Google Ads Hasn’t Got Harder – You’re Just Looking in the Wrong Place with Ed Leake

Is Google Ads really harder—or are we just ignoring the Magic Mix aka the fundamentals? 

In this episode, Ed Leake breaks down why PPC success still comes down to strategy, not hacks. Host Jeremy and Ed talk frameworks vs. courses, the rise of automation and AI, and why most ad accounts fail outside the platform. If you're tired of chasing shiny objects and want performance that actually scales, this one’s for you.

Get your free 30 minute strategy session with Jeremy here: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/

Scale your store with 1:1 coaching: https://www.younganddigital.marketing/1-2-1-coaching

Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Google Ads unleashed. Hope. Everyone is doing fine this Happy Monday, and today we've got another guest episode. We've had a few very, very exciting guests in the past couple of weeks, but I think this one trumps them all, because I'm very personally excited about it, because I've been following this gentleman for many years now, already on his social channels, especially on LinkedIn. One or the other will see him as the man with the acronym Hanson, and we're good with ads, and you will have very much spotted his content if you haven't been living under a rock. And this man is Ed Lee from gorty ads. Ed, welcome.
I wondered who you were introducing. Then,
yeah, everyone must see like your profile picture on LinkedIn. It I love that. You know, taking it that seriously as well
the laser eyes, yes, yeah, yeah. I the whole LinkedIn thing came from hating all this identity politics crap, so I just put my pronouns as handsome. I obviously don't think that. You know, I'm probably seven out of 10 at best. But the the other thing is, everyone put a headline on LinkedIn, like, I've managed 500 million in Google ads, and that's actually something I said about four years ago. And I'm not saying I created that, but then I saw everyone saying it, and I'm like, oh, so then I just dropped down to, I'm good with ads, because no one copies that, because it's too simple and succinct.
And also I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel attacked, because I think I got something like I think maybe I have to rethink that, and I'm
a trendsetter. That's all it is, in many ways. But don't worry about it, because I've been around for so bloody long 15 years that I do see. I see a lot of things that other people do, and I go, and the arrogant bit of me goes, did they copy me? Because that feels very familiar, and like my training. I've noticed other people do certain things, and it feels very familiar. But I don't know if that's just the uncanny valley or just the nature of us all doing the same thing. But, yeah, I mean, not,
I think, I mean, there's something to be said about imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? So Well, I mean,
I'm pretty nonchalant about all this stuff. I'm happy, happy being me, take me or leave me. You know, if someone wants to copy me, fine, you know, not, I'm really not bloody bothered. I think it's just time, time in the trenches. You know, it's the you're past the point where you care what's going on around you. And I don't want to use trenches analogy, because that's pretty close to the bone. You know what I mean? You know, the bombs are landing. You're just sat there rock, you know, playing chess or whatever, because you're so used to it now, it's just another day, another day in the trenches. God, this doesn't sound very upbeat, does it anyway?
