As always, feel free to post any recommendations for the new version.

• New Strategies
• New GMoneyPro re-structuring (to make everything easier to understand)
• Updated images reflecting Google’s design changes
• Updates with Google’s policies
• Removal of out of date techniques
• Addition of new more modern advertising techniques

If you want anything added to the new version of GMoneyPro, feel free to post a comment about what you would like added and I will be sure to include it.

So imagine my surprise when I noticed it didn’t receive any traffic over the weekend.  When I looked into it I noticed that all of my keywords were a 1/10 quality score.  Anyone who’s fairly experienced with Google AdWords will tell you that a 1/10 quality score means your site is breaking one of Google’s policies.  Knowing that this site wasn’t breaking any policies (since it had been running for 30+ months without any problems) I contacted Google and they told me someone would review my account.

Normally when you contact Google because of a drop in quality score, they usually send you an email saying “Our review staff has indicated that there is no problem with your account and the drop in quality score is justifiable…”.  But this time, I got a different response:

Whoops, Google Made a Mistake

Anyway, when I read the email, two things came to my mind:

1. Thank goodness I wasn’t out of town.
2. This site is on a private server that never goes down!?

Luckily, I have an account with Pingdom where they check all my sites every minute each day to make sure they’re not down.  So I decided to check the uptime report of that particular website for this month.

Yup, just as I had expected.  The website was up 100% of the time, meaning Google simply made a mistake.  Oh well, nobody’s perfect.

The most surprising thing is I did this all without creating new text ads.  All I did was I removed all the irrelevant sites and keywords that  my ads were being displayed on.   This not only means I increased my quality scores across this campaign, but it also means that I decreased the number of people visiting the site who were not buying products and kept visitors that were buying products.  The bottom line is, I have the same number of sales and less costs going towards advertising.

I think I may have stumbled upon a new method helpful for beginners and current users of AdWords.  I think I have found a way to to bypass quality score issues and get targeted/profitable traffic to any site.  Since this new method eliminates most quality score issues, it allows you to add keywords without worrying about them being negatively affected by your account history or poor performance.  I’m working on testing out this strategy now and will get back with the results (of course whenever I test something out I record it so other people can benefit from watching…plus it make it easier for you to copy me).  So far the results on the campaigns I’ve tested it on have been helpful.  Plus, I’ve noticed that it increases the profits, traffic, and quality scores throughout the entire account so hopefully this will be a killer new strategy.

Anyway, I’m thinking that I can get this strategy nailed down by the end of the month and can include the strategy in the updated version of GMoneyPro and the videos in Google AdBreach.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Ok, everyone knows that with Google AdWords you can receive traffic from just about anyone in the world.  If you’re smart, you will only advertise in countries where you feel people will buy the product you’re promoting.  Unfortunately, before you start advertising you cannot tell 100% which countries will make you money and which countries will not make you money.

But, once your advertisements have been running for a few weeks (maybe more depending on how many sales you’ve made), there’s a very easy way for you to find out which countries are making you money and which countries are costing you money.  To do this, go to your reports section in your AdWords account and run a geographical report for a specific campaign/adgroup.  This report will give you traffic data for each country/region/and city.

How does this increase your profits?

Easy!  With a report like this I can see that Mexico is not producing enough widget sales to cover advertising costs, so i de-select Mexico from my campaign settings.  I can also see that Australia is producing a lot of sales for widgets, so I add the country New Zealand to the list of countries I’m advertising in.  I can even take it a bit further, I could see that New York was buying a lot of widgets, but New York City was not.   To fix this, i could tell Google to show my ads in New York, but not New York City.

These are just a few examples of how you can take advantage of this report.  Remember, don’t target every country in the world, you’ll lose a lot of money if you do that.  If you’re starting off and don’t know what countries to advertise in, use Google’s Insights for Search Tool.

Here’s why this happens:

• Older text ads have a more established history, which means most (if not all) of the keywords in that adgroup have triggered that text ad to be displayed
• Your keyword’s history is used to help determine your quality score, so by pausing that text ad, you’re removing the history that text ad has for all your keywords

Here’s what to do:

• First off, don’t let this effect major changes to your account.  If you have a text ad that is losing money, you need to pause it.
• If you need to pause a text ad that’s older and more established, make sure you have several text ads in the adgroup before you pause it.
• Try to have two or more text ads in the adgroup that are out-performing the text ad before you pause it.

Remember, if you do pause a text ad and notice a decrease in quality scores, I learned that if you simply re-activate the text ad it will increase your keyword’s quality score once more.

• 6w8P-37SS-SGLK-SF8C-AL
• 6W8N-XEFZ-6GPT-VRW7-RU

Again, if you use one of these coupon codes, please let us know by posting a comment below notifying everyone of this.

These credits will give you $50 towards advertising on Google AdWords and are valid only for new account (opened within 15 days of applying the credits).

Here are the instructions:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/ads/newyear2010 to setup your account
2. Log into your AdWords account and fill out your billing preference under the Billing tab.
3. Enter the coupon code (exactly as shown)
4. Click “Save and Activate”

I’m going to post 2 new coupon codes per day until I run out.  Since there’s no way of me knowing if a coupon code has been used or not, please post a comment and say “I used this coupon code” so other people will know if it’s active or not.

Today’s two coupon codes are:

• DCME-QNJQ-3XBX-LEG6-2L
• DCME-QZK6-2M3P-DMAM-WL

This is my third time to take the exam in the past 4 years (as each exam expires after two years).  I’m happy to say that not only did I pass, but I did fairly well with a 94% score!

Passed Google's Advertising Exam

For those who don’t know, here are some details about the exam:

• It costs $50 to take, and if you fail it, you have to pay $50 again to re-take it
• It’s 120 questions
• You have 2 hours to complete the test
• You take it online, but Google forces you to take it in a “Special Browser” that prevents you from surfing the web, reading files on your computer, or do anything but take the exam (this prevents people from cheating).
• The exam covers every aspect of Google AdWords (which is a lot of stuff!)
• You have to make 85% or higher to pass!  So if you make an 84%, you fail and have to re-take it.

Anyway, I’ve passed the exam the first time I took it every year I’ve taken it…so you can rest assured that I know my stuff!

So long story short, I’m now re-certified as an Advertising Professional for Google for another two years.