I definitely started off with, like, imposter syndrome and just, like, I like confidence.
She searched up, like, a bunch of people that I have seen, but I didn't message.
She don't know who they are.
She was like, oh, he looks influential.
Let me send her a message.
And I'm like, Oh my gosh.
Like, like, what are gonna what are they gonna think about me? Have you ever wondered what the ad pros know that you don't? The biggest struggle is not knowing where exactly to start.
Well, in this episode, I'm gonna be interviewing Omar Reyes.
The man has interviewed over 86.
Nope.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
At the time of recording this, he's interviewed over a 130 different ad experts to find out exactly how they're able to consistently deliver above average ad results.
One of the few things that I saw like over and over again is just like, being hungry to, to learn.
Not only are we gonna be talking about experts, but also about Omar's journey learning Google Ads himself? Like, if you don't put into practice, you're not really gonna truly understand it.
And last but not least, we're gonna share some resources with you that's gonna enable you to learn Google Ads much faster.
So stick around.
It's gonna be a good episode.
What I wanna know from you, Ooma, is, like, way where did this idea for the interviews come from? Like, what made you decide, okay, I'm gonna go out there and interview eighty six people I don't know.
Um, I was actually I felt a little stuck in my in house role.
I'm like, typically in house, right? There's in the agency, you might have a lot of talent, a lot of people doing what you're doing.
So, you know, they're on top of the the latest technologies or or tools, you know, in house, it might be a little slower, you know, catching up with you know, new trends.
And so I felt a little stuck, and I wanted to get into working at a agency again, and I was applying, but it was still difficult, right? So even with like a year or 2 experience, you know, there's still a lot of competition.
There's still a lot of people who want to also break into the industry.
And so I hired, I thought to myself, okay, like I think I need to hire somebody who's doing what I want to do, right? And so I hired, um, a pay media specialist, something in Cynthia.
And, um, it was like a 4 month, you know, like, 1, 1 on 1, uh, coaching.
And, uh, that was great, you know, I got access to a bunch of PPC courses, you know, I got a bunch of, like, books and and resources to study out.
And then, obviously, we will have our one on one time.
And Can I stop you there? Yeah.
That is a that is a wild decision to make.
Purely because most people when they're working, they would see any money spent on themselves as money wasted, um, especially developing themselves.
They would they would obviously develop or buy, get a degree, or they would go for some formal type of education.
Did you always have that in you where you were willing to spend money on yourself to improve yourself? Or how did how did that come about? What made you say? What was talk me through that decision process where you said, yes, I wanna hire Cynthia because I feel like she can get me there faster.
Talk to me about that decision making process.
Yeah.
So so I I'm a huge believer in investing in yourself.
I didn't back then when it came to traditional education, right? So something I didn't mention was that before I got it, when I took that that 3 month course at general assembly, my friend, he went to come up Columbia University, Right? So, you know, he graduated his master's in neuroscience, um, and he came out with like 80 plus $1000 in debt, right? So to me, I was like, it's gonna be really hard to, you know, it's gonna take a long time to make your money back, you know.
Um, it's like a house in South Africa, basically.
You came up with a house worth of debt.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So his advice was like, Hey, like, get into school and all of this stuff and and I saw a lot of people, you know, who were like young, seventeen years old, you know, making money online.
I'm like, you know, I'm gonna take this shortcut, you know, it's not kind of corners, it's just a different way to get to the same destination.
And so what happened was, you know, uh, the the 3 month course was $3000, right? And so I didn't even hesitate, you know, like I paid it, you know, and then all the different courses I took along the way, you know, it was like a 100, 500, and I was determined, you know, to to, um, break into marketing.
And so even with the the coaching with Cynthia, right? That was like $5000.
And so in the back of my mind, you know, one thing that I learned my first internship at the Facebook ad agency, you know, he will always say because he was huge into like buying courses and he will give me access to them.
He he used a he, do you mean your, like, your ex boss? Or Yeah.
The first agency, his name is Gerald.
Um, he was pretty, uh, big into he came from the network marketing world, into like Facebook ads agency, so he was all about investing in himself.
And he would say like, Hey, don't ask, you know, um, what's the cost, you know, what's the price, but acts like, ask yourself, like, what are you gonna get in return? And when you think about it like that, it's much different.
Right? You if you're gonna spend $5000, but you're gonna your your income is gonna bump from, like, you know, 55 k to 63 k as an example.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right? You make your your money back plus more as I think the hardest part is that you don't see it up front and it's gonna take work.
So some people are hesitant, you know, they don't wanna lose their money.
Um, but investing yourself is gonna get you more money, you know, if you do it right.
Um, so I'm a huge believer in investing yourself.
Alright.
Cool.
So we're still on track with where the idea for these interviews came about.
So you mentioned that you've bought this course, and now you're learning the materials in the course.
And while you bought this training program, and basically, there are some courses in this training program, and there's also a whole bunch of PPC books, um, that you can read how does that tie into the interview? How do we get to the interview from here? Yeah.
So one of the things that the coach, uh, really drove me was, you know, branding and positioning yourself.
Um, and so, you know, and I knew this was big for her because she had a a following of like eight thousand people in in LinkedIn.
And what what actually got me to to buy, um, into her coaching program was that you know, I was thinking about it for like 3 months, right? And when you're when I was single, I would make decisions really quick, right? But when you're married, right, and your partner, you know, your wife and my wife, uh, she didn't feel too good, uh, about the decision, you know, and that that can happen, right? Things can can take a little longer, they can prolong, right? I'm gonna mock you in a field so I'm quick to invest in myself.
So, you know, it takes some communication to, to get on the same page, Right? So, um, that took like 3, 4 months, you know, and I was also hesitant because, you know, even though I'm I'm quick to invest in myself, you know, I think sometimes you can still be a little hesitant in making like a decision like that.
I think that's, uh, I think that's a a healthy, I think a healthy mind does that whereby you look at everything that could go right, but you also look at everything that could go wrong.
And sometimes it takes a while to get through that risk analysis of Yeah.
