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Why do most YouTube ads courses fail to teach what people actually need?

Most of the expensive courses on the market are overpriced and still miss the basics. I've taken most of the courses considered the best in the field, some costing tens of thousands of dollars, and found that many of them only touch lightly on things like setting up audiences properly, structuring campaigns and excluding negative keywords. I'm supposed to be one of the most interested people in this kind of content in the world, and I've nearly fallen asleep during some of them, so if I'm finding it difficult, someone new to running Google Ads or YouTube ads is going to really struggle and lose the will to live.

One of my biggest gripes is that a lot of these courses try to teach a cookie-cutter strategy: you need a certain number of subscribers, certain calls to action in certain places, and the answer to most problems is simply to spend more. Fundamentally, every business is different, and a lot of these courses just teach people how to waste money, and waste it quickly. Part of what we teach is how to scale properly, whether starting from a small budget or improving a campaign that's already spending a lot, by looking for what to fix rather than following a spray-and-pray, cookie-cutter approach.

Why is Simon prepared to offer this course so cheaply?

I fundamentally want to break this industry. I'm fed up to the back teeth of people offering courses at tens of thousands of dollars, or the $997 courses that are normally designed to lead you into a bigger upsell, when in my opinion they aren't teaching the quality of strategy that actually works. As an agency, our bread and butter is still running ad accounts for clients, and that's what lets us offer this course at a fraction of the cost of those alternatives. There are upsells if you want to spend time directly with me or my team, but the training itself, delivered through this webinar, is what we believe to be the best value in the whole industry by a long way. With over 120 videos in the course, broken down into bite-sized chunks, we want to show people that good quality teaching and strategies that actually work don't have to cost the earth.

What makes Simon qualified to teach this?

I've been in Google Ads since the very beginning, over 20 years ago, starting with my own IT business that I promoted using Google Ads while building websites for clients. Since then I've run my own MCC with millions of pounds going through it, working for clients spending upwards of $100,000 a month. I'm not going to say I'm the greatest in the world, but I am reasonably well known in Google Ads circles, I've written a book about YouTube ads, and I've been working in YouTube ads for six or seven years.

What is the IDA system?

We've developed what we call the IDA system, which stands for Intelligence Driven Ad Results. It's a system that makes sure the placements, keywords and bids running through an account are continually optimised so that you don't overspend. One thing I see continually with new clients, whether they've been running their own account or working with another agency, is that they're spending three or four times more than they'd need to for the same amount of traffic. From there it becomes a case of improving lead quality, conversion rates and making sure remarketing is properly in place, since a lot of people, especially those coming from a saturated Facebook, aren't taking advantage of remarketing opportunities on YouTube at all.

Why is YouTube so neglected as an advertising channel?

YouTube is, in my view, the number one cheapest way to acquire new customer interest at the top of the funnel, yet it's still hugely underused. I don't love the phrase "laser targeting" that a lot of trainings use, because it's really more like a sniper scope: refine your audience properly and you can put an ad in front of someone almost before they know they want your product. Part of the neglect comes from a myth that you need a channel full of regular content; you don't, you just need one good video.

The bigger reason people avoid YouTube is that making video feels expensive, people don't know what to make, and once they've decided to try, they look at competitors not doing it and talk themselves out of it too. Google, because it owns YouTube, is fundamentally eating video for breakfast: it wants video because people engage with it far more than the written word, and a video that answers people's questions properly can be promoted to the top of Google search for very little money. I think that I am one of the world's top SEO experts and have been at the top of that field for over ten years, people may disagree, but if you can rank a video at the top of Google just by using the right words, phrases and structure, and back it with a small amount of Google Ads budget, that video can be a gold mine.

What's really stopping people making the video in the first place?

People aren't doing this because they don't know what to make, don't know what to put in the video, and a lot of them simply don't want to get on camera. If that's you, you can use voiceovers, employ actors, or put other people in the business who aren't shy in front of the camera. Done properly, this can put you in front of thousands, tens of thousands or millions of people depending on your budget, easily and affordably, doing things your competitors can't be bothered to do.