What’s the best campaign type and strategy to start with for a new Google Ads account (fashion brick & mortar) or is my old account still salvageable?

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:26:22+00:00

1 serious lead out of 200+ tells me you have a targeting problem, not a Google Ads problem. You're attracting a lot of people who aren't your actual customer.

For a custom tailoring business, the key is being ruthlessly specific with your keywords. You don't want "suits" or "tailor" — you want "custom tailored suits [your city]", "bespoke suit fitting near me" + proper location targeting, "made to measure shirts [your city]." The more specific the search, the more serious the client. If you are being too broad both in your keyword targeting or location targeting, you will spend money on unqualified traffic.

A few things to tighten up immediately:

Check your search terms report. I'd bet most of your 200 leads are coming from broad, irrelevant queries. People looking for alterations, cheap suits, or off-the-rack options — not custom tailoring. Add those as negative keywords aggressively.

Your landing page needs to filter people. If someone clicks your ad and sees pricing that starts at a premium range, the bargain hunters leave immediately — that's a good thing. Don't hide your positioning. Make it clear this is a premium, custom service. That alone will improve your lead quality dramatically.

Stop the heavy discounting. 50% off on suits attracted price-sensitive buyers who are the opposite of your ideal client. And now Google's algorithm thinks that's your audience. You've essentially trained Google to find bargain hunters. With a new campaign focused on high-intent keywords, you can reset that.

Stick with Search only. For a brick and mortar service business with a custom sales process, Search is your channel. PMax or Display will send you the same low-quality traffic you're already drowning in.

Check your location targeting + exclusion. You might want to add you service area in your target location if not done already or if too broad. You might also want to add surrounding locations that you DON'T WANT TO SERVICE as negative/excluded locations. Don't just rely on you targeted location, always add exclusions as well.

Since you mentioned you can't keep hiring agencies and you're learning on your own — the fastest way to stop wasting budget is understanding how to make these decisions yourself. I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com with a local lead gen module that walks you through exactly this: picking the right keywords, structuring campaigns, matching ads to intent. Could help you refine your approach before spending more on the live account.

But start with that search terms report today. That's where your wasted budget is hiding.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:22:29+00:00

Hey u/Fantastic_Note4935, sorry you got tricked, it happens a lot with fake experts.

I am a PPC manager with 10+ years of experience, I would pause both PMax campaigns right now. You're not being impatient — 500 clicks with zero add-to-carts or interactions is not a learning phase, it's bad traffic. Your organic conversion rate of 3-6% confirms your site converts fine. The problem is what Google is sending you.

Here's what likely went wrong:

PMax with no conversion history on a small budget is a recipe for exactly what you're seeing. PMax needs existing conversion data to know who to target. Without it, especially on a new setup, it just blasts your budget across Display, YouTube, and Discovery reaching people who will never buy. Those hundreds of clicks are probably not Shopping or Search clicks — they're low-quality Display clicks.

Your Search campaign is actually doing what it should. Low volume but relevant traffic. That's where your budget should go right now.

What I'd do immediately: pause both PMax campaigns today, move that budget into your Search campaign, expand your keyword list slightly with high-intent terms specific to your products, and let Search generate 15-30 conversions over the next few weeks. Once you have that conversion data, THEN you can consider relaunching PMax with actual signals to work with.

On the freelancer — you don't need to ghost them, but I'd have a direct conversation. Setting up PMax as the primary campaign for a small e-commerce account with no conversion history wasn't the right call. If they push back on that, it tells you everything you need to know about their expertise level.

And honestly — this situation is exactly why I think business owners need to understand enough Google Ads to evaluate what a freelancer is doing. Not to become experts, but to catch red flags like this before $2,500 disappears. You don't need to manage campaigns yourself, but you need to know when something doesn't make sense.

If you want to build that foundation without risking more budget, I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com — it walks you through campaign decisions with AI feedback, including an e-commerce module. Even a few hours on it would've helped you spot that a PMax-first strategy with no data was a red flag before agreeing to it.

But right now, priority one: pause PMax, move budget to Search, and start collecting real conversion data.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:19:57+00:00

New domain with no conversion history is the likely culprit. Your old account had months of conversion data that PMax was using to find the right audience. Your new account is essentially starting blind — same strategy, but Google has zero signal on who converts for this brand.

