PPCChat | Things I Wish I Knew Sooner in PPC | 4th August 2026

This week’s PPCChat focused on the lessons PPC experts wish they had learned earlier, covering client and stakeholder communication, PPC career decisions, account management, and valuable insights gained through experience. Here is the screencap of the discussion hosted by Julie F Bacchini.

Q1: What is something you know now in general about PPC that you wished you knew sooner?

A good campaign can still fail if the client can’t close the deals.. @Pete_Bowen

We are always in some part of a cycle, so even if things are not great, it will not stay that way. @NeptuneMoon

How many versions of a right answer there are. There are so many ways to do things well. @JuliaVyse

There is no one right answer. There are sooo many hidden settings — sometimes I’m still finding stuff I didn’t know we could adjust! @revaminkoff

Classic example of a cycle that repeats is – in-house vs. agency/consultants. Businesses constantly swing between – why are we paying so much to an agency/consultant when we could just hire someone? Then is swings to – why are we paying for full time people plus benefits when we could just hire an agency/consultant for only the work we need? And repeat…@NeptuneMoon

I wish I knew plumbers and electricians would be making 300k/year, while coders and marketers would be replaced by AI pretty quickly, lol. In all honesty that there is no magic pill or right way of doing things. Then if you find something work with one client, it could fail miserably with the next one. @Ichasse

Also, macro economic forces very much impact our work! From how campaigns land and perform to how easy or hard it is to book new work. @NeptuneMoon

@revaminkoff Just remember if it is hidden, it means they actually don’t want you to use it. Use it while you can, but understand it could disappear down the road. Google uses the answer of only X% were using it (after we hid it) so we turned it off, lol. @Ichasse

Random Acts of Google (or Meta or Microsoft, etc) can really ruin your week or month too! @NeptuneMoon

That the site is half the work. @duanebrown

1 bad day/week/month doesn’t mean that the whole strategy is a failure, depending on scale. Sample size is a real thing, and you don’t need to completely overhaul the strategy just because you didn’t convert 1 lead out of 3 clicks on a Sunday. @AnthonyMcDaniel

I wish I had known it would become the shitshow it is now and started charging WAY more starting 8 years ago. @ynotweb

Statistical analysis matters @williamhboggs

Q2: What is something you know now about managing PPC accounts that you wished you knew sooner?

Sometimes things will just stop working. And it has nothing to do with the work you have done in that campaign or account up until that point. Organic and paid should really try to work better together too! @NeptuneMoon

You cannot effectively cover mass geographic areas with an insufficient budget, no matter how badly the client insists that you can or must. Most businesses have a very poor understanding of why anyone actually buys what they sell. @NeptuneMoon

The power of scripts. In my early years I did so many things that could have been handled by well written scripts. You can pull massive data sets, etc… with one script vs. having to make several reports.

Also it is not always your fault if something is not working. If the site is terrible, SEO is bad, etc… we get impacted pretty heavily in performance. Also product selection, pricing, etc… I used to always take it personally if something was not working, but these days I know there is a difference between the work I do and the other pieces of the puzzle. @Ichasse

Creative and landing pages (including conversion tracking) matter more than hard targets @navahhopkins

Platforms will pick and choose what they emphasize and the stuff they leave out or gloss over might really impact the campaigns you are running. Example of this would be when Google Ads announced lifting the conversion floor for smart bidding. They said it could work with any level of conversions – you no longer needed 50 in a month for smart bidding to work. In reality? The documentation still says the system needs that level (or at least it did). And if you are below this threshold, things do not work the same! @NeptuneMoon

This might be better suited to something re client communication but I wish I’d realised earlier than I’m managing accounts on behalf of clients, not delivering results on behalf of the platform. @Pete_Bowen

Not everyone can make every account work, no matter how amazing you are. Sometimes it is them and not you. @duanebrown

Having a detailed contract is a MUST. And it should have clear terms, including what is not included and how you address scope changes. @NeptuneMoon

@NeptuneMoon does that statement apply to all platforms equally, or is this mostly targeted at one? I ask in case there are ways we could be more clear @navahhopkins

Two seemingly contradictory concepts: @timmhalloran

1. Communicating consistently is seen as transparency. The specialist who communicates changes, or ups and downs to the client while they’re managing an account is seen as a harder workers and/or more competent than the specialist who doesn’t communicate. Many times, this is irrespective of an account’s performance or the actual work done.
2. It’s difficult to not get caught in that “cardinal metrics” loop when you’re communicating performance. Many of us gear our content to the audience in the meeting so we’ll focus on big picture changes and performance across the quarter or year-over-year when you’re talking to a CMO or owner. If you’re discussing with a marketing manager you may go into the leading indicators and explain what the trends your seeing indicate. But because PPC is difficult to comprehend sometimes, you can find yourself over-explaining these indicators when it’s probably better to remove the adverbs from the discussion, focus on top-line metrics, and only discuss tactics if it’s material to understanding your overall strategy.

