I'm pretty busy with Facebook now for promoting offers, but have some ecommerce stores that I want to really test out some adwords campaigns on. Google Shopping, Amazon PLAs, and social/content/SEO have been working well for me so far, but I really need to jump onto search PPC.
Can you guys recommend any good starting resources for Search/PPC, anything here on STM?
Just searching around and see redrummr's post for Bing: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...y-on-the-table
Also, what do you guys use for scoping out competition? I've been using http://keywordspy.com, anything better out there?
Thanks!
Keywordspy is good, I use spyfu which is great as well.
Take a look at this adwords guide: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/profitab...ords-campaign/
As for Adwords Training, nothing that I have seen that is better than : Definitive Guide to Adwords, by Perry Marshall
For competitive Intelligence: SpyFu is pretty good and priced well.
And here is the best tip : Read their TOS and dont do anything to piss them off or you will get BANNED, especially if you are looking to promote affiiliate products, but looks like you have your own product line, so you should be good to go.
Perry Marshall's latest training product/seminar. He is golden. You literally need nothing else.
New AdWords accounts are easier than FB accounts and in that sense it's got more longevity.
For Display (content network) there are some other products that you need beyond Perry's (check out Chad Hamzeh, also Green Knight's guide or whatever it's called so you get an idea of how to use spreadsheet and Photoshop to make campaigns and banners en masse)
Become a member on thevault if you aren't yet.
Check out PPCHero.com, they have a lot of great articles about ppc and search.
I've also hear that the Perry Marshall guide is good, but I have not read it myself.
For more basic knowledge, you can take Google's Adwords certification, or just study the resources and videos.
Also, for competition, you can try the Google "Ad Preview and Diagnosis" tool available under "Tools" in your Adwords account. You can search keywords and see who's advertising by device, location, etc.
Personally, I learn best by doing. If you can find a campaign that converts often and the keywords aren't to expensive, you can run a low spend campaign and learn as you go, with limited risk.
^^ this is why I love STM, thanks a lot guys.
I just finished reading Perry Marshall's "The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords", as you guys recommended - hands-down the most insightful internet marketing book I've read this year, exactly what I was looking for.
Go one step further and read 80/20 Sales and Marketing by the same author Perry Marshall. I assure you that you will fall in love with the notion of split testing after reading and applying these ideas.
Learn patience.
They "review" accounts a lot. So if it's your only traffic source you'll probably go nutz. Make sure you're running other sources to work on. Because you'll spend 5 days waiting sometimes which will drive you crazy.
I'm sure you've seen this mentioned elsewhere but one of the most important things to get your head around with Adwords is how quality score works and how it impacts your position as the rankings are calculated are based on a combination of max bid, CTR and quality score so you might be bidding a max of £0.50 per click and have a quality score of 8/10 and be outranking a competitor who is bidding £0.75 per click and appearing below you.
This is a gross over simplification but hopefully you get the point. You can see more info on the topic here https://support.google.com/adwords/a...54010?hl=en-GB and there is a really good in-depth video from Wordstream explaining it in more detail here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idxGvwGbDdw
What is the url of thevault? Thanks.
SEMrush.com is also good.
thevault.bz - Not sure if it is open or you need an invite right now.
I don't have any invites and I've been on it for 4 years, so might be hard to come by.