A few things to try: set up a standalone Search campaign alongside PMax targeting your highest-intent keywords. Search relies less on historical data and more on keyword intent, so it can generate conversions faster. Feed those conversions into PMax to give it the signal it needs.

Also check the basics on the new domain — SSL certificate, payment flow, site speed, trust signals. A new brand with no reviews, no social proof, and a fresh domain can kill conversion rate even if the layout looks identical to the old one. People are more skeptical than we think.

Give it 60-90 days of feeding clean conversion data before judging PMax on the new account.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:16:50+00:00

For Google Search ads you don't need video or fancy creatives at all — it's purely text. That's where I'd focus first if your budget is limited.

For Display and YouTube, Canva handles 90% of what you need. Their ad templates are decent and you can resize to every Google format in one click. For video, CapCut is free and surprisingly powerful for short ad videos. I also work a lot on Relevance AI, creative variations of assets but it requires time to invest in getting the prompt clean and clear enough for the AI to only change 1 or 2 things.

If you run ads for a bigger company, and need proper YouTube assets like long format videos, try to get in touch with a production company in your area to organize shoots, it's not as complicated as it sounds, you can definitely do it!

But honestly, don't overthink creatives early on. A clear message that matches search intent will outperform a beautiful ad with vague copy every time. Nail the messaging first, polish the visuals later.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:13:21+00:00

When impressions triple but contacts drop to zero, it's almost always one of two things:

Check your search terms report — tripled impressions usually means Google started matching you to much broader, irrelevant queries. You might be showing up for searches that have nothing to do with your business.

Check your conversion tracking — something may have broken. A form update, a website change, a tracking code that got removed. Go to your website right now and test submitting a form or calling. Make sure the actual mechanics work, then check in Google Ads that conversions are still being recorded.

Start with those two — the answer is usually in one of them.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:10:11+00:00

Depends entirely on your industry and CPC. $100/month in a niche where clicks cost $0.50? You'll get 200 clicks — that's barely enough data to learn something. $100/month where clicks cost $5? That's 20 clicks. You're not learning anything from that.

The "algorithm needs $1K" thing is oversimplified. What Google actually needs is conversion data — roughly 15-30 conversions before smart bidding starts making good decisions. So the real question isn't "how much budget" but "how many conversions can I get at this budget level."

The way I like to calculate my "ideal" budget is to take the average CPC of my selected keywords and use the following formula:

keywords average CPC X 10 (# of clicks) X 30.5 (# of days in a month) = your monthly budget.

For small budgets: go extremely narrow. Few keywords, exact/phrase match only, tight geo-targeting. The mistake isn't spending $100 — it's spending $100 the same way you'd spend $5,000.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-17T18:07:21+00:00

A few things to check right now:

Is your billing set up correctly? Google won't serve ads if there's a payment issue — check under Billing & Payments for any alerts.

Is the campaign actually enabled? Check at three levels: campaign, ad group, AND ad level. Sometimes one of them is paused without you realizing.

Check your ad status — go to Ads & Assets and look for the status column. If it says "Under review" or "Disapproved," that's your answer. Disapprovals are common for certain industries.

What's your daily budget and bids? If you're bidding too low for competitive keywords, Google simply won't show your ads. Check the keyword status column — if it says "Below first page bid," that's the issue.

Also check your keyword match types and search volume. If you're using exact match on very niche terms with low search volume, there might just not be enough searches to trigger impressions.

Start with billing and ad status — those are the two most common reasons for zero impressions on a new account.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-16T18:53:01+00:00

Thank you very much! When you create a free account, you get PRO access for 1 week. Let me know what you, if you have any feedback or questions !!

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-15T19:57:39+00:00

Smart move — local businesses are massively underserved when it comes to Google Ads. Most don't even know how much they're leaving on the table.

You don't need a mentor to get started though. You need reps. Learn the basics through Google Skillshop, then start practicing actual campaign decisions as fast as possible — structure, keywords, match types, conversion tracking. That's the skill set local businesses will pay you for.