It's it's good, it's a good sense of humor. So, Ed, how did you come to where you're at today? So because many will know you. But although I've seen a lot of your content, it's the I mentioned before. We jumped on a very non linear career with doing a lot of stuff. So I'll do a fast,
fast job of it, because I know this is the bit that everyone skips past. So essentially, started in technology when I was a kid, building websites in the early 90s, actually sold some built computers, sold them the local paper, made a bit of pocket money, created a website for hardware reviews, like computer hardware, and did display advertising. So that was my first touch of ads. Stupidly, then left the industry and stopped doing it, and project management then came back into the industry, thank God, because I didn't enjoy it roughly. Oh bloody hell, 2000 2010 2009 I think I left. Did not enjoy that. I thought I would, because I enjoy playing quake and building computers. But then being in that industry is not the same, same thing. You turn something, your passion, into a job, and all of a sudden you hate both. So yeah, stop playing games and building computers because of that job anyway. Then start the agency by chance with a friend. I thought, start afresh, and then nothing lined up, basically no plan, no plan whatsoever. So fell into a chance thing with a friend. We started an agency, did websites. We got a Google Ads account off the bat because a local business needed new a new website. We're doing advertising. Fast forward a couple of years, and I'm like, Oh, I enjoy this Google Ads bit way more than doing the websites, the SEO and all that crap. And then fast forward another few years. And I actually had a proper agency with people in it an office. And looked at my bottom line and realized that Google Ads was not only the thing I enjoyed, it's the thing making all the bloody money. I essentially restarted the agency, but doing pure Google ads, and that went gangbusters. And that was eight years ago, so seven or eight years later, well, this is interesting. So I sponsored the PPC survey, and over half the respondents say that Google Ads has got harder year on year. And I don't feel that, and I don't want to kick people, especially if they're feeling down, because it's getting harder, but I just don't understand that. So I'm trying to understand that mindset, why people feel that way, and I think it's a lot of the noise and confusion around automation stuff. But I digress, we can touch on that. So, yeah, essentially, I've had the first seven years were hell because I didn't know what I was doing, but I learned a hell of a lot and wasted a lot. You know, I got to the point where I was churning 334, 100 grand a year on overheads as a small agency, and just like, What? What am I doing, which I know doesn't sound like a huge amount to a bigger agency, but I flipped it on its head, went pure Google ads with a small team, kept it tight, and then, yeah, made a lot more money, quite frankly, hell of a lot more. And then we are here to 2025, 15 years later, and I sold the agency at the end of last year. I'm not meant to tell people, because it's not really something I shout about, but yeah, I'm out after 14 years of that and
well done. That's the dream, really.
Now I live on the side of a mountain,
to a certain degree, dream, because I've been thinking about where is everything going to go? Because in August it's going to be well, in July, it's gonna be five years since I started. Congratulations. But we're now a team of 10, which, which is, you know, not, not huge, but it's quite sad enough. But I am my next sort of five year goals are going to come up, right? And you obviously do wonder where things are going to go. I don't think I'm ever going to stop or not for a while, at least, because I've just enjoyed it too much. Otherwise I wouldn't even be doing this, right? So, yeah, that's the quarterly review of any reason that's the dream, right? The exit, if that makes sense.
Yeah. So just to touch on that for because there'll be other agency owners listening, freelancers and what have you. But you said five year five years along, you're quite right to frame it that far ahead. I always look five years ahead, but the next five years because of the whole bloody AI thing, it's going to be very difficult to judge. However, you don't have to get rid of it if you still enjoying it. I mean, I was kind of enjoying it, but I've got too many things on my plate. So every 90 days, and this is a guy called Dan Barrett, who's part of my agency training, doesn't exist anymore. It's merged with God two hours. We can talk about it anyway. He came up with this brilliant assessment where every 90 days, he would literally treat it like a marriage. He's married to his agency. If he had his time again, would he remarry the agency? And he has to be brutally honest with himself, and if he's not happy with that marriage to his agency, then he has to fix it or get rid of it. And that's every 90 days. That's four times a year, he will literally sit down and go, am I enjoying this? Am I still in love with this business? Because if I'm not, then life's short. I need to fix it, sell it, flip it, rewrite it, like I did personally, or do something about it. So don't just sort of drag yourself forward through, through the tree, almost, almost
like a life audit, if you like. I stole that word, I'll be honest, from from miles, who you probably know from the PVC hub. Yeah, I think that's a really good way of thinking about, not only that, but obviously other personal things. Right? To just check in regularly and see, literally,
the agency framework, I think, two, three years ago, but it's literally one of the foundational steps, is to audit yourself and think about the future and what you know, because it is about you. So I think it's very important to get that thing and you know, health and wealth are two separate things, and health comes first in my mind.
I was quite worn out a couple of months ago, and then I went away to the US for four weeks and just come back like a changed man. Quite honestly, I know it sounds dramatic,
I used to be a woman,
yes, how do you know? No, I honestly came back and completely different with a completely different drive, and changed many things since then as well. Right? You mentioned an important point, so you've made a couple of changes. You said, was it forged first? And then you said that has now merged with gotcha ads.
