Question

What's something you wish you knew or had done when you just started out a career in Google Ads? :)

Answer 1

#1 lesson I wish I learned sooner - Don't take clients I'm not 100% confident I will turn a profit for. Even if they really, REALLY want to pay me for the efforts. Funny enough it takes more 'free work' in the form of audits & talking to prospects to filter them out, but it's worth it. It's an easy way to make some short-term client income, but it sucks when their crappy business practices make it impossible to convert traffic.  

Comments

@whidah this is probably the best one! Starting off you take just about anyone, and they do nothing but discourage you and cause headsches

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It took many clients worth of imposter-syndrome to realize that I actually knew what I was doing. Just didn't know what I was doing ENOUGH to make the correct yet difficult suggestions, often the hardest one being, "This page/offer/business isn't ready to run paid traffic yet, here's what needs to happen first. " Gotta be in the position to turn away potential money, no matter how tempting.  

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@whidah I took a private security guy (details for CEO's, celebrities, etc) on once that didn't convert. We tried, but it just wasn't the right space. I'm still glad we tried, though!  

Answer 2

I never had a mentor. All I know I picked up online and I know that if I would’ve had a mentor I would’ve been more careful with my spend sometimes

Comments

@emerald30 it was never to much on anything in particular as I always try to underspend before I overspend, but there’s a lot of testing on your own when you don’t have any support. So there’s that

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@emerald30 yes. Or get yourself an internship even if it’s unpaid.  

Answer 3

How much not only the small time freelancers lie to steal clients away or keep them from leaving, but how badly the larger agencies do as well. I had no idea how some of these places operate until I started working with some of them

Comments

@emerald30 a few months ago I was sitting at this dealership group that I’ve been working with for about two years. Every six months was a revolving door of GM’s, BDC and Internet managers, which meant I had to fly out to meet with them and explained what I’m doing, over and over. This time, they decided to make it an “interview” between myself and two other agencies. one of which was a kid that had almost no experience whatsoever, but he promised them the moon for a fraction of what I was charging. I was already on the verge of firing them as a client as they were chewing up way more time than needed and always had to chase them away to pay their invoice, so I pulled the GM of the group aside and said let those two guys battle it out, I’m giving them my notice of not renewing the service as of the end of the month. I sat and watched them make promise after promise, and straight lie about clients they had, because my friends large agency actually manages several of the clients the one guy claimed he was managing. Not even two months later and several of the stores were calling me to help, the Nissan one, which I was closest with begged me to please help because the guy they hired had screwed up so badly, they spent their entire month budget in five days and got TEN leads. I was averaging 130-150 a month  Unfortunately I’m not allowed to disclose the name of the company that took over their marketing, but they’re in Portland Oregon and claim to specialize in dealerships  

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@emerald30 that’s a tough one, but typically I explain to them the set amount of hours I can contribute to their account. Best thing you can do is relate to them on a similar example so they get what you mean. When this happened to me with dealerships, because they LOVE to boss everyone around, I just explain to them do they want their sales people spending six hours on a customer, or one? More so, if it involves having to talk and explain things, I merely tell them my time can be spent talking to you, or managing the account, I can’t do both

Answer 4

Picked a different career :)

Comments

@emerald30 16 years in, overseeing $40M annually in SEM, yeah a different career would've been much more rewarding

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@cotten4 then why not change? Honestly you can do it. I’ve changed career at least 4 times and each experience gave me wonderful transferable skills. When I go back to my hometown and see people I grew up with still treading the same path. They just look so beaten. You can do it.  

Answer 5

I wish I learned how to close deals, position myself better and target a specific niche. Learning how Google works was the easy part.  

Comments

@laurynlausanne niches are def a good way forwards. Each industry has quirks. Being knowledgeable in those makes a massive difference in closing deals.  

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@emerald30 Read 5 books on sales. Execute the teachings. Document what's working. You'll naturally be able to charge 2x-5x more.  

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@sycamine1 Boom!  

Answer 6

You can’t win against stupid! 30 odd years of marketing still leaves me dumbfounded just how badly many businesses are at running their marketing in terms of roi. Don’t waste time trying to educate. Walk away.  

Answer 7

The biggest problem is the omnipotent dominance of Google Ads, it is unhealthy for business worldwide to have such monopolistic platform. Those who use Google Analytics need to realise you don't get anything for free, whilst it can be very useful, it is also a Trojan Horse with it's objectives of squeezing your margins as much as acceptably possible from analysing all the data so that it can charge advertisers more.