Does this make me a hypocrite?

I have a confession … I don’t use Google Ads to promote my PPC management services.

Does this make me a hypocrite?

Well …

Let me tell you a story …

Years ago, I was a regular on an online business forum. That forum was teeming with self-anointed SEO “experts.”

As you can imagine, with so many SEOs touting their services, there were a lot of (more…)

Beware the two-day marketing experts

Ever taken a course on Udemy?

Apparently, they can be pretty good. But one in particular caught my eye.

The title is, “Google AdWords Certification – Get Certified in Just 2 Days!

That might sound like a pretty big promise … but it’s only just getting started …

The subheadline is, “Become Google AdWords Certified in Just 2 Days. Get Hired With Your Google AdWords Certification!”

That’s right, “get hired.”

You might be wondering, are there any catches?

Apparently not, as the bullets include:

* No Google Adwords Experience Required!

* No prerequisites or work experience required to take the exam or this course

That’s right, they’re taking complete newbies and teaching them how to pass Google’s AdWords exams … in just 48 hours.

You might think it’s a joke, but according to Udemy, 16,822 students (more…)

What I learned behind enemy lines

Earlier this month, I was at Turing Fest – a two-day marketing/tech conference in Edinburgh.

Whenever I go – this is my third year in a row – I feel like I’m behind enemy lines. For three reasons…

#1: I’m much older than most of the attendees. That sucks. Get off my lawn.

#2: I work with “real businesses,” while most attendees work for start-ups. You know, the sort of tech company that creates (more…)

“Have you ever seen a monkey examine a watch?”

I’m going to give you some advice on how to work with marketers.

But, before I get to the advice, I have to set it up with a story.

The story is about Wilhelm Steinitz, the first ever world chess champion, and it goes like this…

Steinitz was playing a game against another top player. After the game, the players went over the game. They discussed different ideas, and alternative moves that weren’t played.

While they were doing this, an unskilled amateur – in chess parlance, a “patzer” – kept interrupting and telling the masters what moves they should have played.

Steinitz, put up with this for as long as he could. But, finally, he snapped. He turned to the patzer and asked, “Sir, have you ever seen a monkey examine a watch?”

OK, what’s my point?

I was recently hired by a company to improve their PPC results. They were paying around £60 per lead, which was roughly breakeven. We set a target to get that down to £45.

So, I reworked their AdWords account and, straight off the bat, we were down to under £45 per lead. (more…)