Google AdWords has executed major changes in the last year. Each of them can either become your offensive weapon – or else a bullet in the chamber in another round of Russian Roulette.

Dear AdWords Professional:

When AdWords was THEE hottest thing on earth, the new kid on the block and the prettiest girl in town, affiliate marketing was likewise HOT. I knew guys and gals who were making ten thousand dollars PER DAY in invisible fishing holes all over the net.

The hype, the hoopla, the DIN about how you should jump on this thing and make some easy affiliate cash was unbelievably loud. 100 decibels loud. Louder than an Anthrax concert. Affiliate cash was EVERYWHERE and the proof was all around me.

In fact the proof was ASSAULTING me from every direction. Because I was privately coaching students and clients on Google AdWords and I was getting emails and phone calls every day from people who were banking loads of cash from the biggest gold rush for “average human beings” in Internet history.

I saw their accounts. I saw their numbers. I had PROOF.

They were making mounds of money from their kitchen tables and spare bedrooms. Some of them were moving to Bali and running their businesses from the beach.

But a still small voice inside said, Perry, keep the main thing the main thing. Don’t get distracted by that. Build something for the long term. Build exactly what you’re building NOW.

Fast forward a year or two…

1) Some clever folks started selling scraping software that reverse engineered affiliate accounts. Bots told you who the winners were, what their affiliate programs were, and made accurate estimates of click volumes and bid spreads.

Within days, a Search And Destroy mission was unleashed across the internet and no one was immune. If you were doing a simple, A-B-C Google affiliate business, you had a bright red bullseye stamped on your forehead.

Suddenly your “easy simple business on your kitchen table” required, at minimum, a team of Virtual Assistants, an array of screens that looked like a futures trading office than a marketing biz, a 10-user license for Microsoft Excel and maybe a math degree from MIT to sift through all the pivot tables.

2) Google started assassinating everyone who had EVER TOUCHED the “Google Cash” world. If you had EVER done mainstream affiliate stuff, Google terminated your account with impunity. Bang bang you are dead. Brush your teeth and go to bed.

One of my clients had gotten badly slapped. He hired me to reach out to everyone I knew at Google headquarters to try to get his account re-activated, because his main business was clean as a whistle.

I even reached out to Marissa Mayer, who today has become CEO of Yahoo!

The answers I got back were: “Sorry. He has affiliate skunk urine on his hands from long ago. Them’s the rules. Can’t help you.” No dice.

I looked back on my temptation to dabble in that world. And I shuddered a sigh of relief. Narrowly avoided getting my throat slit.

3) Once Google’s killing spree was over, the number of living soldiers on the battlefield was HALF. Those of us who were left enjoyed more space, less competition, lower bid prices, less clutter.

Why Did My Business Outlast All Those Others – Even Though They Were Making $10,000 a Day and I Was Making Far Less?

Answer: Because my business was mine. I actually owned the majority of the ‘real estate.’ I owned the product, the website, the USP, the reputation.

Even though I built quite a bit of my empire from “off the shelf components” (Google campaigns, 1ShoppingCart, InfusionSoft etc etc) the core of my business was UNIQUE.

And so must you. We will help you engineer a kind of PPC Unique Selling Proposition into your Google efforts so that it becomes impossible for competitors to copy, clone, reverse engineer, or rip off your campaigns.

If all you do is run a STANDARD, REGULAR AdWords campaign – for yourself or a client – you are merely a sharecropper.

You own nothing. Your ads can’t be copyrighted, there is nothing to protect you from the termites, who are nibbling at your competitive position 24/7/365.

If however you own some AUTOMATION – if you have scripts of your own layered into yours or clients’ campaigns – you possess a major point of differentiation.

And you will carry this expertise forward into everything you do in the future.

Furthermore, my team has created a way for you to use scripts to increase your client retention AND your fees by $100 to $500 per month for every single client.

My Early Lesson on FAST EXECUTION

When I was new in the Internet Marketing game, a very credible expert insisted I should build my own Customer Relationship Management software. Because there was no way anyone’s “off the shelf” solution was going to give me everything I wanted.