Yeah, it's so slightly complicated. End of 2020, I was getting so many emails because I was becoming a minor like a Z list, PPC, select, because I was doing it to attract clients, and it worked, but it also attracted a lot of fellow marketers, which is understandable. So I'd get a lot of questions, DMS, and I was just like, oh my god, I had a small email list at the time, and I just emailed them and I said, Look, I'm going to build a training product, but it's not a training product. It's not a typical course. But. It's not going to be 50 hours of video that you're never going to watch and just waste your time. It's going to be it's going to be a framework like really succinct. And about 200 people replied and said, Yeah, I love it. Nothing to share with them other than the price and promise. I was like, Okay, there's a demand for it. I'll build it. So then two months, I put 200 something hours into pulling it all together for v1 and then launched it. And I launched it when everyone so I got some advice, because I'm not a course creator, so I don't know what I'm doing. And it was, I launched that privately to everyone who paid it. And then I launched it in December, and I did like, 28 grand running up to Christmas, and it was selling Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and it went gangbusters. And I was like, oh, okay, so then I didn't spend the money. I literally, well, I did. I literally took that money and put it into Facebook ads. I spent every penny to generate customers because I wanted feedback. I didn't want the money. I wanted a better product. And this is a lesson for everyone, reinvest in something you believe in. I wanted a better product. I wanted my training product that isn't a course. It's better than a course it's a framework to be the best. I created Forge, which was a lot of work, because coaching versus training is very different. Yes, I literally hired the best member in Forge to help me with another coaching group, ironically, but that was back to Google ads, just to bore people even more. So now god tier ads is going into where forge was, which was a community on circle. So now we're going to pull god tier in there, full refresh, bring it all together, and just give people, my members, my customers, what they want, which is a refresh and a combined better product.
Essentially, you've mentioned a couple of times now it's a framework, not a course, what makes the difference? Like, I've taken away couple of things, and I'm sorry to say, I've integrated as a few as SOPs in the business.
Yeah, that is the whole purpose. I do want people to take chunks out of it and create their own SOPs and processes. At its heart, it is distinguishing it from a traditional course, is that it's not video. You're not sitting through videos because I know people like to sit through videos, and that's why people subscribe to Netflix. It's not the best way to take the information and apply it, and that's the most important thing, apply the bloody information. So, yeah, I can make you sit through 50 or 100 hours of video, but I'm not going to because I'm not going to waste your time. Instead, it's just a massive checklist, 400 and something steps for everything, setup, tracking, building all the different ad formats. So lead gen and ecom are all covered, apart from demand gen, but there's an update coming for that, and then it's optimization of everything in between. And then it links off to documents that support that, and some videos, to be fair, where I need to show specific things. And quick notes. So quick notes is literally guidance. So if I say to do, do X, there'll be a quick note to say y, and it will essentially is to give you some Well, hopefully you can use your own brain then and say, right? This is Ed's reasoning. This is the rationale. Does that suit my situation? Instead of telling you that there's always a de facto answer, because it's not, there's a lot of caveats in what we do. And people working at B to B will see that as well, because they're like, Well, I can't just use broads and flat out this that the other and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, I know we're all all industries are slightly different. So it's about efficiency, what works, why it works, how to apply it and just get the just get the bloody job done. Like, treat it like a toolbox, not a training course, even though it is in the training course category. Does that answer it? I don't
know it does. It does, yeah. So I think my impression of it was as well that it all boils down to just good, good fundamentals, and however you apply them. I always like to say Google ads is a bit like a guitar, right? Every guitar is the fact insane, right? It has strings, it has a neck, it has a body, etc, and it doesn't fundamentally change how you play it. It's just you can play a billion different melodies with it, right? But, yeah, it's if the if the guitar is not tuned properly, then you factor to start with, right? So you can be as good as you want.
