Anyone here START as a PPC specialist for a company, and then launch a company (NOT an agency) where your “superpower” was your PPC skills?

[EmotionalSupportDoll]

What

[Decent_Jello_8001]

I use to just code the website myself, set up the ads and fwd leads for cash but the main issue was most of these asshats never kept organized, and sales where on a honor system

[Aeneidian]

I know several people who run agencies, but also have used PPC for other businesses (non marketing businesses) they run.

For example, someone I know made a local service company with his brother while running a Google Ads agency, they scaled to 5 figures/mo in three months IIRC.

Someone else I know buys up land and sells plots via PPC and does this very profitably.

That said, these people are elite, and have been in marketing 10+ years, so the specialist -> big other business is unlikely, but specialist -> freelancer -> agency owner -> other businesses that leverage PPC/advertising is likely, especially if they succeed at entrepreneurship and keep at it for many years.

The inverse of what you’re saying is also true. I’ve met people who just DIYed Google Ads to $50k/mo in ad spend profitably, because they bolt on PPC to their business ops, but those folks are rare.
Business owner to DIY google ads successfully and specialist to successful business owner is both unlikely. However, learning PPC, or learning other business models is valuable, and if you have the time to explore and test new businesses you’ll definitely gain valuable skills…

However, I’d probably begin by not calling your clients dumb 🙂

[Significant_Mousse53]

Thought of this many times after meetings or calls with clients. Wouldn’t it just be so much easier to do it all for my own business, lol.

[dirtymonkey]

I started an eCommerce business a little over 10 years ago. I honestly have found PPC tasks are pretty low on the skills I need to apply everyday to the business.

My coding skills get put to use on a constant basis.

There are a zillion things outside of PPC when it comes to running the business. So while I wouldn’t discourage a PPC specialist from making the jump, I’d hope they know there is a lot more to starting and running a business than just running the ad campaigns.

[mvw-1971]

Well a business is more than just ppc. My ppc skills are prety good and I helped my wife with her business. That business is doing quite well now and ppc contributed to the final succes. But it was also cash insentive, managing staff, follow market trends etc. It often seems simple, but you don’t know yet what you didn’t know.

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[QuantumWolf99]

Yeah I’ve seen this work but it’s way harder than most PPC people think… the successful transitions I’ve watched weren’t people copying their clients’ models, they were finding arbitrage opportunities where strong products had garbage acquisition.

What separates the ones who scale from the ones who burn out is understanding that media buying is table stakes not a moat… your edge comes from speed of testing and capital efficiency.

Like there’s a reason why businesses with working products still can’t crack paid acquisition profitably even when they hire decent freelancers, it’s usually because they’re optimizing for the wrong metrics or don’t have enough budget to properly test into profitability.

The people I know who’ve done this successfully picked industries where average competitors are spending $200k+ monthly but still getting mediocre ROAS because they’re running campaigns like it’s 2019… so if you actually understand modern attribution and creative velocity you can just outspend everyone while staying profitable. But you need like $20-30k to properly test before you know if the model works, and most PPC folks don’t have that sitting around to burn through learning.

Honestly the risk-reward usually favors just taking on higher-paying clients where you keep all the upside without the operational headaches… but if you find the right vertical with broken acquisition it’s definitely a path.

[captainplaid]

Im not sure having top notch PPC skills is going to necessarily result in a successful business. Having bad PPC, on the other hand, will certainly make it harder to succeed, but there are so many other variables. Its easier to bolt on great PPC to a plumbing company with 2,000 five star google reviews than to start a plumbing company. Every niche is doing PPC at this point, and in every niche there is probably at least one company doing it well. Its not as much of a differentiator as you may think. Also, Google has spent years trying to level the playing field but automating the hell out of everything. Then again, I havent worked with small businesses in a long time, my average client spend hundreds of thousands per month. Maybe there is more opportunity in some verticals than others.

[LukeTLH]

I know the feeling, and knowing PPC is definitely an advantage I’d say to starting a business. Don’t be tooooo quick to assume that client’s are dumb at their area of expertise though. Skillsets are different, yknow?

There’s a lot of unknowns in every business and challenges that only show up once you’re in the weeds. Similar to PPC really, on the surface it seems pretty simple (and it’s not all THAT complicated) but it can get pretty complex once you get dug into it.

That being said, if you’re the kind of person that doesn’t mind a challenge and is willing to take the hits and learn from failures/mistakes, it’s definitely worth a try.

I say all this with no context on your particular skills, motivations or true knowledge of your experience with your clients (maybe they really are just super dumb lol) – but yeah, I’d say having PPC (or rather, any sort of client acquisition knowledge) is pretty valuable to running a business. But do expect plenty more hurdles and surprises if you launch one – that is all part of the fun though!

[Single-Sea-7804]

I once had a call with a lead and he did this exact same thing. He wasn’t a PPC whiz, but had a cleaning company and a plumbing company on autopilot making 7 figures a year. He hired one of his pals to look over his Google Ads and stepped away from the company for over 2 years.

Talk about goals.