He was right in many ways. Especially then. I had a very strong instinct to believe him and hire someone to do all that for me.

But I realized that merely writing a specification for everything I wanted all by itself was enough to give me a headache. Let alone seeing it through to completion.

So at a seminar one day, I said to myself, “The good-enough solution that works today is far better than the perfect solution that will work someday.”

I bit the bullet and signed up for 1ShoppingCart.

(InfusionSoft didn’t even exist then.)

One of the best decisions I ever made. Because two weeks later, my application was running, I was taking orders, sending out emails, the whole shebang. Biz was running and life was good.

I stayed with 1ShoppingCart for several years. Eventually switched to InfusionSoft which I still use.

1ShoppingCart was sold for a considerable sum of money not long after that. I know the founder, Rob Bell, and Rob (who’s from Canada) has literally been living on his yacht and spending winters in Mexico ever since.

And then InfusionSoft, which got off to a rocky start, eventually became THE de facto application for sophisticated marketers –more automation features than anyone else – and the snowball effect began.

The founders of InfusionSoft are now worth hundreds of millions on paper, and someday they’ll have that in their bank accounts.

Now I want you to pay close attention to the elements that make InfusionSoft worth so much money. They’re the same elements that enabled Rob to sell 1ShoppingCart for many millions of dollars. And they apply on a much smaller scale to YOU.

NOW.

In Google AdWords.

The FORCE that has propelled InfusionSoft to the top of the marketing space, the FORCE that made 1ShoppingCart so valuable back in the day, was:

NETWORK EFFECT

Network Effect is when every customer adds more value to all other customers – simply by being there. For InfusionSoft, it’s the fact that tons of consultants, vendors and software applications plug into iSoft. Each new customer adds more gravity to the ecosystem. Every new vendor attracts more customers.

Customers build complex systems inside of iSoft. With each passing month it makes it more difficult to disconnect. Lifetime income stream for ISoft.

And at some point, it just becomes ridiculous for anyone else to even attempt to knock ‘em off. (And trust me I’ve seen LOTS of people try.) The barrier to entry grows thicker and higher by the day.

Network Effect is the “Pretty little house with white picket fence” of the 21st century. It’s the thing you REALLY want from your web marketing career. It’s the difference between laboring in coal mines and sleeping on a bed of straw, vs. living a life of relative comfort and luxury. Network Effect is THE defining success factor on the Internet.

And it is now possible to create your own PERSONAL Network Effect in Google AdWords.

The reason is:

AUTOMATION.

Automation is the new name of the game in Google AdWords. It’s called Scripts. And this works to YOUR personal advantage, whether you are running your own accounts or managing AdWords for others as a consultant.

You may be saying, “How is this like InfusionSoft? I don’t OWN these Scripts. Google does.”

But there is a way to own them.

And Scripts are still Network Effect, and they work in YOUR favor, because all the scripts are customized to YOUR account and YOUR data.

This gives YOU as an ad manager more power, more control, more longevity than you ever had before.

When I sold networking hardware to factories, my #1 ideal avatar was a guy who built machines and controlled them with his own software. He wrote his own code instead of using “off the shelf” software.

Now why would he want to do that?

Because once the machine ran on software HE wrote, they couldn’t fire him! They needed him to keep the gears turning!

It was JOB SECURITY for him.

Have you ever spent months building, tweaking, refining an AdWords account – at embarrassingly low hourly fees – and just when it was starting to hum along nicely, the customer cancels the contract?

Owning automation is job security for you.

Nobody feels this more acutely than a talented AdWords consultant. Why? Because people are walking up and down the street selling AdWords today. Literally knocking on doors. (Even InfusionSoft is selling AdWords now!)

People WANT to steal the reins of your customer’s AdWords account (or yours if you control your own clicks) and charge you that monthly fee.

But they don’t know how much hard work and sweat it takes to get an AdWords account to perform well.

You spend months tweaking, measuring, testing, fine tuning. Then some guy steps in on the dance floor and asks your date if he can dance with her.

She says yes and you slink over to the corner and watch as he dazzles her with his !@#$%^&*. Suddenly the client that you worked so hard to woo disappears and sends her money somewhere else.

