YouTube Ads, LinkedIn Advertising, and PPC Audiences: My Latest Review of CXL’s Growth Marketing Courses

This blog covers my tenth week on Conversion XL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree. This week I took modules in YouTube Ads, Linkedin Ads, and PPC audiences.

The first course I dived into was Tom Breeze’s module on YouTube ads. I was excited for this one for a couple of reasons. But mainly because I have always been slightly skeptical about YouTube ads.

Why?

Because I’ve always seen YouTube ads as the most annoying kind of ad for a user. One that I just can’t wait to skip and move on from.

As a result, I was very excited for Tom to lift the curtain on how his agency crafts ad campaigns that people actually like to watch and buy from.

YouTube Ads by Tom Breeze (A ConversionXL Online Course)

Tom started by fleshing out the huge opportunity for marketers on Youtube. Most obviously because YouTube has:

• 1.3bn + users
• 5bn+ video views per day
• An average user session of ~ 40 minutes

And when you combine this with the capabilities within the Google Ads platform, the resulting opportunity is HUGE.

Tom then gave a great overview of the different Google Ads audiences you can use to make sure your videos get in front of the right people. And outlined key differences in how users use and navigate YouTube as opposed to how they use Google.

After outlining the opportunity and some of the tools, Tom moved on to building a concrete YouTube advertising framework to follow.

“Start with the moments that matter”

Tom starts with why the YouTube user is visiting in the first place. AKA keeping your customer’s journey in your mind from the very start.

Tom breaks this intent into three main categories:

• People who want to KNOW something
• People who want to DO something
• People who are looking to BUY something

If you understand why your audience is likely to go on YouTube, you can get in front of them and deliver a truly engaging message.

The Importance Of Knowing Your Numbers

A particularly interesting part of Tom Breeze’s Youtube Ads course was the section on knowing your numbers.

A lot of Tom’s thinking here revolves around the ‘Profit First’ methodology written about by Mike Michalowicz. And by switching your ‘profit equation’ from Revenue — Profit = Cost to Revenue — Profit = Cost, you can give yourself a target ‘cost’ to aim at when it comes to generating leads.

Tom then walks you through how to calculate these numbers for your own business. All super-helpful and easy to follow. Which would probably be the best way to describe Tom’s module as a whole.

Tom’s Rapid Research Method For YouTube Ads

As I mentioned earlier, Tom teaches us that people use YouTube in a very different way to Google. As a result, the research we need to carry out is different, too.

Thankfully, Tom’s Rapid Research Method will help you hit the ground running straight away.

This method takes the three key YouTube intents we spoke about earlier (want to know, want to do, want to buy) and uses them to brainstorm 5 seed keywords or search terms. From these, you use search suggestion data and video titles to get a total of 200 ‘YouTube Friendly Keywords’ in absolutely no time.

It’s an incredible process — and as usual, Tom couldn’t have explained it any better.

How To Create YouTube Ads People Want To Watch

By this stage, Tom had given us a seriously solid platform to work from. And it was now time to learn his secret formula for crafting engaging YouTube ads.

To achieve this Tom uses a 7 step script formula called A-D-U-C-A-T-E. Which builds on they key YouTube intents of your audience, and uses your understanding of them to create highly relevant, useful, and high-converting ads.

Like the rest of his modules, Tom made the process sound extremely simple. By taking this course, you’ll have everything you need to succeed with YouTube ads. Even if you’re starting from zero. Or from a position of skepticism, like I was!

Brilliant course. Brilliant material. Brilliant instructor. If you’re looking to learn YouTube ads, I can’t recommend it enough.

Next up was another ads platform I had zero experience with. LinkedIn ads!

Linkedin Advertising with AJ Wilcox (A ConversionXL Course)

My next course was AJ Wilcox’s excellent CXL module on LinkedIn advertising.

As I haven’t done any B2B work before, LinkedIn has never been a top priority for my learning. So I was excited to go from zero to hero with AJ.

AJ started with a great overview of your options as a B2B digital marketer. Starting with why Search Engine marketing has serious downfalls when it comes to targeting. As well as how your different social options vary from Weak (Twitter) to Decent (Facebook) to Precise (LinkedIn) in this regard.

