I screwed up the webinar registration, so some folks missed the call. So I’m providing you with the MP3 recording of the call. Matthew Gillogly and I discuss:

-Financial binge/purge cycles (hint: they might have something to do with thinking you have to ‘prove something’ at a deep level – and if you don’t get out of the loop, all the marketing or financial wizardry in the world won’t fix it)

-The deep connection between addictions, family problems and money

-My own very discouraging foray into this world, a ton of experimentation and eventually, HUGE discoveries.

Stream or download the MP3 here:

MP3 (Right-click and select Save Link As…)

This guy named Tim was up for his hot seat. For a little while it looked like we were going to head straight down the “marketing techniques” trail.

Then I asked him some question about why he was in the business he was in, and about his business partner – then stuff started pourin’ out. He was terrified his partner was gonna screw him.

“Have partners screwed you before?”

“YES. Two other times.” He went on to describe how, every singe time, X happens, then Y happens, then Z happens, then “Don’t let the door smack your butt on your way out.”

I had a hunch this might have something to do with his dad. I drew a line on the floor. “This is the time line of your life, and this is now. Stand on this line and walk backwards until you feel that ‘He screwed me!!!’ feeling one more time.”

He walks backwards on that line, then suddenly BAM – he bursts into tears. (This has never happened before or since in an Intensive, but like I told you, each one is different…)

Suddenly he’s six years old and his dad has just done something to him and it’s heartbreaking.

You’d think this would be terribly awkward and I guess it was, but everyone in the room was remarkably calm and empathetic. Tim was completely safe; it was instantly obvious that EVERYONE related to this on some level. Everyone had some comparable piece of flotsam and jetsam floating around somewhere in their brain.

In fact, without even being prompted, everyone in the room went around in a circle and said, “Yeah, the thing I struggle with is ____.” It was spooky.

Tim told us exactly what had happened with his Dad. I said, “I can’t fix this right now, but at least we’ve gotten past Square One. You now know that this partner problem is really just a replay of the old dad tapes. You get those tapes healed up, and things are going to shift for you.”

I explicitly told him to find a Sozo facilitator, which he did. I also told him to read Stephen DeSilva’s book “Money and the Prosperous Soul,” which he did.

That was a year ago.

I talked to Tim this morning on the phone. He emailed me a copy of what he wrote in his journal, the day he began erasing the tapes:

“The Holy Spirit bound up doors, sealing the tomb, and locking away anger…fear of not enough…fear of not enough help, low self worth.  The perimeter of the door was sealed, the handle removed, and the key hole fused shut.  I have now taken a position on the front lines and I am ready to fight the good fight.  There is no fear in my veins, but only courage and might.  I am ready for my life’s purpose.”

Since I don’t have two identical copies of Tim, I have not performed a scientific A/B Split Test on both versions the guy. All I have is anecdotal evidence. But here’s what Tim told me this morning, just a few minutes ago on the phone:

Tim liked Sozo so much, he got it tattooed on his arm. His words to me: "It's a word rich with meaning. Wanted it on my mind for life." The word Sozo is Greek, it means "Saved, delivered and healed."

“I’ve forgiven my dad. I’ve experienced a release of identity. I no longer fear LACK. There is always enough. And right now I’m just playing in the sandbox, maybe I’m even a little careless about some things. But the deal flow is INSANE and I’ve never made more money than I’m making right now.”

That’s what can happen when you un-learn the lies you’ve picked up along the way, when you commit yourself to pursuing the truth and fulfilling your God-given design as a entrepreneurial human being.

Tim had to make multiple trips across the country and pull together all manner of disparate ingredients. I organized the Financial Sozo workshop because there was no place in the world where all these elements could be put together the way entrepreneurs need them.

We’re a huge step closer to having it all in one place.

Join me June 1 in Chicago:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/financial/

Perry Marshall

P.S.: Just now he sent me this picture. Tim was so impacted, he got a tattoo on his arm that says “Sozo.” Wow. I had no idea.

This is probably the reason I really hate it when people call themselves an expert, guru, or master. To me, those labels only apply when another person or entity applies that label to you – it should never be self-given.

