…Whether you are new or seasoned in this business, you are going to be overwhelmed with the endless barrage of tools and software available to you out there.

As a coach, owner of an Adwords and Affiliate Marketing Membership and a publisher of information related to this field, part of my job is to review and pass on knowledge of the tools I’m using or trying.

But that doesn’t mean in any way, shape or form that you need ALL of them. It depends on a lot of factors and needs to be a personal decision based on what you are specifically doing in your business.

If you are just starting out in this business then this especially holds true. I don’t talk about or review every piece of software on the planet, but the ones I do all serve specific purposes and is up to the individual if they think they need it for what they are doing specifically.

And beyond that, come on! It’s a joke if you think that as full-time pay per click advertisers that we have time to use all of them! I rarely talk about a tool I’m not using, but some of them are not every day. Some are for specific phases of expanding a campaign.. they are not for every campaign.. and some I do use daily.

I personally have a large, diversified adwords and affiliate marketing portfolio. I have a lot of campaigns going direct to merchant, but then I have a lot of websites, blogs and other venues I promote affiliate programs.

So I use a lot of these programs… YOU may not be there yet.

Once you get to my stage, you’ll use a lot of tools in unison. Many of them will work together and give you a complete picture through the data you collect and information you can use to improve your processes and conversions.

So you might see me talk about here, in my memberships, in my Ezines, on my blogs and elsewhere:

• Xtreme Conversions
• Competition Dominator
• Adtrackz
• GoTryThis
• Keywords Analyzer
• Wordtracker
• Keyword Transformer
• Google Analytics
• Website Optimizer
• CBstatz

…And this list doesn’t include the editors and other free tools that come into play.. and this post is only related to PPC marketing in general…

All those I use! Some once a day, every other day, or once a week. There are some campaigns I have that will never see the use of one of those tools. Others rely heavily on them.

So there is no one answer here. You just need to use your best judgement. Do you have the time for it? The money? The need?

How about if you are just starting out in this business?

When starting out, you don’t need all these tools.

You’ll start out by just establishing a good way to record stats (for instance the stats sheets you get with the Blast Package - The Stats Kit).

Then you are going to spend most of your time and energy learning how to use the free tools, work with your account, setting up campaigns.. and learning the techniques and methods to make money with Adwords and Affiliate Marketing.

The only other tool that is almost a must have is a good keyword tool. This could be one of a couple of tools I mentioned above:

• Keywords Analyzer
• Wordtracker

You may decide to use Google’s Free Editor.

That’s about it to get started.

As you start making more money and expanding your account you’ll invest in these other tools as you need them.. or **if** you need them.

I leave you with this…

Remember… If you take up a tool and use it, that tool will demand time and attention. Is what you are giving up worth it? There are some tools that come on the market that are a method in and of themselves… how will you incorporate it without hurting what you are already doing?

It must make sense.

My method is to show you what I’m using and how I’m using it… you must make the determination if it is right for you based on the information you are given.

I have someone I’ve been working with these last few days heavily. She is learning how to track her keywords. She uses landing pages exclusively for the campaign we’re working on. In this case, Xtreme Conversions is a perfect fit for her…

1. First, she’s making good money and money is not an object. She’s making in the thousands each month with this one campaign.
2. Second, she is working with a lot of landing pages and links and having a central place to manage what is converting… to see all the keywords being searched… is very important.
3. Third, because this tool is a big time saver in the long run she can focus on what makes her more money. Managing and growing the campaign.

So for her it makes sense. Someone starting out with only a few campaigns up, no sales coming in and no landing pages would not use it.

Sometimes if you think you’ll use it at some stage and it’s a great pre-launch offer or something, then you might pick it up too… only if your finances permit you to though. I wouldn’t want it to take away from your advertising dollars which is most important.

I covered a lot here, but it’s an important topic. I have been asked this question on more then one occassion… now I can just point you here.

-Matt Levenhagen

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Tools of the Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.