I think, I think there's a big, I think there's a big pushback on the word, the F word, and I don't mean the four letter one, I mean fundamentals. I think a lot of people push back on that because they think, oh, old fashioned, out of style, boring, blah, blah, blah. I've just done a video on it. It'll be released next week, and literally a higher proof of hundreds of accounts that just just really do the fundamentals really well, and they perform like gangbusters. And it's all the people that are chasing all the shiny crap, are the ones that are struggling because they're like, Oh, I've tried to get this AI to talk to this, and my Pmax is doing that. But should I be using Lead Gen? What's the best bidding strategy? There's no best bidding strategy. Please stop asking that bloody question. There is a bidding strategy that will work for you. But anyway, rant aside, fundies, they make the most difference to an account. Just the basics, just a really solid search campaign is way better than most things. And okay, not if you're doing shopping, but even shopping is better than p max for many businesses, but p max is easier, therefore people bolt it on. So I think, yeah, a lot of people don't like fundamentals.
I'm actually not objecting to it at all. So I think it, yeah, it's another tool right to do. Have
to give it. I think we've got to give it some kind of branding so people don't hear fundamentals and tune out. I think we need to call it, like, the magic mix, or something like, just so people like, Oh, what's that? It's like, it's just the fundamentals. But we've put a name to it, sorry, yeah, and, and that's the but the cool thing is, you can still learn this stuff, understand it, and then you'll, you'll be slower to start than the people chasing them, the, you know, the hacks and the crap, but you'll catch them up, it's taught us in the hair. And then you'll overtake them, because you understand what drives the performance, because you're not got your head in all this sort of nonsense and noise. And then you'll just reap the reward of that. So, yeah, slower start actually gain the experience and understanding.
I don't know if you see it similarly, but almost advertising has gone almost full circle in the last sort of 10 years. Have you watched like Mad Men or something like that? I did, yeah, years ago. It's an entertaining TV show. But in the end, there's a couple of things in there. You know how attribution used to work out? People would budget, etc, and I think in the early 2000 10s, all of this advanced kind of attribution sort of started to make its way in away from last click in the end of the 2000 10s came in stuff like high Ross or other kind of magic tools, right, which would make Your ads better because you were better in attributing what would cause what, etc. And then all of that shit went away when we didn't have that anymore through iOS 14, suddenly it's all gone full circle as again, like really good marketers, don't really give a shit about on platform data. They ignore it to a certain degree and just look at the business numbers and do marketing. Now, it was done 50 years ago. Suddenly, again, I put in x, I get out y. This the profit I get. Ads seem to work. Little example, right? We got a client at the moment. It's a bit at the moment, bit tricky, because the summer happens every year, but we spend a stupid amount on Google, unprofitably, right? ROAs under, under one it looks terrible, right? But we just look at the turnover of the business, and Google is the only channel. So normally you would actually see a lot of you know, attributions actually pretty decent then, because there can only be one touch point, but they do a ton of other B to B orders, which we can't really solve due to their really outdated CRM system. And in the end, we're making more money the more we plow in, unprofitably, bizarrely, right? So last month, we pulled back quite a bit in spend, and it was the worst month ever this month in June. Now, sorry, in July, already we've increased spends to like 25 30k, again. Suddenly, business is doing good again.
Yeah, it tells you. Attribution was always a lie. I used to be wrapped up in attribution. I used to love it, and used to look at it, report on it, try and get my head around it. And then when you if you did Google ads and Facebook ads together, and they'd both attribute everything to each, you know, to themselves, and then you'd be like, Oh, hold on a minute. This is all load bollocks. So, I mean, we found this out the hard way by moving budgets the wrong way, because Facebook saying it's doing better. So it's like, okay, give Facebook more, more budgets. And then everything tanked, and then, oh shit, move it back to Google. And Google's now telling us it's doing everything. And no, so yeah, long short of it, Google cookie crushing, all the privacy stuff has kind of helped us out, because it's got rid of attribution. We now have data driven or last click, last click for most people, is actually quite effective, ie, local businesses and stuff like that. But we don't need it because, like you say, if we capture first party data and that offline data, and you can do that with the help of a developer, you can do it with tags and a spreadsheet, you know, keep it super simple, or you can do it server side tracking. And there are tools out there that aren't particularly expensive. There are some that are very expensive, but essentially, all you need to see is that click stream, or that click data that's tied to a campaign ad group. And if you can a keyword, because then, you know, on your back. End, which one of those is getting revenue, and then, you know, on the Google side, what's the spend at that level? And then you're literally doing a balancing act. It's like, well, I don't trust Google's conversion data. I trust my own. This campaign's done X in revenue, but it's actually only spending y on Google. I need to give it more budget. And the campaign on that Google thinks is doing a seven row hours. It's not so I need to give it less. And like you say, focus on you, your business data, your inputs and your outputs, and not try and optimize down to the very last nub in your ads account, because the data is not good enough, and it will still drive you mad, and you can spend 99% of your time trying to extract that 1% and it's just not worth it. It unless you're a massive business where 1% is is significant, fair enough, but most advertisers are not, and it's can be such a waste of time.
