences with the platform, but I'd say that Bing is almost an exact clone of Adwords. Bing even has an import feature that will automatically import campaigns directly from Adwords into Bing, that's how closely related the two platforms are.

A couple of notes:

- Bing still has right side ads.

- I find Bing traffic to be cheaper, but LOWER quality.

- I'd always recommend starting with Adwords since that's where the volume tends to be, then only moving to Bing when you need more traffic and or have a decently optimized Adwords account setup. That day may never come for many people.

- Personally, I don't like Bing that much, it's a little buggy and feels like a cheap version of Adwords. But I love Adwords.

-----

So yea, the course still works for Bing. It also provides you with a good foundation for any sort of PPC platform outside of Adwords. I'd highly recommend it for anybody just starting out, or who wants to get a more solid foundation.

 

[Andy Black]

In other news... I really don't like how Facebook groups function.
I do like supporting people who've taken my course though, so am creating a forum to migrate us to.

Maybe I'll change it so the course is part of the forum, and there's an annual fee to be a member of the forum.
That fee would have to be at least what the current course costs, otherwise the people who've already paid will be getting a bum deal.

The forum has been built, I just need to work out how to get everyone over to it.

 

[Andy Black]

I've been asked about the private Facebook group for people who've taken the course, and about the forum I might replace it with.

Initially the private Facebook group was to support people who took the course in case anything wasn't clear and I needed to redo videos. It seems the course was clear enough as no videos needed redoing.

I was concerned I'd spend too much time doing free coaching and consulting within the group, but that's not been the case at all. People have asked sensible and interesting questions and I've enjoyed helping out.

The Facebook group is actually quite quiet and more a place where people ask questions based on progress they're making (and new scenarios they're encountering that I couldn't put into a course).

So far it's not been a community where people have chattered much about their progress, and that's fine.

It feels like a forum would be a good supplement to the course, and people have suggested the next step for them is to follow along as I setup and optimise campaigns.

I'm also constantly asked about freelancing, growing a small agency, building and renting assets, etc. Stuff I've been doing and documenting a bit in my INSIDERS progress thread, but which is hard to find because of the linear format.

I'm working out how to supplement the course so that people can use the skills they've gained and become a freelancer/consultant, grow their agency, grow their business, etc. The way I've been doing it at any rate.

Anyway, nothing concrete yet on what might replace the Facebook group, and I'll continue to provide support in the group until I move us out of Facebook.

 

[Andy Black]

Here's a question that you might not know how to answer. I really hope you do though.

@Andy Black

Reposted from the PM.

Before I get to that:

The free trial of the AdWords course helped me achieve a 40% CTR on page. I had 2% conversions on page. People even still visited my site even without clicking on the link.

The question:

If I wanted to make a landing page and/or website that helped me find/buy business problems, how would I go about building an AdWords campaign to find the ideas/problems?

Basically, I want to pull a business problem out of 25 people who have the same problem. Then, I want them to purchase to have the solution built.

If you were to start a campaign like this how would you do it? Second question, would you actually do it? Do you think this campaign could be successful?

Fwiw, you can do click-to-call. You can do landing page. You can set it up anyway possible.

How would you create the campaign? What would you frame it as?

I don't need hand holding. I just need a general framework.

I just hate cold calls and cold emails. This is why I'm asking. I already saw how hard it is to get people buying even when they're asking for it.

My only positive feedback loop has been with AdWords. Perry Marshall suggests sticking with positive feedback loops.

When I got started in AdWords back in 2009, I purchased a $2k course from a guy called Glenn Livingston. (I believe Ryan Levesque was Glenn’s top student and developed The Ask Method from this very same course.)

In it Glenn used AdWords to map out the search continuum (what people search for when they learn about a topic and educate themselves into becoming a buyer).

He’d send people looking for “guinea pigs” to a survey where he’d ask open ended questions to find out why they were doing that search, and what the ideal solution would be for them.

Then he’d do the same for people searching for “guinea pig food”.

Etc.

The trick was to find the “hyper-responsives” - the people who were so frustrated by the lack of information or solutions out there that they filled in a lot of information in the open ended questions.

I tried this back in 2009 when I was considering creating a course on UNIX shell scripting. It showed me pretty quickly that most people who wanted to learn about shell scripting were students, and weren’t frustrated or motivated enough to write much anyway. It was enough for me to give the project a swift bullet.

To do this you need to be careful of Google’s information harvesting policies.

You also need to get in front of people doing very specific searches - so you need to do your keyword research beforehand anyway.


