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

[Andy Black]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for this course; I would definitely recommend anyone who wants to learn about paid advertising to take this. A lot of the examples are geared towards local businesses, however I am looking to become a superstar online seller and I believe it's invaluable.

The big thing for me was getting the $99 call and going through what I had been doing; there were plenty of aha! moments which I've pasted below.

ADWORD AHA MOMENTS


1. Finding the search term tab and linking that to the concept of broad match keywords – finally understand the difference between search terms and keywords.


2. Understanding the impression share metrics and what that means regarding overall amount of impressions for the day.


3. Understanding how to tweak the budget, using the Impression Share Lost Through Budget metric.


4. Understanding the ‘holy trinity’ of keyword, ad and landing page – all have to be congruent with each other.


5. Understanding the reason for putting one keyword per ad group in order to attain the ‘holy trinity’.


6. Using the plus sign gives a modified broad match, not an exact match. Meaning that the words with plus added to them, have to be used in the term. However this means close variants will still be caught, for example +handle can produce the word handling within a search term (which may or may not be a good thing with that particular word).


7. If you do not check your search terms and filter out irrelevant ones, then your CTR (click through rate) will go down. If that goes down too much then Google will penalise you. They will penalise you by not showing your ad for the most relevant search terms. Pushing you further and further to the side.


8. CTR can be improved by removing needless search terms and increasing click bids.


9. By concentrating on the correct search terms you increase your sphere of influence.


I'm sure there will be more; however these will keep me going for a while

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?

 

[Andy Black]

Alright guys. I bit the bullet, purchased the course, and finished it two days ago. Here's my review.

So here's what you get with the course. Straightforward information, very clear, very well-explained walkthroughs through everything that you need to know in order to get your ads going.

The course is presented in an over-the-shoulder style fashion in which we get to watch our good friend Andy create an ad, explaining the what and the why with every step as he goes along.

There is ZERO fluff in this entire course. It's an actionable guide that you can use to get started and get ads going within one/two-hours time.

The day after finishing this course, I got inspired to take some massive action and just start cranking out ads and see what came of it. Within 30 minutes, using the wonderful tools Andy provides in his course, I had four beautiful, high-quality ads up and running. This morning, I woke up out of bed to see that a few people have already seen the ads, and sent me an email inquiring about one of the services they found!

The Forum is all about taking action, and Andy has given us a phenomenal guide on how to do exactly that.

10/10,

☆☆☆☆☆

Would recommend to everyone interested in Local Lead Gen.

As I posted earlier, there's also a 10% discount on the course! Join the INSIDERS for $60, and you will be able to purchase the course for only $299!

Great stuff @TheDillon__

Getting that first enquiry for a new project never gets old.

Getting your first ever via an ad *you* created is like a new world suddenly opening up in front of you.

Well done on implementing, and well done on getting that enquiry.

Oh, and thanks for such a great review.

 

[Imgal]

Just because I've summarised it down to an hour doesn't mean it's not powerful stuff.

Never doubted that for a moment! The more bulked out a course is, the more I'm convinced it's not that good and packed with filler content!!

 

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[AubreyJ]

Just sent you a PM about the code

 

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[Margarito]

Thank you for opening this up. I'm really interested in the program. Do I need a website?

 

[Scuur]

Hey, @Andy Black Wondering if you're still offering some the package deals such as $100 off for Fastlane INSIDERS. As well as audits and phone calls for $99 dollars. I just found this MP thread. I'd love to buy this program and learn from you. Also, I will post results and reviews. Also been waiting for a good reason to buy INSIDERS deals this seems like the perfect time.

 

[Kelsey123]

I'm late as hell with this review...but since I've been getting my skin in the game with Adwords, it would only be right for me to say some cool things about this guy Andy Black. I greatly appreciate him and the info on this forum and in his course times a million.

The course, of course has been the missing piece to the puzzle (outside of the forum info) which I was blessed to have gotten my hands on.

If you have a local biz or looking to do some agency stuff..I highly suggest you get his course.

Save yourself the trouble.

Thanks Andy you are a true hero when it comes to this industry!!

 

[Kelsey123]

Thanks for leaving some feedback @Kelsey123. Rep+

I'm curious... now that you've been through the course and have some campaigns running, how have all the posts I've dropped in here differed from the first time you read them?

