AdWords For Dummies E-Book

Howie Jacobson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 591

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

* AdWords lets every business-from eBay PowerSellers to Fortune 500 companies-create targeted, cost-efficient advertising campaigns on the Web, and accounts for the bulk of Google's $6 billion in annual revenues * This all-new guide helps advertisers get a handle on AdWords complexities and nuances, adopt AdWords best practices, and turn clicks into ka-ching! * Topics covered include conducting quick and cheap market research, crafting a message that cuts through the clutter, choosing AdWords settings, bidding on keywords, setting a maximum daily spend, improving the Web page that an ad points to, testing strategies, tracking results, and using Web analytics tools * Includes an exclusive offer from Google-AdWords credits equivalent to the price of the book-plus a companion Web site with up-to-the-minute AdWords tips and tricks, narrated video walkthroughs, and free trials of the author's software

Leseprobe

AdWords® For Dummies®

by Howie Jacobson, PhD

AdWords® For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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About the Author

Howie Jacobson,PhD, has been an Internet marketing strategist since 1999. He specializes in helping clients use Google AdWords to grow their businesses. Due to the fact that he was forced to study statistical methods in graduate school, Jacobson took to direct marketing as soon as he tripped over it in 2001.

He is the creator of “Leads into Gold,” a home-study course that teaches small-business owners how to become their own direct-marketing agencies. He is also co-creator of The System Seminar’s home-study course, “Internet Marketing for Smart Beginners,” along with System founder Ken McCarthy and Cindy Kappler.

Jacobson has presented at several System Seminar events, at Perry Marshall’s AdWords Seminar, and at workshops and seminars around the world. He is a regular contributor to HorsesMouth.com, a performance-improvement site for financial advisors, as well as a former writer for Vault.com. He is the second-tallest member of Perry Marshall’s AdWords Coaching faculty, and has worked with Marshall since 2003. He leads telephone seminars on beginner and advanced AdWords topics and provides online coaching and support at his Web site, www.askhowie.com.

Jacobson also runs www.loweryourbidprice.com, a company that produces software tools that help AdWords advertisers and AdWords consultants save time, reduce costs, and increase profits.

Luckily for you, Jacobson began his career as a schoolteacher. He learned through trial-by-fire how to be engaging, clear, and entertaining while providing value and motivating results. He is also a business coach and trainer, skilled in turning learning into action, helping his own clients and a horde of others in association with Bregman Partners, Inc., and The Avoca Group.

Jacobson combines his marketing expertise with his background in and passion for health and fitness at FitFam.com, a resource for parents struggling to raise fit and healthy kids in a crazy-busy world.

He lives in Durham, North Carolina, with his wife, two kids, big goofy dog, and little mountaineering hamster. His lifelong ambition is to bring about world peace through marketing — and after that’s accomplished, to play Ultimate Frisbee in the 2044 Olympics in Maui.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the people I annoyed and ignored the most during the writing of it: my children Yael and Elan, and my wife. Mia, I love you more than any of my favorite song lyrics can say. Yael, continue to strive for justice and keep making the world a more beautiful and unpredictable place. Elan, keep growing strong and true, and share your belly laugh with everyone you meet.

I also dedicate this book to my mother, Lucie Jacobson, whose example reminds me to give generously and live big, and the memory of my father, Joel R. Jacobson, a courageous man with a kind heart and a great squash serve.

Author’s Acknowledgments

If I were to properly acknowledge on one page all the help I received while writing this book , I’d be using Times New Roman 0.01-point font and you’d be reading this with an electron microscope.

My wonderful editors at Wiley Publishing: Melody Layne, Steve Hayes, Jean Rogers, and Barry Childs-Helton. They have been patient with my whining, accepting of nothing but my best, and always ready with advice and reassurance.

My technical advisors at Google, Jason Rose, Fred Vallaeys, and Emily Harris, answered my frequent volleys of questions with celerity and grace. We haven’t met, but I like to think of them riding their Segways from the office to the gourmet lunch rooms at the Googleplex.

Big hugs to the many AdWords experts who shared their wisdom, stories, and sometimes even keywords. Perry Marshall is such a fine AdWords teacher, business associate, and friend that I wonder what good deeds I performed in my previous life to deserve him. David Bullock and Glenn Livingston shared their best stuff with me freely and often — I apologize to their clients and spouses for all the time I monopolized while asking them questions. David even agreed, in a moment of weakness, to become the technical editor for the book. Luckily, I asked and he agreed just before he was featured in Black Enterprise Magazine and became the most sought-after Taguchi expert in the country.

