Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide To Google Adwords (2008)

Perry Marshall has been a leading authority on Google Adwords for as long as I can remember.  A few years back I learnt just about everything I know about Adwords by reading Perry’s excellent Definitive Guide To Google Adwords eBook.  That was a while ago, and things have changed a lot in the Adwords world.  I decided to buy the latest version of his guide to see if it is still the leading light in Adwords Training.

I bought the Digital Basic version this time.

Here is what is included with this version:

1. Fast Start Guide
2. Example of the Wrong Way to Build a Campaign
3. Example of the Right Way to Build a Campaign (Perry’s System)
4. Perry’s 1-Page, Twelve Step Formula for Improving Your CTR and Cutting Your Bid Prices
5. Adwords Ongoing Developments, in MP3
6. Google vs. Free Publicity” in MP3
7. Perry Marshall University
8. The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords

Let’s go through these and see what each of the components is about.

1. The Fast Start Guide is a 6 page PDF that is actually called “Playing to Win in Google AdWords: How to Structure Your Campaigns for Maximum Results from the Very Beginning”.  This guide starts off by showing one of the biggest mistakes beginners make, and why those mistakes will lead to failure.  Perry then shows how to turn this around to create a campaign that can work.  This quick start guide is basically that – an overall picture of how you construct profitable campaigns. It’s a very quick read, but an essential one, as it gives you an overview of what is to come.

2. The Example of the Wrong Way to Build a Campaign is a 9-page guide showing a real campaign as an example.  Perry sets up the campaign badly, showing where beginners usually get it wrong. You see the keywords, the ads, the bid prices, web address destinations and the daily budgets.  Perry highlights 5 critical mistakes that beginners make as he sets up the campaign.

3. Example of the Right Way to Build a Campaign (Perry’s System) is 12 page guide showing the same company as the previous report, but this time he shows how to set up the campaign properly, using the Perry System”.

Together, the two previous reports show a great overview of not only how to create a successful ad campaign, but also how to avoid some of the expensive mistakes many beginners make.

4. Perry’s 1-Page, Twelve Step Formula for Improving Your CTR and Cutting Your Bid Prices is a one page report giving you 12 important pieces of advice for a successful ad campaign.  This cheat sheet should be on your wall!

5 & 6 are MP3s that cover the following points:

• Take Advantage of Expanded Broad Matching
• Tighter Relevancy Requirements
• Conversion Tracking and Local/Regional US Targeting
• Google’s Smart Ad Rotation Feature
• A Cool Way to Get Lots of Keywords
• An Often-Overlooked Snafu for Ad Testers
• What to Do if You’re Getting Traffic But No Sales




7. Perry Marshall University is basically an advert for Perry’s other training materials.  Great if you are looking to take your studies further, as you’ll know exactly where to go next.

8. The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is the main eBook.  Its a 219 page eBook, with one small annoyance. Its password protected.  I cannot understand this type of password protection on an ebook, because if someone was to pass it to a friend, they would pass the password as well.  What benefit does this type of protection offer?  Anyway, that’s another topic.  This guide is huge, and a very enjoyable read.  Its divided into 10 parts.

Part One is another Fast Start Guide (though not the same as the separate PDF).   This is an introduction to Google Adwords, and a little bit of a history lesson in advertising. The section moves on to a quick guide to building a campaign from scratch.  Some of the screenshots are from the Overture keyword tool, which no longer exists, but Perry does advise you on an alternative tool to use.  The principles are the same.  This section makes you ask yourself some key questions, so that you can build your campaign on a solid foundation.  At the end you’ve got a getting started checklist and some solid advice.

Part Two is based on the idea that every click represents someone with a need.  This section has so much information that it’s difficult to summarize, but let me try.  Perry gets you to look at the needs of your visitors, and how their needs will differ depending on what keyword they used to find you, and the traffic source. Perry discusses the tools Google give you to help find the people who are searching specifically for you and what you offer.  This information is vital when it comes time to writing your ads and bidding on keywords.

Part Three tries to get you inside the head of your potential customers.  If you can work out what your customer believes he needs, you’ll have a buying customer.  Perry tells you how you can get your customers/visitors to help you make your sales process better, and also how to find out if your ideas or product has a market before wasting time developing.

Part Four – Once you understand the “conversation” going on inside a potential buyers head, you can craft your ads to appeal to them.  Not only that, but Google will reward you too!  Perry discusses the “peel & stick” method and illustrates it with real examples (as he does throughout this book). Perry looks at various ways that you can create ads that echo the conversation in the customer’s head.  Perry also discusses the need for a good website, and how Google rewards you for that, and gives you some pointers to finding out why your ad clicks are costing more than they should.  This section finishes with some tips on landing pages.

Part Five is all about making your clicks worth more.  You pay for them, so get as much return on each click as you can.  Perry mentions a real life example of how one entrepreneur might be a retired millionaire if he had not made a vital mistake.  You’ll then get to see details of a real life campaign as an example (I love the examples sprinkled liberally throughout this course).  Perry looks at the options you have when your keywords cost too much.  He uses the example of a guy how would have to pay $1 per click for 30th position.   This section has a checklist for improving your visitor value.  I would have thought that would have been a good finish for this section, but there is a section on split-testing after this checklist.  Using real examples, you’ll discover what happens when you don’t split test, and what happens when you do it properly.  Perry then goes on to discuss some maths.  Getting your figures right to make sure you make the right decisions.  The very end of this section is written by Bryan Todd and is very interesting.  Its an article on making your clicks more valuable using conversion trackers.

Part Six – This section discusses Google’s Content Network, and making it work for you.  Perry discusses the good, the bad and the ugly.  Things to look out for, and how to make use of the content network.  He also mentions a tool (subscription service) that can tell you which sites in the content network are bringing you traffic that converts, and which sites don’t.  Obviously, you just exclude the sites that don’t send converting traffic.  This section also discusses Google “Image Ads”.

Part Seven – this section is a bunch of tips, tricks & techniques.  e.g. how to pay one-tenth as much for clicks, using the 80/20 principle, setting ads to display during peak conversion times, and so much more.

Part Eight – This is a frequently asked questions section that answers the most common questions for real Advertisers.  There are questions on just about every aspect I can think of, including organisation, improving click-through rates, testing, tools and much more.  This section is really useful.

Part Nine – This section is a little weird, but its only 5 pages.  It looks at a couple of examples of using PPC for “improving your world”.

Part Ten – This last section shows you where to go for further help and other services offered by Perry.

The entire eBook was an enjoyable read, and full of real life examples.  There is so much information here that it will probably take a couple of reads to take it all in, but I am sure that anyone following the advice in this course will be off to a flying start in their Adwords campaigns.

I highly recommend this eBook package to anyone wanting to learn the ins and outs of Google Adwords.

Perry has setup a nice free 5-day Adwords course.  However, you can get all five parts of this course at once if you follow these instructions:

Go here:

Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Google Adwords

Scroll to the bottom, and look for the text that says:

“Already signed up but never got your e-mails? Click here.”

Click the link, and a popup will open.  That popup gives you a link to part one, but all 5 parts of the course are linked to at the end.  You can also buy the Definitive Guide To Google’s Adwords from that page.

If you are a little more serious about Adwords, you can read about Perry’s Coaching club here:

Perry Marshall’s Google Adwords Coaching club.