Two weeks ago we ran a 45 minute webinar on 14 ways to cut your Google AdWords costs.

The feedback we received was fantastic, and some of the attendees (and people who missed the webinar) wanted to know if a recorded version of the webinar would be made available.

We listened. We re-recorded. And we put it on YouTube.

The result? 14 ways to cut your Google AdWords costs – and the whole thing will take up less than 20 minutes of your time.

I guarantee you’ll save money by watching it. Assuming you apply some of the techniques.

Beat The AdWords System: 14 ways to cut your Google AdWords costs

Don’t you love Google diplomacy:

They manage to make it sound so nice, even though they’re really saying ‘get used to it – in a few weeks we’re forcing it on you’.

AdWords Editor is used by many advertisers, mainly because it makes our lives easier.

But many users overlook a useful feature – the ability to add comments as reminders to themselves, or as explanations for other AdWords Editor users working on an account.

I personally make notes of dates that I add keywords, pause keywords, raise/lower keyword bids, add negative keywords, change match types on keywords or negative keywords, raise/lower ad group default max cpc’s, raise/lower budgets and more.

Realistically, AdWords is all about experimentation, and some changes you make will definitely have a negative impact. Comments are a quick and easy way of tracking your changes.

But be aware of the main limitations:

- comments on ad groups or campaigns without changes won’t be exported
- comments are plain text, so multiple users should indicate their comment with their initial
- comments are sometimes erased when updating AdWords Editor

Have you ever seen this girl before?

She may look familiar to you. But you probably don’t remember where you’ve seen her.

And you probably don’t realise that she might be costing you a lot of money.

This girl’s image is on a massive number of websites which are part of the content network. The websites in question have one single purpose: to make money by displaying your Google AdWords ads.

Here is a tiny sample of some of the sites:

http://5starblogs.com/
http://bli-online.com/
http://bodyhtml.biz/
http://cyberclean.org/
http://sharez.biz/
http://superpaylink.com/
http://themp3world.com/
http://thisismydevsite.com/
http://unblocksites.biz/
http://www.pistle.com/
http://myonlinesupportgroup.com/

Most of the sites using this image are basically parked domains, and can therefore be quickly and easily excluded from your content network campaigns.

If you attended our recent webinar, where I showed you 14 ways to cut your AdWords costs in only 45 minutes, you’ll already know how to do this.

If you didn’t attend the webinar, we’re hoping to have the online version up by the end of this week.

Watch this space, and watch those Google AdWords settings.

A new AdWords phishing attempt seem to be making the rounds:

The link points to adwords.google-ge.com/accounts/signin.html

Don’t fall for it.

If you get any such email, go directly to your browser and login as you normally would. Don’t click the links.

Let’s be careful out there.

I guarantee that your Google AdWords account is wasting money.

I guarantee that tomorrow’s webinar will help you recover some of that money.

And I guarantee that you have never come across some of the ideas before.

100% original.

45 minutes.

15 ways to cut your AdWords costs.

And no, that isn’t a typo.

Register for the free webinar and find out why!

Google AdWords is a wonderful sales tool. But  the system is complex, and Google’s defaults are a far better fit for Google than their advertisers.

As a Qualified AdWords Professional, Dave Collins has worked with hundreds of AdWords accounts for more than nine years. Two facts emerge time after time:

Fact 1: Most accounts lose money without the account holder realising it.

Fact 2: The main culprits can often be fixed in minutes.

On Wednesday February 17th at 11.00 AM US Central, 5:00 PM GMT, Dave will be holding a 45 minute webinar to show you 14 ways to reduce your AdWords costs:

Beat the AdWords System: 14 ways to cut your Google AdWords costs.

No abstract theories. No complex analysis. Just 14 techniques that work.

This webinar will save you money. We expect it to be popular, and availability is limited. So register now.

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOW!

Google appear to be getting increasingly serious about the prospect of mobile search.

Last week they added the option for AdWords advertisers to target (some) specific devices, and they’ve now added the ability to target by phone service provider too.

The question is who will use this? Who needs to target their ad delivery by phone carrier?

On April 10th 2009 we wrote a blog entry entitled New AdWords Ads Increasingly Getting Stuck in the ‘Under Review’ Black Hole:

“It seems like every new ad I create takes longer and longer to actually begin running.

Depending on the client, and which AdWords GUI format they’re using, the new ads assume the label of  ‘under review’ or ‘Active’, but in either case the ads exist in a state of limbo, unable to accrue impressions or clicks.”

The entry has 45 comments, almost all of which are in full agreement with the post. Some of the people commenting have since closed their accounts and gone elsewhere.

On July 6th 2009 we wrote another post – Fed up with Adwords ads pending review? Make your voice heard! with 13 more comments.

My open question to Google:

What are you waiting for?

Your advertisers are getting frustrated.

Your “reach the world instantly” idea is becoming laughable.

Resellers of your services (such as ourselves) are having to find workarounds and hacks to work with your system.

The machine is broken. Please fix it.

The word “Optimize” implies a sense that it is a worthwhile or a good idea. For example:

Financial optimization – sounds like a good idea.
Search engine optimization – we know that we should all be doing this.

However, optimized ad rotation is not a good idea when it comes to AdWords.

You may have noticed when setting up an AdWords campaign, hidden within the campaign settings there is an option for ad delivery. The ad rotation can be set to either “Optimize: Show better performing ads more often” or “Rotate: Show ads more evenly“. By default, Google choose “Optimize“.

“Optimize” sounds so much better, however it is not. This method will show the ads which Google feel are the best performs.

The question is, “best performing” for who? Are your goals the same as Google’s?

Is the ad which Google feel is the best performer sending you the most clicks with the least amount of actual conversions?

More often than not, the ad with the best CTR is not necessarily the best performing ad for you.