What's your current biggest takeaway from what you've done and learned to date?

The info here in the forum on Adwords gives you a grasp on things but the course showed me how to apply the knowledge and I got to see how you bring it all together. By applying both. I was able to ...

1- Get a campaign up (the right way)
2- Make the adjustments using the knowledge from the forum
3- Use the audits you show in course to further all the above.

The biggest takeaway so far has been that actually taking the jump and just get things going is the only way one can really see what you are teaching. Everything surfaces and it's like (oh that's what he means by xyz).

Another takeaway I got is that it's far more important to optimize the campaign in order to gain market knowledge upfront than just trying to make a sale or convert traffic into a call or lead.

Thanks again Andy...can't say that enough!!

 

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[MarcUK]

I've been setting up Ad Campaigns left right and centre pretty constantly over the last month, and still use this campaign set-up module as my guide - by next week or so I shouldn't have to use it anymore as things will become second nature, but it's a great follow-along to set things up with, due to the conciseness - 100% recommend if you are still on the fence.

 

[johnp]

Some questions from someone who bought the course:

Thanks for answering my question about this. I really appreciate it. This has been something that has confused me for awhile now, and I'm happy to finally get to the bottom of it.

Everything that you said makes complete sense. That's kind of the way that I started approaching Adwords myself, before taking any courses.

I have always viewed modified broad as a way to buy data, but also cover most variations of the keywords. I never saw the point in adding all 3 keywords to the same adgroup when modified broach will catch the variations. I have also come across some PPC managers who told me that they only use MB.

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).

This is something else that has always confused me. 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]?

Three more questions

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?

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?

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?

Thanks again for taking the time to answer these questions. I know that they might be a little outside of the realm of the course, but I feel like as people get more advanced with PPC these type of questions will start to popup more and more.

As far as the course goes, I'd highly recommend it to anyone. I didn't exactly need a jump start since I do have experience with paid traffic, but it has provided me with a better foundation to build my Adwords skill set upon. I'll leave a better review after I finish it up and free up some time.

Thanks

 

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[johnp]

Thanks for the response.

Everything that you said makes complete sense. I don't really have any follow-up questions to that.

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.

Funny that you mentioned that using DKI is a sign of someone who doesn't know how to create ads that are relevant. That's the exact problem that I had my account manager before we fired the company. He was pretty good with everything, but when it came down to writing good ads and general marketing skills -- not so good.

 

[Paul Thomas]

Hey there - is this knowledge transferrable to Bing as well?

 

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[Andy Black]

Hey there - is this knowledge transferrable to Bing as well?

Yes.

Firstly you can export AdWords campaigns and import into Bing.

More importantly, the course explains the WHAT and the WHY as well as whizzing through the HOW. Once you know what you're trying to do, and why, then you can always work out how to do something.

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

 

[Azure]

No better reviews can be had for a course than seeing the students putting results in action.

 

[Tina70k]

@Andy Black I've read through most of your adwords posts and also been listening into the audios you've uploaded. Really excellent content so thank you for sharing your knowledge with us! I've started my own adwords campaign, have a few landing pages running (each localised) and getting some click-throughs. I was a bit hesitant to get the course as I wanted to try to get more traction first, but the glowing reviews it's received have convinced me to just bite the bullet now. I can't wait to get stuck in and take things to the next level!

 

[MarcUK]

Good work Marc, and thanks for the writeup. Rep+

How many days/weeks did each campaign run for? Is it comparable?

What about enquiries, signups, or sales? Has the conversion rate and conversion value stayed the same or changed?

Roughly the same period so reasonably comparable.

In terms of sales, he's saying good, but not shared any data with me yet - I actually developed a new lander for them too. My instinct says it's been a good exercise for him - he's continued to pay £250 a day on Adwords... so...

 

[MarcUK]

almost 100% - to be honest, I didn't think it a good metric to look at because in his old campaign he was targeting customers all over the UK, rather than his geo due to poor account setup so impression share probably isn't really something that would be worth looking at as it's almost redundant in this case I think.

 

[Mal0ni]

I've been on the AdWords Jumpstart for a couple of weeks now and though I am not entirely through the course yet, I feel it's time for me to share my progress and results so far.

