Honest Opinion of AdWords Confessions

AdWords Confessions is an ebook which describes strategies for writing ads. There are a number of similar books aout there and it is often hard to tell them apart. After reading AdWords Confessions, I can honestly tell you that I learned a number of things. But there was something to be desired about the book too. I will tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about this book.

First a little about me, so that you know where I am coming from: I have had a few successful campaigns though and I am making money. So before I bought this book I thought I knew what I was doing. My click-through-rates (CTR) were decent (1-2% on search) and my conversion rates were acceptable (generally 1% or more).

AdWords Confessions showed me some tips and tricks that have doubled my CTRs on many campaigns -- including some that were profitable for me before I read AdWords Confessions. Now that the CTR is increasing, my cost per click is going down and my sales are going up. This is a win-win.

My favorite parts of the book were the content bidding strategies and the overview of site targeted campaigns. Both were real eye-openers for me and have proven to be very profitable.

On the downside, there is a lot of fluff in this book. The first 28 pages of the book are for the true AdWords beginner (how to set up an account, how to log in, etc). That stuff was all a waste for me. I was also disappointed that there were a bunch of pages towards the back of the book that were dedicated to selling other products that you don't really need and to tell stories about these other products. For me at least, that was a waste.

While AdWords Confessions contains ad writing strategies, it does not give any guidance for product selection. In that sense, the product cannot be a stand alone resource. One needs additional materials in addition to this book.

One other negative about AdWords Confessions: There are pages full of information that can be found for free elsewhere on the Internet. I suppose the upside here is that you can get all of this info in one place without having to spend time searching for it.

I know that sounds like a lot of negatives: free content that you can get elsewhere and at least one-third of a 99 page book that you can pretty much ignore. But AdWords Confessions contains many worthwhile strategies. The unique content and numerous ideas found in this book will likely make you money if applied. I made back the purchase price (and more) of AdWords Confessions within 24 hours of reading the book. That is the kind of ROI I wish you could get with every book.

AdWords Confessions has a lot of great content. If you want to improve your click through rates (CTR) and learn how to pay less for higher placement in Google AdWords, this is the book for you.