Whether a doctor, in the armed services or a professional sports person, training is the key to success. Why should PPC (Pay Per Click) be any different? Correct knowledge applied is power.

Sure, you can dig through and drill down at AdWords Help and the AdWords Beginner's Guide. You can scrounge through and dig up bits and pieces online that will assist.

Most of these guides give you a piece of the puzzle. They're often fragmented and disjointed parts of the whole.

It seems that a clear, concise and holistic guide to PPC success has eluded the average PPC punter... Until now.

Ian Howie has more than 15 years experience working in the SEO and PPC arenas. Nowadays, he's a professional trainer for Wordtracker's PPC Training Workshops and also conducts AdWords Training Sessions in Central London.

Well respected by Google, Ian has "the runs on the board" when it comes to breaking down what can seem overwhelming jargon into easy to understand and apply action steps.

Moving through the first few pages of this 167 page ebook, one may feel that's it's too basic. You'll soon discover that it's not just another gloss over guide from there.

There's a lot of great insight regarding what to do and what not to do right off the bat.

Covering fundamentals that many new players would not have considered, Ian draws your attention to a number of default settings that should be adjusted. Many of Google's default settings are good for newcomers but are not necessarily good for users seeking to maximize their profits.

There's an old saying that says, "Fools like to rush in and soon part with their money." This doesn't have to be you.

This initial check list should not only increase the odds for your very first campaign to succeed, by applying these ideas you should also be able to turn non-profitable campaigns into profitable ones.

Some of the content will stretch the PPC newbie while experienced PPC users will benefit from the refresher course that the "don't leave a stone unturned" strategy delivers.

It's really like a guided tour that shows you how to build your AdWords campaign the right way step-by-step. You'll move from landing and keyword research right through to building and optimizing your AdWords campaigns.

If possible, readers should have their Google Adwords account open while reading this work. It's very helpful to step through what is being taught in your own AdWords account so that you can get a clearer understanding of where it is and what it does.

There's a lot more to AdWords than you may know. It's quite possible that you'll be saying to yourself, "I never knew that was there" time and time again. There's nothing like a bit of participation!

If the real purpose of the following AdWords functions escape you and if you don't really know how to make them serve you, you'll soon be their master.

 
• How to use negative campaign keywords
 
• Setting up and capitalizing on matches types (He does a particularly good job here).
 
• Adding AdWords conversion code
 
• Why use the Google content network and how to make it profitable
 
• How to optimize your campaigns so you only invest in areas that are making you money while not wasting cash where you're not.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel. A great key to success is to learn from successful people. In the process you can make quantum leaps on your own track to progress.

...And it's not all just text. There are great graphs and charts that reveal how AdWords pricing works and how Quality Score is calculated.

To be honest with you though, I was a bit disappointed that he didn't get into DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion). There seems to be a lot of confusion out there on this so I thought Ian would cover it to clarify the matter but for some reason he steered clear. Oh well.

A lovely touch is the way that he shows you how you can save money on Google AdWords by developing your Creative, Trader and Techie sides.

Basically, the Creative crafts compelling ad headlines and body copy while incorporating the keywords that they serve. The rewards? Higher ad ranks without paying more.

Traders treat AdWords as an auction system - which it is - and they love nothing better than out-bidding the competition and getting the cost of their clicks down. As a Trader you master both exact match and broad match types.

Technicians love to sit back and look at the details of their AdWords campaigns. They find joy in spotting something to tweak, are masters of structure and know how each little bit works. As a Techie you can learn to segment your keywords into tightly-themed ad groups with different match types, bids, matching ad copy and landing pages.

It's good stuff and I really enjoyed the read. It wasn't too long, didn't get boring and Ian certainly doesn't soar into the fog zone. I certainly got my money's worth and believe that anyone who wants to take PPC seriously will also.

In summary, Pay Per Click has left other types of online advertising in its wake... So, if you want to ride the wave and you're new to Google AdWords, my verdict is that you'll find this guide to be a God sent.

If you're an intermediate PPCer who's not enjoying the CTR or the Ad Rank or the Conversions or the ROI that you know you could or should, I believe that you will also benefit. Some of us jump in without getting the foundation right first. Often times, when all else fails, as a last resort we read the manual. This approach can work sometimes but a little bit of training from a pro can make a big difference in the final outcome. Hey, Tiger Woods still gets golf lessons and Phil Collins still gets drum lessons (what ever happened to Phil Collins?).

And for those of you who are masters of the PPC game (you know how to extract maximum advantage from every nook and cranny of the Adwords platform), you really don't need it. In my opinion, even though the leading subtitle says "Google AdWords PPC Masterclass", it's an intermediate guide not an advanced guide so save your dough.

For the rest of you, after spending a few hours reading and applying the ideas within you'll be armed with a new understanding of why most PPC campaigns fail and more importantly, what you can do to ensure that this doesn't happen to you.

Overall it's a 9 out of 10.

By applying the techniques and tactics within you'll set your sale for new levels of return on investment.

By the way, if for some reason you don't think that this guide delivers true value, don't sweat it. It comes with a 30 day no questions asked money back guarantee.

So you've got nothing to lose but a great deal of understanding and proven real world experience to gain.

I invite you to take a closer look at the Wordtracker Masterclass: Google AdWords PPC Advertising guide here.