I might spend this money, and I might never see it back again, and I might completely regret my decision.
So it's kind of natural, you know, to to go through that process.
You know? Yeah.
Yeah.
I agree.
And so there's, I I think it's a, like, optimizer, the account optimization tool.
Um, I think there's a guide in that team that that houses a podcast, and so she came out in it, right? And so I was like, oh, she's an authority figure, you know, like, and then her prices went up, And so I'm like, oh, before it goes up anymore, right? Like, let me jump in now.
And, you know, at first it was like 2000 something dollars.
It went up to like 5000, and I'm like, I gotta jump in now.
You know, before it goes, like, to 20,000.
Yeah.
And I was very lost in, in, um, in my career at the time working in house.
I'm like, oh, like, how do I take the next step? You know, um, so we were in 1 hour coaching calls, and she wanted me to she was like, yeah, just put content put out content on LinkedIn every single day, right? Um, and so I was kinda like, uh, alright, this is kinda difficult.
So I started doing book reviews, of, like, I would look at, um, our, like, read a marketing book, and then I would write, like, the 10 things I got from it, right? So I did a few of those, and I didn't really see, like, any traction.
It wasn't really a hit.
And she was like, she was just straight up.
She was like, yeah, your content sucks.
You know? And then I was like, oh, man, I I and then I started reading people's, like, posts on LinkedIn.
And then I'm like, alright, let me create kinda like, let me model that or, like, be inspired by a post and create my own.
But then I'm like, yeah, most people are probably, like, saying the same things.
Yeah.
That's true.
There's a lot of savings going on with LinkedIn posts.
Definitely.
I was literally just gonna say that.
So, yeah, Um, it's like all of the marketers just like in say that, oh, here is how we got these results.
Uh, we did this for this brand, and we got them this brand.
Oh, a lot of marketers get on the, uh, if you want ten things that'll turn around your Google Ads to these 10 things.
And it kind of sounds samey if everyone's saying the same thing.
Yeah.
And so, um, I was talking to her.
I'm like, you know, I think you know, I wanna start interviewing people in my space, you know, who who run Google ads, do PPC.
And, um, but then I was like, yeah, that's a lot.
You know, like, I don't know anything about podcasting, anything about, like, video creation, and and it's gonna take time.
I work full time.
And so I thought to myself, like, maybe I can do written interviews.
Right? I'll send some questions to people.
They send it back, and now I just publish it.
As an article.
So I literally sat down with a notebook and I just came up with like 14 questions, right? Um, and that kind of refined it a little bit over time.
Um, but literally that's how it started, you know, and and I was pitching it to people.
I was sending out messages, and I felt like most people was like, who is this guy? Like, they weren't really interested.
And then, um, I was following this group called, like, PPC Mastery, And, uh, there's a guy that's within that community.
His name was Arjohn, and he was quick to say, yeah, you know, let's do it.
You know, he had a large following.
I think he had, like, 8 K followers and, you know, he posts, like, every single day, and his focus was, like, ecom and, you know, Google ad scripts.
Um, and yeah, that that was the first interview.
And then when I would message somebody, I would say like, hey, check out this interview.
You're a deal with our job.
Like, you know I can do the same.
Exactly.
Love it.
Love it.
I absolutely love it.
What I think is so genius.
My first reaction was when I got your your message, I was like, who is this guy? And then I got your message, and then I was like, in this guy is doing something super smart.
I should have done what he's doing because it's so it's so original to come up with that idea.
I think a lot of people, when they create content, they try and go either over the top or they create, like, the samey stuff.
But I think what you've done is you've created a nice workflow for yourself whereby it's easy to get the next introduction because you've already done the work with the one interview So over time, it actually becomes easy and easier for you to build out your content, but yet the main thing, the most important thing about your content is your content isn't the same.
Like, every single human being has their own individual story, and I'm gonna get into some of those stories later on.
But what I love about it is if you go and look at Omar's profile right now, guys, it's there is so much wealth of knowledge.
You've got people that are CEOs of, um, software companies.
Then you got people who are just starting off on their marketing journey.
Then you got people who are, like, well established big figures.
And you can sort of see, um, the diversity in the marketing community reflected in your profile.
So I think that's beautiful, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, um, at first, it started with, PPC specialists for, you know, around, like, my experience, you know, 1 to 2 years, um, from that, I started interviewing, like, uh, you know, managers, after that, you know, I took it up, uh, you know, I went back to my, uh, uh, coaching session and she was like, you know, you gotta shoot for people outside of, like, you know, your, your comfort level or, you know, people that are above you who are, like, decision makers and influencers, um, and I I started, you know, messaging directors, like, Pacers directors, um, from there, it went to, like, uh, agency owners.
And then, um, then I would message like head of PBC or, um, like, you know, VP of search, and then now I'm currently focusing on, like, freelancers.
You know, I totally forgot about the freelancers, you know, and I'm like, alright, like, let me let me contact these freelancers.
And if people have like a large following, like, I will contact them too, um, or if they spoke at like industry events, you know, in in digital marketing conferences, I I would target those people as well.
Was there any fear or any imposter syndrome with your first few people? Well, even now, like, in do you ever get some sort of imposter syndrome, or is it more like, Yeah.
I'm I feel okay about doing this.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
1st.
Uh, definitely at first.
You know, I was kind of scared to to, like, mess with certain people who were, like, you know, consider, like, the big dogs, And then, um, there was a day where, like, it was just a lot to keep up with, just, like, messaging people and communicating because network became, like, huge for me just, like, building my network, networking, communicating, after hours, after I got to work, you know, or during my breaks, um, and then I asked my wife, I'm like, Hey, like, it's taking a long time for me to search for the people I wanna, you know, like, do interviews with, you know, like, I gave her some direction.
I'm like, hey, like, target these type of people in these rows, you know, so she would pretty much find them and then she would send out a message and I would do the rest.
And so when I hop back on my computer, she sent a bunch of people that I have seen, but I didn't message.
She don't know who they are.
She's like, oh, he looks influential.