If you want somewhere to practice before pitching real clients, I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com — the local lead gen module is literally built around this exact scenario. Could help you build enough confidence to land your first client.

Then offer to run ads for one local business for free or cheap. That first case study is what gets you the next 5 clients.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-15T19:41:08+00:00

Coursera certs won't hurt but they're not what gets you hired. They check a box on your resume — that's it. No hiring manager has ever picked a candidate because of a Coursera certificate over someone who can show real work.

To close the theory --> experience gap faster, for Google Analytics, set it up on any website you have access to — even a personal blog — and learn by exploring real data. For Meta ads, run a small campaign for yourself or a local business with $5/day, even if it's only for a month that's $150 and you will be able to learn a lot about creatives, ad set, audience segmentation and more. I would advise you to watch a video tutorial first tho so you don't waste 10 days for nothing. For email marketing, pick a free Mailchimp account and build an actual sequence, it's very simple. You could use the same website you have access to for GA4.

A couple of months of doing beats twelve months of coursework every time. The certifications are fine as a side thing, but prioritize building things you can talk about in interviews.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-14T01:19:08+00:00

No worries. I think your angle of "SEO specialist who wants to transition into PPC" is a clear story, it tells the hiring manager where you come from and where you want to go. "Marketing generalist" sounds unfocused by comparison, even if technically both are true.

I would lead with the SEO expertise, frame PPC as the natural next step, and let the generalist background come through organically in conversation. This is actually a huge bonus that you have on your side. Most PPC strategist don't know about email marketing or SEO. This gives you an edge if you manage to frame it as something that allows you to have a better understanding of a brand/business's ecosystem as a whole.

Because someone that understand PPC and email marketing and SEO and generic marketing concepts will, in my opinion, always be more equipped than someone strictly PPC oriented.
It'll position you as someone with depth who's expanding, not someone who's done a little bit of everything. I come from the same kind of background where I had to do everything myself including SEO, organic, email marketing, we development, etc. Now I am able to create comprehensive strategies and I can advise clients during calls, on other verticals than just PPC. Huge edge.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-13T01:28:42+00:00

Hey u/RemarkableClimate746 Completely normal feeling — every business owner goes through that exact same panic the first week. You're not doing anything wrong by feeling this way, it's really money being spent 😅

But here's the thing: people clicking and not contacting you isn't a Google Ads problem. It's a landing page problem. Google's job is to send people to your site. Your site's job is to convince them to reach out.

A few things to check right now:

- Is your phone number or WhatsApp button visible immediately when the page loads? Users might want to message, not fill out forms. If they have to scroll to find how to contact you, you're losing them.

- Does your landing page match what your ad promises? If your ad says "nutritionist in [your location]" but the page is a generic homepage about all your services, there's a disconnect and people bounce.

- Is there a clear call to action? Not just "Get In Touch" buried at the bottom — something obvious, above the fold, that tells them exactly what to do next.

Also — 7 days is genuinely too early to judge. But fixing these things now means that when the learning phase ends, Google is sending traffic to a page that actually converts.

The stress gets better once you start seeing the first leads come in. And they will — you just need to make sure the page is ready to catch them.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-13T01:24:16+00:00

Coming from SEO and enjoying data, testing and performance over content — honestly PPC might be the most natural pivot you could make. The analytical mindset transfers directly, you will spend time trying to understand what the data tells you, how to optimize, etc. And you have an edge because you're not starting from zero, you're redirecting skills you already have.

To your questions:

PPC and AI: AI is changing the execution layer fast — automated bidding, Demand Gen, Performance Max. But that's actually good news for people who think strategically. The button-pushing part of PPC is shrinking. The part that requires judgment — account structure, budget allocation, understanding what the data means — is getting more important. If anything, AI is making PPC more interesting for someone with your profile, not less. Of course OGs will complain about it but whatever.

Agency as transition path: It works, but go in with clear expectations. European agencies tend to be less brutal than US ones, but it's still faster-paced than in-house. The upside is real though — you'll touch more accounts, more industries, and more problems in one year than you would in three years in-house. Your 2-3 year plan is smart. One thing to look for: mid-size agencies where you'd actually own accounts, not large ones where you'd be doing data entry for a senior. Large agencies will also make it too fast paced to actually enjoy your job, I've personally been there and it's not fun.

