Google Ads (AdWords) Workbook: Advertising on Google Search, the Display Network, and Video (2026 Marketing - Social Media, SEO, & Online Ads Books)

I found this to be an excellent, wonderful, and exceptional book. Jason McDonald has taken a subject that few of us understand (but often pretend to) and breaks it down, literally, click by click, for those of us who are confused by Google Ads, however, his book also serves as guide for those experienced and familiar working with this.I found that what drew me to this book was Mr. McDonald's quick wit, which made this an entertaining read, and his use of wit in the explanations of Google Ads just made the process all the more clearer. In addition to wit, his straightforward style made this a book that was a pleasure to read as well as understand the very technical, finite, subject matter. There are several explanations on this where I've had trouble getting through the first page, much less through an entire chapter, but McDonald's writing style backed up with unsurpassed knowledge in this field, made this book a page-turner.As you go through the book, you'll see how every aspect of Google Ads is broken down piece by piece, and not only will you receive an undisputed explanation of the process, you will get a better, much deeper understanding of how Google Ads can benefit you, no matter the size of your business or the product you are trying to promote.While it is an entertaining read, it’s not designed (in my opinion) to be read only once. This book can serve as a guide for anyone marketing with Google Ads (or has intentions to do so in the future). Having a book like this that you can use as a reference when you want to check something quickly, not to mention the vast glossary of terms that is included.An incredible book. A definite must-have for anyone marketing (or planning to market) with Google Ads.I found this to be an excellent, wonderful, and exceptional book. Jason McDonald has taken a subject that few of us understand (but often pretend to) and breaks it down, literally, click by click, for those of us who are confused by Google Ads, however, his book also serves as guide for those experienced and familiar working with this.I found that what drew me to this book was Mr. McDonald's quick wit, which made this an entertaining read, and his use of wit in the explanations of Google Ads just made the process all the more clearer. In addition to wit, his straightforward style made this a book that was a pleasure to read as well as understand the very technical, finite, subject matter. There are several explanations on this where I've had trouble getting through the first page, much less through an entire chapter, but McDonald's writing style backed up with unsurpassed knowledge in this field, made this book a page-turner.As you go through the book, you'll see how every aspect of Google Ads is broken down piece by piece, and not only will you receive an undisputed explanation of the process, you will get a better, much deeper understanding of how Google Ads can benefit you, no matter the size of your business or the product you are trying to promote.While it is an entertaining read, it’s not designed (in my opinion) to be read only once. This book can serve as a guide for anyone marketing with Google Ads (or has intentions to do so in the future). Having a book like this that you can use as a reference when you want to check something quickly, not to mention the vast glossary of terms that is included.An incredible book. A definite must-have for anyone marketing (or planning to market) with Google Ads.

The beauty of Jason McDonald's book is that it has something for anyone who sells anything. I've experimented with Google ads for years and had decent results, but I now realize I can do much better with a structured plan and the background knowledge McDonald offers in this book.People seem to have a love-hate relationship with Google Ads but that shouldn't be the case. In the Google Ads Workbook, an updated version of the author's previous book on this subject, there's a very high "information value" for marketers. The division of strategies between the search and display networks is a nice tough. Too many people have vague awareness about Google's display network, which can mean losing out on a whole different kind of advertising.A couple other pluses of this book:First, the final "toolbook" section contains the best shortlist of resources for those of us who want to learn more and dig deeper into this powerful marketing system. I've already used a few of the book's techniques to sell a diverse range of products online, including rare coins, sculputure and niche/rare books.Second, if you're not a math person, have no fear. The chapter on metrics will not overfill your number-crunching capabilities. Understanding Google Ads metrics is more of a vocabulary challenge than a math problem. Really, the author shows how anyone can harness the selling power of Google Ads for their own benefit, whether you have an MBA in marketing or have not yet gotten a high-school diploma. This is indeed a workbook, and if you work through it, you'll be at home with Google Ads.I've read one other book by this author. It was on SEO techniques and served as my introduction to that topic. McDonald clearly knows his stuff, has solid academic credentials along with the fact that he specializes in helping people become successful online entrepreneurs. The icing on the cake is his writing style. It's direct, uncluttered and contains zero fluff. I really felt like I got my money's worth with this book and it'll be one of a half-dozen or so that stays in my personal reference section for quite a while.McDonald's book easily earns five stars, for value, usefulness, ease of understanding and being able to hold the reader's interest on a topic that can be dry at times.

