Experience

Before Google Ads was a thing, I was on the client side.

I spent (and probably didn’t invest) hundreds of thousands each month.

Yet I never actually logged into AdWords. 

That’s like trying to manage your bank account without ever checking the balance – pretty dumb, right? 

But I was scared: scared of messing up, scared of looking clueless in front of big agencies like Razorfish or iProspect, scared of admitting I didn’t know what I was doing. 

Daniel Kahneman said: “Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats.”  

Kahneman highlights the idea that humans often rely on mental shortcuts and quick decision-making – rather than engaging in extensive, thoughtful analysis. That means we often default to continuing to do what we’re used to doing, instead of starting to do something new and better instead. 

And we really, really avoid what we don’t understand. Just as I was definitely avoiding the ad platform interfaces. 

Now, decades later, I see the same fear running rampant among performance marketers responsible for millions in ad budgets. They hand over their budgets to ‘auto-settings’ like PMax in Google Ads, and pray for a miracle, such as 5x RoAS. 

In reality, they’re making 50 cents back for every $1 they spend – at a 0.5 RoAS. 

Reflection

What’s the real cost of fear and avoidance? 

Yes. Underperforming campaigns and underwhelming revenue. 

Last week, I hopped on a pitch call with a big national financial services brand. They had strict RoAS targets and piles of media spend, but results were flat. 

Turns out, nobody is actually poking around in the ad buying platforms. Google Ads, Meta Ads, etc, are set to ‘set and forget’. 

A media trader logs in once a month, changes a setting. Sets and forgets.

Many performance marketers think this is normal.

Does an athlete, whether they are a High Schooler contemporary dancer (like my 15-year-old daughter), or an Olympic swimmer, practice once a month? My 15 year old practices dance 20 hours a week. With 1 hour a month she’d never make the team. 

Most performance marketers – on the client side – assume that the almighty PMax in Google Ads will do everything for them. 

But even the smartest AI hits a ceiling if the humans in charge aren’t feeding it new ideas or trimming the dead branches. If they are not training it – daily. 

The harder the human pushes Google Ads or Meta ads to train, the higher the RoAS. More reps equals better results.

I’m not innocent here; I’ve been that clueless Director of Performance Media before, hoping for magic – that never came. 

Digital marketing is just life in miniature: avoid the details and you’ll never fully grow. 

What can you do to get not just above average, but top 1% results from your ad budgets?

Action

Time to get uncompromising about generating top 1% results from your digital media budget. 

Step 1: Admit You’re Terrified – I get that you will resist logging into a platform such as Google Ads. Can we just agree that you are in fact scared to log in and press the buttons, like I was 20+ years ago? That this feeling is … there, and it’s normal?

Step 2: Get Your Hands Dirty – Honestly, I really don’t expect you to press the buttons in Google Ads (or Meta Ads, or any other ad buying platform). What if instead, you spend 30 minutes every week, asking your in-house media trader, or your agency, to show you how they manage your budgets. What do they actually DO on the platform every day and every week? 

Step 3: Stop/Start/Continue – Ask your in-house media trader, or your agency – what experiments are you running now? How do the people pressing the buttons a) stop deadweight ads, b) start new experiments, and c) continue what’s delivering solid RoAS. This is the essence of A/B testing, or as I call it, “stop/start/continue.” 

Step 4: Accelerate Your Career – because if you can generate real top 1% returns, you’ll stand out. People who know the nuts and bolts (and how to use them) don’t just talk a big game, they deliver. Look, I’m still figuring this out myself, but at least I don’t assume that my team is testing aggressively; I ask them to show me, and the brands that we work with – what tests are working, which tests are not working, and what new ideas we need to test out.  If digital marketing mirrors life, then real growth starts when you do the scary stuff. 

(btw, the above 4 steps follow my Return on Marketing Career (RoMC) framework - to learn about RoMC, read this post.)

References

A 2022 Gartner study found that over 54% of marketing leaders admit to lacking hands-on knowledge of the digital platforms they manage – resulting in missed revenue opportunities. 

According to Forrester, brands that combine AI-driven automation with human expertise achieve 2.5x higher RoAS. 

Harvard Business Review has consistently highlighted how hands-on experimentation can boost campaign performance by up to 30%. 

Seth Godin also underscores that genuine success stems from curiosity and actually ‘doing the work’, rather than hiding behind buzzwords. 

These sources confirm that fear, ignorance, or complacency around the tools of the trade can be costly. If digital marketing is life condensed, we owe it to ourselves – and our organizations – to keep learning, tinkering, and improving.

If you’d like to discuss your career journey with me one-to-one, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or message me on LinkedIn.

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