Timothy Seward, my neighbor in North Carolina, has taught me more about Analytics than I thought there was to know. If I’d been paying for his time, he’d be retired by now. The fabulous Joy Milkowski shared her methodologies with me and helped me rewrite the chapter about creating compelling ads. The friendship we developed during this project has been an added bonus. Don Crowther, one of the cleverest and under-the-radar marketers on this or any other planet, shared more cool ideas with me than I could ever have hoped.

Bryan Todd and I have argued and philosophized about metrics more than either of us cares to admit. Kelly Muldoon shared her experience with geographic targeting, and always has the right amount of sympathy and chocolate for any situation. Michael Katz, the world’s expert on e-newsletters, was so helpful during this project that I almost forgive him for being funnier than me. Joe Chapuis generously shared his knowledge about the cutting edge of online video, while Ari Galper enlightened me about the marketing potential of live chat and allowed me to reveal his strategies and show his screen shots. Thanks also to my many clients who shared case studies with me — sorry about all the ones I couldn’t use.

Rob Goyette, Steve Goyette, and Erik Wickstrom were never more than a cellphone call away whenever I had a question about PHP, HTML, or the MLB MVP. Working with these talented programmers and marketers is like having three genie-filled lamps.

Ken McCarthy is, quite simply, the source. He understood the potential of the Internet long before the dotcom craze, and he has been quietly creating business leaders and success stories for over 14 years. The combination of masterful teacher and brilliant business strategist is a rare one; throw in loyal friend and passionate righter of wrongs and you have Ken.

Brad Hill believed in me enough to get this whole adventure in motion, and he has encouraged me to become the writer my elementary school teachers always said I’d become. Danny Warshay has been a business and life mentor since we met as roommates in Jerusalem in 1986. And Peter Bregman gave me my introduction to the business world when I was a naïve, befuddled PhD freshly minted from grad school. He always encouraged me to ask questions, no matter how stupid, and except for that time when I asked the HR Director from American Express what exactly she meant by “P&L,” it all worked out. Without Peter’s guidance and wicked humor, my life would be unimaginably less rich.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Jean Rogers

Senior Acquisitions Editors: Melody Layne, Steven Hayes

Senior Copy Editor: Barry Childs-Helton

Technical Editor: David Bullock

Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner

Media Project Supervisor: Laura Moss-Hollister OR Laura Atkinson

Media Development Specialist: Angela Denny, Josh Frank, Kate Jenkins, OR Kit Malone

Media Development Associate Producer: Richard Graves

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinators: Adrienne Martinez, Jennifer Theriot

Layout and Graphics: Carl Byers, Stephanie D. Jumper, Christine Williams

Proofreader: ConText Editorial Services, Inc.

Indexer:

Contents

Title

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You Don’t Have to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I : Becoming a Google Advertiser

Chapter 1: Profiting from the Pay-Per-Click Revolution

Introducing AdWords

Where and When the Ads Show

AdWords in the Total Google Context

Pay Per Click: Your Online Gumball Machine

The Direct-Marketing Difference: Getting Your Prospects to Do Something

How to Think Like Your Prospect

Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Starter Edition Account

Who Should Start with the Starter Edition

Signing Up Couldn’t Be Easier

Touring Your Starter Edition Control Panel

Activating Your Account

Managing Your Account

Upgrading to the Standard Edition

Chapter 3: Setting Up Your Standard Edition Account

Setting Up Your Standard Edition Account

Running Mission Control with the Campaign Management Tab

Part II : Launching Your AdWords Campaign

Chapter 4: Discovering Your Online Market

Assessing Market Profitability (Don’t Dive into an Empty Pool)

Taking the Temperature of Your Market — Advanced Methods

Eavesdropping at the Watering Hole

Cutting Through the Clutter with Positioning

Chapter 5: Choosing the Right Keywords

Decoding Keywords to Read Your Prospects’ Minds

Mastering the Three Positive Keyword Formats

Researching Keywords: Strategies and Tools

Finding Sneaky Variations for Fun and Profit

Sorting Keywords into Ad Groups

Deploying Negative Keywords

Adding, Deleting, and Editing Keywords

Chapter 6: Writing Magnetic Ads

Understanding the Three Goals of Your Ad

Tuning Your Ad to the Keyword

Marching to a Different Drummer

Motivating Action in Four Lines

Sending Out a Call to Action

Mastering the Medium and Voice at Haiku U.