Yeah, I do a bit of coaching for for other agencies as well, sort of groups where they want to learn more about Google. I've got got this guy in that group, and every week he asks the same questions, or I've had that many attributed conversions. Should I increase my budget there? What should I do with my roasty etc? And I say to him, every week, mate, you're looking at the wrong thing all the time, like you spending too much time in the ad account, and it doesn't fucking matter, essentially, what the settings are, what what or what the budget is. And for now it doesn't matter, because the issue is people are not buying your fucking product, right? There's clearly either a product market issue or demand issue, or your product page sucks compared to your competitors. We've not done the deep dive, but clearly there's, like, something wrong beyond the ad account, because otherwise it would be kind of working. Well, what's what's going on, right? You said something at the beginning, uh, saying that Google Ads has gotten harder or easier, that would be my next question. I think in many ways it's gotten easier, right? Because you have so many more tools that sort of make the management easier. But what has gotten harder is, I think it's forcing people, if you want, to be really good at looking at the things which really matter, such as, you know, does your offer matter compared to what do other people in the market do? Is your page actually good? Does it sell right? Does it speak to people's fears, needs, wants? Does the product convince people? And I don't. I almost I go like this very often when I sort of see, oh, you know, I've done everything right, and it's still not selling. And then you land on a product page where, like, it's just another another shitty product, right? It's just another thing. I got nothing against normal. You don't have to be have, like, a fundamentally revolutionary product or idea, whatever, but you just got to do good marketing beyond the platform, right? And that's where so many people go wrong?
Yeah, I think the Yeah, I think there's a ship so where, maybe, where the hardness aspect comes in is too much time on PornHub, no, sorry, is because people are having to re skill and there's, maybe that's the hardness, because it's not all about Google ads. Back when I started, it was all about Google ads, because you can tweak everything, every single
media buy your way out of a shit to a certain degree. You could
over optimize it to the point where you literally, yeah, you are extracting more and more. And now we've got more features, more buttons, probably, and, you know, we've got the power pack, and we've got search, and we've got DSA, we've got shopping, we've got Pmax and demand gen, and we've got aI Max now, and blah, blah, blah, and it's confusing. I understand that, and maybe that's where the hardness comes from it. But these are all optional. You don't have to use Pmax. It can be used for incremental gains. It doesn't have to be your main campaign. I think this, this, this is another issue. But, yes, hardness, because you've now got to do more off the platform, but it's just, it's a re skilling in certain areas. You've always had to write ads, good copywriting. Hopefully now you've got to up that a little bit, but we've got AI to support us. But don't, like, Don't skip the fundamentals. There's that F word again, like, understand why? What a good ad looks like, what a good landing page looks like, what a good offer looks like Like, literally, go to God, tier ads.com, forward slash freebies. There's loads of free tools there that will help you with this sort of thing. One's called ad recon. It's unique to me. It's probably one of the most powerful exercises you can do. Ad reconnaissance. If you ever see anyone else doing it, they have definitely copied me. It's my process, my template, free training, free template, follow it, then you can get AI to do it, and that will tell you more about your client and the market, particularly for lead gen, than sitting in your ad account can ever, ever. To tell you, and that's upskilling yourself, because you can take that report, that work you've done to your client, and say, Hey, Mr. Or Mrs. Client, here's the competitors, here's their value props, here's their offers, here's their blah, blah, blah, and here's the angle that I've come up with that makes you better. Can we agree that this is your new angle, this is your new offer, or can we work on it together to make you stand out, because we need more clicks. We want those clicks. So, you know, click through rate is a positive signal to Google. It's a positive, positive signal to you that you're doing a good job. And conversion rates, if your landing page reflects what you're saying and promising in the ad, will normally follow that ad recon process. There's literally people in my group doing, if you're not getting 20% conversion rate, you're not winning people, people shout out 20% conversion rates like they're good. We've got members doing 2530 35 40% week in, week out. So it just works. And it's not that isn't anything fancy.