Let me send her a message.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, Like, what are they gonna what are they gonna think about me? You know, like, the people that was hesitant to message, like, she would just be like, oh, send.
You know? And they were responding back, like, oh, yeah.
Let's do an interview.
I'm like, wow.
Gonna give me a quick shout out.
Like, just give me a quick out out to just say thank you for that push.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and they were down for, for the interviews, you know, they were pretty friendly.
They were chatting with me.
I'm like, oh, wow.
Like, you know, this is awesome.
So, so I definitely started off with, like, imposter syndrome and just like, I like confidence.
Um, and yeah, like now, I feel like I have, like, a lot more confidence, you know, I have a library of interviews and my pitch actually is very similar, um, but every time I get like a really high, um, like I do an interview with somebody who has a life following, I'll pitch that.
I'll be like, Hey, like, you know, when you wanna do an interview, check out this this one.
So currently, I I try to switch it up.
Currently, the one I use now is for Adrian Decker, and I feel like most people in the PPC community know who he is, you know, so as soon as they see a message by me, you know, they probably look at his interview and then they look at all the other PPC specialist, uh, interviews, and they're like, okay, like, you know, I definitely wanna, you know, um, do an interview with them.
And now people contact me at a random, you know, like, hey, uh, I saw you doing these interviews, you know, like, do you mind you know, and and then I look at their profile, and none of these people were, like, interns at a company or something like that.
Just just starting off.
No experience.
Like, there are people who are reputable, you know, in the industry.
So it's been going good.
After the break, we're going to share some of Omar's resources with you to help you learn Google Ads even faster.
But before we get into that, I want to tell you about a step that honestly shocked me when I heard it.
Did you know that the average online course completion rate is only between 5 to 15 set? I know, right? Pretty shocking.
And here's the thing.
As somebody who has his own Google Ads course and somebody who has taken multiple Google Ads courses, when I thought about it, it became pretty clear why the average online course completion rate is only between 5 15%.
Sometimes, you just get stuck, and you have a question to ask, and there's nothing longer than taking an online course and not being able to ask anyone a question while you're learning something.
And this is exactly why I started my Google Ads community called the feedback circle.
Now inside the feedback circle, you're gonna get weekly coaching calls with me where you can ask me anything we are going to give you master classes that are gonna help you level up your Google ads and learn super quick.
And last but not least, you're gonna have a community of people that you can talk to, that you can ask questions, that'll keep you accountable, and most of all, it'll keep you learning and keep it fun.
So if you're interested in finding out about the feedback circle and seeing everything included in my Google Ads community, What I want you to do is click on the link in the description below.
Now let's get back to the video.
You put together this guide.
Um, and what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna do a little bit of a screen share over here, and it's a very thorough guide Um, and what we're gonna do is we're also gonna link it below this episode as well.
Uh, let me just make sure that I have the correct screen on here.
Let's do this.
Alright.
Cool.
So you put together this guide, the PPC and SEM.
For those of you who don't know PPC's, uh, pay per click and SEM.
So basically Google Ads, Facebook ads, but mostly Google Ads because we're talking about search engine marketing.
And, um, it's a all things related guide.
And what I absolutely love about this guide is you talk to somebody who's just starting off their journey as Google Ads uh, or just learning Google Ads or just learning PPC, and basically you break down each and every single step of the journey.
Now what I want to do for the rest of this interview is I kinda wanna just talk to you about some things that while I was reading in the guide, they kind of stood out to me.
Um, so I've got some notes over here.
So the first thing that I wanted to ask you was I want you to tell me, put yourself in the shoes of a small business owner, somebody who's just learning about Google Ads, that it can generate money for him, or even maybe a digital marketer starting out.
And tell me what was some of your biggest, your biggest struggles when it came to learning PBC? I'm talking about when you were green, when you were brand new, when you kind of didn't know what to do and how to go talk to me what was, uh, about what was some of your biggest struggles? Yeah.
The biggest struggle is not knowing where where where exactly to start.
And then after you start, you know, heading the right direction, right, how do you continue to head in the right direction.
And the thing about digital marketing is that there's different areas of digital marketing, and so you can go down so many different rabbit holes.
And what happened to me was that I was studying everything about everything.
And it was just like theory for the most part, right? And so, like, if you don't put into practice, you're not really gonna truly understand it, right? And then when you learn like one area, and then let's say content marketing, and then you switch, you know, to like Google ads, right? There there there's 2 there are 2 different worlds.
So if you're really focusing on one area, right? And then you go move into the different area, you start to forget what you, what you learn.
You know, it becomes like stale knowledge because you never use it.
And so I was stuck in this just like area of my life where I was just like learning and learning and learning.
I felt like I was in confidence, uh, you know, I just felt like I needed to know more before I, like, dived into, um, actually doing certain things.
Yeah.
I was just like, I just lacked a lot of confidence, and I just got stuck in just trying to learn everything that I could before I actually really stepped out into the real world.
Um, and that that was the biggest challenge for me, and I would tell anybody, you know, um, you know, like pick one area of marketing.
Don't try to do all of it all at once.
Just pick one area and like stick to it Right? Because you're you're gonna, um, catch, um, I forgot the term, you know, uh, you know, when when you jump from, like, one course to the next, um, but anyways, yeah, you, you know, you're gonna get information overwhelm, basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're gonna get information overload, right? Um, and, uh, yeah, if you start down one path, you know, you're gonna be like, most people are gonna think, like, if you do PPC and Google ads, you're gonna be looking at the people who are successful, you know, on LinkedIn doing great things.
You know, are you gonna look at the person who has an affiliate marketing, you know, a business that he's building up his website, making passive income? There you're gonna look at the YouTube influencer who has, like, millions of subscribers, right? And it's, you know, I'm pretty sure a lot of them really stuck, like, they really, um, stuck with that area of marketing until they started to see good results, and then they just, like, ramp it up.
You know, um, but I think this guide here that we have, it's definitely a great place to start, uh, especially for Google Ads and PVC, because it gives you just, I guess, like, we start off with, like, a mindset, like, theory versus, you know, like, real practical, um, knowledge.