Google Ads (AdWords) Workbook by Jason McDonald is a great resource and a very thorough breakdown of all things Google Ads/AdWords. The book uses screenshots, tables, graphs, and other graphics to explain why online marketing is important, what to do and what not to do to achieve success and sales, and the definitions of many industry terms I was not familiar with before. The author makes clear the book is intended for small business owners and marketing managers with those in the non-profit industry finding it useful, too. I work for a non-profit and absolutely found the Workbook helpful. I learned a lot. I now have knowledge that will assist me in my conversations with our ad buyers and social media managers. Google Ads Workbook is also a great resource because it isn't dry like so many instruction manuals and how to guides. McDonald uses a conversational, even joking tone right off the bat, saying in the introduction, "We’ll see about the rebranded term Google Ads. Google+, Google’s experiment in social media, for example, didn’t end so well. But I digress. Who cares what you call it? It’s the largest ad network on the planet, rivaled only by Facebook and Amazon". The author is also realistic about the subject matter, saying he both loves and hates Google Ads. However he feels about it, he clearly understands it and how to use it. He barrels through an enormous amount of information that, let's be honest, no one is reading for entertainment. We're reading to learn more about marketing online and become comfortable using Google Ads, and yet, I was entertained. Headings like "Google Ads is Like Alcohol" and "Google is Like A Bartender" made me laugh. All around, a well-written, well-researched, and extensive guide to Google Ads and online advertising.

I think it’s rather well known that Google Adwords (Google’s paid advertising service) is a rather arcane thing - that advertising on the internet at all is something made of algorithms and probably black magic, but if not magic, at least a lot of obfuscation and jargon and confusion.Well, if you want or need to understand, because you think it’ll be profitable or you’d like it to be profitable or you’d just like to understand how and why Google does its advertising thing, McDonald has a beautifully long, detailed breakdown on how the sausage gets made.I bought the digital edition, and found it extremely useful - there are a lot of links to informative videos and relevant sources, and it makes it easy to navigate through relevant sections and by keyword search. However, a physical edition also comes with a way to access a PDF (again, with the clickable links) and how to do so is explained in the text - so you’re set either way.Probably my favorite and one of the most densely useful sections is the part on Google’s “gotchas” - where they are making a sale on you. McDonald shows where those tricks are, and helps you not get overzealous or lost in the confusing language. It will help you spend money where it is going to be most useful, and help you narrow down to the correct and most helpful keywords.With the proliferation of screenshots, the step-by-step and tiny icon by tiny icon breakdown, the link to worksheets so you can put concepts into practice, I think you will find the Google Ads (Adwords) Workbook a particularly useable and very qualified book to add to your online sales repertoire.

The book explains in clear language and numerous screenshots from the Google Adwords site itself what to do, what not to do, how, and why. This book will enable the readers to initiate and manage a campaign by themselves, all for less than 5 bucks (Kindle version). I don’t know that it can get any better than that! Furthermore, the author includes a PDF version with hotlinks (not sure why he didn’t include them in the Kindle version, which was what I purchased), and several very useful worksheets that help to organize your campaign, brainstorm keywords, and more. This is really a great value.That said, the book isn’t perfect. The order of the chapters is a little confusing and things are not explained in the order I would expect them to be. I suggest reading the entire book and then organizing the material in a sequential manner that is consistent with the sequence of starting a campaign. Chapter 4 - "Search Network" is a good place to start when beginning a campaign.Also, there is a lot of repetition in this book. I thought it was useful to get the same things hammered at me because it helps learning, but perhaps not everyone will enjoy this style, or the numerous, unnecessary "jokes" that the authors peppers his text with. But that's really nitpicking. If you're new to Adwords, this book is a great help and a great value.Prior to reading the book, Google Adwords seemed like an extremely confusing jumble of data that I had no chance of understanding. Personally, it took me a day and a half to read the book, do the work, and get a campaign up and running, and another 24 hours to get my ads approved and my first leads (though to be honest, this timeline is based on work that I had already done to understand my product and market). In other words, this book helped me a lot.

