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Should I hire a Google Ads expert, or try to learn it myself?
Hey r/PPC,
I’ve been reading posts here for a while and figured this was a great community to ask my question.
I’m currently in the process of validating a SaaS idea for a Supermetrics competitor.
My plan is simple: I created a landing page, and I’m going to use Google Ads to drive traffic to it.
The only thing is, I’m not a professional advertiser – I’m a software engineer by trade.
I’ve run ads on Google, FB, TikTok, and Reddit in the past for other projects, but never got them profitable, so it’s clear to me that either I’ll have to hire someone, or try to learn the latest Google Ads techniques myself.
What’s your advice? Should I bite the bullet and try to set the ads up myself, or just hire someone who knows what they’re doing?
Thanks in advance.
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1 Reply
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SaaS, and B2B advertising, can be very expensive and very competitive. It can also be very complex since sales cycles are longer, there are usually competitors to evaluate, etc. This is all to say that you could learn it yourself, but it will take time and you’re going to make mistakes. In this space, that can be costly. The money you save on doing it yourself could end up going to waste in that scenario. So while it’s more expensive in the short run to hire someone, it usually saves you money in the long run. Plus, it frees you up to focus on other parts of the business you’re better suited for.
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If you can not afford to hire someone decent, you will likely waste just as much money doing it yourself. Hiring someone cheap to do paid ads is like hiring a cheap mechanic, you get what you pay for.
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Just here saying that I would totally love to have a look at your solution because SM have become expensive af.
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You should definitely hire a professional to do it for you but it doesn’t hurt to learn Google Ads yourself, specially when you can learn the crux of it with a 14 hours course. Once you learn the basics, you can actually make a great hiring decision and not fall prey to those overpromising sales folks who are either old-school and substandard at google ads themselves or they may eventually give it to a junior person to do it for you.
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Is the software effective and great at what it does? I think advertising professionals would love to use something like that if you offered it for free in exchange for testimonials, or even have referral bonuses/affiliate program. This is how Gmail, Facebook, and other softwares got off the ground.
If you run ads to promote it, it certainly can work but you better be sure that your product fulfills a specific and clear need in the market and delivers on it
Happy to chat about strategy if you’d like.
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Do you want to learn yourself to save money, or out of curiosity and to have that skill moving forwards?
If the first, you likely won’t save anything, and will have to hire someone in the end anyway.
If the second, you could take a few of the cheaper courses online just to get an overview of the platform, spend some time inside setting up a campaign, and then probably pay for some kind of consulting service to then learn deeper. Without meaningful data inside the account, there isn’t much learning to be had, so you’ll have to be wiling to spend to get that data, then somebody would be able to consult on it and guide you forwards.
Ideas for groups / consulting / podcasts to learn more:
The Paid Search Podcast – free –
Chris Schaeffeur Patreon tier ( one of the hosts) – $50 pm
Google Ads Level Up ( course and members only FB group to ask questions ) $30 pmOnce you’re at that level, and have some data to work with, you can hire Chris Schaeffeur or Phil from Google Ads level up for an hour’s consultation for between $250 – $400 I think.
If this was my money, I would say try to validate a new idea without spending big bucks on Google, get an idea of whether it’s a good product, feedback, organic conversion rates etc before putting fuel on the fire with paid ads.
SaaS isn’t cheap or easy, and I personally doubt you’ll get far with a simple search campaign, and think you’d need various retargeting, Search, YT etc, plus budget for a competitor campaign. And I’ve never found it a simple job to convince, for example, somebody searching for ‘Supermetrics’ to even try out a free trial of a different software, unless it’s extremely good and has a lot of social proof to back it up.
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It depends on your goals and resources. If you are looking to quickly and effectively drive traffic to your landing page and generate leads, it may be more efficient to hire a professional advertiser who has experience and expertise in setting up and optimizing Google Ads campaigns. This will likely save you time and money in the long run.
However, if you are looking to learn and gain knowledge about advertising and are willing to invest time and effort into learning about Google Ads, then trying to set up the ads yourself may be a good option for you.
A proposal for hiring a professional advertiser could include the following:
An overview of your SaaS idea and the goals of the advertising campaign.
The services that will be provided by the advertiser, such as keyword research, ad creation, targeting, and optimization.
The budget and timeline for the campaign, as well as any milestones or performance metrics that will be used to measure success.
The qualifications and experience of the advertiser, including any relevant certifications or industry awards.
Details about the reporting and communication process, including how often you will receive updates on the campaign’s performance.
A clear statement of the advertiser’s fees and costs and a specific timeline for the campaign
The advertiser’s contact information and a way to get in touch with them.
I am google ads consaltant. Please tell me when you are free.
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It really depends on how much free time you have to work on this vs. the investment you plan on making. If you’re going to spend $500 as a trial and have tons of time, spend 30-40 hours learning the basics. If you’re going to spend $5,000/month you are far better off hiring somebody to build and manage it, you’ll save way more than what you’d waste running it yourself.
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It’s likely a waste of resources for an early stage SaaS. You really need more data (churn rate, LTV etc) to understand if that acquisition channel even makes sense.
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do you want to run a business or a become a employee for yourself?
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Have you sold your SaaS “Supermetrics competitor” to someone?
If not, I’d suggest not using Google Ads at all (or just minimum, by bidding by competitors’ names) and doing CustDev, cold sales, and content marketing on social media (in groups). You should find a PMF and get a revenue stream before investing in B2B SaaS PPC IMHO.
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Depends what you’re spending. If less than $3k/mo your results won’t be significant either way. If you’ve got a decent budget and want to scale up the revenue, agency for sure.
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There’s definitely a gap in the market for a trustworthy, affordable supermetrics competitor so good luck.
What’s the plan in terms of pricing?
I’m working on some PPC/marketing tools myself and don’t have any Google Ads planned. I plan on just posting here, on twitter, etc. then reaching out to my modest email list. Maybe do some tutorials, articles, etc.
Then perhaps LinkedIn and Reddit ads to give free versions/content a boost. If you look up a chat between Gil Gildner of discosloth and Ed Leake (spellings might be wrong there) about reddit ads it’s informative.
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You should chat with chatgpt learn it from there
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Test it out yourself with a small budget.
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