And then, um, I give resources on, like, different tools and websites that people use in their in the industry.
Uh, a bunch of YouTube channels, you know, yours included.
And, uh, and so I feel about mine being included by that.
I'm super psyched about that.
Like, when I saw my face there, I was like, oh my gosh.
Oh, fuck.
Put me in this thing.
Yeah.
And then, uh, a bunch of people in, in the, in the marketing space that you can follow who are very active, you know.
So just that guide along will give you a lot of direction.
So what I want to talk about is This is a very interesting topic to me because as somebody with his own Google Ads course, the first thing I tell my students to do is to go out there and lose money on Google Ads.
Oh, And a lot of people would look at that and go, well, that's kind of shady.
These people don't know anything about Google Ads.
How dare you go and tell people to go out there and run, uh, Google Ads? And my analogy to my students is always, I can teach you how to swim.
With a whole bunch of videos and a textbook, or you can just jump in the water.
Okay.
The one thing that you need to understand is there is no amount of teaching that I can give you.
There is no amount of theory that I can give you.
That'll make you understand that once you start spending Google Ads and once you start seeing money going from your account, all of a sudden, you'll start taking it seriously.
And, you mentioned, um, a very interesting part in your article, and I wanna read that to you because I think that hit home for me, um, when I was thinking about, you know, how my students feel be before they sign up for my course or even sometimes during my course because I know there's a lot of business owners out there that feel like, oh, I should be doing YouTube ads, but I should be doing Google search ads, but I should be doing display ads, but I should also be doing TikTok ads because that's where all of the new younger customers are.
And they kind of feel like they are missing out if they're not learning everything all at once.
Um, so in other words, the YouTube feed is just full of different videos, and you mentioned this is so beautiful.
You said I found myself trapped in a frustrating cycle, sometimes mentally stimulated, stimulated and satisfied with my learning efforts, yet still sensing that something vital was missing.
Can you talk a bit about that feeling? Yeah.
Yeah.
I know, um, I know, like, Yeah.
My my journey was like all over the place when it came to digital marketing.
Um, I know I bought a course on affiliate marketing, right? And I started to build out my blog.
I started, um, about the tools like Hrefs, you know, Surf for SEO.
Um, I, uh, started building out my worksheets to, you know, Outreach for backlinks, um, and I started writing articles, uh, with like Jasper dot ai, Uh, and all these tools, you know, might seem like complicated, you know, but they're actually pretty simple.
You know, and one thing I noticed too with like tools, you know, sometimes like Sam Rush, you can do a 1,000,000,000 things.
But a lot of times you just use, like, you know, like, 2% of the tool, right? Because you just want to get results, right? You don't want to learn everything about everything, like, reporting and all this complicated stuff, just use the tool, don't let it use you.
And so I got into, um, affiliate marketing and I was kind of torn.
I'm like, uh, maybe I want to do, like, I want to be, I want to focus on Google Ads.
I'm already working in the field, and so I stopped that, you know, um, what else did I get into? I know when when I first got into the field, I was torn between SEO and Google Ads.
So I was trying to learn SEO And then I was trying to learn PPC at the same time, and I wanted to get a job.
And so the interviews were like, Oh, so what do you know about a CO? I'm like, Oh, I know this, this, and that.
And then another interview was, what do you know about PPC? And so I felt divided.
And then I'm like, you know what? Let me just focus on PPC, you know, um, then the interviews, like everything that I was learning was just like PPC related.
So now when I hopped on the interview, more comfortable, more calm because you you you kind of put the time into this one container versus 2 containers.
Exactly.
So I felt like a lot more confident.
The information was fresh on my mind.
Um, and And I took other courses too to start different, like, digital marketing, like, businesses.
And, you know, even though I didn't, like, stick with it, you know, most people might be like, Oh, you're lost in money, you're gonna make a return investment, but, I did become more well, more around it.
Right? So what we spoke about earlier was, like, trying out different jobs, you know, and just, like, trying to figure it out.
Like, that can happen within the digital marketing space.
Right? We try out different areas of marketing and things don't work out, uh, and you know it didn't work out, and now you're, you know, you find peace with yourself, and then eventually you find that one area that, you know, that that you like that calls you, Um, and then when you get into it, you find out, wow, you you can have a huge impact on your business, you know, or professionally just sticking to to one area, and you don't have to do it all, right? You don't have to do You don't have to learn Google as Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapshot ads, you know, Pinterest, uh, Spotify.
Um, if you stick to 1 and you learn how to, you know, use it to get leads to get results.
Right? That's what matters at the end of the day.
It's not getting fancy.
You know, just try to keep things simple, right, like streamline it, simplify, and just learn how to work it.
Yep.
I think also, you have to understand that you learning anything is kind of like cooking.
So not that I know how to cook anyway.
The analogy that came to my mind.
Learning anything is like cooking, right, you can have a 1000 different types of ingredients, but you can't blame the ingredients if you didn't make the right meal.
You kind of have to understand what you're doing and you kind of have to repeat some meals over and over until you can make a real good dish And then you can serve that dish, and you can be confident in that dish because you know that this is a meal that I've prepared 20 times, 50 times.
I think a lot of people, what they start off doing is they start adding knowledge, but they haven't even pursued one path They they kind of I know this because when I was a business owner, I did the same thing.
We're chasing after the easiest thing to make the next $1000.
That's really if we had to uh, break it down to what it was.
We wanna find the easiest way to make the next $1000.
And usually what happens is when we go down that path, it turns out it's a 3 year path.
And we look at it and we're like, uh, do I really wanna spend 3 years here, maybe I should switch because the grass looks green.
It looks like everybody's making money on TikTok.
So maybe I can make my next $1000 on TikTok.
What happens is you spend the next 3 weeks learning about tick TikTok marketing, and it turns out guess what? All of the marketing fundamentals that they would have taught you in that Google Ads course, guess what? They're gonna just teach you the same fundamentals over there in that TikTok course, and now you have to learn the system and learn the UI and learn the dashboard from all over again.
