Another account generating 46% of its call volume from Google Ads. 500 Calls this year Higher average duration than organic calls Instant results vs waiting for SEO to kick in. Bullish on PPC.

Fable5 was insane! It completely transformed some big projects I was working on. Going back to Opus feels like taking a step back from a smart phone to a flip phone. RIP

Just went to a Claude meetup in Charleston, SC. My biggest takeaway: we are SO early. 15 people in the room. A minister. A TV commercial director. A tequila brand owner. Engineers. Someone building Claude Code tools for NCAA basketball teams. Property developers. All completely different industries. One common theme: "What do we actually use this for?" That question tells you everything. People are genuinely interested but still struggling to build real use cases. Social media makes it look like everyone's shipping AI agents overnight. The reality? Most people get about 80% through an idea and then it breaks. That's not a failure. That's where we are. Social media is blowing this out of proportion. Making people feel behind when they're actually extremely early. This whole thing feels like pre crypto days. Everyone knew it existed. No real foundation yet. People trying to figure out what to build and how to build it. The execution gap is still wide open. That gap is the opportunity. If you can become an AI operator NOW, regardless of your industry, you'll be positioned to capitalize when this thing fully hits. Because it's coming whether you're ready or not. So stop being afraid to start something. It's going to break. Expect it. But when it does, be grateful because that's the learning. Every time something breaks you're building a stronger foundation for what comes next. Start now. Pick a project that sounds fun to you. Learn how it works. Understand the foundations, the concepts, the structures. Then take all of that and apply it to everyday things. Things you can speed up. Things you can eliminate time from. Things you used to spend hours on. The whole concept right now comes down to two questions: How much time can you buy back with AI? And what can you use AI to build, capitalize on, generate revenue with at a scale that wasn't even possible a year ago because you needed to pay developers to do it for you? That barrier is gone now. This is going to be a generational shift.

The biggest lie that was ever told in the SMB space for paid ads that you need more leads. The biggest truth ever told is that you need to get better at closing the leads you already have. I can generate you leads all day long. But if your team sucks at closing them, generating more is not the answer. It's insane how bad businesses are when it comes to handling leads. Paid ads won't work unless WE work.

PMAX campaigns are a goldmine if they're set up properly. All they need is a proper campaign setup and good conversion tracking to preform well. This one is consistently generating $31 phone calls month over month.

Fastest way to tell if someone's using AI for their posts? Look for the -- Excessive emoji's Or out of character tone of voice. 😅

This is by far one of the worst Google Ads campaigns I've ever audited. They paid $11,304 for 2 Phone Calls Last Month $4,923 for 15 calls At their prime they were paying under $100 per call. This month its the worst its ever been. Done by auto applying Google's recommendations. Crazy part is it can easily be fixed by changing a few things. But if you're running ads yourself it can be hard to figure out what levers to pull to make get the best results.

Spent 4 months off X focusing traveling, operations, and growing my small agency. Accomplished a lot since then and now I'm back! What did I miss fam?

I'm taking over a Google Ads account who came from a bigger agency but didn't deliver on what they promised. Before they left, they systematically deleted: - All negative keywords - All ad copies - All their "proprietary" work. Basically held the account hostage without holding it hostage. Here's the kicker. The search history shows ZERO active management for months. Just minor budget adjustments. Classic "set it and forget it" while charging $3k a month Sad to see - The account itself actually had a good setup. But without ongoing optimizations, even perfect setups die slowly. Thankfully I work with 10 companies in this industry and already have things extremely dialed in. We'll plug in our strategies and get results within the first week. Then continue to maintain and optimize the whole time their with us. Over 25 touches on the account every month. Turning them into a lifetime client. Love to see it.

Your home page is NOT a landing page. Running ads directly to this page is not a good idea for paid ads. You want something that is optimized for conversions not information. Make paid ads as frictionless as possible. *Unless you've designed your home page as a landing page - We'll allow it if that's the case.