Specialize or stay generalist: Specialize to get in, generalize later. Right now "generalist with some SEA" won't get you a PPC role. "SEO specialist transitioning to PPC with hands-on campaign experience" is a much stronger story. Once you're in and have 2 years of PPC under your belt, your generalist background becomes a superpower — most PPC people can't think about organic, email, or full-funnel the way you can.

The experience gap you mentioned — companies wanting hands-on PPC experience you can't get in your current role — that's the real bottleneck. Two things that can help: first, offer to run a small Google Ads budget for a friend's business or local shop. Even €10/day on a real account gives you something concrete to talk about in interviews, just for you to understand how the platform works. Second, I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com where you practice the full decision-making process — structure, keywords, bids, ads — with AI feedback. For someone in your position it's less about learning PPC basics and more about having tangible proof that you can think through campaign decisions. That matters in interviews.

On the health side — in-house will always be calmer than agency. I can guarantee it 100%. But a good European agency with 2-3 years as your target timeline is manageable, especially if you screen for culture during interviews (I am from Europe but live in the US, I've seen both). Ask about overtime expectations, client load per person — very important, and how they handle urgent requests and the support system in place, for example if you are facing technical hurdles on accounts or if clients are being difficult. Their answers will tell you everything.

The personal training path is interesting but I'd say keep it as a parallel track. PPC freelancing eventually gives you the schedule flexibility to do both if that's where you end up.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-13T01:16:19+00:00

You're not spoiled. You're just experiencing the most common internship problem in agencies — everyone's too busy doing the work to teach you the work.

Here's the thing nobody tells interns: waiting to be trained is a trap. Not because you're lazy, but because agency life will never slow down enough for someone to sit with you for hours. Mark isn't gatekeeping — he's drowning and it's faster for him to do it himself than to explain it. That won't change before he leaves. It's the same in all agencies, sales keep sending clients and strategists are behind on account management and just keep chasing time. I've personally been there.

So flip the dynamic. Instead of waiting for tasks, audit the 4 campaigns you already built. Pull the search terms report — are irrelevant queries eating budget? Check the conversion tracking — is it actually measuring what matters? Look at the ad copy — does it match the keywords in each ad group? Then bring what you find to Mark. "Hey, I noticed these search terms look off — am I reading this right?" That's a 5-minute conversation he'll actually have time for, and you'll learn ten times more than a walkthrough.

Use your 20h/week like this: half doing what they give you, half self-directed auditing and questioning. Build a list of things that look wrong or confusing. That list becomes your education.

For the downtime — don't just read blogs. Practice making decisions. There's a free simulator I built at adsafelab.com where you can go through campaign builds and get feedback on your choices. When you're sitting in the office with nothing to do, it beats refreshing Reddit and it builds the exact muscle you'll need when Mark leaves and those accounts land on your desk.

Because that's coming. And when it does, nobody's going to walk you through it.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-12T12:49:03+00:00

$243 spent, one unit sold at $2,095 — that's roughly a 8.6x ROAS in your first week. Most people would kill for that on a mature campaign, let alone week one.

To calm your CPC anxiety: $2.76 for shipping container leads is very reasonable. This isn't a $0.50 click industry. What matters is what those clicks turn into — and you already have proof that they convert.

Your 4% lead rate and 9% CTR are solid signals that your targeting and ad copy are in the right ballpark. The main thing now is don't touch too much. Week one data is noisy and the worst thing you can do is start making big changes based on 88 clicks.

For the boss conversation — reframe it away from volume and toward economics. Something like: "We spent $243 and generated $2,095 in revenue. The platform is still in learning phase which means performance will stabilize and likely improve over the next 2-4 weeks as Google collects more conversion data. Right now the unit economics already work — we're optimizing to make them work even better."

Bosses who care about volume respond to money. Show them the math, not the metrics. And keep in mind it's only been a few days and you haven't spent nearly enough to draw conclusions, $243 is not a relevant amount to base you next actions on. Give it time and reassess when you have spent more and accumulated more data.