The service I am promoting

A Physiotherapy, health a wellness clinic that my wife just opened in Oakville, Ontario, here is the website: Welcome

How I started before starting the course

I started running an AdWords Express campaign as recommended by Google with....139 Keywords, none of which included the name of the city :/. What was I thinking...

While it did produce views and some visits, none of them converted into calls, call back request or online booking. Not the expected results, obviously



After the AdWords Jumpstart

I than paused this campaign and ran another one and found out that this is an extremely competitive space and that I need to bid up to $10.00 CPC if I wanted to rank on the search. 2 keywords ended up being the most effective, but really expensive. The ad is only targeting the cities of Oakville and Burlington Ontario.



I've also enabled add extensions to help boosting the campaign.

The Results

So far the the AdWord campaign generated 2 online bookings and 6 phone calls, 2 of which converted into bookings, all of them into recurring bookings.
That's not a bad, considering the cost of a treatment but still not quite what I expected.

We're now looking for a way to better optimize that campaign as we can't afford to continue spending so much at the moment.

What's next?

We found out that most of the actions were taken on Tuesdays and Fridays so we will only be running the AdWord campaign on those days for a maximum budget of $50/day.
I also need to perform a more in depth audit of the campaign, get a better understanding of what works and what doesn't. I also need to look for Is there any cheaper more effective keyword I could be using so I will try the following:

Bronte +Physiotherapy
West Oakville +Physiotherapy
South West Oakville +Physiotherapy
Central Oakville +Physiotherapy

Repeat with Massage Therapy.

I will be following up on the progress within the next two weeks.

Thanks a lot for reading!

 

[Andy Black]

I've been on the AdWords Jumpstart for a couple of weeks now and though I am not entirely through the course yet, I feel it's time for me to share my progress and results so far.

The service I am promoting

A Physiotherapy, health a wellness clinic that my wife just opened in Oakville, Ontario, here is the website: Welcome

How I started before starting the course

I started running an AdWords Express campaign as recommended by Google with....139 Keywords, none of which included the name of the city :/. What was I thinking...

While it did produce views and some visits, none of them converted into calls, call back request or online booking. Not the expected results, obviously

View attachment 16423

After the AdWords Jumpstart

I than paused this campaign and ran another one and found out that this is an extremely competitive space and that I need to bid up to $10.00 CPC if I wanted to rank on the search. 2 keywords ended up being the most effective, but really expensive. The ad is only targeting the cities of Oakville and Burlington Ontario.

View attachment 16425 View attachment 16426 View attachment 16427

I've also enabled add extensions to help boosting the campaign.

The Results

So far the the AdWord campaign generated 2 online bookings and 6 phone calls, 2 of which converted into bookings, all of them into recurring bookings.
That's not a bad, considering the cost of a treatment but still not quite what I expected.

We're now looking for a way to better optimize that campaign as we can't afford to continue spending so much at the moment.

What's next?

We found out that most of the actions were taken on Tuesdays and Fridays so we will only be running the AdWord campaign on those days for a maximum budget of $50/day.
I also need to perform a more in depth audit of the campaign, get a better understanding of what works and what doesn't. I also need to look for Is there any cheaper more effective keyword I could be using so I will try the following:

Bronte +Physiotherapy
West Oakville +Physiotherapy
South West Oakville +Physiotherapy
Central Oakville +Physiotherapy

Repeat with Massage Therapy.

I will be following up on the progress within the next two weeks.

Thanks a lot for reading!

(Don't forget that students of the course can avail of a 45 min consult for $99.)

Were your conversions from mobiles or non-mobiles?

Do you have a tight "search term -> ad -> landing page" funnel?

Are you running a Weekly Trading sheet?

A few students have expressed an interest in what to do after campaigns are running. I'm working out how to help.

 

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[MattR82]

Really looking forward to doing this when I start helping a friend with building their website.

I started in Isaacs 18 hour udemy course awhile back. It was great, but my eyes started bleeding about 8 hours in.. and udemy kept crashing lol.

 

[Andy Black]

Really looking forward to doing this when I start helping a friend with building their website.

I started in Isaacs 18 hour udemy course awhile back. It was great, but my eyes started bleeding about 8 hours in.. and udemy kept crashing lol.

I'm curious as to what's stopping you pulling the trigger now? Would a monthly payment plan help?