You can run the best campaign ever from a front end perspective, with all the platform metrics looking great, but if things aren’t converting to quality on the backend, the client is not going to be happy. @revaminkoff

@navahhopkins Microsoft does tend to be more clear in its communications. Google is polished but not speaking to PPC pros in their comms as well as they should, I find. I wish they had a blog equivalent of their developers Discord. Meta is awful all the way around, @NeptuneMoon

On the Enterprise side: there is a very limited understanding of how other channels interact with search volume and results. Client search experts expect miracles, and client search novices don’t believe it’s necessary for closing the last purchase decision. @JuliaVyse

Funny, because you can be auditing an account and it has all the “worst” practices and the account could be doing amazing. Then an account doing all the things we all see generally as the best practices is struggling. @Ichasse

It pains me to write this, but sometimes, the account just isn’t a good fit. And that’s ok. @revaminkoff

Infinite scale is not the goal of every account. And that is ok! In fact, all accounts will hit a wall of diminishing returns at some point. @NeptuneMoon

@Ichasse that’s also why it’s difficult to convert leads that see it as “all fake”. Explaining why worst vs. best practices seems to fall on deaf ears without a big data study. Sometimes you get lucky and are able to pull the narrative from data that already exists. But when it doesn’t, it can get tricky. @timmhalloran

Also “everyone” is not your target audience. EVER. You are LITERALLY PAYING FOR CLICKS. Be a little deliberate in who you are trying to get to do that @NeptuneMoon

Tracking measurement and data is SOOOOO important. If you don’t have the right foundation, the rest doesn’t matter. @revaminkoff

Beware an account that has been using bullshit conversion data too. @NeptuneMoon

@revaminkoff agreed. Also why I like to build a month of onboard into contracts. Sometimes 6 weeks to 2 months for bigger builds. I’ve seen clients balk at that because they want to get started right away and my reply always is, “you’ll thank me 4 months from now” (but in a nicer way). @timmhalloran

There are limitless things that businesses can do internally (outside of our scope) that can drastically impact your campaign’s success without you knowing it.

• website updates
• changed phone number
• update to CRM

Any of these can completely tank & reset your campaigns, and it’s not your fault. But be aware and vigilant @AnthonyMcDaniel

The outside world has almost as much effect (if not more) than what you’re doing in the ad accounts. Something happens to make people search, your job is to get them in the right mindset and give them the “right” answer to their question. @Aaronlevy

Along the same lines, I wish I had known time needed to manage accounts was going to take 10x more effort. Maybe I would have put more time into certain aspects like script writing and training junior associates. then again, maybe I am happy I didnt. @ynotweb

You can use Google Apps Scripts to manage Labels across your whole MCC to diagnose things more easily. You can also use it to update custom Dashboards (I use Notion) @williamhboggs

Q3: What is something you know now about client or stakeholder communication that you wished you knew sooner?

You are going to start at the beginning and re-confirm many more times over than you think. @JuliaVyse

Not everyone responds well to the same tone. Authority voices need variants @navahhopkins

Explain things simply. I also ask my contact points what questions THEY need to be able to answer comfortably internally and make sure I am providing them with that information in a way they understand and can smartly discuss with their teams and bosses. @NeptuneMoon

Have a contract. @revaminkoff

I’ll go even further to what @NeptuneMoon said. Explain things in words of one syllable or less. @Pete_Bowen

@revaminkoff A million times yes to a contract! Include way more in your terms than you think you need to. I suggest, among many other things, including your turnaround time for requests, stating your time zone and standard working hours and laying out the billing structure. @NeptuneMoon

Also exactly what you will be doing for the quoted price. Otherwise, you will get scoped creeped to death without a clear parameter to charge more for additional work! If a client or stakeholder goes radio silent on you or gets pissy, do not jump to the conclusion that it was necessarily anything about you! Sometimes it is, of course, but lots of times it is not and you can save yourself worry if you wait to find out what is actually happening instead of imagining you’re getting fired. Honestly, I feel like I could write a book on this @NeptuneMoon

In the past I’ve told my point of contact, “My goal is to make you look good.” Or “make your job easier” The point being, you can have amazing conversion volume/rates in Google but if it doesn’t translate to their own backend (qualified leads/purchases) things won’t pass the sniff test once your contact is up for renewal. If I come at our conversations with that mindset, I’ll usually identify if there’s a breakdown deeper and  be able to fix it before asking for a re-up. Also, if I’ve built an ally in my contact, I have someone with juice internally to get a renewal. If the client has amazing performance but my relationship with my contact is luke-warm, it’s much more difficult to get a renewal (versus middling performance with a good contact relationship) @timmhalloran

