Suggestions for Books on Adwords for PPC Professionals

“What good Google Adwords books are out there that will help me improve my PPC skills?”

Well, books have the risk of being outdated. A lot of digital marketing strategy remains the same over the years, but the tactics rapidly change. Books may not be the best way to learn about Adwords and PPC.  For myself I prefer online sources as they tend to be more up to date.

However, there is still a lot you can learn about Adwords and PPC by reading some or all of the recommended books listed below.

For the absolute beginners

Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing For Dummies – Peter Kent

This book is a very easy read, also if you’re not a native English speaker. It covers the very basics of PPC.

Note: the basic concepts are timeless, however some parts of the content of the book are outdated.

Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing For Dummies – Peter Kent

This book will really get you started using Adwords. It’s a much better way than trying to absorb all those Google ‘help’ pages. A comprehensive instruction manual on doing things the right way, (which is not necessarily Google’s way!)

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing: An Hour a Day –  David Szetela and Joseph Kerschbaum

This book covers a bit more detail on how to set up an account in Google and gives helpful hints and tools to build a solid well thought out PPC campaign. Great for training new employees as well.

David Szetala is a veteran in the PPC arena. He knows his stuff. I also recommend you subscribe and download his podcast ‘PPC Rockstars’ and start listening from the beginning for your education.

For intermediates

Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords – Perry Marshall

A great resource to provide a practical, comprehensive, step-by-step breakdown of the platform that enables you to confidently manage the Adwords platform on your own. This book covers more details than the ones before. Careful though as some might be outdated.

For the pros

Advanced Google AdWords – Brad Geddes

If you’ve been doing Adwords for hundreds or thousands of hours already this is your go-to destination to reach the next level. Brad truly is the leader in the space when it comes to Adwords education. He has been teaching Adwords for over 12 years and this book is the Adwords bible. The book is enjoyable and shows step by step instructions with screenshots that explain Brad´s detailed thinking and advanced tactics.

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The Best Google Ads Script I Have Ever Used

“What is the best Google Ads Script you have ever used?”

Although I have many favorite scripts in my arsenal and they are all very useful there is one single clear winner for me. This is the script I install the first day when taking over a new account. It is also a great way to finally get started using Google Ads Scripts.

I’m talking about a script that automatically alerts me if any of my landers are broken: the Broken Link Checker script, published by our friends at Google.

Broken links occur because of many reasons, mostly out of your control. Not the least one is IT deploying new versions of the website without proper testing. Recognizable? Uhhh, yeah.

A click on a broken landing page url is not only a waste of your budget, it’s also a missed opportunity to convert. That visitor is never coming back! Next to that, it’s a negative brand experience that even might hurt future CTRs, and thus Quality Scores.

What makes this script my winning script?

My all-time favorite script enables me to do something that is practically impossible without automation. In this sense, it does not improve the efficiency of my work that much, since before using the script I just didn’t do this task at all. (Yes, fair to say I’ve spend buckets of coins on clicks to 404 error pages, especially from sitelinks).
It does however enormously improve the effectivity of my work. How so? Well, it reduces the amount of wasted ad spend in my accounts and reduces missed opportunities for increasing revenue.
More revenue, at fewer costs! That makes me a happy camper.

Next to that, the script is publicly available, open source and free to use.
It is easy to install, easy to configure and easy to run. You don’t need any scripting knowledge whatsoever to get started with this one.
It is well-documented and continuously supported by Google developers. So no worries about running a script that malfunctions. No need to debug or maintain anything yourself.

So…do yourself a favor. Make sure all your links work correctly.
Install the script. Set it, forget it.

PRO TIP: let your fellow SEO colleagues know when you’ve discovered some broken links. They will thank and praise you for it.

And for all you working at an agency, here’s the MCC version of the script.

 

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