As well as the great potential rewards, AJ also mentioned a few headwinds in B2B advertising.

Such as long lead times, offline sales events, and the potential costs involved in reaching the right people. So I was excited to see how he’d conquer these issues later in the course.

Becoming A Swiss Army Knife on Linkedin

After making the case for Linkedin as a marketing tool, instructor AJ covers the key basics of advertising on the platform.

He does this by covering everything from:

• the different ad types
• basic targeting options
• to how a typical Linkedin funnel might look

The next lessons take each of these areas a whole lot further. As the teacher gives you everything you need to target, bid, retarget, and tag your ad campaigns to an advanced level. Or as AJ says, how to become a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ style genius on the platform.

Talking of the platform, I hadn’t used Linkedin before at all.

So I found the videos showing you around the platform’s features to be particularly useful. And I was also glad for the comprehensive section on integrating your Linkedin ads with your CRM and Google Analytics.

As a result of this, I’ll be able to use my new LinkedIn skills in tandem with what I learned in CXL’s excellent Google Analytics courses.

The Perfect Way To Learn Linkedin

Overall, AJ Wilcox’s course is the perfect primer in LinkedIn Ads.

Not just to get to grips with a new platform. But to really excel with Linkedin and use the platform’s advanced features to their full potential.

The instructor, AJ, isn’t just a Linkedin specialist. He’s enthusiastic, fun to learn with, and easy to follow. As a result, I’d recommend his CXL course to anyone in the B2B space.

Next up was a deep-dive into PPC audience building.

Maximising PPC Audiences with Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez (A CXL Online Course)

The final course I did this week was a meaty 6 hour course on PPC audiences with Michelle Morgan and Joe Martinez.

Unlike the other courses in the CXL Growth Marketing Minidegree so far, this one had two hosts. So there was quite a different dynamic to this course.

Personally, I really enjoyed seeing two industry experts vibe off each other. And it was definitely fun to learn in a more conversational setting.

Yes, you might lose a little bit of structure running a course that way. But overall I think the positives outweigh any drawbacks.

Especially as the conversational setup made it easier to digest the content. And there is certainly a lot of detailed, must-know material in this module!

Getting The Most Out Of Google’s Marketing Tools

Maximising PPC Audiences is all about getting your offers and ads in front of the right person at the right time. By using Google’s Analytics, Google Ads and Google Tag Manager platforms to their full potential.

All of these tools were covered earlier in the CXL Growth Marketing Minidegree. So I felt comfortable with the lessons and ready to try the strategies myself.

In saying that, you don’t need to be a ninja with these tools to get full value from the course. The instructors start with the basics and make it very easy to follow. But they do cover a LOT of ground!

What I particularly enjoyed about this course is that the material was battle-tested. By that, I mean that there was very little bare theory, and a lot of real-life strategies and setups that these pros are using to get results.

As a result, this course is the perfect compliment to CXL’s earlier modules on how to set-up and get comfortable with Analytics, Tag Manager, and Google Ads. And I’m sure that even hardened PPC pros would get a lot from it.

Personally, I’ll definitely go back to this course once I’ve started running more PPC campaigns. As it’s the kind of course you’ll learn something new from every time.

Conversion XL: A Complete Digital Marketing Education

Phew! After a few weeks and many hours of video lessons, I’ve now covered all of the channel-specific content in CXL’s Growth Marketing minidegree.

I certainly feel a lot more familiar and confident with the digital marketing platforms I hadn’t worked with before. And I definitely had a bunch of a-ha moments in the channels I have been involved in previously.

The content for every marketing channel has been incredibly rich. So I’ll definitely need to revisit some of it as I grow. But I guess that’s the beauty of online courses. You can go back and rewatch them whenever you need to dip in again!

I’ve said it a few times in my review posts, but the structure of the CXL minidegree really is first class. I say this because the foundations we built in areas like A/B testing and Google Analytics really helped me make the most of the channel-specific content later on.

This was my review of week 10 of CXL’s Growth Marketing Minidegree. I still have a fair chunk of the Minidegree to complete and I’m looking forward to how it proceeds from here. Next week, I’ll take modules on account-based marketing and growth program management.