Naming Your Online Store Effectively

Wielding “Black Belt” Techniques for Hyper-Competitive Markets

Following Google’s Text-Ad Guidelines

Exploring the Other Ad Formats

Part III : Managing Your AdWords Campaigns

Chapter 7: Deciding Where and When to Show Your Ads

Getting the Most Out of Your Campaigns

Bidding Smart

Chapter 8: Improving Your Campaigns through Keyword Management

Nurturing, Relocating, and Firing Keywords

Resuscitating Poor-Quality Keywords

Managing the 80/20 Way

Chapter 9: Getting It Done with AdWords Tools

Improving Your Campaigns with the Optimizer Tools

Saving Time with the Campaign Modification Tools

Getting Feedback from Google with the Ad Performance Tools

Part IV : Converting Clicks to Clink

Chapter 10: Giving Your Customer a Soft Landing on Your Web Site

Making Your Visitor Shout “That’s for Me!”

Defining the Most Desirable Action for the Landing Page

Selling the Most Desirable Action

Chapter 11: Following Up with Your Prospects

Overcoming Your Prospects’ Miniscule Online Attention Span

Spinning a Web with an Opt-In

How to “Bribe” Your Prospects to Opt In

Staying on Your Prospects’ Minds with E-mail

Going Offline to Build the Relationship

Chapter 12: Building a “Climb the Ladder” Web Site

Identifying the Rungs of Your Business Ladder

Using Web Tools to Help Your Visitors up the Ladder

Part V : Testing Your Strategies and Tracking Your Results

Chapter 13: How You Can’t Help Becoming an Advertising Genius

Capturing the Magic of Split Testing

Conducting Split Testing with AdWords

Strategies for Effective Split Testing

Generating Ideas for Ad Testing

Tools for Split Testing

Split Testing Web Pages

Chapter 14: Slashing Your Costs with Conversion Tracking

Setting Up Conversion Tracking

Introducing Three New Columns

Tracking ROI of Ads and Keywords

Creating Easy-to-Understand Reports

Customizing Your Reports to Show the Most Important Numbers

Discovering What to Do with the Data

Chapter 15: Making More Sales with Google Analytics

Installing Analytics on Your Web site

Making Sense of the Data

Acting on Your Data to Make More Money

Part VI : The Part of Tens

Chapter 16: The Ten Most Serious AdWords Beginner’s Mistakes

Neglecting to Split Test Your Ads

Letting Google Retire Your Ads without Testing

Split Testing for Improved CTR Only

Ignoring the Display URL Line in Your Ad

Creating Ad Groups with Unrelated Keywords

Muddying Search and Content Results

Ignoring the 80/20 Principle

Declaring Split-Test Winners Too Slowly

Declaring Split-Test Winners Too Quickly

Forgetting Keywords in Quotes (Phrase Matching) or Brackets (Exact Matching)

Ignoring Negative Keywords

Keeping the Keyword Quality Score Hidden

Spending Too Much or Too Little in the Beginning

Chapter 17: Ten AdWords Case Studies

Adding a Welcome Video to the Landing Page

As Seen on TV Ads and Web Copy

Plugging in the Blender with Risk Reversal

Getting the Basics Right

Letting Visitors Choose Their Own Sales Funnels

15-Cent Click to $1700 Customer in Minutes

Local Search with Video Web Site

Generating B2B Leads Without Cold Calling

Understanding and Answering Customer Objections

Making Money in an Impossible Market

Introduction

Most business owners I meet have never heard of Google AdWords. My prediction: If you aren’t advertising your business in Google within two years, you’re not going to stay in business. The age of the Yellow Pages is coming to an end, and online advertising — led by AdWords — is taking over.

For those who take the time to master this new advertising medium, it’s an exciting time. AdWords represents a revolution in the advertising world. For the first time ever, businesses large and small can show their ads to qualified prospects anywhere in the world, when those prospects are hungriest for their products and services. AdWords allows fine geographic targeting, like a Yellow Pages ad, but (unlike the Yellow Pages) also allows advertisers to edit, pause, or delete their Google ads any time they like, in real time.

Unlike a traditional advertisement, Google ads cost money only when they are clicked — that is, when a live prospect clicks the ad to visit your site. And perhaps most important, AdWords enables advertisers to test multiple ads simultaneously and to track the return on investment of every ad and every keyword they employ.