Personally I’d start by speaking to business owners I already know (friends, family, people on local business courses, etc).

I’d also check out forums and Facebook groups and observe what their common complaints are, and what the most frustrated people write the most about (big long complaints usually indicate bigger frustrations - or whingers, haha).


Anyway, all of the above are just different ways HOW to find out what business people need help with, and why.

I presume you want to learn this so you can find out what problems to solve and get paid to do so?

I like the line that “Your market is a demonstrated cashflow.”

Maybe just find out what business owners are already spending their money on, and why?

 

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[Andy Black]

Wow didn't even know you had a course let me know when you're open again.

I will let people know in this thread when the course videos have been redone.

Don’t hold your breath though. Doing a whole video course is hard work and takes a lot of commitment. It’s “on the long finger” at the moment (an Irish phrase I’m fond of).

In the meantime I’m setting up a paid email newsletter because I can drop wee hints, tips, and long rambles all day every day - because I’m at the coalface as a doer.

I’m not in the course creation business. For me, content is a byproduct of the work I do, and of responding to people in forums, Facebook groups, emails, calls, and conversing with clients and prospects.

If I can leave breadcrumbs behind as I’m moving forward then great. Even better if I can turn that into a scalable revenue stream.

If you signup for the free trial of the course then you’ll end up on my MailCheat(Chimp) list that I (ahem) only setup last week and only mailed for the first time yesterday.

People on that list will hear first what I’m up to and when I release the course again, and release other stuff. (All you email marketers will be facepalming at that. Haha.)

 

[Andy Black]

Not to rush you or anything, But when do you think the new videos will be finished uploading? I plan to sign up then

Hi Andy,
Has the course videos been updated already?

Thanks for asking.

I’ve updated the core lessons (account, campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad creation). The accompanying PDF is updated too.

What’s remaining are videos about keyword research, and creating the ad extensions to make the ads bigger. These are quite trivial tasks.

I’m so busy with client work that I’ve not got round to updating those videos yet.

 

[Andy Black]

Please note that I need to redo the videos for the new Google Ads interface.​

Now that I’ve discovered Loom I’m flying through this! I redid about 6 of the videos last night and found it fun.

Do the video. Check it. Redo it if necessary. Upload it. No editing required because the cycle is so fast. It also means the final video is often shorter and slicker because I’ve potentially redone it a couple of times.

Price going back up as soon as I’ve redone all the videos for the new interface.

 

[Andy Black]

The videos have finally updated for the new interface so the price has gone back up to $399.

I'll be adding some more bonus sections to the course on categorising keywords using Excel, and some more case studies.

I've created a new $100 off coupon for INSIDERS. It can be found in the first post here:

• https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...ng-adwords-from-a-pro-andys-brain-dump.54028/

 

[Smuggo]

Also loved the course. At first I wanted to do a few campaigns for a people for free but after a month they were so satisfied with results they wanted to pay me. (two exactly. )

Everything is nicely explained and campaigns are set up in clear, easy to understand way. Step by step. Really loved that.

I only had some problems with fully understanding some YouTube videos since I'm not native so I wouldn't mind some subtitles and maybe giving some advice how to check conversions (if it was in course I had to missed that).

And also additional + for Andy for being such a kind guy.

 

[Andy Black]

I'm investigating how to help people better over the next few months.

I may change the price of the course from

• $399 for lifetime access for a static course

to

• $200/year where I add regular courses/modules.

People who bought the current course for lifetime access would get a year's complimentary access to whatever I setup.


1) Would that help?

2) What courses/modules would you be most interested in?

 

[juan917]

"If you provide a local service"

Is real estate agent considered a service?

 

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[DVU]

Sent you a DM for the code.

 

[MakeMoreMoves]

This is cool, will look into it when I get home from work. Thanks. Dang wish this came out when I still an INSIDERS.

 

[Andy Black]

Hey Andy, I like the sound of your offer...

What I'm working on at the moment doesn't need PPC. But there are friends with service businesses that this may apply to

Does the content in the course apply to struggling?

1.Wedding/Family Photographer
2.Luxury Car Detailing/Wrapping

Have you worked with any clients similar to the above before?

Yep, it could work. I've run very successful Wedding Planner campaigns. People also search for "family photographers <location>" as well as just "family photographers" and "photographers <location>".

Check the estimated search volumes for the other two with the keyword planner (some of the free videos in the course show how to do that).



It's not until you run campaigns that you'll find out if there's enough volume.