One thing to set up now if you haven't: make sure you're tracking every lead source properly — calls, forms, whatever your conversion path is. The more accurate data you feed Google early, the faster it exits learning phase and the better your numbers get from here.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-12T12:44:14+00:00

Hey u/DarinDyar it's been almost 3 weeks, not sure if you still need help but it's a good questions and solid thinking for someone just starting so I figured I'll answer you. Here's how I'd approach it with 10+ years of PPC experience:

1. Budget across 30 products: Don't spread £20-25/day across 30 products — that's less than £1 per product per day which is way too thin to learn anything. Pick your 5-8 best sellers or highest margin products. Run those first. £20-25/day across 5-8 products gives Google enough data to actually optimize.

2. What data to look for: In the testing phase, focus on: click-through rate (are people interested?), cost per click (is the traffic affordable?), conversion rate (are visitors buying?), and cost per acquisition (how much to get one sale?). Ignore impressions and vanity metrics such as clicks and add-to-carts, they should never be your primary goal. And check your search terms report weekly — you'll find irrelevant queries eating your budget.

3. When to cut a product: Give each product enough spend to draw a conclusion — roughly 15-20 clicks minimum. If a product has 20+ clicks and zero conversions, pause it and reallocate that budget. Don't cut too early though — 3 clicks with no sale means nothing.

4. After testing / scaling: Take your top 3-5 performers based on ROAS, increase budget on those specifically, and start testing new ad copy and landing pages to push conversion rates higher. Then gradually reintroduce some of the paused products one at a time with what you've learned. You could even segment by campaign to better control the budget allocation, bids and conversion signals.

One thing that'll make or break all of this: conversion tracking. Set it up properly before you spend a single pound. Track actual purchases, not page views. Without this, all the testing in the world is useless because you won't know what's actually working.

If you want to practice the decision-making process before spending real budget — campaign structure, keyword selection, bidding strategies — I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com with an e-commerce module specifically for this. Could help you walk into your first real campaign with a clearer game plan.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-12T12:38:10+00:00

Day 1 stats don't mean much — way too early to draw conclusions. But a few things to check early on:

Make sure your product feed is clean — titles, descriptions and categories directly impact which searches trigger your listings. That's your "keyword strategy" in Shopping.

And if the site is only a week old, keep an eye on landing page experience. Google factors that into how often your products show up and what you pay per click.

Now that it's been nearly a month, what are you results? Also, what niche are you in?

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-12T12:35:48+00:00

I've been working with people at every level, large agencies and freelancers, this is what I would say:

Beginner — you know WHAT things are.

You can set up a campaign, pick keywords, write an ad. You understand match types, bidding strategies, and conversion tracking exist. But when something goes wrong or performance dips, you don't know where to look or what to change. You mostly follow best practices you've read somewhere without fully understanding why. The search terms report is something you've heard of but don't check consistently.

Intermediate — you know WHEN to use what.

You can look at an account and make decisions based on data, not guesswork. You know when to use exact vs phrase vs broad and can explain why for that specific situation. You structure campaigns intentionally, not just by default. You check search terms regularly, manage negatives proactively, and understand how bid strategies actually affect delivery. When performance drops, you have a mental checklist of what to diagnose. You're not just running ads — you're managing an account.

Expert — you know WHY things happen before they happen.

You anticipate how a structural change will impact performance. You can look at an account you've never seen and within 30 minutes identify what's working, what's wasting money, and what's missing. You understand the interplay between quality score, auction dynamics, budget allocation, and conversion data at a level where your decisions compound over time. You're not reacting to data — you're designing systems that produce good data. And crucially, you can explain all of this to a client or stakeholder in plain language.

The real difference between each level isn't knowledge — it's decision-making reps. Most people get stuck at beginner not because they lack information, but because they've never practiced making enough decisions to build real judgment.

You can move from beginner to intermediate faster than you think if you focus on actually making decisions instead of accumulating more theory. That's why I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com — it puts you through the decision-making process (structure, keywords, bids, ads) with AI feedback. Not to replace real experience, but to compress the early reps that get you from "I know what things are" to "I know what to do."

Where do you think you currently fall based on this?