So I'm very happy that you shared that that little quote.
It when I read it, I just smiled because I know that feeling.
I know that feeling of overwhelm of having too much information.
So the question I wanna put forward to you is if I was brand new and I was just starting Google Ads today, I made my mind up.
I said, yes, Google Ads is for me.
I feel like it's right for my business, and I wanna learn about Google Ads, what are the 2 or 3 steps that you would recommend to take, um, to really just, you know, as a beginner, just learn Google Ads, but not to overwhelm myself with too much information? Yeah.
That's great.
I think, uh, first off, starting off with the basics, right? Um, I know you got a course.
So just learning the fundamentals and the basics.
Um, it's it's it's important, right? Cause you you wanna understand the marketing lingo, right? Like cost per click or, um, you know, click through rates and stuff like that.
Um, so just learn the fundamentals after that, you know, you spoke about, like, just diving in.
Right? So PBs, you know, running ads is very different from SEO.
Right? SEO, you can learn something, and you can build a website, start to optimize it, like, on page, right, technical SEO, and, uh, you're not losing money.
Like, you're in control.
Like, write some content, you know, see how it does, and pretty much build it over time with PVC, right? Um, you need to spend some money, right? Like, you know, you want to break into the field, you gotta like find an account, like either a client, right, or, like, a business that that that is spending money.
Um, and it's that one initial step that that that makes it even more difficult to break into PPC you know, um, but if you wanna run PPC for yourself, right, you can't just stay stuck, like, learning everything about it, um, because it can get very, very technical, right? You know, Pmax came out a few years ago, right, performance max, and you got scripts, and, you know, even when I looked in in LinkedIn, I'm like, people talk about all these super complicated stuff, right? But even with the fundamentals, you can still, you know, generate some good leads, right, and then close them if you gotta do the system.
And so I would say, like, the number number 1 is, you know, final course or, you know, really study your fundamentals.
Yep.
Number 2, like, start running ads, right? I wouldn't, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say, like, hey, like, like, just just run ads without any help.
I think if you really have, like, a mentor or a coach, right, who can guide you, and and not do the work for you, but, you know, like, kinda help you along the way and answer any questions, now you're, you know, instead of making a mistake and not knowing that why you made a mistake or why you didn't do something you know, the right way, you have somebody, you know, as like, uh, a spotter, right, who can guide you and and and show you, like, how to get it done.
Right? It's like a safety net.
So and now I need that, you know, you're asking questions, and you're gaining feedback, you're getting answers.
And then over time, once you launch your ads, right, another part of Google ads, you gotta optimize it.
You gotta make the machine work better.
And so I think with a coach, you know, um, you can be able to, um, learn how to optimize the correct way, and then it's also gonna speed up your learning curve because, you know, like, if you're, like, just going to YouTube after you learn the fundamentals, right, you might get stuck in, like, just watching a bunch of YouTube videos about everything Google as related, right, and you don't need to know everything.
You just need to know the, you know, what's the next step.
Right? You build out a campaign, then you launch it, and then these are the few ways the the most common ways that you can optimize and add, right, and I think when you stick to the basics, but you do them really well, um, you start to see some some good results.
So Yeah.
Definitely.
So what we do in our Google Ads course, just to brag a little bit, please.
I launched my first Google Ads course on YouTube, and I had instant regret because when I launched my Google Ads course, it was call 8 hours of knowledge maybe.
Mhmm.
And the moment I push publish on that video, that information became outdated, um, because, obviously, Google is changing the UI.
They're changing their bidding set they're changing where everything is in the dashboard.
So, automatically, I had a problem now because I had this course that was out there that people were learning from, but it's kind of old knowledge.
And if you know anything about YouTube is you can't go and update a video.
Once it's out, it's out.
You can either choose to just drop the video and, um, like, unlist it, but you can't really go and update a video.
So that means I'm teaching people, but I'm teaching them on old knowledge.
So the first thing I decided to do was to have regular updates.
The second and third thing that I decided to do was I wanted my course to have a private community where people can ask us anything.
Because I know where people they get stuck.
Just it's it's just part of life.
Like, in when you're doing PPC, you get stuck.
You know, you you're wondering about this.
Should you go should you go a broad match exact match? Should you choose phrase match? Should you just not bother at all with the campaign, you kinda get stuck and you have these little questions and there's never anyone to ask.
So I built the private community.
And then what we also did was we put in monthly coaching.
And this is what makes it so cool because when I tell people to go out there and, like, kind of jump in the water, I know that the the ecosystem is set up around them so that we can rescue them whenever they need it.
You know, just put your hand up and the lifeguard will come out and rescue you from work.
Uh, Google Ads, um, for your Google Ads, um, um, situation, whatever it is.
But I find, for beginners, what they absolutely do is they just wanna be in that knowledge cycle.
They just wanna learn and learn and learn because learning feels good.
Learning is there's no risk to learning.
And I absolutely agree with you when you say you need the mentoring as well, and you need to go and spend money on ads.
But somebody's probably watching this video and they're wondering, Devon Omar, you said spend money on ads.
What if I don't have any money? What if I don't have a business? Or what if I'm still thinking about doing my business, but I'm not really sure about my final idea, but I just wanna learn how to do Google Ads.
What what would you advise that person? Yeah.
I think the the number one thing is, um, find a nonprofit and run some Google Ads grant.
Uh, and, yeah, Google find a nonprofit with a Google Ad grant account, right? And so there's a couple websites you have catch a fire You also have volunteer match.
Um, and there's a lot of nonprofits there who don't know Google Ads, you know, and so you can volunteer, um, and even if you had, like, just know the fundamentals, like, that's more than what they know, and they'll be happy to hand it over to you, right? And so Google Ads gives you $10,000 in like credits or or, you know, money, uh, per month, which is crazy if I don't know how many months, but, um, yeah, you can run run run ads.
And so you start to not to spend on yourself, by the way.
It's not to spend on yourself.
You have to spend it on ads.
