Sayonara Google AdWords. Hello Google Ads.

For those who have not heard already, Google is changing the name of its long running advertising platform Google AdWords, to Google Ads.

Google made the decision to condense its many ad products under three brands: Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform, and Google Ads Manager.

From what I have seen so far watching the recent live events by Google at Marketing Live 2018, it looks amazing the new tools we will have available.

It is timely on Google's behalf, as it was 15 years ago this month that I started my Google AdWords consulting business, AdWords Marketing. Back in 2003 I was one of only a handful of people consulting on AdWords in Australia and globally for that matter and most people had never heard of it let alone used it in their business.

Since then much has changed with AdWords and my business (now called Online Impact www.onlineimpact.com.au) and it has been amazing to watch the development of Google Ads over the 15 years into the sophisticated marketing & sales tool it is today.

There are hundreds more moving parts to it now compared to back then and it is a full time job just keeping up with the changes ( I feel for people who produce courses on this as no sooner have you finished making a course it changes again!! LOL).

I would like to thank my friend and mentor, Perry Marshall for his inspiration and guidance over the years as he was truly a global pioneer in this space and help me improve my skills and to always look at how things could be improved. Test & measure, test & measure!

Also my best mate and business partner Alan Stewart who I have worked with for the past 14 years. With our awesome team we do much more than Google Ads and have worked with hundreds of amazing clients developing their websites, copywriting, Facebook Ads, email marketing campaigns and much more. But it all started with Google AdWords.

But it was ultimately my darling wife Lois Keay-Smith, who started me on this path when she showed me an ad in the local newspaper for a company called Stores Online who were running some marketing events in Perth. I attended one such event in 2002 and was exposed to Pay Per Click (PPC) ads by Overture (formerly GoTo) for the first time which totally blew my mind!!

It turns out that Stores Online were a bit dodgy and many people lost thousands of dollars (fortunately not me) but I will be forever grateful for the exposure to PPC ads.

I look forward to another 15 years of experiencing what happens in this space as I think we are still in its infancy of what is available and what can be achieved using marketing tools such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads etc.

So thank you to our clients, team and anyone who has inspired, motivated or educated me over the past 15 years, it truly is just the beginning. :-)