However, for this one occasion I do have to brag.

PPC Associates put together a 64 person bracket to vote for the most influential figure in SEM. The bracket included many heavyweights such as:

• Bill Gross (invented PPC)
• Larry Page (Google CEO)
• Danny Sullivan (Editor in Chief of Search Engine Land)
• Andrew Goodman
• Chris Sherman
• George Michie
• and way too many more great people for me to possibly list
• You can see the entire bracket here

Over the course of a few weeks, more than 46,000 votes were cast. In the end it came down Joe Kerschbaum (CEO of Clix Marketing) and myself.

And I’m happy, and a bit humbled to say, I won the entire tournament.

PPC Associates did a great job running the tournament and even made a video to capture some moments in the tourney:

Special thanks for David Rodnitzky for organizing everything.  

Brad Geddes Voted Most Influential Figure in SEM is a post from: Certified Knowledge

We took on a new client in the automotive ecommerce space a couple months ago. We were tasked with increasing year-over-year conversions while driving CPA lower or at least keeping it steady. We did a pretty thorough audit of the mid-five-figures per month account, so we were ready to implement our optimizations on a multitude of fronts. A day or two out of the gate, the numbers looked like they *might* be going our way, but each successive day brought less-than-stellar results.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and same status. The numbers didn’t look really bad, but where were the rockstar numbers we were expecting? Even though I’ve been doing PPC optimization for years, I was missing a key piece of data that I shouldn’t have been missing. Fortunately, a quick trip to Search Funnels solved the mystery, giving us and our client more insight into the account and more confidence that we were moving in the right direction.

First introduced in March 2010, AdWords Search Funnels are a set of reports describing the ad click and impression behavior on Google.com that leads up to a conversion. Search Funnels helps answer questions around time lags and attribution. To paraphrase Google: Search Funnel data helps clarify how users search for Advertiser products, and it also gives a more complete picture of the value of your campaigns.

Time Lag

AdWords Search Funnels have been updated in the last few months, and there is great data to be mined. Specifically, Time Lag data showed us that for this specific account, data from ‘yesterday’ would grow an average of 67% over the next 30 days. Data viewed in a ‘last 7 days’ format would grow 42%. This is due to the effects of the AdWords cookie and the way that AdWords records conversions, matching them to the date and time when the last click happened. We had begun to understand there was a significant lag after we took over the account, but we had no idea just how pronounced it was until we looked at time lag data in the right way. Here’s how to do it.

Click on ‘Conversions’ from the ‘Tools and Analysis’ dropdown menu from any page in the AdWords account. Next, click on ‘Search Funnels’, located in the left-hand column of the ‘Conversions’ page. Once there, you will want to click on the ‘Only show complete conversion paths’ option, located in the ‘All Paths’ dropdown on the upper right-hand side of the page (see screenshot below). This will ensure you are only looking at data where Google know the whole story. Because AdWords gathers conversion data over a 30 day period, you may want to choose a date range where the ending date is 30 days ago, which may give you a greater volume of ‘complete conversion path’ data to analyze.

Now, click on ‘Time Lag’ in the sub-navigation on the left-hand side of the page (see screenshot). Very importantly, for most situations you will likely want to look at ‘From last click’ data, rather than the default setting, which is ‘From first impression.’ Since the AdWords interface presents ‘last click’ performance data, it makes sense to analyze things from the same standpoint, for consistency. If you forget this step, the data may look much different and it may mislead you. Note the yellow highlighted text in the screenshot below, telling the user that they are looking only at complete conversion paths.

In order to understand by what percentage ‘yesterday’ data will increase over time, take the ‘conversions’ percentage of total in the first row.

In the screenshot above, the number is very close to 40%*. Since we are dealing with percentages, we can divide 100 by 40 and then subtract 1 to get our expected percentage increase of 150% (100/40 = 2.5; then, 2.5 – 1 = 1.5, or 150%).