Since a click can cost as little as a penny and each click can be tracked to a business outcome, even small, cash-strapped businesses can find AdWords an effective way to grow without betting the farm on untested marketing messages. Google’s ads reach across the entire Internet; in addition to the 200 million Google searches per day (almost 60% of all Internet searches), Google provides search results for AOL, Earthlink, Netscape, and other big Internet service providers. And through its AdSense program, Google’s ads appear on sites all across the Internet — in thousands of newspaper Web sites and hundreds of thousands of blogs, as well as on Gmail pages.

Yet few small businesses have ever advertised through AdWords. The pay-per-click technology, combined with the unfamiliar form of direct-response marketing, has so far kept most small businesses away from the potential benefits of AdWords. If few businesses are using it, even fewer are using it wisely. Marketing executives at large companies have been slow to embrace the direct-response model, having been trained in brand advertising that has little place in a results-accountable medium like AdWords.

About This Book

I’ve consulted with hundreds of AdWords clients over the past several years, working with everyone from complete beginners who didn’t know how to set up their account to power users spending over a million dollars a month in clicks. Nothing in this book is theoretical — every concept and strategy has been tested under fire in some of the most competitive markets on Earth. When you play the AdWords game, you don’t have much room to spin failure into success. You either make money or lose money, and the numbers tell the story.

This book strives to explain clearly, in layperson’s terms, the AdWords mechanics and best practices for businesses large and small. You will discover how to build smart and elegant campaigns based on an understanding of the direct-marketing principles.

This book isn’t meant to be read from front to back. (I didn’t even write it from front to back.) It’s more like a reference. Each chapter is divided into sections, so you can jump in anywhere and find out how to accomplish a specific AdWords task.

You don’t have to remember anything in this book. Nothing is worth memorizing, except the mantra, “Thank you, Howie.” The information here is what you need to know to create and manage successful AdWords campaigns — and nothing more. And wherever I mention a new term, I explain it in plain English. When the movie comes out (I’m thinking Kevin Spacey plays me, although Daniel Day Lewis would also be a good choice), these explanations will be in bold subtitles. I rarely get geeky on you, because AdWords is by and large a user-friendly interface. Occasionally I do show off by explaining a technical phrase — feel free to skip those sections unless you’re preparing for a big game of Trivial Pursuit — Cyber Edition.

Conventions Used in This Book

I know that doing something the same way over and over again can be boring (the opening credits of The Brady Bunch comes to mind), but sometimes consistency can be a good thing. For one thing, it makes stuff easier to understand. In this book, those consistent elements are conventions. In fact, I use italics to identify and define the new terms.

Whenever you have to type something, I put the stuff you need to type in bold type so it’s easy to see.

When I type URLs (Web addresses) within a paragraph, for the rare snippets of code I show you, and for keywords, I use a monospace font that looks like this: www.dummies.com.

What You Don’t Have to Read

This is the hardest part of the book for me, because each word I wrote is my baby, and they’re all wonderful. Nevertheless, I am contractually obligated to let you off the hook at least a little, so here goes.

You can skip all the paragraphs marked with the Technical Stuff icon. I just put that in because I like the icon, and to give you confidence that I know what I’m talking about. The sidebars aren’t crucial to the plot either, although many of them feature tips and examples from very sharp AdWords users.

If you already have an AdWords account, you can actually skip Chapters 2 and 3, which show you how to set up Starter and Standard Edition accounts, respectively. I discuss the principles behind the settings in these chapters, so if your account is running on the Google default settings, you may want to skim these chapters just to avoid some classic beginners’ mistakes.

Foolish Assumptions

As I gaze into my polycarbonate ball (crystal balls are breakable, and I can be clumsy), I see you as clearly as if you were sitting here with me in this hotel lobby in Wisconsin at 5:30 in the morning. You have a barely noticeable scar just above your right elbow where you cut yourself against a pool wall when you were eleven, and you are wearing a plaid watch band.

The foolish assumptions that informed my writing include the guess that the main market for your ads reads and speaks English. If not, no big deal: Just substitute Spanish or Russian or Azerbaijani for English as you read (although the reference to Azerbaijani muffins may confuse you).

I’m also assuming that your AdWords goal is business-related, especially in the way I talk about the desired outcomes of your campaigns — that is, leads, sales, profits, and so on. If you’re advertising on behalf of a nonprofit, you can easily substitute your own desired outcomes, including signatures on an online petition, additions to your mailing list, or attendance at an event. Your outcomes can be nonmeasurable as well, such as convincing Web-site visitors to reduce their energy consumption, support a political candidate or position, eat healthier food, and so on.