Lol at bleeding eyes. You couldn't pay me to sit through an 18 hour course.

 

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[MattR82]

I'm curious as to what's stopping you pulling the trigger now? Would a monthly payment plan help?


Lol at bleeding eyes. You couldn't pay me to sit through an 18 hour course.

Nope just waiting to start fox 2.0 and get his site done first.

 

[Mal0ni]

(Don't forget that students of the course can avail of a 45 min consult for $99.)

Were your conversions from mobiles or non-mobiles?

Do you have a tight "search term -> ad -> landing page" funnel?

Are you running a Weekly Trading sheet?

A few students have expressed an interest in what to do after campaigns are running. I'm working out how to help.

Hey Andy,
Sorry for the late reply here!
Conversions are mostly from mobile, 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.
I do not have a landing page funnel, the ad brings the visitor directly to the website which I most probably need to improve. I'm going through a webdesign course on Udemy to help me with that.

I think I could benefit from a 45 min consult at this point.

 

[Readerly]

Just a heads up...

I'll be moving the course into the forum I've created and will then take it down off Thinkific. The forum will eventually become $999 per year or thereabouts.

Anyone who gets the course for the current price before I take it down gets access to the forum for the rest of 2018, and then can choose to be grandfathered in annually at whatever price they paid ($299 or $399 per year depending on whether you're a TFLF INSIDERS or not).

When's the move happening? Or in other words, what's the deadline for me to get my act together and take advantage of your generous discount?

 

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[Kevin K]

I'll be turning off the Thinkific course as soon as I find all the videos for the course, get them uploaded to Vimeo, and setup the shopping cart for the forum. Maybe in a week? I want the course migrated before the end of the month so I can get back to focusing on building the DFY side of my biz.

I'll likely increase the fee partway to the $999 while I'm still ironing out wrinkles in the forum, and create waitlists so people join in cohorts.

Andy I would like to sign up to your course . Can you please send me discount code? Thank you.

 

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[Andy Black]

I quite like that idea of joining in a cohort group actually. Knowing you are all in the same or similar stage.

I should know tomorrow but I'm most likely signing up. At that price, what I would get and where I want my business to go I kinda can't afford not to.

Interesting feedback about the cohorts. It probably doesn't make much of a difference as it only takes an hour or so to go through the course and you'll be able to see what others are up to and understand it too. Might be a good selling point though... I'll bear that in mind.

So far only 2 progress threads have been created in the new forum, but people are encouraged to create them and help each other. Obviously while there's less people I'm able to spend much more time on each person. I did one 20 minute video audit of a member's account, which was fun and what I do many times a month anyway so all I'm doing is capturing what I normally do.

 

[Kevin K]

Sent. Thanks for your consideration.



EDIT: Gosh... just spotted you joined TFLF yesterday too @Kevin K , and you've only posted to get the coupon code.

I'm curious. How did you find the forum?

Well actually. I have been a tire kicker for years on the forum. Under different name that never posted anything. Just reading from time to time . I decided to set up a new account w my name and join the INSIDERS. I loved your value you post on your threads. Everyone that bought your course loves it.

I heard one of the podcast you were on. You explained that you helped your electrician friend grow his business. Well actually I am an electrician ( for a union) and I am starting my own side business. I know it will definitely pay for itself! Sorry to keep this short ( I am at work) Thank you for the course, the discount , and most important the knowledge and support you ( and alot of guys on this forum) give

 

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[MattR82]

Ok, I'm in

Can you send me the code Andy?

 

[Gary]

Just a heads up...

I'll be moving the course into the forum I've created and will then take it down off Thinkific. The forum will eventually become $999 per year or thereabouts.

Anyone who gets the course for the current price before I take it down gets access to the forum for the rest of 2018, and then can choose to be grandfathered in annually at whatever price they paid ($299 or $399 per year depending on whether you're a TFLF INSIDERS or not).

@Andy Black, As course buyers, whether or not we choose to be forum members after 2018, we will still have access to the course, right?

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black, As course buyers, whether or not we choose to be forum members after 2018, we will still have access to the course, right?

Great question! Thanks for asking @Gary.

I'm putting the course into a separate area in the forum I'm creating. I will be able to grant access to that area to people who don't want to join the main forum beyond 2018.

 

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