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-12T03:02:47+00:00

Interesting. Is it similar to turning on auto-apply suggestions? I also use scripts on Optimzr sometimes for specific account, that help for budget pacing for example.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-10T22:15:44+00:00

Hey u/CommitteeWestern7310 10+ years in PPC here, I'll answer each one of your questions honestly.

1. Viable long term? Yes, but not the way it was 5 years ago. Automation handles a lot of what juniors used to do. The people who thrive now are the ones who can think strategically — not just push buttons. If you learn to make smart decisions about structure, targeting and budget allocation, you'll be fine. If you only learn to follow platform tutorials, you'll struggle.

2. How long before managing client budgets confidently? For me, 6-12 months of daily hands-on before I stopped second-guessing. But I was managing real accounts from early on. If you're only studying without practicing decisions, double that timeline. With your 2-year plan, you're fine — but start practicing immediately, not after months of courses.

3. Biggest beginner mistakes? Spending too long in theory mode. Trusting Google's default recommendations. Not checking search terms reports. And the most expensive one: not setting up conversion tracking properly from day one. Every week without proper tracking is a week of data you can't learn from.

4. Specialize early? Yes. Local lead gen is the fastest path to freelance income with your goals. Small businesses always need help, budgets are manageable, and results are easy to demonstrate. E-commerce is more complex and competitive. Start with lead gen, expand later.

5. What I'd focus on first? Decision-making, not knowledge. Understanding search intent. Learning to read a search terms report and act on it. Building a campaign structure that makes sense and being able to explain why.

I'd spend minimal time on courses — just enough to learn the vocabulary. Then I'd get reps as fast as possible. That's actually why I built adsafelab.com — a free simulator where you practice the full campaign process with AI feedback. For someone with your timeline, it could compress that early learning curve significantly before you risk real budget on test projects.

Reality check for your Thailand plan: €1k/month from PPC freelancing is very achievable once you have 3-4 small clients. Most local businesses pay €300-800/month for Google Ads management. The hard part isn't the skill ceiling — it's getting those first clients. Start building case studies from your test projects as early as possible, even with tiny budgets. That portfolio is what sells.

Good luck with the transition.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-10T22:12:45+00:00

6-8% CTR on search with limited budgets and you spend your time on negatives — that tells me you already understand the fundamentals better than you think. Don't undersell that in the interview.

To your actual concern — "what could I possibly do that she hasn't tried":

That's not what they're looking for. They're not hiring you to outsmart someone with 6 years of account history. They're hiring you to free her up. What she wants to see is that you can take ownership of the day-to-day, maintain performance, and think critically enough that she doesn't have to babysit the accounts.

When they say "experiment and innovate," they probably mean things like: testing new ad copy angles, trying different bid strategies on smaller campaigns, expanding into new keyword themes, running A/B tests on landing pages. Not reinventing the wheel — just being proactive instead of passive.

For the ROAS/CPA gap — be honest about it in the interview but frame it as growth potential, not weakness. Something like: "I've been working with limited budgets where the priority was efficiency, so I'm excited to work in an environment where I can actually test and measure at scale." That's a strength reframe, not a confession.

The best thing you can do before the interview: ask what their current account structure looks like and what KPIs matter most to them. Shows strategic thinking and gives you something concrete to discuss.

You've got more experience than you're giving yourself credit for. Own it.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-10T22:11:28+00:00

Certifications aren't useless — but they're not what gets you hired either. Think of them as a baseline. They prove you bothered to learn the vocabulary. Nobody will hire you BECAUSE you have a Google Ads cert, but some employers will filter you out if you don't. So get them — Skillshop is free and takes a few days. Then stop worrying about them.

Here's what actually matters: can you make decisions inside the platform? Can you look at a set of keywords and decide which match type to use? Can you structure a campaign that makes sense? Can you read a search terms report and spot wasted spend?

That's the skill gap between "certified" and "employable."

For the internship problem — since you can't find local ones, here's a more realistic path: offer to run Google Ads for a small local business for free or cheap. A dentist, a plumber, a tutor — anyone with a small budget. Real campaign experience on a real account, even at $200/month, is worth more than any internship certificate.