See this thread:

• www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/how-to-get-profitable-or-fail-fast-with-adwords.59147

 

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[omegared]

that definitely sounds like a plan, a few questions

is this strictly for local targeting and consulting?

can I use this for my ecom site?

How soon can i see results?

do i need a specific budget?

are you still offering the $100 discount to forum members?

is this good for someone like myself who may not have a marketing degree?

thanks for the quick response

It certainly is. Thanks for your consideration.

For the moment, while I'm new to courses, I am also offering some additional benefits. I don't know how long these will be available but they are there at the moment.


ADDITITIONAL BENEFITS (TIME SENSITIVE)

Private project area where I help each student through the course (at their pace).

A Google voucher added to your account (I need access to your account to do that and it needs to be a new account and new domain for AdWords).

A free audit of your campaigns if I can publish the video (with confidential bits blurred out).

 

[Curtis Randolph]

Very nice presentation. ;-)

 

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[Andy Black]

Failing fast is so much better than failing ssslllooowwwlllyyy... ;-)

Indeed.

I build AdWords campaigns a certain way not only to generate leads and sales, but to also determine where the search volume is so we can build what the market actually wants rather than what we hope it wants.

This radio interview describes the first time I had that aha moment:

• Notable! - The biggest reason websites suck

 

[Andy Black]

"Why did you decide not to go down the ecommerce route? I believe with your skills, you could sell any product like crazy."

Say I'm selling red Nike shoes online, in the UK. I only need 7 other good advertisers on Google to have a full compliment of good competing ads. That means there only needs 7 good AdWords competitors in the whole of the UK. And eCommerce businesses are more likely to be decent at online advertising - since they're an online business.

If I took on a client selling red Nike shoes and nailed the campaigns for them, then I can't take my knowledge to another client and run ads for them too without competing with my first client.

Say instead I get a Family Lawyer in Edinburgh as a client. Are there 7 other good AdWords advertisers competing with my Edinburgh Family Lawyer ads? Probably not. The competition is a lot softer for local lead gen.

If I nail the campaigns for the Family Lawyer in Edinburgh, I can then take my learnings to other cities in the UK, without competing with my first client. I can sell the widget more than once. I can scale.

On top of that, people who search with a location in their search term are much more likely to convert than those that don't. So it's easier to get better converting visitors via local lead gen anyway.


Why am I managing campaigns for clients and not just running them for myself in the first place?

I get paid, to learn a business vertical, from a business person in that vertical, with their ad spend.

One day (and it's getting nearer), I'll run campaigns to my own products, and ease out of providing a service.

I quite like clients paying me to build my business though.

 

[Andy Black]

Here's a recording of me talking to one of the course students:

• AndyTalks with @Pittman09 about his foray into AdWords

 

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[Roli]

Thanks for that write up @Roli. Rep+

Good to see so many things clicking for you.

Did you make any changes after the call, and what effect have they had on campaign performance?

No problemo!

The main changes I made after the call were, making multiple ad groups in single campaigns rather than multiple campaigns each with a single ad group.

Also highlighting the negative keywords and adding those to another identical campaign.

Created a couple of shared budgets to run a few campaigns at once.

 

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[Andy Black]

Quick review:

I actually joined the INSIDERS just to learn more from Andy and his no-fluff super simple way of teaching powerful principles and concepts.

When I notice he had a course it was a no-brainer to me, i have 4 local clients paying me good for facebook marketing, but want to learn to use adwords as a trip wire to acquire new clients

I have one chiropractic adwords client but I dont charge him much since he only get 1 customer/m from it (my town is small as f***)

Going through the course I catch myself "was this all?!". I had a skype with Andy a while back and he talked like it was a rabbit hole.. but this was just too easy.

I dont know what I expected but the fact that I know how easy it is makes me much more confident talking to clients, and now I have a step by step model I can teach future employees.

In the end of the course it is a video for over 1 hour that makes the whole course clearer in terms of the "overall overview" and you will learn small settings insights that will save you the price of the course with only one campaign active !

This is no fancy graphics, get rich copy or strategies that will be banned in 2017, this is a timeless course for using seach ads for maximum results!

Thanks for the review @eekern.

"It's easy when you know how."

I consider this mission accomplished.

You're at the top of the rabbit-hole, but you don't need to descend to be able to create great ads and beat the vast majority of AdWords users out there.

May I ask how long it took you to go through the core lessons (before the 1 hour video audit that solidified it for you)?

 

[eekern]

May I ask how long it took you to go through the core lessons (before the 1 hour video audit that solidified it for you)?