Note, with each passing hour after midnight, these numbers will get smaller. If you waited till 11pm on the follow day to look at ‘yesterday’ data, you are almost into day #2, and so you must adjust accordingly. In order to understand by what percentage ‘last 7 days’ data will increase during the 30 day cookie window, you have to look at each day individually.

To illustrate, a ‘last 7 days’ view includes yesterday, which, using the example above will grow conversions by 150%. But ‘last 7 days’ also includes the day that happened 7 days ago. This day has already had the benefit of 6 to 7 days of conversion ‘cookie credit’, and so this day will show much less growth than will the day that was yesterday. One way to do the math is to list days 1 to 7 with their cumulative ‘percentage of total conversions’. Then, take the average of those cumulative totals. Now, divide this average into 100 and subtract 1, and you have the estimated growth percentage for any ‘last 7 days’ lookback. Below is a screenshot of what the Excel spreadsheet might look like.

Once we were able to point to actual Search Funnels data around time lags, we were easily able to communicate our true progress to date. Additionally, Search Funnels contributed both to our and our client’s understanding of user behavior.

There are also great attribution reports in Search Funnels, but that’s for another post!

* Note: the screenshot was taken *before* I clicked on ‘from last click’, so the data here is actually wrong. Don’t forget this step, as I seem to have done in my screenshot!

 
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Certified Knowledge. If you would like to write for Certified Knowledge, please let us know.

Use AdWords Search Funnels to Gain Deeper Insights is a post from: Certified Knowledge

However, if you have thousands or millions of keywords, then trying to find the best areas to improve quality score can be overly time consuming.

By using a single AdWords report and a few pivot tables (which are very easy to create) you can identify:

• How healthy your account is based upon quality score
• Where you have the greatest financial benefits to increasing quality score
• Where you have the more impression improvement potential by increasing quality scores

I put together a video that walks you though exactly how to run these reports and do the analysis which you can see below (if you are reading this via email or an RSS reader, you may need to click through to the site to see the video).

The video is in 720 HD format; so if you change the quality settings, it also looks good in full screen.

I hope you enjoy the video.

How to Identify Google AdWords Quality Score Problems is a post from: Certified Knowledge

Period, end of story.

What should you do about it?  Learn how to make your site convert better than everyone else (so you can afford to find traffic elsewhere), and add concrete services and real physical products to your mix (so that when Google eventually gets it’s way, you won’t be stuck trying to sell something that everyone else thinks should be free).

Period, end of story.

(Don’t shoot the messenger… I’ll just show myself out)

Dr. G

Convert Better Than Everyone Else |  Optimize Your Systems for Hyper-Responsive Buyers |  Get More Proof for Your Site |  Get Coached to Do It Right | Get Your Feet Licked

“Laura’s unwavering support of Perry has touched even more lives than she knows, including my youngest Charlie (now 10).

Although I had a 25 year career in IT before becoming a PPC Consultant, he’s only known me working from home doing this “advertising thang.”

My wife has a full time career as a teacher, so I became the house-husband after the catastrophe of 2001 and 9/11.

I’ve raised Charlie, and I do all the school runs, kids clubs and activities, music lesson taxi rides, weekly cooking, drying washing, some ironing and constant dish washer cycles!
In return I get to set my hours, charge my own rates, pick or fire my own clients, work when and from where I want including my car, my hotel, my study or anywhere with an internet connection.

I’ve now become “permanently employable”.

With the technology now available to us, and our ability to create value for people needing it and prepared (happily) to pay, there have never been more opportunities.”

~~

Because David has created autonomy in his life, he has a different relationship to his kids than he ever would have before. They’ll enjoy the benefits of this for the rest of their life.

He has a different relationship to the world at large: It doesn’t control him anymore. That changes everyone he deals with.

He has a different relationship to work: He enjoys it. He has the upper hand.

But the REAL reason he has autonomy is not so obvious. It’s not simply because he’s a consultant.

It’s because he’s a consultant who *knows how to make the customers show up* and he can prove it.

The guy who knows how to make the customers show up is always the guy in charge.

Now… there are different ways to make customers show up. Wildly different skill sets that can get the job done.

-David does it with analytical skill.

-Some people do it with deep empathy and emotion.