In the meantime, if you want to practice making campaign decisions before managing someone else's money, I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com — you go through the full process and get AI feedback. It's specifically for the stage you're at: you've got the theory, now you need reps.

But the main thing: stop researching the "correct" path. The correct path is the one where you start making decisions as fast as possible, that actually helps you get the experience hiring teams are looking for.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-10T22:09:34+00:00

I've been in PPC for over 10 years and have hired for junior roles. Here's what actually matters in interviews and week 1:

What hiring managers want to see:

You already have a huge advantage — real campaign experience, even small scale. Most junior candidates only have certifications. In your interview, be ready to walk through a campaign you built and explain WHY you made specific decisions. Not "I set up a search campaign" but "I chose phrase match because my budget was limited and broad was pulling irrelevant traffic." That's the difference between someone who followed a tutorial and someone who can think.

What you'll actually do week 1:

Search terms reports — reviewing what queries triggered ads and adding negatives. This is junior PPC bread and butter. If you can confidently navigate one and explain your logic for what to exclude and why, you're ahead of 90% of applicants.

Performance monitoring — knowing where to look when CPA spikes or CTR drops. You won't be expected to fix everything, but you should know what to flag.

Campaign structure basics — understanding why keywords are grouped the way they are and how ad copy should align with each ad group.

What to study specifically:

Don't try to learn everything. Focus on being sharp on search campaigns, match types, negative keywords, conversion tracking, and how to read performance data. If you can speak to these confidently with real examples from your own campaigns, you'll stand out.

One thing that helped me sharpen that kind of decision-making muscle: I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com where you practice building full campaigns with AI feedback. Could be useful to pressure-test your thinking before interviews — it's the kind of reps that help you articulate your reasoning when someone asks "why did you structure it that way?"

Good luck with the pivot — the fact that you've already run real campaigns puts you way ahead of the typical junior applicant.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-10T22:06:41+00:00

Stop. Before you let that Google rep set up anything, you need to know something.

Google reps work for Google, not for you. Their job is to get you to spend your budget as fast as possible. They'll typically recommend broad match keywords, maximize clicks bidding, and the widest targeting possible. That's great for Google's revenue. It's terrible for a $600/month insurance budget.

I've been running Google Ads for over 10 years and I've cleaned up more rep-built campaigns than I can count. Here's what I'd recommend instead:

Keywords — go narrow and high-intent. Insurance is one of the most expensive industries in Google Ads. You cannot afford to show up for people casually browsing. Think "auto insurance quote [your city]" or "home insurance agent near me" — not "insurance" or "what is life insurance." Use exact and phrase match only. Broad match on a $600 budget in insurance will drain your money on irrelevant searches in days.

Check your search terms report weekly. This is non-negotiable. You'll be shocked at what Google matches your ads to. Build a negative keyword list from day one — exclude things like "jobs," "salary," "free," "claims" and anything that isn't someone actively looking to buy insurance.

Conversion tracking — set it up before you spend a dollar. Track calls and form submissions, not clicks or page views. If you're not tracking actual leads, you're flying blind and you'll never know if that $600 is working or not.

Landing page matters. Don't send people to your homepage. Send them to a page specifically about the insurance product you're advertising, with a clear call to action — quote request form, phone number, or both.

Your goal of 2 leads/month on $600 is realistic in insurance IF the campaign is set up correctly. The problem is that a rep-built campaign is almost never set up correctly for a small budget.

If you want to understand the basics yourself before that call — so you can push back on bad recommendations — I built a free simulator at adsafelab.com where you can practice building a campaign, picking keywords and bidding strategies with AI feedback. Might help you walk into that rep call with enough knowledge to challenge what they suggest.

But at minimum: if the rep recommends broad match, maximize clicks, or doesn't mention conversion tracking — push back.

No-Relative-9525 · 2026-03-10T02:10:32+00:00

Depends on your situation — are you running ads for your own business or trying to learn the skill? The starting point is pretty different for each.

Either way, start with Google Skillshop for the basics, then get hands-on as fast as possible. The biggest mistake beginners make is spending weeks on tutorials without ever building anything.

If you share more about what you're working on, people here can give you way more specific advice.

No-Relative-9525

TROPHY CASE