Reddit reviews Advanced Google AdWords, Second Edition

"Where do you see yourself in three years?"

"I want to think like Avinash. Execute like Brad Geddes. And sell myself like Rand Fishkin."




"What Should I Learn"

• Excel. You absolutely need to be an excel ninja. We live and breathe in excel. Know most of this stuff coming in.
  
  
• Adwords. Duh. Adwords certification a plus, but isn't going to carry much weight.
  
  
• Have a pet project. Do you run a blog? Nerd out with us about how you set up GTM on it. Indicate you know the difference between WordPress and an ecommerce platform like Magento. Brag about your earned traffic through $100 worth of stumbleupon. You used that $50 adwords coupon and got some free search traffic. Gloat about the referral traffic you see in Google Analytics. Any of these things will elevate you above the "inexperienced & need a job" class. This is totally actionable, and demonstrates passion worth investing in.
  
  
• Display! We're on the wild RTB frontier. Being familiar with some of the terminology and nuance and asking questions is going to make you look like a super hero. This is a really good overview of the complex ecosystem we live in. There is no such thing as "5 years experience" with many of these emergent technologies, so we just want someone who is capable and passionate about learning and developing it with us!
  
  
• Earned & Owned. SEO vs Paid. The relationship between "we pay for traffic," and "we earned this traffic" is important to grasp. A common mistake I see from entry level planners in this industry is an obsession with their own specific tactics. Don't show tactic-tunnel vision, try to boil things up to the macro level.
  
  What Next?
  
  If you're in Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, San Fran or LA -- there are tight knit communities that have awesome networking events going on all the time. Something similar exists in the other agency cities.
  
  I'm in MN, but here's an example of what I mean by we're a super active and accessible community:
  
  
• http://www.mima.org/events/event_list.asp
  
  
• http://i612.org/events/
  
  
• http://www.adfed.org/events/
  
  If you show up, ask questions, and drink beers with us while we talk shop after -- you are golden. Most of these are open to anyone, and virtually every event has a before & after 1hr meet & greet. Also, most of us are introverts too, so that isn't an excuse not to join. We come out of the woodwork to socialize & network because we're passionate about what we do. Free booze and food are just a plus.
  
  
  Resume and email solicitation are formalities at this point. You don't have experience so there's nothing on your resume. No one cares about your college degree (yuck, sorry... it's the truth though). It's incredibly difficult to differentiate yourself going the "submit resume and polite email" route.
  
  We're networkers. Do your industry homework. Make your passion clear, and just come talk to us over a beer at an industry event. Find us on Twitter & LinkedIn, ask questions, and let us know you want in!

Without more information, most of this is speculation, but....

Sitemap and 404s have relatively nothing to do with a display campaign... unless they're sending them to a 404 error page (lol).

I'm betting the audience for those campaigns is awful. Probably some high level affinity audience?

I'd definitely consider call tracking. Adwords has the ability for search campaigns - but I like CallRail, personally.

Do you have access to the Adwords account? I'd get in there ASAP and take a look at it yourself. By the sounds of it, in 2-3 months you could probably manage this better than this agency, if you wanted to learn (https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Google-AdWords-Second-Geddes/dp/1118194500)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Advanced-Google-AdWords-Brad-Geddes/dp/1118194500/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

This is the book that got me started but unfortunately it's dated. I don't recommend any print books for learning strategies as they go out of date less than a year off the press.

I would recommend reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Google-AdWords-Second-Edition/dp/1118194500

Even if you don't end up managing your campaign in the long run, it will help you distinguish good agencies from bad ones.