Welcome to your Optimization Bonus Content! These links and resources are meant to help you make the most of the AdWords Foundation training course and workbook.
AdWords Management
How Important is History in AdWords? (article)
The Myth of the 20-Minute PPC Workweek (article)
How to Check Quality Score (external link: Google)
Advanced Targeting & Optimization
How to Target Household Income in AdWords (article)
The Future of Search with Will Critchlow (podcast & transcript)
How to use AdWords Segmentation for better PPC results (webinar)
How to exclude Mobile Apps from Display Network (external link: WordStream. Note the actual “how to” is kind of buried here. You’ll need to take action on this sentence: “you will need to add a Placement Exclusion for “adsenseformobileapps.com.”)
Bid Management Tools
Note: these platforms come at a serious cost, including opaque pricing and high minimum spends – all of which eat into profit margins. While they may make sense for some agencies and super-size accounts, they aren’t solutions for small businesses. I’ve listed some popular tools out below for your own research and comparison.
Kenshoo
DoubleClick Search (note: this is a Google tool because Google purchased it, but it seems to be largely neglected, and support is quite minimal)
Reporting & Tracking Tools
If you’re running campaigns on engines and platforms other than just Google AdWords, you’ll need a way to track spend and performance for all sources, rolled up at-a-glance. While you can do that by hand, using a reporting tool is much easier. Here are some tools that can help with reporting.
Link AdWords with Google Analytics (external link: AdWords support article. You’ll need to link these 2 accounts if you want to see your website data such as GA goal completions or bounce rate in AdWords, and to get more robust AdWords reporting in GA).
AdWords Auto-tagging (external link: AdWords support article. Auto-tagging allows you to track performance details in Google Analytics and other tools)
UTM Builder (use this so that your campaigns are properly referenced in your 3rd party reporting tools. Not necessary if you are only using AdWords reporting, or if you have auto-tagging turned on to track your AdWords performance in Google Analytics)
Supermetrics (article & introduction on how to do your own reporting from multiple sources -including AdWords, Google Analytics, Bing, Optimizely, Social Media – in Google Sheets)
Other Bonus Resources
- Goals & Measurement
- Landing Pages
- Text Ads
- Keywords
- Optimization (you are here)
Access the AdWords Foundation Course here