No, it's all it's all fancy, because it's like marketing psychology, right? And in the end, human, the human mind, hasn't changed with, of course,
Jeremy, Google search is dead. Everyone's using AI now to search. What are you talking about? You're out of touch,
yeah? But yeah, me, well, but I'm
being facetious,
yeah, but I mean, if they're going to search on an AI engine or in the local newspaper, something this, this, this thing up here hasn't changed in the last 50,000 years, right? If we wouldn't have, I don't know, schools and maybe modern infrastructure, we would still be doing the exactly the same shit as before, right? It's all speaking to the reptilian brain, and if you know how to use that in words and and speak to that, then Google is just a tool like to tell people, right? Google is just one tool to achieve a certain thing. It's not like the going into as any channel is, yeah, so has it gotten harder? You think yes or no, probably no.
I would say, oh, it's definitely, maybe,
definitely, maybe,
I think the answer is, it's got noisier, and therefore it's led to more confusion. And if you've been in the industry for less than five years, then I get why you're feeling this discomfort. But yes, it's got a little bit harder, because we've had to shift some of those analytical skills to creative skills. And I know for certain people, that's hard, left brain, right brain, but there are templates like mine out there, especially the free ones, that will help you bridge that gap and make you so much better at the Google Ads bit. And you can transfer it beyond Google ads. You can transfer it to the business in any other ad platform. So I understand why people think it's got harder, but I honestly don't think it's actually harder. In fact, I think it's harder to screw up a Google Ads account now from the start, because Google's a bit more, should we say, wayward with matching, but in certain instances, they're doing it in your favor, not entirely, for exact but I think it is harder to screw it up. Automated bids, you know, exact matches if you're in if you're roughly in the right place, then Google Ads works, whereas in the olden days, because keywords were so precise, or so much precise, you could waste a lot of money on your best guesses, that ended up being your worst guesses. How
do you think AI is going to play into this? So I've seen you talk a lot about online. Many people are panicking, it's going to replace us. I almost like to think of that meme in South Park, you know, when they're taking our jobs. Yeah,
right. AI, you've got, I am concerned about people's sanity, so we need to keep it in the now. And I'm not saying bury your head in the sand, but we've got to think Weeks, months ahead, maybe a year or two, and not try and second guess when we hit singularity, which might be three, 510, 50, years, never. And this is the problem. This is not a this is not a binary outcome. Well, it might be, ultimately a binary outcome, utopia or dystopia, and at the end of the day, if it is the latter, then we're all fucked anyway. So you might as well enjoy today and the year ahead. Instead of literally driving yourself mental, it's like Doom scrolling on social media, which people do all people do, and it's not their fault. It's the social media platforms for being gross and building products around that and mainstream media filling people with fear and bullshit. Got to break your head out of that. I break your head out of that mold that everyone's sort of trying to cram their heads into and be different and. Go, right? I can't control the future to that degree. What can I do today that makes my life better? What can I do next month that makes you know, think a quarter ahead? Okay, I haven't got a clue about chat GPT today, but I'm going to try it. I'm going to go and look at some of Ed's stuff and see what he's using it for. I'm going to go and look on LinkedIn see what people I'm going to search Oh, search engines still exist. I'm going to use a search engine to see what people are come up with, I'm going to ask chat GPT or Claude or Gemini. Hey, I'm a Google Ads Manager. I work for this business or this client or whatever. I've never used you before. Can you make some recommendations as to how I should use you? And it'll literally spit them back at you and go, Hey, hello, Dave. Sorry, I can't do that, but it will. It literally old film reference. Never mind, um, or was it? Sorry, Dave, doesn't matter anyway, the AI will literally help you. It'll tell you what it can do for you, and you can get more advanced with it. But don't, you don't think that you've got to use AI for every single bloody thing you do, particularly analysis. It's not that great at it yet. So use it for the shortcuts, but learn how to do it first and then it's like, Okay, I've written 100 bloody adverts now I don't need to know how to I don't need to do this myself. I can get the AI to do it great. Build a really good landing page, test it, and if it converts, well, okay. Now use the AI to improve it, but do the work first and then get the AI to help you, like, assist you improve things. And if you're really struggling with a problem, give it the data and just see if it can find a different angle. But don't think it's going to do all your work for you flawlessly, because it fucks up quite a lot. Yeah,
