Have you wanted to take some courses or certifications in PPC but didn’t want to waste your money if the course turned out to be mostly fluff? Me too. That’s why I am ecstatic that the people behind MarketMotive® have been kind enough to allow us at PPC Hero to review their PPC Certification program and report directly to you if it is worth the cash and the time.
We will do this through a three part series. This first post is about my expectations and initial reactions. A second post will be at the halfway point and talk about what I have learned so far. The final post will be after I have taken (and hopefully passed!) the certification test at the end.
The self-paced program, which I am doing, normally costs $299 a month. As the name suggests you can go at any speed you like so you could complete it in a month, although I would suggest that based on the volume of tutorials you will get the best bang for your buck if you stick around for 3 months. This will also allow you to take advantage of 21 virtual workshops (7 per month) that are additional to the course materials.
Here’s a Video Brad Geddes About the Program:
The Value of MarketMotive
The assumption is with the caliber of people who are leading these courses, Brad Geddes lead the PPC course, that they will be packed with information. But the two questions I have are:
- Will this course make you a more marketable employee?
- Will this course provide a sizable amount of value/new knowledge for someone like myself who has been doing PPC for a long, long time?
These two questions will be the viewpoint for which I will be reviewing the program.
Expectations of the MarketMotive Interface
I expected to gain access to the PPC course and what I found is that for the one fee you get access to all 7 of the courses! I went back and read the site and found that they do tell you before you sign up that this is the case. But somehow I overlooked it, and I suspect many others would to. In either case, it was a great surprise and probably has helped MarketMotive prevent a lot of buyer’s remorse.
While I Will Only Be Doing the PPC Course, All Seven Courses Are:
- Fundamentals
- Web Analytics
- SEO
- Social Media
- Conversion
- PPC
- Online PR
I also expected to find a nicely organized course structure that made starting the program simple and to the point. I did find this to be the case. Although I would have appreciated all the sections (there are 9 + an introduction) to be on separate pages. Instead, once you click the “Attend Practitioner Course” they are listed on one long page. It’s a pretty minor thought, but might make navigating everything a little easier.
Here’s the Outline of the PPC Program:
The videos played with a single click and required no new software. I was very happy about this. They are done in a slideshow format, similar to the videos for the Adcenter exam. The start, stop feature works well with no lag time. And you can jump around to different sections of the video with a simple click. All of this is done with no buffering, so it makes watching the videos enjoyable.
You can view a sample video here:
MarketMotive Sample Video
Overall Initial Impressions of the MarketMotive PPC Certification Program
The quality and quantity of the course have me very excited to continue. Initial reactions are that the course would be well worth the money. But I will be reporting back in about 30 days and let you know my thoughts once I am about halfway through the course.
