Winning Results with Google AdWords, Second Edition

When I got Anthony Borelli's book, Affiliate Millions, I knew right away that I wanted to try my hand at placing ads on Google to generate traffic for websites and earn big commissions through their affiliate programs. <br /> <br />You can get started using Affiliate Millions alone. Since the topic was so new to me, I decided on further study before jumping in. After Affiliate Millions, I read "Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords." <br /> <br />Winning Results with Google AdWords covers a lot of the same ground as "Ultimate Guide." The difference is that "Winning Results" has the weight and authority of a textbook. It covers such esoteric topics as keyword arbitrage, bidding wars, and dayparting. The book is comprehensive. It's an admirable achievement. Mr. Goodman is an eloquent writer. <br /> <br />Mr. Goodman has his own consulting firm. The audience for the book appears to be e-commerce professionals. It is not a get-rich-quick program. I really think Mr. Goodman has forgotten more than other "experts" will ever know about paid placement, search marketing, or whatever you want to call it. <br /> <br />Mr. Goodman is a real grouch when it comes to affiliate marketing (the subject of Mr. Borelli's book "Affiliate Millions"). Goodman writes: <br /> <br />"At the small end of the small-business spectrum is the affiliate marketer. This is someone who joins a parent company's affiliate program, receives custom linking codes that are used to credit them with sales, and then goes out and finds customers for the parent company. I've no doubt that for a clever minority, the math can work--attract targeted clicks by placing AdWords ads and hope enough of them convert to a sale to make you a profit. Just don't ask me for tips. If I could tell you how to turn a passive profit in your home in your spare time, then why wouldn't I set up all those affiliate codes and keywords myself, shut down my computer, and take a nap?" <br /> <br />Well, he did mention a clever minority. I guess that's enough to keep hope alive for the thousands who are following Anthony Borelli, Perry Marshall, "Google Cash," Wealthy Affiliate, and myriad other advisors. <br /> <br />I don't think Mr. Goodman's words should be a wet blanking for aspiring affiliate millionaires, but it doesn't hurt to have a sober assessment of what they are up against. For those who elect to press on, this book is indispensable. <br /> <br />Is it nap time yet? <br />

Maybe the reason people are still giving this book 5-star reviews is that it's crammed full of incredibly useful information. The 0.5% CTR limit is NOT the most important thing about Adwords, no matter what one of the other reviewers (Andreas Ramos) says. And although the limit is gone, keeping your CTR high is still critical to effective results. <br /> <br />It's the nature of computer books to become outdated more rapidly than most other non-fiction categories. Writing about Google is particularly tough, as they are such a rapidly moving target. However, I'd say that 95% of the advice in this book still holds. Two years after publication, that's pretty good. <br /> <br />Uniquely among the books in this area, Goodman writes in depth from many points of view: both the micro nuts-and-bolts stuff and the macro big-picture stuff. If you want to learn as much as you can about Adwords, get Goodman (and then Perry Marshall's book). I'm looking forward to the 2nd edition.

I had been running an adword campaign for 3 months with limited success. I immediately used every tactic I could from this book and increase the quantity of terms I used, the quality of terms I used, my ad text, my landing pages, my offer.... and my Results. I almost instantly increased my Profits 10x over what I was making before this book. At the same time I dropped my cost per click from .59 to .14. <br /> <br />I am not a web guru. I'm not a marketing guru. I'm not a sales guru. I just read the book and did what he said to do. The real key for me was in finding seldom considered keywords that cost tons less than the obvious keywords, and still bring in the traffic. I learned it from this book. <br /> <br />(This update is a year after reading the book: I'm now a Google Professional and help others transform their Google Adwords programs. This book plus lots of real-world experience made that happen.)

On my way to becoming a Google Ad Specialist I have done Google's courses online and off but found that Winning Results with Google AdWords by Andrew Goodman has added a tremendous amount of context to my education. I am actually on my third time through the book in order to let the subtleties Andrew describes with respect to keyword development and optimization techniques in particular sink in.