Google Ads Learning / Education Resources for PPC

[t2van]

I'm not looking for a "learn how to do PPC myself" but I'm after any "modern" books or even better, a youtube channel that covers ads, latest trends, changes, technology etc.

I want to understand what I'm looking at, how they should work, what is the standard practices are, and what's good and what's shit.

Ideally, I want to know enough about it that if someone is bullshitting me I can call them out on it.

I know about ads, how they work and have dabbled rather unsuccessfully in the past with them! I'm just looking to build up my own knowledge base.

Why

End of this year and moving into 2027 for the first time in 13 years I'm going to start using PPC to help with growth and taking the business further. So I've been interviewing some agencies and freelancers, and what they quote me to manage the ads is insane without spending a single £ on ads (and I think) this is down to when they ask the turnover question, they just see ££££

The problem I have is if I spend £4000-9000 a month (yup, these are my quoting ranges so far) for the service and then ads ontop the amount I then need to spend as a budget just to hopefully break even (ad spend + service fee) is getting insane let alone how much then I need to spend to start seeing profits to actually grow the business.

They all show me impressive case studies but once I sit down and work out their fee + ads it all just seems to look like a turnover exercies and the amount those case studies actually generate is rather small.

Now, before all you PPC guys jump in, I get there is the life time value of the customer that will come back to spend next time hopefully, but they all seem to use the life time valucation in the cost to aquire them so I don't get that logic.

Unless it's all about turnover and I'm not about vanity.

Anyhow, to come back around SO before I start spending money with any agency or before I go down the path of bringing this in-house and hiring someone, I want to LEARN I don't want to run my own ads I got no time for that if I did id be spending the money now experimenting.

I just want to know all the latest buzz words, learn what to ask people, learn the metrix side of it so it helps me make and find a better hire. Learn what to look for, what not to look for and so on. Figure as this is a forum best place to ask.

 

[roydan]

4K/mo minimum sounds a bit expensive especially since you say that's the cheapest offer you had.

Anyway, Google's certification program (free - link) is relatively up to date and I trust your ability to filter out the promotional nonsense.

 

[t2van]

4K/mo minimum sounds a bit expensive especially since you say that's the cheapest offer you had.

Yeah. Externally, once you start factoring in the ad budget, the numbers are eye-watering. More so 1-2 months to dial it all in?

Anyway, Google's certification program (free - link) is relatively up to date and I trust your ability to filter out the promotional nonsense.

Thanks.

Looks like I got some holiday reading and learning

Any channels or pod casts or anything you follow as well or can recommend?

 

[Dopious]

Any normal not to advanced handling over $500-$1000 a month plus PPC budget is way over pay. Normally it ain`t that time consuming to handle .. for a normal business need. Sure there are complex cases but mostly really big customers.

 

[roydan]

Any channels or pod casts or anything you follow as well or can recommend?

Honestly most of the podcasts are full of nonsense advice meant to make headlines for client acquisition, so at some point I just stopped watching them.

More so 1-2 months to dial it all in?

Quite a long time for setup, but maybe they meant until the accounts balance and starts to show ROI, which makes a bit more sense.

 

[t2van]

Any normal not to advanced handling over $500-$1000 a month plus PPC budget is way over pay. Normally it ain`t that time consuming to handle .. for a normal business need. Sure there are complex cases but mostly really big customers.

You're saying I a half-decent freelancer or hire pay them X and let them manage it all?

Some of them with the pricing included emails, abandonment stuff and so on not all though.

The more I sit down and try to calculate it all the more I can see I need to throw stupid money at it to make it all worthwhile.

Maybe I'm better off throwing the money into Amazon ads to push a product to get it to sell and fund it long enough where it dont need ads to get noticed.

 

[Dopious]

You're saying I a half-decent freelancer or hire pay them X and let them manage it all?

Not saying anything on how you should do it, just saying what I know about the PPC and what people around me charge their PPC customers. They usually charge a fee based on hours it takes to manage their clients PPC plus the actual PPC budget per month.