Okay? It's not like Google's gonna be a check-in the middle.
You actually have to run it in the Google Ads account.
Yeah.
So I think that's a bit plain for you.
Right, to just learn how to set up, like, basic conversion tracking, right, just create some account, some ad groups, pick some keywords, write some ad copy, um, link that to, you know, the the final destination page, the URL, So I think that's a great place, like, perfect to start off.
Um, and then also, you know, if maybe you can't find, uh, like, you can also even contact nonprofits and be like, Hey, did you know, you know, Google Ads, like, gives you, like, a grant, you know, for free money, you know, uh, to promote your business.
Um, that would take a little bit more steps because then you gotta create a account for them and just, like, set that up.
Um, but that's another way to to you know, to get real hands on experience.
And it's, you know, it's the client, like, the the business doesn't feel it because it's not coming out of their pockets.
Right? So you don't have the pressures of like, hey.
I'm, you know, spending money, like, how much am I making in return? Is this really working? You know, putting all the stress on you and, like, asking you what what is, you know, this dashboard said, this metric, like, what's going on, you know, it's stressing you out.
So that's the first way to do it.
Uh, the second way to do it is just, you know, which would, you know, be pretty hard if there's, like, find your own clients, right, so you kinda gotta set up a whole business around that.
Um, but if you have a friend, who is a PPC specialist or somebody who's willing to, uh, coach you or train you for free, you know, even if you pay them, you know, um, yeah, they they might have access to client accounts you know, that they're working on that they're able to share with you, and then they can just kinda break down, you know, why the account is set up this way, answer any questions that you may have, you know, maybe have you manage it, you know, for free, and you start to get some hands on experience.
So I think those are a few few ways to, you know, get your feet wet when starting off.
I wanted to talk to you about you mentioned at growth mentors.
Of growth mentors, like a website called growth mentors.
Yeah.
What exactly is that? Yeah.
So when was this, like, when I first worked my agency job, I wanted to continue to learn, the the people in the team were awesome, but I saw that, you know, like, with any companies, like, if you have a manager or director above you, right, they're kinda like your ceiling.
Right? So so I was like, towards your growth.
So I wanted to continue to learn on the side, and I knew that a lot of the courses I took started to kind of repeat themselves.
It was just like the fundamentals And I was like, you know, I think I need a coach.
There's somebody I can ask personalized questions.
Um, and so I made an account with the website, and it's been a while now, but it was like, you know, paid, you know, a certain amount, 275 a month, um, and you can, you know, you have access to all these mentors for free.
Right? Uh, some of them were paid, right, and some of them had, like, uh, coaching programs that you can enroll in.
And so, you know, you book, like, 30, 15, 30 minute sessions with these mentors, and they're all, like, vetted.
They're, like, real professionals in the marketing field.
And so I started booking, like, a ton of, like, 30 minute calls.
Right? And so, you know, I will happen to call and I will pick their brains.
I will ask them questions.
And at the time, I was fairly young.
I was just, like, starting off in in a marketing.
So I had a hard time kinda, like, knowing what questions to ask.
You know, I didn't know, like, how to extract knowledge for them.
So I was just, like, asking questions.
Give me an example.
Like, give me an example.
Would you ask? Man, I I know I asked, like, hey, like, how do you do, like, conversion tracking? You know? So so that that was a little bit simpler, but it's like, I'm like, oh, how do you build out an account? Like, what kind of structure do you use? You know, I actually service level questions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, um, the beauty is that, you know, with the mentor, um, if you get stuck, right, like you're building out a campaign, Um, it, like, everybody's, uh, account is different, or everybody's marketing journey is different.
So if you get stuck in the area, you can find somebody, right? Like, in your community, you can ask a specific question, like, Hey, I'm stuck here, like, what should I do? A lot of times, like, you can't just go on YouTube and find that information, right? That that's the hard thing about just free resources, like finding a blog or a YouTube video.
You might find something around your answer.
That you're trying to figure out.
But I think a community you get tailored, personalized, um, you know, uh, responses to your questions.
Wow.
That that's very true because I think sometimes you have that direct question that needs that direct answer and you're in a unique business niche or you're in a unique situation.
Exactly.
And that's where it gets tough because you can apply, you know, the blanket statement knowledge, but for some industries and some specific situations, there's a completely different approach, and I think that's where a mentor really comes in clutch.
Yeah.
I agree.
100%.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Alright.
So to close this interview out, You've interviewed 86 people who are experts in the field when it comes to Google Ads, when it comes to PPC, when it comes to search engine marketing.
Right? You've you've also mentioned some of the biggest names like in your document.
You've talked about Aaron Young, Darren Taylor, Servside, BBC, me and my channel, and I wanna ask you this question.
After you've you've kind of gone through this whole process and you've dug up all of this gold.
When you've spoken to all of these BBC experts, what are some of the common traits that you see in people that are very good with Google Ads? And maybe what are some of the common things in their backgrounds that also align a lot that you maybe didn't expect? What are some of the unexpected things that you saw in the data when you were, you know, conducting your interviews and doing your research? Yeah.
I'll start off with the unexpected.
Um, everybody's mark uh, everybody's journey was different.
Right? Yeah.
There was one guy in an interview who's at a really young age when he was a teenager.
He was selling things on eBay.
Right? And he was learning how to optimize, like, I guess the title tags or descriptions and, you know, he was making money that way at a young age, right? Like, I wasn't making money at a young age.
I was playing basketball outside with my friends.
And so then he transitioned into like a business and now he's a successful PPC specialist.
Um, and so, but then there's other people who like start off really late in their lives, right? They they probably work as a teacher they said, Hey, teaching was not for me, you know, and somehow they worked at a company, they start off in sales, they transition into marketing, right? Now they're into PPC doing great things.
Um, there's people who were from, like, big cities, like, you know, um, London or, like, New York City or Los Angeles.
And, you know, they they managed to get a pretty good job.
And then there's people that just live in, like, just random places in the US that you have never heard of, like, in the farms.