It’s easy for your competition to steal your AdWords clients if you have no Scripts. Any skilled manager can figure out what’s going on and take it over.

But taking over an account with Scripts and Automation that YOU own? That’s a whole different ball game.

Every piece of automation you inject into an account raises its value and increases your value as well.

• If you set it up the way Mike teaches you in the advanced module, you own it – not your client! We’ll even provide you with a boilerplate licensing agreement that you can use to raise your fees and increase retention
• Automation increases the value of your agency if you are a consultant.
• Automation increases the staying power, stability and resilience of your Google account. It’s like adding an immune system that reacts swiftly to competition.
• Automation elevates you from working “IN your AdWords account” to working ON your AdWords account. Automation is the “E-Myth of Pay Per Click.”
• Automation increases the value of “accumulated data and experience.” Not only the accumulated clicks and tests, but the growing list of automated refinements that keep the account running at the top of its game.
• Automation increases the tribal knowledge base inside your head and makes it so much easier for you to expand into more campaigns, more keywords, more accounts, more markets, more niches.
• Automation locks out competitors, locks out other agencies, causes inferior practitioners to wash up on the shore.

Your Automation is INVISIBLE to everyone but you. Not even your customer can see it, if you execute it the way we teach. It’s twice as invisible as the rest of the details of your AdWords account.

Competitors can reverse engineer your Display Network campaigns and Search campaigns.

But reverse engineer your Automation? Difficult to impossible.

Automation is the moat around your castle. But you have to start building it NOW or else it starts working AGAINST you instead of for you.

And when you layer the other recent new developments into your account, you really begin to see the fruit of your labors.

2003-2009 was the age of PPC.
2010-2016 has been the age of Social Media.
2018 and beyond will be the age of AI –
Artificial Intelligence

Now mind you, none of this “Artificial Intelligence” is NOT self aware. HAL 9000 is not a conscious being that is reading your lips as you talk outside the spaceship, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not yet anyway.

But don’t underestimate this AI. I have clients who are taking AI to deep levels, re-inventing the future as we speak. You won’t fully see the results of what they’re doing for another year or two. But let’s just say that talking to machines like Alexa and Siri is only the tip of the iceberg.

The key to success in 2018-2020 is OWNING some of that Automation.

Automation is a rack-the-shotgun, 95/5, winners and losers phenomenon. The other day I was talking to Brad Richdale, direct marketing veteran, serial entrepreneur and CEO.

Brad says to me, “Google has been quietly buying up all kinds of robotics and automation companies. They’ll spend a million or two million dollars to acquire companies like pocket change. They’re developing self driving cars; the voice recognition on Android is unreal; and when the bleeding hearts vote to raise minimum wage to $15 per hour, all the employees at Burger King will get replaced by robots.

Now if you do Google AdWords for a living, you know why it’s impossible for robots to build AdWords campaigns.

But it’s not impossible for robots to work FOR you, building out PARTS of your AdWords campaigns, optimizing ad groups, bids, ad serving and 100 other little tasks.

Tasks you USED to have to do, but which the bots now do for you.

In 2018 and beyond, you either OWN the bots or the bots take your job away from you.

There is no in-between.

When self driving cars are finally perfected, all those Uber drivers are gonna be out of a job.

(So are most guys who sell automotive insurance.)

In 2036, it’s possible 16 year olds won’t even learn how to drive anymore. (Maybe they’ll learn how to fly instead. Who knows – maybe in outer space.)

That is why it is imperative that YOU own real estate in your AdWords accounts, in your clients’ AdWords accounts. Something that the next guy can’t just copy/past, rip off or easily reverse-engineer.

You will either own automation or you will be employed by somebody who does. Wanna stay self employed? AUTOMATE.

Right Side Wipeout and the Uncertain Future of AdWords Consultants

In 2016, Google stripped the right side ads from its search results.

I made a very big deal of this. In fact I even posted pictures of drowning people begging for a seat on Noah’s ark.

Right Side Wipeout shifted Google from 90/10 to 95/5. What does this actually mean?