I make several foolish assumptions about your level of computer savvy. I assume you can make your way around a Web site, including clicking, typing in Web addresses, completing forms, and so on. I assume you have access to a working credit card (no, you can’t borrow mine) so you can sign up and pay for AdWords.

I don’t assume that you’re using a PC or a Mac. You can benefit from this book whatever computer platform you use: Mac, PC, Linux, Hairball (all right, I made that last one up). Some third-party software works on Windows PCs only, but you can accomplish 99% of the tasks in this book using just a Web browser and text editor.

I also assume you can get Web pages created. You don’t have to create them yourself, but either through your efforts or someone else’s, you can design, upload, name, and edit simple HTML Web pages.

How This Book Is Organized

I sent my editor an unabridged dictionary and told her all the words from the book are in it, and she could decide which ones go where (that’s her job, after all). It turns out I was wrong: Google wasn’t even in the dictionary (the one I got for my college graduation in 1987), so it was back to the drawing board.

On my next try, I divided this book into parts, which I organized by topic. Google AdWords is the big topic, but much of the book focuses on what you have to do before and after AdWords in order to be successful. You don’t have to read it in order. In fact, every time I wrote “as you saw in Chapter 4,” my editor sent a slight electric shock through the Internet into my keyboard. So start anywhere you like, and go anywhere you like. If you’re looking for information on a specific AdWords topic, check the headings in the table of contents, or skim the Table of Contents.

By design, this book enables you to get as much (or as little) information as you need at any particular moment. Having gotten through college English by reading the jacket blurbs of great novels (this was before Google appeared in the dictionary), I understand the value of strategic skimming. By design, AdWords For Dummies is a reference that you reach for again and again whenever you encounter a new situation or need a fresh poke of inspiration.

Part I: Becoming a Google Advertiser

Before you drive your AdWords vehicle to success, let’s get you pointed in the right direction. Forget everything you learned about marketing in business school, and understand that AdWords is fundamentally a direct-marketing medium. You’ll discover what that means, and how it differs from the brand advertising that we see all around us, and how to play the direct-marketing game to win.

Once you’re oriented and pointed toward success, I show you how to start your engine — first with training wheels if you wish (with the simple Starter Edition), then with the full-featured and powerful Standard Edition.

Part II: Launching Your AdWords Campaign

The two bricks of your AdWords campaign (to switch metaphors abruptly) are keywords and ads. Before you activate your first campaign, I introduce you to the single most important element of AdWords (actually, of just about all online marketing): choosing the right keywords. I show you how to do this through various online research tools and methods, most of which are quick, free, and easy.

Next you master the ads themselves. Since AdWords is the most competitive advertising space in existence (slapping your ad in the middle of 20 others offering more or less the same thing), you must deploy advanced strategies for creating compelling, action-triggering ads. Otherwise no Web traffic, no leads, no money. I focus on text ads, since they are the most common and (in their simplicity) provide the best opportunity to illustrate direct-marketing principles. I also cover image ads, video ads, and local business ads connected to Google Maps.

Part III: Managing Your AdWords Campaigns

Keywords and ads are the bricks. If you hired me to build you a house and I just dropped a dump truck full of bricks on your empty lot, you wouldn’t be happy. The chapters in this part give you the blueprints to turn your bricks into a sound and effective structure, and the tools to build and maintain it. You’ll learn how to structure campaigns and ad groups, manage keyword bids, and target the right traffic.

Part IV: Converting Clicks to Clink

This is my favorite part of the whole book, the part where my family dragged me away from my keyboard as I kicked and screamed, “Wait, I haven’t told them about live chat yet.” Once you’ve set up your campaigns and paid for visitors to your Web site, you learn how to use lead-generating magnets to collect contact information from visitors — and to use e-mail to stay in touch and build a relationship. I also cover Web site strategies to extract maximum value from each visitor.

Part V: Testing Your Strategies and Tracking Your Results

Actually, this is my favorite part of the whole book (okay, my other favorite) because I show you how to fail your way to success inexpensively, quickly, and predictably. When you test multiple approaches, one is almost always better than the other. As long as you keep testing properly and paying attention to the results, you can’t help but achieve constant incremental (and sometimes enormous) improvement in your profitability.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Part of my hazing in the For Dummies fraternity included creating top-ten lists that will, alas, never make their way onto Letterman. They include beginners’ mistakes you want your competitors to make instead of you, and case studies that bring the principles of the book to life. The Part of Tens is a resource you can use whenever you’re stuck, except for wedding toasts and term papers about the causes of World War I.

