[t4nkd]

I wish you could try to frame your criticism in a more engaging and friendly way. In my opinion, it's exactly this kind of absolutist reasoning that seems to be killing community and conversation.

Of course he and many others can advertise on Google without understanding match types. The point of the service provided by Google is that it's on the whole, significantly easier than "traditional" ad buying. Regardless of the repercussions, AdSense let him buy ads without that understanding.

With this kind of fervor, I have to presume you're either genuinely very, very bad at providing people with advice or, what I presume to be the case, angry or pessimistic about something else entirely.

Frankly I think you owe the comment an apology for your tone regardless of the validity of your opinion on what training ought to be necessary before using a particular web app.

[blahi]

>The point of the service provided by Google is that it's on the whole, significantly easier than "traditional" ad buying

What the hell gave you that impression?

He does not owe any appologies. He is completely right. How to have a discussion where one side doesn't know anything but pretends that it does and lectures the side that actually knows?

Being able to google every problem programmers face has given them the false sense that everything is very easy. You just need to read a couple of articles on the front page of google and you're done.

[davemel37]

I somewhat agree with your point about the tone. I will apologize after writing this.

(Edit: Your post has me confused because you start off talking about tone and than you fail to take your own advice about reasonable discourse.)

Your assumptions however are way off...I would never criticize someone for something remotely excusable, but advertising on Google without taking 2 minutes or less to learn something as fundamental as match types is about as reckless as buying a rolex on the streets from a guy on a manhattan street corner and than feeling ripped off...Some things, like match types, fit into the category of reckless despite how easy you want to think running Adwords is.

My frustration is that so many people waste so much money on digital advertising because "they think they can do it themselves."

This specific guy was sharing advice warning people about adwords wasting his money. Adwords didnt waste him a penny, his unwillingness to do less than 2 minutes of preperation or asking a pro led to that...

Even with over a decade experience, I still learn new things about Adwords almost daily...The idea that people think that its simple and they can run it themselves is frustrating, but to not even know about match types, I cant think of any excuse that justifies it short of arrogance and/or laziness.

Adwords is an auction. When my competitors choose to waste money, My costs get driven up. It hurts everyone but Google...so take the 2 seconds to read up on how to do it or dont complain and tell the world it doesnt work.

Or ask me, Im happy to help with basic strategy for free, its in my best interest for my competitors to run advertising that is accountable to a bottom line and thay doesnt compete in irrelevant query auctions.

[fragsworth]

> "I cant think of any excuse that justifies it short of arrogance and/or laziness."

You're not very nice, calling me arrogant and/or lazy.

It was simply a false assumption that the matching would be strict by default. And possibly a mistake that a lot of people are making, considering all the companies that are advertising for themselves.

[davemel37]

I'm sorry. It was wrong to call you arrogant or lazy and I apologize.

You might be right about other companies making those same assumptions...I would love to understand more about their thought process. When you started with adwords, did you consider hiring a pro or run a few searches for beginner tips or did you just follow the onboarding to get started? I am not asking to prove a point, I am asking to get an idea about what a newbie might assume when getting started with Adwords.

I would never try to fix my cars engine on my own, nor would I fix my sewer line. I would probably atleast watch a youtube video before changing my oil...I genuinely want to understand what people think when they assume they can run adwords on their own without researching how to do it effectively?