I won't even lie, this is a whole world that I never really thought about. Everyone goes into google on a daily basis and will see the Google advertisements immediately underneath the search bar. You don't really think about it until you are looking to start a business and potentially use this to get some interaction and truthfully, I never realized how much goes into these ads until now! Being completely honest, some of this seems very confusing. It is a whole different world-especially when you are looking to start a business or at least expand for more attention. Jason McDonald does an excellent job taking things step by step on what everything means, the lingo, and where your advertisements on different places of the internet can take you. It really is fascinating how much goes into Google Ads and what it all entails. He takes things step by step in regards to the consumer and how they purchase, how they search vs. browse, etc. He then helps explain how what you do with Google Ads and how it can help (or potentially not help) your business. He makes things much easier to understand. I know if I didn't read through this book, I would certainly not understand any of this and most likely give up!He really lays everything out to be easily understandable. He goes through Google Ads, YouTube, and the Display Network and discusses how your advertisements can benefit (depending on if you are going through with the correct standards) from using these platforms. He uses screenshots and links which is great when you want a visual! But the links help to understand more of what he is talking about. He provides plenty of examples as he goes along. If you are looking to help your business grow or are even just looking to start one and are in need of knowledge for the internet (which would be extremely smart as everyone uses technology nowadays) I highly recommend this book!

From the first chapter I knew that “AdWords Workbook: 2017 Edition: Advertising on Google AdWords, YouTube, and the Display Network” is a book like no other.The way it is written captivated my interest from the first lecture because it did not confuse me with a lot of jargon as is commonly used in the industry.I had studied a lot about Internet marketing and pay per click advertising, but I hadn’t had the chance to know such good insights from a real expert up until now.The combination of professional insight and good humor contained in this book got me on the right track in no time with the campaigns that I was already running on AdWords. I have tweaked my campaigns right away as it was indicated in the book.After I have finished reading this book I have redefined my priorities and those are now to improve the quality of the leads while simultaneously generating a sustained traffic volume for my site.Now I have a holistic view of my advertising effort.Up until now I was concentrating my effort on cheap high volume keywords. I didn’t knew until I read the AdWords Workbook that my way of advertising had a major flaw because I was using only the cheapest keyword expressions indicated by Adword platform. This way I was losing potential customers, ready to buy something, because they were searching in a different way which didn’t include terms like cheap, free, giveaway.For me, from now on, the book “AdWords Workbook: 2017 Edition: Advertising on Google AdWords, YouTube, and the Display Network” will remain a reference manual that will be helpful whenever I will have something to figure out in my campaigns.This is the first book about Adwords that help me understand the ins and outs of professional and effective pay per click advertising.Now I know that I don’t have to concentrate all my efforts on a single advertising platform which is Google Adwords.I think that the competitors would not hesitate to grab the book while is still on the market because they know that a good reference manual makes a lot of difference in the world of internet marketing.Now I have a greater clarity about buyer intent and buyer expectation whenever they search for a product and services.I can say that it helped me understand that an effective pay per click ad is a combination of both traffic generating and high quality leads wich is the purpose of any business.Advertising on Google Adwords is a lot easier for me now I know what to look for and what to set up on the advertising platform whenever I will create a campaign.

Not recommended for people who've gone and created at least 1 campaign in their life. It's very basic, not much strategy involved.

I am reading many books about Digital Marketing and SEO because I am doing a tough research. I have been doing this for 10 years. Jason is right about not trusting Google's AI and representatives to manage your Ads Account.What I disliked the most? There are some broken links in the book and the author invites very much the readers to write him asking questions but he does not reply. I find it very unrespectful and a waste of time for us.

The book is best pragmatic book that teaches you all the ins and out of Google Ads, display and more. I would recommend everyone who wants to learn, marketeers, business people and who wants to make a living out of it. At first I thought a very high price for the e-book compared to other marketing books, but I don’t regret it. Next book will be his SEO workbook.Feedback: There are to many links in your book. I would recommend to remove the unnecessary links that can easily be explained in the book.

Great product, fast delivery. Very happy!

Whether you’re a newbie just starting out with Google Ads, or you’re a pro who has worked with Google Ads for years, this book will take your Google Ad skills and knowledge to another level. Jason has an easy-to-read writing style that makes it easy understand the intricacies involved with setting up and running effective Google Ad campaigns. This book is full of tips and wisdom Jason has accumulated over the years with links to even more information organized throughout the book. In my opinion, this book is in the top three books I’ve read on Googles Ads so far.

Excellent Book !!! clearly states exact procedure for performing each task.Full of resources which are readily available to kick start your journey towards being AdWord professional. So many PRACTICAL ASPECTS mentioned and discussed in too much detail. I'd also like to to mention that it really caters the need of a mentor especially when you are new to Ad words and Digital marketing. Super, easy to understand language and honest approach without flattering Google people.... This is the very first book i have of Jason McDonald however I have become big fan of him now and would like to have all his books in my library.