Over the weekend I read a sizeable chunk of Winning Results with Google AdWords, Second Edition
In the time elapsed between the first and second editions though, Andrew Goodman has continued to stand out in online communities as an authority on best practices in paid search, so it was a no-brainer to check out the new edition.
I’ve often been disappointed with subsequent editions of other books that turned out to be little more than the previous edition with some editing to freshen things up. Not so with this book. From what I can tell, this book is pretty much a total rewrite. I can only imagine how daunting a task that was. The timing was perfect for someone who wanted to take a fresh look at best practices in paid search heading into a new year.
What’s especially timely is that Andrew managed to hold off on publication until he’d had a chance to weigh in on some of the dramatic Quality Score changes that went live in late summer of 2008. Maybe timing was just coincidence, but either way it was fortunate!
One of Andrew’s more admirable traits is that he’s a pretty humble guy for someone who knows so much about the subject. He doesn’t get all “guru” on you and state things as facts that are really only opinions or theories. Throughout his approach to the subject he reminds us that Adwords is essentially a testing environment for marketers, and that the winners are going to be those who exert the extra effort to really understand the nuances.
Many of your competitors are just too lazy or uninformed to realize the full potential of Adwords, so there are still rewards aplenty for the more intrepid. This is even more so than it used to be. As Andrew repeatedly points out, even though Google has added some nice features over time to increase transparency, the evolution of Quality Score has simultaneously made it increasing opaque to the average marketer.
In future posts I may zero in on more detail related to various issues raised in this book, but for now suffice it to say that even if you’re a veteran of paid search this book is an essential companion.
