Shut Your Campaign Down Now

I spend quite a bit of time answering PPC related questions in various marketing/webmaster forums. I feel reading and responding to questions from other more and less experienced PPC marketers helps me stay sharp. I come across a handful of questions every week that I don't know the answer to and that makes me spend some time doing research or conducting more testing to determine the answer. I'd like to think I've helped a lot of people in various forums and at the same time have learned a TON.

Anyway, to the point of this post. I often see people with live AdWords campaigns asking questions in forums that amaze me. I find myself shaking my head quite a bit saying to myself "why on earth would you start an AdWords campaign until you understand what you are doing? It's real money after all."

If you have an active AdWords campaign and don't know the answer to all of these questions off the top of your head shut it down and go read the FAQ and other available information. You'll be far more successful in the long run.

1) What are keyword matching options?

2) What is the content network?

3) What's a good CTR?

4) How is the minimum bid determined?

5) How much do I have to spend?

6) What's dynamic keyword insertion?

7) Where will my ads appear?

8) What's a CPM ad?

9) What is conversion tracking?

10) What does negative keyword matching do?

All pretty straightforward questions that anyone with an active AdWords account should be able to answer without looking anything up.

Related: AdWords Learning Center.