I just run through it in one sitting I guess... while implementing what I learn, I will for sure go through it 10 more times once I get a new adwords client

 

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[Andy Black]

View attachment 14804

Results of my Adwords campaign after 6 days.

I had ZERO AdWords experience before this.

I HIGHLY recommend this course! Andy certainly knows his stuff!

Great to see you're in the thick of it now @MidwestLandlord. The real learning begins now.

You can join the Facebook group and get additional support for questions you may have. I'm pretty responsive in there... much more so than aome in Google that's for sure.

Thanks for a great review and your recommendation.

 

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[MarcUK]

I've just finished the course - really enjoyed it, and have been watching the videos again on one screen, as I set up campaigns with another. Ultimately I am always happy to pay someone more knowledgeable than me if I want to get good at something, and the cost of course will un-doubtedly pay back multiple times over.

I've been doing SEO for the last couple of years and want to get into AdWords properly. Earlier in this thread Andy stated:

Why am I managing campaigns for clients and not just running them for myself in the first place?

I get paid, to learn a business vertical, from a business person in that vertical, with their ad spend.

One day (and it's getting nearer), I'll run campaigns to my own products, and ease out of providing a service.

This is me. As with many things I read in the forum, Andy seems to articulate my thoughts far better than I could.

 

[MarcUK]

Had a phone consultation with Andy last night. He dropped a load more AdWords bombs - worth the money again thanks mate

 

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[Andy Black]

So is exact match used more for when you're ready to optimize and hone in on a particular search term? For example:

Let's say that I'm bidding on

+yellow +striped +socks

And in my search term report I noticed that the term striped yellow socks is leading to a lot of conversions, clicks, good ctr - etc...

Is that when it makes sense to break out that keyword into an exact match like [striped yellow socks]?

Yes, that's what I do.

I don't start by creating all the different permutations someone might search for striped yellow socks.

I start by bidding in modified broad, and adding (campaign) negatives such as:

• amazon, ebay
• competitor brand names
• cheap (maybe)
• etc.

I'll check the search term report regularly, and if I see that there's enough volume for search term striped yellow socks then I'll put it into it's own ad group (typically into an "exact match campaign" where all the keywords are in exact match). Then I'll add the negative exact match into the campaign where the original ad group was.

Why separate out this search term from the set of search terms matched by +striped +yellow +socks?

Each of the search terms the modified broad keyword can match can each indicate the person doing the search is after a different product, or is at a different stage in the buying cycle.

Visitors using search term striped yellow socks might convert better or worse into customers than visitors using search terms black and yellow striped socks, yellow striped socks for women, vertical yellow striped socks, yellow striped sock reviews (lol).

(Notice how I say the visitor converts into a customer, rather than saying the search term converts into a sale, or the click converts into a sale - this is important.)

1. I have been curious about this for awhile. Let's say that for some reason I have SKAG setup like this:

+yellow +socks --- bid $1.09
[yellow socks] ---- bid $2.01
"yellow socks" ---- bid $1.50

If someone searches for yellow socks, then technically all three match types cover that search term.

So how does Google know which match type to go with? Does Google just go with the exact match? Or, will it make a decision based on the bid amount at the keyword level?

I don't know how Google matches it, but I do know the traffic can move around between all three keywords. Likely they match it based on which one they think can make the most money for them, so it'll be related to CTR and CPC, and how much they can make from other advertisers.

This is another reason I don't overcomplicate accounts with lots of different match types. I ideally want my traffic to only have one option of keyword to go to. I don't like it when keywords can canabalise each other.

Check out this post:
Don’t Let Google Control Where Your Traffic Goes

2. (Kind of related to the above)

You said:

"If you find a particular search term is worth optimising, then take that search term out and put it into it's own ad group (by bidding in exact match and adding an exact match negative to the original ad group)."

I kind of understand why you would add the exact match as a negative to the original ad group. But, what would happen if you don't do this? Would this confuse Adwords or something?

We don't confuse AdWords, we confuse ourselves!

And we give Google the option to send our traffic to more than one keyword in our account, which I don't like.

TL;DR of that article I linked to is:
If Google has two keyword options to send the traffic to then you might optimise the ad where all the traffic is currently going, and then Google might change something and show visitors the other ad. And/or you might decide the keyword isn't running profitably and drop bids, to have the traffic squirt over to the other keyword running at a higher bid. So now you're wondering why all the traffic disappeared for that keyword when you only dropped the bid a little bit, when in fact you're still getting it only somewhere else in your account.

