how long to train at ad words for my local business

I'm new to ad word's I tried it before but it didn't work out for me, after spending a bit of time, on a different

method of online advertising, I'd like to give it another crack.



I'm not sure employing a freelancer would give me effective results for my budget.



I'm willing to put the time to train and the money. What I'd really like to know is how long to be effective with my local 5-10 radius business (I teach guitar)



So how many hour's learning through Google resources?

how many hours training elsewhere?

how many hours practicing on my account.

& how many hours researching blogs to stay current



I know it's hard to pin down, but do I need 10/100/1000 to get my skills to competent standard

 

If you just want a basic understanding and to use the basic features, there isn't too much to learn.
The first thing that I would start with is take the adwords basic certification and then the advanced certification.
After you have those, try to get analytics certified as well.

Depending on what you already understand and what your scores on those tests are, that can help someone give you a better estimate on the time investment required to get you up to par.

If you hire a good freelancer, they can usually outweigh their cost by helping you run a more effective campaign. Example: If you are wasting ~40% of your budget on a mismanaged campaign and a freelancer charges 25% of your adspend, you are actually ahead by ~15%.

Hope that helps!

 

Thank you ever so much for this reply I would like a freelancer to take my ad spend but at the moment, my budget is low a few hundred a month that I wish to then increase. The reality is I will need to take control then hand over once my budget raises.
Do you think there are any other resources I should use to help develop my skills.

Thanking you from the depth of my blog

 

How to prepare for the exams
The study guides in the Partners Help Center can help you master the best practices covered in the exams.

Here are links to the exam study guides:

• Fundamentals - https://support.google.com/partners/topic/2799680
• Advanced Search - https://support.google.com/partners/topic/2792638
• Advanced Display - https://support.google.com/partners/topic/20317
• Shopping - https://support.google.com/partners/topic/6088108
• Video Advertising - https://support.google.com/partners/topic/6014999

 

I think if you are just teaching guitar, just as a suggestion, split your ad budget between online and offline by 50%, and your online budget, perhaps 50% of that is adwords, the other 50% ebay / craigslist / other classifieds / seo. (this means that out of your ad budget, only 25% is through adwords) I would not advise putting all your advertising budget blindly into adwords, without reading alot of good guides, otherwise you are likely just throwing your money away.

By splitting your ad budget multiple ways, (online and offline), will help you find what works best for your area, and your niche, and you can then drop the methods that are not bringing in a good result.