Right? Um, and there's a lot of PPC specialists, um, in so many different countries, right? Like, you have PPC specialists in Romania, right? Kenya, like, uh, Israel, right? And you would think, like, oh, like, if you have a job in PC, you're probably from the US, UK, Australia.
Right? Um, but there are just, like, people from so many different walks of life and they're doing like PPC.
They they had different journeys.
Some were bumpy.
Some of them, you know, were just like a straight line, like what you mentioned earlier.
So that that's the one thing that I found out I didn't really expect.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
And what would you say the the attributes are? It's so hard to say attributes.
I'm trying to find the right word.
Character is.
What are the types of personality traits? Maybe.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
I I think all kinds of personality traits, right, like, I have met people who are communicated with people who were, like, really big introverts Right? Like, they just wanted to learn, like, the technical stuff, but they hated, like, reporting and client communication.
Right? And then some of them were, like, started off in one business, and then now they'll open up a business, you know, uh, a PPC agency.
Um, but I think one of the few things that I saw, like, over and over again, it's just, like, being hungry to, to learn.
Right? And asks a lot of questions because this industry, like, there's always changes, right? And especially within, like, each platform, right? Like, Google Ads, um, there's this whole thing now with, like, privacy, Right? And so they're they're changing up the how.
Yeah.
Exactly.
You know, how conversions is conducted and and everything.
So one thing I noticed that, like, a lot of them were asked questions.
Right? Like, why why does this work this way? Like, what's gonna happen if I try this out? Right? Um, they test they're not afraid to test, right, and lose money.
They they wanna experiments um, they ask other people, they ask their network for, you know, about the questions they have, or they ask for help, um, and they stay on top of, like, the latest trends because, you know, you can get outdated pretty quickly.
You know, um, the same tactics or experiments that you use today, uh, or that you use in the past, it's not might not work today.
Um, and some of them know that um, you always have to experiment because, like, what you applied in, you know, one area, maybe, like, New York City isn't gonna apply in, like, Miami, Florida, right? Like, the the competition is different, even though if you use the same landing page, same, uh, copy on the ads, same keywords, same campaign structure, right? It might work wonderfully one area, but it might not somewhere else, you know, so you know, it you can't settle for like, oh, yeah, I I I know the fundamentals or I'm pretty skilled.
Like, I don't gotta, you know, nobody gotta tell me how I how to run my mindset, basically.
Yeah.
You gotta, yeah, a growth mindset, and then you gotta be really humble and know that you don't know at all.
You know? And we're also still trying to figure figure it out.
Like, even Google comes up with updates, and they don't really know the impacts of these updates, but us marketers, we gotta go in there and try things out.
Receive some feedback, create some hypothesis, right, and and just make it happen.
One thing that I've noticed that I found very weird coming from South Africa.
In South Africa, everybody likes to hold on to their valuable knowledge.
So first on YouTube, I noticed that the American culture loves to share knowledge.
Right? If you allow to make $10,000, the first thing you do is you got there and you show other people how to do So I thought, okay.
Maybe it's an American thing.
Americans are always bragadocious, so maybe it's just them showing off.
Yeah.
And then I went on to LinkedIn, and I found it very refreshing that all of the Google ad experts on LinkedIn are sharing.
They're just sharing.
They're asking questions.
They're learning from one another.
I won't say I've ever seen a closed off Google Ads, um, expert or, uh, somebody who works on Google Ads, like, in every single post I see from somebody working with Google Ads is basically just sharing knowledge and saying, hey.
This work for me or, hey.
This is how you figure out consent mode.
Oh, hey.
I tried 3 types of keyword match types.
This is what we found best.
After doing a test on, um, $150,000,000 worth of ad spends.
And I found that very refreshing because even if you go to LinkedIn and you're just, you know, scrolling through and reading, you're actually learning.
You're it might feel like social media it's not really social media in a traditional sense.
Oh, this is just dopamine.
You know what I'm saying? It's it's proper learning just going through your LinkedIn feed once you have the right people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I I I definitely agree.
I feel like the majority of the PPC community in the space, um, they're they're fairly open, right, to help you out.
They really share knowledge.
I have met people who have told me, oh, like check out this tool, but make sure you don't tell anybody because, you know, it's gonna help you to stand, you know, it's gonna help you to stand out from, like, the competition.
I'm like, ah, like, that's not the right mindset to have, because we don't know it all.
You know, it's like, I'm not willing to share with you know, other people with certain things, and they're not willing to share with me certain things, we're both not gonna grow.
Right? Um, and yeah.
So I I think that's awesome, you know, that so many people share, like, freely so much information.
And I feel like the more information you share, um, you know, like, it's kinda like karma, you know, like, you you well, one thing here is that the more information you share, you're gonna get back like probably ten times more, you know, might not be immediately, but definitely down the years, you're gonna see a huge impact, right? So imagine if, you know, you don't wanna share knowledge.
You wanna keep it to yourself, but you would just wanna read it.
Yeah.
And you wanna read everybody's like post, right? Your following is not good girl.
And the beauty about sharing your knowledge is that you grow as an authority figure, right? You brand and precision yourself in a certain way uh, opportunities come from that.
You might get contacted by a recruiter, you know, maybe by, uh, a small agency, you know, um, or if you're applying for a job, they will look first thing they're gonna look at is, alright, like, what kind of activity this guy has on his page? And if they see, like, you know, all the knowledge that you're sharing, okay, like this guy knows something, you know, let's give him a shot, you know, let's bring him in for an interview.
Um, so now I need that, you know, if you want to find clients, and you put it on content, you know, for like that client specifically, you know, they're gonna see, wow, this guy's speaking to my pain points, you know, he understands me, like, he knows the problems.
You know, like, I'm trying to solve, Yeah.
Yeah.
This guy's following me around.
Um, so yeah, you, yeah, definitely give him back.
And then when you get back, like, you build, you know, relationship.
You're expanding your network.
And who knows? Like, you might get fired one day or lose a job.
Um, and these people can help you out.
Yeah.
I always know this is from, church.
