Best Google Ads Course According to Reddit: We Read the Thread Wrong

A correction we owe you

An earlier version of this page said: "when someone asks for the best Google Ads course, almost nobody names a paid one," and that free Google Skillshop is "the most upvoted answer, every time."

Both are false. Go read the thread (r/PPC, 18 June 2024, 24 upvotes, 190 comments). People named paid courses constantly. The word "Skillshop" is never used in it. And the free-training recommendation we built the page on is one comment that treats free training as step one before two paid courses.

We also said a thread about learning with a test account shows people recommending test accounts. The replies mostly say don't. Details below.

What r/PPC's biggest course thread actually names

"Learning Google Ads: best course or method?" (r/PPC, 18 June 2024, 24 upvotes, 190 comments) is the big one. u/jesseislil asks about a free-via-library Udemy course and worries it's outdated.

The replies, by score:

• u/AlphaVoyager, 9 upvotes. Not a course. "Among all those courses out there, hands-on experience is where the real magic happens... when I took charge of a client's account, that's when the learning curve shot up. You'll learn a lot when you are actually trying to find solutions to real-time problems."
• u/tosha420, 7 upvotes. "God Tier Ads by Ed Leake." That's a paid course, named flat out, no hedging.
• u/TTFV, 5 upvotes. "Take Google's free training to start, then this Udemy course, which is quite a bit out of date but still contains good principles. After that take God Tier Ads, fully up to date and very advanced... it'll cost you."
• u/svikashk, 3 upvotes. "Love AdConversion's courses. Easily one of the best for B2B marketers."
• Others point at YouTube. u/_redacteduser: "Udemy courses are always late to the party and free always wins." u/Patient-Passage-2286 warns off anything from 2021 because "Google Ads has changed dramatically with all the AI features rolling out in 2024-2025."

So here's the honest scoreboard. The top answer is experience. The top named product is a paid course. And the free-training mention is a warm-up lap before someone tells you to go spend money. We turned that into "free wins, every time."

Take Google's free training to start, then this Udemy course, which is quite a bit out of date but still contains good principles. After that take God Tier Ads, fully up to date and very advanced... it'll cost you.

The test-account thread argues against test accounts

"Learning Google Ad's with a test account" (r/PPC, 31 October 2025, 0 upvotes, 8 comments). We said "the advice is to spin up a test account and actually build campaigns in it, because reading about Quality Score is nothing like watching it move."

Quality Score is never mentioned. And the advice mostly runs the other way. u/yambien proposes building "a cheap website that doesn't actually function" to practise on. The replies:

• u/yaboyalexanderr: "Do it for real and sell the leads."
• u/potatodrinker: "Why not get an entry job at a search agency, use other people's money and knowledge to learn Google ads then do your own freelance thing. It'll be a 2-3 year process. Not a get rich quick thing you probably have in mind."
• u/Available_Cup5454 is the only one who endorses the sandbox idea.

Two of the three replies tell him a fake test account is the wrong move and to get near real money instead. That fits u/AlphaVoyager's point from the other thread. It does not fit the "open a test account" step we recommended, so we've dropped that step.

The dropshipping threads are real, but they're not about courses

Two r/dropshipping posts get cited for this question, and both are genuinely worth reading. Neither is about Google Ads courses.

"The only post you'll need to see to succeed in eCom" (r/dropshipping, 15 September 2025, 76 upvotes, 38 comments) opens with: "Courses, Spytools, Winning Products, etcetera etcetera. It's all bullshit." That much is exactly what we said it was. But the post's actual argument is that there's no winning product, only winning creative, and that you should learn direct response marketing and obsess over one customer avatar. It's a Meta-creative post.

"Let me destroy your belief in tools you're paying for" (r/dropshipping, 3 April 2026, 52 upvotes, 42 comments) we summarised as arguing "a lot of what's sold as premium information is free if you know where to look." It doesn't argue that. u/MindShaped's argument is that gurus exist to load your credit card with affiliate subscriptions: "What he is interested in, is putting on your credit card as many affiliate subscriptions as possible. He will start of course with his Shopify affiliate link. Then, he'll add some ad spy tool."

His conclusion is harder than ours: "The thing is, you need NOTHING from this crap. NOTHING. Neither his teachings. Nor his retarded tools."

That's a better line than the one we made up, and it's aimed at guru funnels, not at Ed Leake's course.

Top reply in the course thread

9 upvotes

What it recommends

Real accounts

Paid courses named

3

Times 'Skillshop' is named

0

What we think, now that we've read it properly

Here's our take, clearly labelled as ours, because Reddit did not endorse it.

The thread's top answer is right. Nothing we've seen across 200+ live accounts beats being responsible for a real budget that can really lose money. That's what makes the lesson stick.

We're also not going to tell you paid courses are a scam. r/PPC recommended one by name, twice, from people who clearly work in this field. We've never taken it. We're not in a position to review it, and neither is a page that pretends Reddit hates it.

Where we do have a view: a course is a snapshot, and this platform moves. u/Patient-Passage-2286's point about 2021 material being useless by 2025 is the real risk with any course, paid or free. That's an argument for a live room over a recorded product, and yes, that argument happens to point at what we run. Weigh it accordingly.

	Named on Reddit	What Reddit said about it
Hands-on real account	Top reply, 9 upvotes	"That's when the learning curve shot up"
God Tier Ads (paid)	Named twice, 7 and 5 upvotes	"Fully up to date and very advanced... it'll cost you"
Google's free training	One mention, 5 upvotes	Step one, before two paid courses
Google Ads eCom Lab (ours)	Free forever, 1,100+ ecom operators, run by operators on 200+ live accounts	Not named in this thread

Google Ads eCom Lab is free, with 1,100+ D2C and dropshipping operators as of mid-July 2026. It's built on patterns from 200+ ZenoX client accounts and €200M+ in tracked sales, with monthly live calls. Nobody on Reddit recommended it. We're telling you it exists because we run it, and the community page shows what's inside before you join.

If you've outgrown DIY and want someone running the account day to day, the ZenoX process covers that. Most people shouldn't start there. Start with a real account and real stakes, which is what the top reply on r/PPC has been saying since 2024.