Be sure to check out www.dummies.com/go/adwords to see this book’s two bonus chapters as PDF files. These two bonus chapters provide you with top ten lists of the best AdWords tools available and tips for writing great ads.

Icons Used in This Book

Unfortunately, I could not convince my editor to let me use an icon of a sumo wrestler wearing a tutu hurtling toward you on ice skates to indicate “this paragraph makes absolutely no sense, but you should pay close attention to it anyway.” So I stuck with the standard For Dummies icons:

Hopefully my tips don’t hurt as much as the one in the icon, but are just as sharp. I use this bull’s-eye to flag concepts that can cut months from your AdWords learning curve.

I use this icon to remind you to remove the string that’s cutting off the circulation to your index finger. (What were you thinking?) Also, this icon highlights points and items that should be on your AdWords to-do list; little tasks that can prevent big problems later on.

I’ve heard too many stories of AdWords beginners turning on their campaigns, going to bed, and waking up to $16,000 craters in their credit cards. I use the bomb icon when a little mistake can have big and nasty consequences.

I’m probably less geeky than you are. I’ve learned enough code writing to be dangerous (ask my Webmaster, who probably has installed a one-click backup for my sites by now), but not enough to be useful. So I use this icon only to impress you with my knowledge of certain geeky terms, and when I share a snippet of code that your Webmaster can deal with if you don’t want to.

I’ve created a companion Web site to this book at www.askhowie.com. Many of the processes you’ll implement can be hard to describe on paper, but simple to show in a video tutorial. (If you’re not sure what I mean, try describing to someone how to tie their shoes.) I include video footage of my own computer screen, so you can see and hear exactly how to do what I tell you to. Also, the Web addresses of articles, resources, and tools change from time to time. When I suspect that the current URL won’t be valid by the time you read this, I send you to my site, which will either automatically redirect you to the right location, or provide an even better resource that wasn’t available when I was writing the chapter.

Where to Go from Here

I’m thinking that a nice bowl of gazpacho would be nice right about now. Fresh Roma tomatoes, cilantro, onions, some cumin, and maybe a few chunks of cucumber, sweet corn and avocado floating on top. Wanna join me?

You can start reading wherever you want, but I’d like to point out a couple of fundamental chapters that you will want to understand fully before spending money on AdWords. Chapter 1 gives you the direct-marketing mindset you need to use AdWords effectively, while Chapter 4 guides you to a deep understanding of your market. Skim Chapters 10 and 11 before turning on the traffic to your Web site.

Once you have the lay of the land, you may want to implement the tracking described in Chapter 14 as soon as you’ve set up a Standard Edition account (explained in Chapter 3). Knowing the profitability of each element of your AdWords campaign makes everything easier and more fun.

The companion Web site www.askhowie.com is a good place to go for more information, detailed video tutorials, updates, and an e-mail newsletter on AdWords tips and strategies. If you encounter something online that is different from the book, check the Web site section devoted to that chapter for an update.

If you’re aching to tell me how much you love this book and how you’d like to fly me, first-class, to Cape Town, Fiji, or Maui to teach a workshop, give a keynote, or just enjoy a well-deserved vacation, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected].

Part I

Becoming a Google Advertiser

In this part . . .

This part introduces Google AdWords and shows you how to get started. While almost everyone is familiar with the Google search engine, few people understand how easy it is to pay to display your ad listing on the coveted first page of search results — and how challenging it can be to do so profitably.

Chapter 1 discusses online search as a revolution in advertising and reveals the marketing-mindset shifts required for success. You’ll discover how to get into your customers’ minds and see through their eyes, so your advertising will be customer-centric and effective.

Chapters 2 and 3 take you through the mechanics of creating — and immediately pausing — a single campaign. (Patience, grasshopper.) Chapter 2 begins with the Starter Edition. (The Starter Edition was recently released, and it gives you a much simpler, though less powerful, way to use AdWords. It’s a good way for the hyper-nervous to begin.) Chapter 3 goes step-by-step through creating an account with the Standard Edition. These chapters provide the foundation upon which your AdWords success is built — customized campaigns whose settings support the achievement of your goals.