It means THE PLAYING FIELD IS SHARPLY TILTED TOWARDS THE TOP 4 POSITIONS and away from all others.

It means the top 4 players will grow and everyone else will shrink. Even if they didn’t immediately drown.

Penthouse suites & slums a stone’s throw away

It means the space between riches and poverty on Google AdWords is much slimmer than it used to be. Razor thin. Now Google AdWords is like Sao Paulo Brazil, where people build slums (favellas) around the backside of high-dollar high-rise condos.

It means: If you slip backwards by three positions on Google, you’ll be flipping burgers tomorrow at Burger King. (And then when Burger King automates with robots, you get laid off from that job too.)

It means: The Winner Take All phenomenon and the Unlimited Traffic Technique are more exponential than ever before.

It means if you master this game you’ll make more money than you’ve ever made before.

And if you fall behind there’s no catching up.

Rack the shotgun, baby.

Consultants pay close attention!

…because Google’s latest changes will tilt the field even more. From 95/5 to 97/3.

Two out of five consultants will be gone.

You either WIN – along with a nice pay raise – or you DIE.
Because of Google’s most recent…and future…changes…

Some consultants will be raising their fees, extending their contracts, adding more clients, dismissing problem clients, maintaining a waiting list of more prospective clients, onboarding clients based on selective criteria, and generally having the world by the tail.

It means other consultants (many if not most) will devolve into low-paid “Social Media Managers” and “SEM Experts” and “SEO guys” and “PR consultants,” hustling door to door, soliciting pizza and flower shops, hoping to locate more prospects who don’t know smart questions to ask about Google AdWords.

Cold calling. Shoe leather.

They’ll flee high-paying niches for low-paying local work. Crap jobs. But they’ll have to take them because there’s nothing else to be had. Duking it out with ReachLocal and the SmartPages reps.

(What fun.)

And if you’re consulting your own self instead of clients (running your own campaigns), the same is still true. You do NOT want to be fighting over the scraps when this fall’s changes hit.

Expanded Text Ads Have Hit – HEADS UP

Google switched its ad format from 70 characters to 140. 2X the space. BBBIIIIIIGGG deal. Very big. Changes that have rolled out now across Google campaigns worldwide.

Our early measurements show the Expanded ads are getting a double-digit boost in CTR. If your CTR was 7%, good chance your new ad can get 8-10% CTR.

HUGE.

I predict the “average bear” AdWords advertiser will be slow to the punch taking advantage. What if YOU get a 1-2 month lead on your competitors?

A 1-2 month lead is like suspending death and taxes for a few weeks.

Here’s an example.

Back in my early days of teaching AdWords, my webmaster, on a lark, registered the domain www.googladwords.com. (“Google AdWords” with no “e.”) He asked me if I wanted it. OK, that’s kind of strange, I said, but sure, let’s give it a try.

I tested it against “www.adwordsstrategy.com” which was my control at the time. The new domain SLAYED it. I think it was 2X the CTR.

Overnight, my ad rose in position and I started getting a frightening amount of traffic. In fact, my ads and Google’s own ads flip-flopped back and forth in the #1 and #2 positions. Sometimes they were on top, sometimes I was on top. (How’s that for social proof?)

Sales accelerated, testimonials accelerated, everything sped up. It was like parachuting from arctic tundra to Amazon rainforest.

It was a fabulous magic carpet ride.

(Until I got a cease and desist letter from Google. And that was the end of that!)

So I had to put my old ad back up and settle for half the CTR again.

But for 3-4 months I enjoyed my short-lived advantage. And that 3-4 month window might have been THE thing that brought my business to the Tipping Point.

At that time, a ton of people were vying for the “AdWords Guru” space. Which Google guru was gonna land on top of the heap, plant his flag in the ground and declare himself king?

A brand new Google e-book came out literally every 3 days. It was brutal. My most formidable competition then was Don Crowther of Racine Wisconsin. Razor sharp marketing guy if there ever was one.

The Butterfly Effect says one flap of a butterfly’s wings can create a hurricane on the other side of the globe.

Had the butterfly flapped its wings ever so differently, today Don might be the AdWords guy instead of me. He would certainly be worthy of the title.