Every single time I went to church and they used to have tied in offerings there, you're supposed to give 10% of your your income or your money or whatever you have on you and always went to the front and I always gave money away.
No one felt better when I went back to my seat.
And I think knowledge is quite similar, whereby a lot of people wanna only give if they're gonna get something back.
But I think it's a beautiful thing because the people who are sharing, caring, giving, those are the people that naturally go further in life.
The people who are constantly restricting and holding and Those are the people that stay exactly where they are year after year.
And I think for as a Christian starting out, I I kind of didn't understand why I would I'd have to let go of cash.
But now as I'm older, I can see that it's prepared me so much more so that when I release YouTube content, like we've got a 140 videos out now, it it's so much easier for me to give because I've been practicing giving since I was young versus somebody who maybe didn't grow up without that set of beliefs.
So I think giving is a very good way to position yourself yourself like an expert But, also, if we just take away everything, let's say there's no advantages to giving whatsoever, it still feels better than just holding something back.
That's what I've always noticed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, like, I I've been given, like, over 10% for, like, 10 years you know, um and it does something to you, right? Like, I feel like naturally as human beings, we're selfish, we're greedy, right? We we wanna have an advantage over others.
Yeah.
Um, but like being selfless Right? Uh, given something to others that are less fortunate, you know, or for a cause, um, it does something to you as a person, right? Um, it is weird.
It's really weird, you know, but it's just that's just life, you know, that's how things work.
And, um, it's the same thing here, you know, with, uh, as a PPC specialist, right? Sharing and knowledge, um, I know, um, every now and then, uh, people contact me like, Hey, you know, I want to hop on a call with you and you just come out of nowhere.
I'm like, okay, well I'm kind of busy.
I got this going on, you know, I don't know what this is about.
And obviously, um, a lot of them were from like other countries as well, and you know, they probably need a help in hand.
So I don't like meet with everybody.
I contact me, but, um, recently there was a guy from, um, was it Iran? He was from Iran, um, or Iraq.
I'm getting it mixed up Um, but we hopped on the call, you know, and he knew the fundamentals, like, pretty well.
I'm like, okay, you know, he, he, um, you know, like, he was co contacting a bunch of pea businesses and, one of the businesses was out in Australia.
So now he has a small little account that he works on.
And, you know, we have him on call, and he asked me questions.
I was able to guide him, and now we stay in contact here and there.
Um, but his problem is that you know, in a country like his, there's not as many opportunities, you know, as there is in the in in the US, you know.
So, um, just being able to help out at least one person, you know, it feels good.
And it's like, I'm not asking for anything in return.
You know? Yeah.
No money.
No nothing.
I'm just like, hey.
Like, let's just have a regular friendship and ask them some questions.
The beauty about that is the knowledge that you got for free.
Most of the knowledge that you got for free because your network is so good and people have been adding value to you, you can now give away some of that knowledge for free as well.
And somebody else can benefit as well.
And so all of us grow together, you know, in the marketing space.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, um, to point out, this article that you, you know, went over earlier that I wrote, um, you know, that was the article that I created before I started the interviews.
And so that took me a few weeks And I was like, I gotta have a big bang.
So, boom, I put put out that article, and I started sharing it with my network.
My network was pretty small.
And so I actually shared it, and I didn't really really know, with an agency owner, and he thought the article was like really great.
And he, you know, asked me, like, hey, this is awesome.
A lot of great points.
Um, do you know anybody who might be looking for a part time job? You know, um, in a PBC agency and I was like, Hey, like I'm working in house, but, you know, what have you got? And so, you know, I started helping him out on the side for like, you know, a few hours a week.
We build a relationship and, you know, he he was looking for small things like, how fast I was able to communicate to his emails, their attention to details, and, um, you know, if I was hungry to learn, like, you know, the basic stuff, um, and so after that, you know, we went out to eat and he asked me to, you know, if I wanted to work with him full time.
And I was like, yeah, you know, let's let's do it.
And so from one article that I built, right? I pretty much got, like, a job, a pay increase, and and everything.
So Yeah.
That's beautiful.
Oh, for sharing your knowledge.
That brings that brings everything back full circle.
I absolutely loved it.
Well, Umah, if somebody's watching this video right now and they're saying, Hey, uh, Omar, I wanna, I wanna kind of be in your circle.
And I, I wanna kind of learn from you.
I wanna watch your interviews.
Can you tell us a little bit about number 1, how we can reach you? And also number 2, um, are you working on anything that we should know about? Like, do you have maybe a newsletter coming out, or what are some of the best ways to follow you online and really support what you're doing? Yeah.
Yeah.
So the main platform that I'm really on, uh, it's just LinkedIn, you know, Omar Reyes, um, and, um, yeah, like, I am thinking about I'm gonna continue to put out, just like more interviews, I'm already scheduled, uh, to have an interview, like, 1 per day until like the middle of April, you know, so so, uh, those are gonna keep coming out.
So if you hop on, you know, follow me, add me, um, you're gonna see all these articles and you can just go in there and see people's backgrounds, the tools that they use, their journey, uh, any words of wisdom that they give, you know, for people starting out, so you'll get a lot from there I am, um, you know, thinking about creating another article, uh, and basically I'm gonna just grab a little bit from like, um, most people that I interview, just like one huge highlight, and I'm just gonna, um, just, like, create a document, flash it out, you know, and that way, you know, maybe you're press on time and you can go through all these interviews, you know, you can just go to this one article, And then you can get all the highlights from just all the past, like, 80 something interviews that I had.
Thank you.
Omar, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on.
Guys, I am gonna link Omar's details down.
Um, link is in the description of this video.
Um, so glad to have you here.
It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
And, yeah, I'm wishing you all the best, my friend.
Thank you so much for making a meaningful difference on LinkedIn to my life and to a whole lot of other people.
We appreciate that.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for watching to the end.
If you wanna see more interviews like this, make sure you click on that subscribe button and also If you want to know how to get a lot more clients from your current Google Ads, I want you to check out this interview with Darren Taylor over here.
See you on the next one