My PMAX campaign is generating tons of calls but the lead quality is not consistent. Here's the fix that actually works The dashboard looks incredible ✅ Low cost per lead ✅ High call volume ✅ "Great" conversion rates But the client is frustrated because some calls are: ❌ People looking for a different company ❌ People looking for completely different services This is the PMAX quality trap most agencies fall into. The algorithm optimizes for volume, not value. Here's the 3-step process that actually fixes lead quality: Step 1: Filter irrelevant search terms 2-3x per week (Not once per month like most agencies) Step 2: Find your sweet spot cost per lead through manual review (Not what Google says is "optimal") Step 3: LOWER your bid caps to tighten targeting (This is the counterintuitive part) Most people think: Higher bids = better leads In reality higher bids = Google spends faster on looser terms PMAX will burn your budget on anything remotely related if you let it. Lower bid caps force the algorithm to be pickier about who gets your ads. The result? 30% fewer leads 80% higher lead quality 15% lower cost per QUALIFIED lead You win by getting less, but better.

Bought a Powerball ticket. I won't tell anyone if I win but there will be signs.

Used to think that all Google Ads reps were terrible. Until one from the SF office reached out to me. If you ever get a chance to talk to an American rep. Give them a chance. Might be worth your time. Still seems like their end goal is to get me to spend more money though. 😅

Indinapolis happy hour pricing is wild. Don't know anywhere else that I've been where I can pay $4 for an 8% beer. Food and Vibes are on par too. Under-rated even.

Took my dog outside for a walk this morning and it was 59* in Indianapolis in August! Compared to the 90* in Phoenix (Where I'm from) My girlfriend and I have been traveling the states this past year to find a new home. We've been to Denver, Seattle, and now Indianapolis So far we're feeling like staying somewhere west is the move, but still have plans on traveling to the south east. Specifically the Carolinas/Tennessee area. It's safe to say we won't be moving back to Phoenix anytime soon.

Here's a safe way to test different things on a Google Ads campaign using experiments. 📽️ Watch the video for a detailed understanding of what I'm looking for. For this one I'm testing Phrase Match vs Broad Match KW. Looking for two different things. 1. Can I lower the cost per lead? 2. Can I increase lead quality? In this case the results are pretty similar from a quality perspective. Still somewhat inconclusive and will need more data to come in before making a final decision. *All Conversions column is not the same as the actual conversions are considered for that specific campaign. It's just another data set showing what types of conversion actions trigger inside the campaign itself.

Google Ads will never be a "set it and forget it" platform. Our accounts average 40 touches per month. Most business owners think Google Ads works like this: Set up campaigns Let the algorithm do its thing Collect money That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Here's what 40 monthly touches actually looks like: Keyword optimizations - Budget pacing - Bidding adjustments - Lead quality review - Account health checks - Ad copy testing - Client meetings & reporting And that's just the baseline... High-budget accounts? Add 20 more touches. Seasonal businesses? Add 15 more. Clients who make their own Improvements? Add 25 more. The agencies telling you "we'll optimize monthly" are setting you up for failure. Google changes the rules constantly. Your competitors adjust daily. Your market shifts weekly. Monthly optimization in Google Ads is like checking your stock portfolio once a month during a market crash. You'll miss everything important. This is why most cheap agencies fail. They can't afford the time for proper account management. Real optimization requires daily attention, weekly analysis, and monthly reviews. How often is your current agency actually touching your account?

Running paid ads for lead generation needs two layers of tracking. 1. The back end of the ad account to verify cost per leads and what things are working. 2. Reviewing the lead quality itself off the platform. If your marketing agency isn't doing the second part. You're burning a lot of money and don't even know it. I can change that for you.

Want to know how SEO bros can guarantee rankings in 90 days or you don't pay? CTR Maniplation and other grey/black hat strategies. Happens more often than you think.