It might be that my “googladwords with no e” URL – which only lasted a short time – was THE tiny butterfly wing difference that edged out the ever-capable Don Crowther and put me on top.

We’ll never know for sure, but it’s a fair guess. The Butterfly Effect – and a slight edge for 3-4 months – carried me to victory.

The same momentum factor will either work FOR you or AGAINST you in these coming months.

How many of Google’s new features will you be hip to? Do you know what’s really going on?

Now that Expanded Text Ads have rolled out, are you going to simply “occupy” the extra space? Or will you launch a vetted Planet Perry strategy for absolutely MAXIMIZING response? Will you apply THE psychological formula that makes every single character in that ad earn its keep?

We do.

You need to seize opportunities NOW. For yourself. For your clients. For everyone downstream who depends on you. That includes your spouse, your family, your employees. Everybody you write checks to and everyone who depends on your expertise.

And here’s how you’ll do it …

Adwords Mastery with Mike Rhodes

A six-module deep-dive into the most important changes every AdWords pro needs to master to survive the “97/3” future of Google advertising

This is action-based training for the AdWords veteran.

Rank newbies need not apply.

As Mike told me the other day, “If I had to design full-on training to take brand new AdWords users to expert in two months, I wouldn’t know where to begin. I used to hire people with no AdWords experience and train them myself. Now, I wouldn’t think of doing that. I hire only people who have some AdWords chops. It’s just too complex these days to teach newbies the ropes.”

So, this will not be a sit back and watch training. I won’t even attempt to promise “zero to hero in two months”. You have to already have experience under your belt.

You’ll be implementing in each module. You’ll be taking specific,carefully-designed action steps. Each week you’ll have about 30 – 90 minutes of implementation “homework.”

But zero percent “busy work.” No filler, all meat.

Mike has 80/20’d the heck out of this thing. He’s simplified every part of this program to give you the most impactful tools, techniques and processes that you need to implement in your accounts.

Here’s what you’ll get…

Module 1: Targeting
– Your prospects’ buying intention…the psychology behind the AdWords search (prospects go through multiple phases as they buy, and if you don’t understand the phase, your money gets incinerated in the AdWords furnace)
– How to identify and eliminate keywords (based on Mike’s advanced criteria – this goes well beyond the obvious)
– Keyword match types explained (as they function in the “is” world, not the “should be” world)
– Negative keyword strategies (one slip in this critical area can erase 20% of your traffic and conversions)
– How to add targeting ‘layers’ like customer emails & remarketing audiences – this is the art of AdWords
– Basic ‘Display Network’ targeting explained

Module 2: Messaging
– How to leverage the “window of profit opportunity” with Expanded Text Ads (ETAs)
– Common, but little-understood ad copy mistakes that could be killing your CTR
– How “normal” people apply Expanded Text Ads, vs. how we plan to do it in Planet Perry – to extract every morsel of response from the buyers we really want to target
– Ad Extensions and how to exploit them
– The Swiss Army Knife…generate compelling ads fast and furious
– Understanding how & when to use ‘triggers’
– Landing page design. What Google is looking for today. What to include and exclude to get their “anointing.” The real skinny on “Squeeze Pages” and list building
– What and how to test…in ad copy and on landing pages

Module 3: Building & Bidding
– The 80/20 of campaign settings…what you must use and what you can safely ignore
– How to escape the rapacious beast of Google’s “helpful” suggestions
– Campaign types fully explained and revealed
– How, when and why to use DSA & Call Only campaigns
– How to structure a Shopping campaign…NOT like you do the other campaigns!
– Bidding strategies (five distinct campaigns)
– The power of bid modifiers and how to exploit them
– Bid stacking explained (increasingly this is where you gain an edge over ferocious competition – especially when you’re locked out of a tight game)

Module 4: Tracking & Data
– How and what to track…and what’s a total waste of time
– AdWords conversion tracking, blow by blow
– AdWords vs. analytics tracking, which should you use and when?
– Should you let Google ‘optimize’ your account?
– How to track phone calls and stop leaving money on the table
– Why the most important metric isn’t provided by Google and where to find it
– A brief salvo on Google Tag Manager