-Some people do it by speaking.

-Some people do it by writing.

-Some do it with their tremendous grasp of systems and processes.

-Some do it with the power of their personality to move the masses.

Each of these skills is different and must be sold differently.

This is why, between now and September, the Consulting Accelerator course and Chicago Rainmaker Alchemist seminar on September 21-22, are customized to your unique marketing signature.

I know of no one who has ever done this. 21st century businesses are built on strategic teamwork – especially now. (I just got an email the other day from a guy who landed a $25,000 contract one week into the course and I’ll tell you more later.)

Largely because of my wife’s undying support, I got free. Which helped David get free. Who’s next? Somebody’s next.

If you want to get free, you’re going to do it with YOUR fingerprints, your eccentricities and your unique brand of mojo:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/alchemist/

Perry Marshall

SMX Advanced is completely sold out; but there are plenty of learning opportunities left.

On Thursday, June 7th, I’ll be conducting a full day workshop on AdWords.

The basics of the agenda can be seen below; but I try to leave a bit of ‘wiggle room’ for in-depth Q&A and/or to add a topic at the end of the day (favorites so far have been Remarketing, pivot tables, large scale organization, and team organization).

The Workshop Agenda

Comprehensive Keyword Research: The absolute center of every PPC campaign is keywords. Learn the effective methods to discover and research keywords. While keywords are the lifeblood of PPC, perfecting your match types usage while controlling your negative keywords can drastically increase your overall revenue.

Writing Compelling Ad Copy: You will learn how to sync your ad copy with both your keywords and buying cycle stages. Testing ad copy is essential to any AdWords account’s success. You will takeaway several ideas for ads to test by the time you leave the session.

Demystifying Quality Score: Quality Score has a larger effect on your account’s visibility than any other setting inside of AdWords. Quality Score can be a challenge to increase. Receive step-by-step instructions in how to prioritize Quality Score improvement, and what actions to take to increase your Quality Scores.

Increase your Reach Through the Google Display Network: Consumers spend about 5% of their time with the search network. The rest of their time is spent on content sites. Learn how to effectively reach users beyond search with contextual ads, placements, and enhanced campaigns.

Control Your Ad Display with Location Targeting: Do you think that geographic targeting isn’t relevant to a national business? Think again! Whether you are a brick and mortar local business, or a global e-commerce site, learn how geographically targeted campaigns can create additional connections with searchers.

Increase Your Landing Page Conversions: The first impression to a potential customer is the landing page. With only a few seconds to engage the buyer this may be more important in your conversion funnel than anything else. This section of the course will not only go into best practices and usability, but how to test landing pages in a simple and effective method.

More Info

Lunch will be included. The presentations will be available for download during and after the presentation. The WiFi should work (you can never make 100% guarantees when you don’t own the venue). As I’m flying out the next day, I’ll be around for a while after the session ends for any wrap-up Q&A, discussions, etc.

You can register here: SMX Advanced Registration

Learn more about advanced here: SMX Advanced Homepage

See the full workshop page here: SMX Advanced Google AdWords Training

I hope to see you in Seattle.

Attend SMX Advanced Google AdWords Training is a post from: Certified Knowledge

A few months ago I sent a CD to Renaissance Club members, where Jack and Matt interviewed my wife Laura. Got more feedback from that than any other interview I’ve put out in years. Peoples’ favorite part was when she said,

“Every time Perry would have yet another a massive failure I’d go in some other room and cry, and when I got done, I’d compose myself, go out and support him.”

Ah, the joys of being an entrepreneur’s wife.

For years we rented a basement apartment for $150/month to a guy who worked at a nearby rail yard. He was ending his lease and he owed me money and he talked me into waiving the last month’s rent.

When I admitted this to Laura she grew very sad and said, “That was the money I was going to use to buy some new clothes, and now I’m not going to get them.” She hadn’t had any new clothes in years, and I suddenly realized, she’s right: I just lost her clothes money and I have no way to get it back.

Year 1 of our marriage: We did, I think, a decent job of adjusting to each other and building into a relationship that had already gotten some bumps and bruises.