3. Dynamic Keyword Insertion into the ad

Personally, I hate DKI. It confuses me when trying to read my own ads that I'm managing and it almost seems pointless to use if the account is setup the way that you teach.

What are your thoughts on DKI? The account manager who I worked with before loved DKI. Most of my non DKI ads beat out his DKI controls. But, there are some instances where I have yet to beat a DKI ad. I've noticed that this typically happens with a SKAG adgroup or an adgroup with 10+ keywords.

Do you use DKI at all?

I don't use DKI at all. I see it as a sign of someone who doesn't know how to create ads that are relevant. It indicates to me that they're just above newbie level and an engineer instead of a marketer. If they're an engineer type then use that engineering skill to create better ads.

And yes, it makes the ads impossible to read, gives control to Google (since they don't *have* to use the keyword in the ad if they don't want), and is pointless when you structure the account the way I do (one actual keyword per ad group and one highly relevant ad per ad group - unless split-testing).

 

[Readerly]

Hi @Andy Black ,

I read through this thread with great interest last night. It seems like you're really on to something here. I even began thinking about local businesses I know that could benefit from your expertise. To be able to deliver new customers to a client is a powerful thing indeed.

I've noticed, though, that there hasn't been any activity on the thread for over a month. Has the course run its course?

Now that you've gone through an iteration of the course, it'd be great to get a summary breakdown from you. Over the past few months, you've gotten a lot of fantastic, if vague with respect to results, testimonials. A couple students, @TheDillon__ & @MarcUK, have posted anecdotes about tangible successes as a result of what they've learned in the course. Compelling stuff!

One of the selling points you've touted for this course is that you've left out the "fluff." In my own experience as a consumer of educational content, I've often found that providers often commit "fluff by omission," so to speak. Reported results never evolve beyond the anecdotal. (Hackreactor is a noteworthy exception to this. They obsessively track hiring after students graduate.)

Are you in a position to report on the results of the course? It'd be great to see:

• number of students
• tangible results for each student (like what TheDillon and MarcUK provided)
• measurable results in some aggregate form

The problem with anecdotes is that any old course with enough students will have a couple students who can turn a handful of coal into diamonds. Certainly, you can't guarantee results for every participant. Much of it depends on their initiative. But if you can come up with a way to trumpet stellar results in a rigorous way, it'll be a powerful marketing tool for future iterations of the course.

Best,
Sean

 

[DVU]

Hi @Andy Black ,

I read through this thread with great interest last night. It seems like you're really on to something here. I even began thinking about local businesses I know that could benefit from your expertise. To be able to deliver new customers to a client is a powerful thing indeed.

I've noticed, though, that there hasn't been any activity on the thread for over a month. Has the course run its course?

Now that you've gone through an iteration of the course, it'd be great to get a summary breakdown from you. Over the past few months, you've gotten a lot of fantastic, if vague with respect to results, testimonials. A couple students, @TheDillon__ & @MarcUK, have posted anecdotes about tangible successes as a result of what they've learned in the course. Compelling stuff!

One of the selling points you've touted for this course is that you've left out the "fluff." In my own experience as a consumer of educational content, I've often found that providers often commit "fluff by omission," so to speak. Reported results never evolve beyond the anecdotal. (Hackreactor is a noteworthy exception to this. They obsessively track hiring after students graduate.)

Are you in a position to report on the results of the course? It'd be great to see:

• number of students
• tangible results for each student (like what TheDillon and MarcUK provided)
• measurable results in some aggregate form

The problem with anecdotes is that any old course with enough students will have a couple students who can turn a handful of coal into diamonds. Certainly, you can't guarantee results for every participant. Much of it depends on their initiative. But if you can come up with a way to trumpet stellar results in a rigorous way, it'll be a powerful marketing tool for future iterations of the course.

Best,
Sean

If you take the course, you will know how to run Google AdWords. That's it.
If you can get businesses to pay you to run AdWords for them this will give you everything you need to do that.

Thats pretty much it.

 

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[Andy Black]

something strange started happening the last few weeks too; the clinic keeps receiving calls from people looking for another clinic, quite frustrating. This only happens when the ad is on.

Check the Search Terms and see if people are searching for the other clinic by name.
Add suitable negatives to prevent your ad showing when people search for other clinics by name.
Also add your clinic name to the headline to deter people who are searching without the clinic name in their search term, but with the clinic name in mind.

Happy to have a chat sometime. Just book yourself in here: www.calendly.com/andyblack

 

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