I think so. So sort of might. First of all, I love about the fact we can't change it anyway, right? Are you an over warrior or you're like, sort of more of a realist,
both, unfortunately, so I'm more of an over worrier about societal and civilization norms than I am about the future. I'm less concerned about the technology. I'm more concerned about the people, and it's because of identity politics and all these strange ideologies and treacherous thoughts and behavior, but it isn't necessarily people's fault. So I'm more concerned about that division and that corruption of people than I am. What's AI going to do to us?
I think it all sort of ties back into that, right? Like there's just so much noise. And I think it's just about sort of applying your critical mind to it. And in the context of that, I mean, AI goes beyond what we do now, right? It goes. It'll go into everything we're going to consume potentially. And I think it's pointless, like you say, worrying about it. Obviously, you have to have an eye on it and and deal with it to a certain degree. But I think it's easy to get sucked into AI is going to replace everything. AI is going to be better than us AI. I need to build this bizarre AI agent which is going to do this menial task that might save me two minutes a day for the next three years, or something like that, but takes about 10 days to to even get to the first point. I think it's just going to be another tool. The same way in the last 10 years, Google has gone from, oh, I'm looking at bids daily and checking ad previews, to I can set this at a target CPA, which over the, you know, over the last year and a half, I found is a good sweet spot, and I can just let it run and it's just another tool, and it might get better, it might get worse, it might never get better than it is right now, right? So I think people likely say worry about it too much and let themselves being influenced too much from outside, radical thinkers who want to either fear monger, right, you have to use it, or you'd be left behind, or who want to obviously profit from it. So I've just for fun, because I like to be informed, like, bought quite a few, sort of of them sort of transform your whatever, you know, analyze an ad account in three minutes using AI, and the prompts are fucking shit, right? Doesn't spit out any useful information whatsoever. In fact, it's been wrong oftentimes,
yeah, they just no context. So they don't have they're just there's so much slop in AI at the minute. And you, if you put so much energy into building stuff today, then these multi billion dollar businesses are going to release something new in a week anyway, which might make all the stuff you've been fanning around for for 612, months, redundant. So you just have to be careful about how much time you invest. If you're enjoying it, go for it. If you're doing it because of fear and like you or should be doing it, just stop. Get some help. No, don't get some help. Just get some fresh air and make me. Look at you and think, Ah, he or she's normal, just like me. Because I look at the world a minute, I think, Christ, I'm meant to be weird. I live on the on a side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with no people, just my wife and a few animals, few reindeer. That sounds kinky. It's nothing weird. They produce food, and I'm meant to be weird, like I'm the weird guy. I'm self sufficient. We've got 24 kilowatts of solar and battery, more than that, in batteries, and this that the other and we get water off the spring from the mountain. You know, Mr. Off Grid got a gym in the garage, so I never, I visit a gym every day, but I don't see people I'm meant to be weird. But I look at everyone else going, fucking hell. Are you like, weird? Can you like, just chill out and behave yourselves, please? So yeah, clean your mental palette, and that means of AI as well. So use it. I'd say use it sparingly, unless you find something that really does a good job for you.