Year 2 of our marriage: I started drinking the MLM pink koolaid and threw myself into it 125%. That, plus finishing my engineering degree, managing an apartment complex, editing a university magazine and me generally discovering “You can hurl yourself into LOTS of things, seemingly without limit” meant she had a very lonely life. This went on for a LONG time.

She stuck it out.

I remember one time, listening to the radio – I am quite sure we’d been married less than a year then, long before we had kids – someone was talking about foster care. Laura said, “I want to do that.”

“You want to do WHAT???”

(The thought of taking a kid for awhile and them ‘giving them back’ horrified me. S-C-A-R-Y.)

“I’d like to do foster care someday.”

Sure enough, between Bambino #1 and Bambino #2, we took in a drug exposed infant for three months, her name was Drea.

Of course Laura did 90% of the work, cuz she was at home while I was out slaying dragons and trying to sell technology. The state of Illinois paid us something like $200 per month for doing the foster care and she saved up all that money so I could buy our first computer with Windows that could get on the Internet.

When we were in debt to the tune of 18 months income and paying 20% interest on our credit cards – entering the death spiral – guess who went to her dad and asked him to co-sign for a loan so we could refinance our house and actually have a shot at paying it all off?

When I escaped from the Dilbert Cube one month and one day after 9/11, Laura’s the one that said to me, “THIS is your chance, Perry, TAKE IT.” She was the one who was choosing yet again to plunge into the turbulent waters of entrepreneurship.

Five years ago, Laura decided to ‘graduate’ from foster care to adoption. She plunged into the abyss of paperwork and bureaucracy, beleaguered by dead-ends and constant runarounds. (For example, our agency went out of business right after we finished our Home Study, so we had to start that all over again. Set us back at least six months.)

Five months ago we flew to China, and even though we’re otherwise ‘done’ having kids (Laura’s last pregnancy had complications, it was rather scary) we came home with Bambino #5. Laura’s got kids who are 16, 13, 11 and 8, and now a 2 year old tugging on her skirt all day long.

That, plus being assistant to the costume manager in a children’s theater production of “Tom Sawyer” that’s going onstage next weekend. 88 costumes, every one catalogued and organized by Laura. Running the financial side of our business, playing hostess when we have clients at the house, holding the fort down when I’m gone.

Laura has no interest in the spotlight, most of my customers don’t even know her name, all kinds of things magically get done without word or recognition.

But today I want to recognize my lovely and industrious wife. Solomon’s words come to mind:

She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.

She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.

She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”

Laura, Thanks for putting up with me. I love you and I’m so very proud of you.

Perry

Very recently I got another Sozo session (I think this was my fifth one in 2 years) and something really interesting came up:

Private Jets.

I don’t know about you, but when somebody says “Private Jet” to me, my knee-jerk reaction is: “WAAAY too much money, too ostentatious, a total waste.”

Now, what’s the truth about a private jet?

The truth is, if your time is valuable enough – like $10,000 an hour – then a private jet is money very well spent.

So why did I have that “ick” reaction to a private jet?

The answer went something like this:

Perry, you don’t trust yourself to be responsible with private jet-type money. You think you’d blow it on something stupid.

Is that true?

No, if I had a private jet I would not do silly stuff with it. Uh, my daughter would not go to prom in my private jet.

Please understand, this isn’t really about private jets per se at all. It’s about how long a leash I think I can have.

But I got to the bottom of that belief, and solved it.

The take-away I want you to get from this is, you’ll only give yourself as much freedom as you trust yourself with. Many people have deep trust issues within themselves and that’s one reason why they rise to a certain level and then stop progressing.

Anyone who’s done what I do as long as I’ve done it has figured this out:

How far people go has a lot more to do with how clear their head is, than how much knowledge they’ve jammed inside of it.

I’ve been searching for years, for a way to get to the bottom of these roots and once I found one, I knew I needed to organize an event that would help people rise above.

That event happens in 3 weeks. 6 seats left. Special price today. Get yours before we sell out:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/financial/

Perry Marshall

P.S. You can read parts 1-7 on my blog