Module 5: Managing your account 
– An in-depth look at the Mike’s most powerful decision-making tool
– Mike’s “CEO Method” for ongoing account management (you need this when you have others run your account, but it’s YOUR money!)
– How to audit an AdWords account, a step-by-step guide
– Quality score myths debunked (there’s lots of misinformation on this)
– What to do with “outliers”
– Questions you must ask to drive greater Financial Velocity through your campaigns

Module 6: Google’s Display Network
– How to use the 3 targeting options
– Structuring your campaigns to hit the ground running – 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds
– Image ad tips & tricks, and some stellar examples that will instantly give you ideas that are not currently being applied in YOUR market
– How to leverage the Display Planner Tool
– Advanced Remarketing concepts, refined by Mike and his team over millions of dollars of ad spend
– YouTube ads: the what, why & how
– Gmail ads – a little-used format that delivers big results (and some nooks and crannies that most people just never take the time to bother with)
– One targeting method you should never use (if you like going to restaurants with your shirt on)

AdWords Mastery Advanced: $1499 (or FREE when you add Mastermind 12 to the cart)

Includes everything above, plus exclusive access to…
Bonus Module 7: Scaling Up (only for buyers of Advanced and VIP)
– How to collect $100 to $500 per month higher fees from every single client with AdWords scripts (this alone will pay for the extra tuition over and over again, literally every month) – and extend retention by 6 to 18 months. This includes a licensing structure and agreement you can put in front of clients. This increases the respect you get, stabilizes your business, and puts you in the driver’s seat. As John Carlton once said to me, “You’re not a mouth in the food chain, you ARE the food chain!”
– How to manage accounts at scale
– An inside look at the tools & resources Mike’s agency uses
– Advanced Strategies for Adwords Editor
– Step by step process for onboarding new clients (greatly reduces overwhelm, buyer’s remorse and confusion – the first 3 weeks are absolutely critical and you can’t afford to get this wrong)
– 4 “first-focus” areas to grow your agency faster
– AdWords Scripts: “the future of Adwords”
– How to design and use pivot tables for faster, easier data analysis

Where will Your Business be in 2 years if You Don’t Make This Crucial Pivot Now?

The sharpest marketers I know are not spending their time hyper-optimizing AdWords campaigns.

• They’re running cool experiments
• They’re strategizing at the 30,000-foot level
• They’re hunting for Star business clients…or building their own Star businesses
• They’re searching for high-return equity plays
• They’re seeking out profitable joint ventures
• They’re working to scale their business to the next level
• They’re making (mental and personal) connections outside their industry to discover profound breakthroughs

They’re not spending hours every day with their shoulders hunched over a laptop, tweaking AdWords campaigns.

If you’re doing that, your days are numbered.

And seriously, is that what you got into AdWords advertising for in the first place?

To spend all your time optimizing?

What would you do with all your extra time if you suddenly freed up 50-80% of the time you now spend with your head in your monitor?

What would you (Mr. or Ms. Consultant) do if you suddenly had before-and-after screenshots so compelling that closing new, high-paying clients would be 90% easier?

What would it mean to you if you could suddenly charge every client $100 to $500 more per month..and have them gladly pay it…and ask for more?

What if every move you made for your clients built a moat around your business…securing your borders from enemy attack…and increased your job security?

What if you were 100% confident that you were up to speed on the latest AdWords developments…and positioned to capitalize on FUTURE Google changes as well?

What if you could add just one single new client or customer from all this?

What would all that be worth you?

$10,000?

$100,000?

$1,000,000?

…easily more than the paltry price of admission to AdWords Mastery.

But consider the reverse.

If you’re not positioned for the future of Google’s AdWords, the outlook is grim.

Some experts are estimating that 60-70% of AdWords consultants will be relegated to “selling PPC to the pizza parlour” in 2 years if they don’t make this crucial pivot and leverage the new automation tools NOW.

Google’s advancements will continue to evolve faster than most advertisers can keep up.

Get up to speed now, or get left in the dust.