So for instance, this whole thing, we can land the plane and look the tier. For instance, I really liked some of your headline prompts, right and description prompts, which, by the way, I've combined with I use, we use that quite a lot in terms of, like, customer research. And sometimes get really good sort of ideas of, you know, what pain points people have who would search for certain things. What? What do they believe? What could be, common objections, common false beliefs, etc. What do competitors say it's? And then you can use that prompt on top so you can use it. Don't take, you know, just some copy it out, but obviously you it's, it's like a sparingly, like a sparring partner, right? So, so that's pretty good. So one thing, what do you think people to sum it all up, what kind of mindset shift should they make for the next year in order to not to be too worried about that, and also final pitch for courtyards.
So mindset is very difficult because the future is unknown, so I would you, you just have to skill up a little bit more. But take it literally. I've got a video for this. Look for the ultimate solution by me, Ed League. By the way, if you're still here, it's a video on YouTube. It's about these pillars that are put together many years ago. Is still incredibly relevant today, more so than ever, and it's about all the pillars, and only one of those pillars is Google ads, and it's just about the other skill sets that you can complement your Google ads with. And the cool thing is, if you do this, if you achieve all these pillars, then you'd be absolutely unstoppable, regardless of what comes so, but it will take effort. I'm not going to pretend this isn't an overnight thing, but the cool thing about this is the Google Ads pillar you can replace. It's just a traffic source. It's just an ad platform that could be replaced with any other traffic source or ad platform. So just that's the best thing to watch, and it's about owning your data. It's about helping the client beyond Google ads. And yeah, I mean, we could put a visual on the screen, but a lot of people are listening to this. So ultimate solution by me, that'll explain it. It's about seven minutes long. And,
yeah, amazing, cool.
So I meant to do a pitch,
yeah, maybe one thing, just to finish off, where can they find you, besides, obviously, the usual channels, and, yeah, how can they get us? You already mentioned, there's some free freebies. But what's,
yeah, there's the best pitch. You don't have to buy my stuff. Just go and get some freebies. So gold, tear outs.com forward slash freebies. There's six currently on there, and they take you through. I'm gonna have to have a look. So can't even remember myself. Actually, they take you through. Oh yeah, Christ, okay, I'm giving away my golden proposal with training. So essentially, that's getting the client then projections template, which stops you gambling with clients. Money predicts the future. Bidding alchemy. It's like a flow chart. Loads of people are copied now, but mine's the original, therefore, blah bidding flow chart. You just literally follow it. Then there's the ad reconnaissance, which is leveraging the 15 factors to make increasing click through rate and conversion rates of science, not guesswork. Get that, because you'll crush your competitors. I promise you, that's the best thing on there. Probably automate ad copy. Jeremy's already mentioned. That's 23 pillars of ad copy. So that gives you all the 23 key things you can put in an advert with real world examples, and then it gives you an AI prompt to generate ads. But better than that, Kuder, who's part of the team now, one of the heroes of got two ads. He has put together a script that does it for you, but better than that, it it's a self improving script, so it literally improves its prompts over and over again to improve your output based on your inputs. And then finally, there's a 2025, Audit Checklist, 70 steps you can. Take to improve performance and conquer your audits. So there's six freebies on there. You don't have to spend a penny. That's a lie. The 23 pillars is $5 the offers, okay? I mean,
dollars you, I know this is a free podcast, but you're fucks. If you don't,
yeah, yeah, I'm sorry if you've got got $5 if you genuinely haven't got $5 email me and I'll give you a copy of Christ. So yeah, there's, there's enough freebies on there that will if you can't get value from one of those things, then I've failed. And if those things don't impress you, then I've failed. And you'll unsubscribe from my stuff and never hear from me again, which is fine, but hopefully it'll impress you enough to go, oh, I need to buy Ed's got tear outs framework and join his community, which is the whole point of this. Me make you better, to then get paid eventually, hopefully, just
get help yourself. And I think that's the takeaway for everyone today. So as as always, guys, thank you very much for listening, Ed. You've been amazing. You know what? What I like is you are exactly in person, I guess, person as you are online. So that's really impressed me. Thank you so much for taking the time today. My pleasure.
Thank you for listening to Google Ads unleashed to connect with Jeremy. Check him out online at www dot young and digital dot marketing. We'll see you next time you.