Google AdWords is easier to use when you take this course because you see me start with no ads running and take each step with me into making thousands of sales every month for less than $10 each! You get a simple case study to start showing how I made Google search ads for a client that generated $314,793.29 in sales with $6,661.28 in ad spend which is an ROI of 47:1. From seeing the simple system I use to make the client's ads, you might get your own ideas about how you can do your ads today!
What I like most as a student is when the instructor shares their personal experience with what they are teaching. If you like this also, you might enjoy my story of how I started using Google AdWords and ended up here with you today! By reading this story, I am sure you will get a good idea of whether you will enjoy this course or not!
In 2011, I opened my first Google AdWords account with the purpose of promoting my new business online after receiving a coupon for $100 in free Google AdWords ad spend. My business then was helping with video game addiction and selling t-shirts related to spreading that message. One of my first campaigns was setup to drive traffic to my website with the hope of making money with Google AdSense. I set the targeting too broad and the budget way too big at $100 per day because I had not made $100 yet with my business. I got thousands of cheap clicks that immediately bounced and vowed to do better in future campaigns.
After giving up on AdSense as a way to make money, I spent thousands of dollars to buy t-shirts and made a shop on CafePress with thousands more products. I sold about $10 of the $1,300 I spent in t-shirt inventory and figured maybe if I used Google AdWords with my CafePress store on a trendy topic I would do better. When the "Stop Kony" campaign got big in 2012, I jumped on it with tons of products on CafePress and $100/day Google AdWords campaign that got a ton of cheap clicks in the USA. I cannot prove today that even one person bought after seeing my Google ads up until that point.
With having spent thousands of dollars and many long hours with Google AdWords without a single win to show for it, I got so frustrated I gave up selling t-shirts and started working on social media marketing after hearing a local business owner talk about how much people would pay to get help promoting their business online. I made a terrible looking website that offered to get people Facebook likes for their page for thousands of dollars which I then bought from Fiverr for $5 to $20. After making my first thousand dollars online by spending messages to Facebook pages that were running ads, I remembered Google AdWords. My first profitable Google AdWords campaigns targeted the keywords "get likes" and "buy likes" while sending people to one of the ugliest landing pages I have ever seen. One person placed a $1000 order almost right away and I was off to the races! I finally had it!
Within a month, Google suspended my account (and all of my competitors on the same keywords also) for violating their terms and conditions. I was devastated and created several more accounts out of frustration all of which got suspended within a few days. I was certain that they were wrong and I was right. Fortunately, I gave up on Google AdWords after being unable to make a new account that did not get suspended and I turned to Facebook ads.
Using Facebook ads turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my business. While I failed miserably with Facebook ads to turn a profit, I learned a valuable skill that then I was able to use to help others with. By 2013, my main business was getting paid to make Facebook ad campaigns for clients.
How does this relate to Google AdWords? I got hundreds of clients from more than 20 countries to pay me to do their Facebook ads. In getting to know some of them, I learned that they were also doing ads on Google AdWords. Naturally I sold as many as I could on letting me help with their Google ads also based on my experience having one successful campaign that got my account suspended and wasting thousands of dollars doing it the wrong way.
By some miracle, I was actually able to help one client do really well with this Google AdWords campaigns. He now dominates his market completely both with Google search ads and Google display ads. Doing ads for him inspired me to try once again to build a better relationship with Google.
With now a new website, new business system, new address, new company, and new credit card, I tried again to open another Google AdWords account. This time it worked because I stuck to advertising my YouTube videos for the first year of that account. The ads I did on YouTube became the new foundation of my business allowing me to make videos online, promote them, and get any good video viral to the point now where now have over 3 million organic views on YouTube. You see in this course exactly how I use Google AdWords to make YouTube ads.
By 2014, my success with YouTube motivated me to try teaching on Udemy. After getting my first course launched, I was absolutely terrified to advertise it on Google because of fear of getting another account suspended. A Google AdWords specialist setup all of the first ads for my Udemy course for me and gave me new courage to move forward with Google AdWords using my own ads.
The problem was that I had run my personal life and my business so poorly by mid 2014 that I was nearly bankrupt. My Udemy courses were not selling and I had no money to test new ads without risking losing everything. I prayed for help relentlessly, went to a support group to fix my personal issues, and suffered enough to unlock a spiritual awakening which provided great healing.
With renewed faith, I saw that I needed to do what the world said I should do which was teach online. To do this, I borrowed as much money as I could get. I started teaching full time on Udemy in December 2014 after having a huge month of sales in November 2014 from Black Friday. At the same time, a friend asked me to help him with his Google ads for his new startup. The results are the case study you see at the beginning of this course.
After watching my friend's startup get an incredible ROI on his Google ads for a few months, I was motivated to try Google AdWords again for my Udemy courses which now were much easier to sell than in 2014. What you see in this course is my journey from the beginning of 2015 through today. I thought it would be amazing to start fresh in this course with an account with no ads running and give you everything I learn along the way. You see to begin how I start on faith given my previous experience. I walk you through each step up until today where now I am spending $500 to $1,000 per day on Google AdWords and averaging around 50 conversions on Udemy every day.
Learning Google AdWords has been an amazing journey for me and I am honored you are thinking about joining me in that journey today! I hope that by honestly sharing my experience using Google AdWords with you that you will be able to get started with fewer mistakes than I made, accept the problems you have with more grace than I did, and reach your full potential on Google AdWords much faster than me.
Thank you very much for reading this and I appreciate the chance to serve you as your instructor in this course!
In 2005 while I was in college at the University of South Carolina, I tried to start working online. I signed up for an MLM program and a survey website. A month later, I had refunds from both and figured working online was not possible because everything was a scam. The truth was I was afraid to fail again.
In 2011, I moved in with my wife and launched an online business focusing on video game addiction in an attempt to avoid dealing with any of my other problems. In a few months, I changed my business to selling shirts because I realized there was no money in video game addiction. A year after starting my business, I dropped out of my criminology PHD program at the University of South Florida to run my business full time which by then had changed to helping clients with Facebook and Google ads based on my experience failing to do them successfully for myself.
In 2013, I starting sharing everything I knew for free on YouTube because I hoped it would help me get more clients. By April 2014, I was nearly bankrupt after failing at 15+ different business models. I was also nearly dead from trying to drink the pain away and fortunately the fear of death motivated me to get into recovery. Being in recovery motivated me to focus more on being of true service to others and less on what I would get out of it. I started making courses online with Udemy which soon turned into my first real business. I partnered with as many talented instructors as I could and learned from top instructors how to get my courses the most sales.
In 2015, I tried making some inspirational videos sharing what I learned in recovery and got an amazing response on YouTube. To make the background on my videos more interesting, I started making the inspirational videos while playing video games. To make a more helpful website, I hired a freelancer to convert the videos into blog posts including this about page originally.