Adword Theme Packs vs Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google

By Roger Willcocks

In the software business, there are several key factors to a successful product. Despite what you might think, having a good product is only a minor part. Other more important factors are making it easy to buy, and making it easy to find.

This article is a discussion on one of the ways you can make something easy to find, Google Adwords. Pay Per Click marketing is a wonder of the online world. It may be the most important development in advertising this decade.  Never before has it been possible to spend a few dollars, open an account and have new, targeted customers arriving at your website in minutes. The basic principles covered also apply to pay-per-click (PPC) search engines other than Google. There are three steps required in PPC advertising:

1. Research - Find relevant keywords
2. Copywrite - Set up ads to attract customers
3. Improve - Test the results

Finding Relevant Keywords

To find relevant keywords, you need to work out what sorts of things the people you want to sell to search for. Based on that, you can work out what variations of words and phrases you can use for your keywords. You can find out what phrases people are searching on using the Overture Inventory tool, and the keyword suggestion tool at Google. There are also a number of software tools available that can automate this task.

Copywriting

This is the key to profitable advertising. You need to attract viewers to click on your advertising, but at the same time, you need to ensure that you only attract visitors who are likely to buy. Remember, every visitor will be costing you money.

Testing

Testing is the key to improving everything about your ad. Better more targeted keywords (leads to cheaper bids and better quality visitors). More compelling ad copy. Variations on ads for different markets. You need to understand what might have an effect and how to change it. Most importantly, you need to understand how to compare the results.

Your Choices - Do it Yourself, or Buy the Results

As far as advertising goes, you can either work out how to do it yourself, or you can find and pay a professional to do it for you. I'm enough of a control freak to prefer knowing what is going on. It also makes testing, and designing new advertising much easier. But you also have to consider the time. If you figure your time is worth at least $30 per hour, and that it can take you around 6-8 hours to do the minimum amount of research needed to start an Adwords campaign. Then being able to buy a set of proven results for under $150 is a good deal. and if you're still starting to learn about copywriting, it's a great deal, because you can see how it's done and take the opportunity to learn from it.

I make my choices from two places, Perry Marshall's Google Adwords guide, and Adwords Theme Packs. When I start something that there is already a theme pack for, I get it, and start a campaign. I run it for a bit to assess it, then I start tweaking it based on previous experience. If I can't find a theme pack, or for the tweaking process, I use what I have learned from Perry Marshall's guide to either create a campaign from scratch, or to improve upon my current results.

Adwords Theme Packs - For Fast Results

All it takes is the right click of your mouse and the copying of pre-done ads and hundreds of researched keywords right into your account. That's all there is to it. No more struggling to write your ads or come up with the best keywords for your market. It's all done for you (even thousands of misspellings). All you have to do is pick up your ready-to-go campaigns.

Then, you too, can have your Google Adwords campaigns going in less than a few measly hours, as opposed to what may have taken you an entire day's worth of work! And here's the best part. All of your ads are done by a professional copywriter. This means your ads have the potential to get top positions for a fraction of what your competition has to pay.

Because remember, with Google it's not just how much you pay for each click that determines how high your ad is, but your clickthrough rates too!

The best part about owning an Awords Theme Pack is not how much money you save, but rather the amount of time you save.

Because when you can set-up several different Adwords campaigns in the span of a few hours, then you are able to turn your ideas into cash much faster! Allowing you to immediately:

• Find out what offers customers respond to,
• Pop-up a survey, get traffic, and learn what your market wants to buy,
• Uncover which book title or domain name people click on the most (so you know which one is likely to make you the most money),
• And so much more!

Adword Themes - Pros

• Quick to set up
• Easy to use
• Good basis to start
• Cheaper than doing it yourself

Adword Themes - Cons

• Multiple people using them
• Price - $67 to $127
• Less flexibility in choice

The Google Guide - For Complete Control

This guide is designed to teach you how to build a cost-effective Adwords campaign from the beginning right through to the ongoing testing and tweaking.

Each step is coverd by a combination of screen shots, text, and audio recordings. The deluxe edition is even provided as a physically printed copy, and includes personal coaching sessions.

Perry Marshall - Pros

• Maximum flexibility
• Greater understanding of everything involved
• Actual screenshots and demonstrations
• Price - $49 to $197

Perry Marshall - Cons

• Longer to set up and understand
• Takes more time for each project

Recommendations

1. Get started quickly? - Quick and Easy Adwords Theme Packs
2. Learn to do it all yourself? - Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords

The author Roger Willcocks is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer in .NET, with experience in developing Microsoft product based solutions since 1996. Recent experience includes ASP.NET websites, DotNetNuke and web services as well as windows services and data collection applications. He is trained in MS SQL Server as well as MS Access and the .NET Framework. Roger is based in Auckland, New Zealand.