Clients also love it when they feel like you are paying attention to their business and their industry. So sharing an article about something that is relevant also helps cement you as a partner who is thinking about the health and success of their business vs. someone who is just doing PPC. @NeptuneMoon

Remember, you’re just a part of their day! Make life easy for them, and if they’re ignoring you that’s likely an opportunity on your end to make them care more. Also, for the love of all that is holy, find out how they get their bonus. @Aaronlevy

I also always ask about the quality of leads being sent and for any specific feedback they might be able to provide. I do this in the context of “our goal is to send the best and most profit-creating leads to you” @NeptuneMoon

Simplify your reports yesterday. @AnthonyMcDaniel

Cause we have all been in a meeting where we went into if feeling like we were absolutely killing it, only to find out they think all the leads are trash…@NeptuneMoon

A couple things I say a lot to the team:

1. No one hates the idea of overcommunicating. If you think you should tell the client, you 99% chance you should.
2. Reporting & comms is how you keep clients. The performance in the ad account mattes less.

e.g. a 6 out of 10 in the ad account can still be with your agency if comms is 10 out of 10. The opposite is also true. 6 out of 10 for comms will have a client leave even if the ad account is 10 out of 10. @duanebrown

@NeptuneMoon yes, ask about lead quality before you hear about lead quality. The only time it’ll be brought up by client is when it’s bad (and likely too late). Ask proactively. @AnthonyMcDaniel

Echo @duanebrown. I had daily standup calls (yes, daily) with my favorite client ever. it made the relationship SO easy. @Aaronlevy

It’s all about the storytelling. Make sure you’re telling a story at the level your client/contact needs to hear it/can understand it. Data in a vacuum means nothing. @revaminkoff

Ask them what else is happening marketing and sales wise in the company too. Attending trade shows is something you should have noted so you can look for traffic changes. Did they just completely revamp their sales team’s compensation structure? Guess what? That can really impact leads closing and how account performance is viewed! @NeptuneMoon

If you think you’re worried about layoffs or renewals, assume your client contact is 10x as worried. We are in a weird time. Be compassionate. @JuliaVyse

Oh gosh real story for the 3rd one @NeptuneMoon saw a massive spike in MQL’s, but raw leads stayed flat. asked client, hmmm total sales are pretty normal, but leads look great! let me ask the call center.
…..call center was giving bonuses for the highest raw-to-mql conversion rate…………@Aaronlevy

@revaminkoff true. But also, tailor the details of the story to the client. I’ve had some clients who can’t be bothered to hear the story, and some who LOVE to know “settings” and how all the “background characters” are interacting. @AnthonyMcDaniel

@Aaronlevy I had a client who had very comfy sales guys who would literally just not follow up on leads in categories they did not like, despite it being a priority from the management team. CEO calls me in for a meeting to discuss. He says “yeah, the guys just don’t want to follow up on those leads” To which I said “well, maybe you need some new guys” @NeptuneMoon

LOL, I got nothing. haven’t had difficulties in this regard since COVID really. That’s the last time I had a client that was “high maintenance” @ynotweb

They ended up promoting an internal guy who had zero idea what he was doing, but  he didn’t push them to go where the industry was headed. Corollary is you can’t make a client make good decisions either. Sometimes you need to be very honest even it means losing the client. You will never make them happy because they are bad at business and you are not. @NeptuneMoon

Ugh, had a printing company and they only wanted leads for pizza menus. “uh these guys want 100k mailers, good lead?” “no, bad lead, we want this guy who wants 500 pizza menus” @Aaronlevy

Educating clients around CPAs and scalability can win you trust, save headaches, and help your clients grow @williamhboggs

You can never overcommunicate. Clients want to hear from you. @beyondthepaid

Q4: What is something you know now about PPC career path decisions that you wished you knew sooner?

A decade or two goes by quite quickly @Pete_Bowen

1: Diversify.
2: Always be learning.
3: Always re-evaluate your assumptions @Aaronlevy

2. Focus…@Pete_Bowen

hahaha sorry @Pete_Bowen i ruined our numbered list @Aaronlevy

That your path by definition might not map to a traditional path. Promotions and role changes can happen in fits and starts. This is true in all advertising, but in particular us. Most big orgs DO NOT HAVE an SME/Guru track role. So you’ll be defining yourself a lot of the time. @JuliaVyse

@Aaronlevy I’m just being cheeky here @Pete_Bowen

My career goal was to be a Creative Director. This is not the right path for that @williamhboggs

There literally is no one right path. And, even more importantly, your right path may shift as your life does. If you can, give yourself permission to shift as well! @NeptuneMoon

I am living example of the above @Aaronlevy

Flexibility IS your strength @ynotweb

The specific parts of your career that you think are limiting you from opportunities (only worked at startups, only certain types of clients, etc.) is likely the very thing that will open up specific opportunities that others won’t be a good fit for. @AnthonyMcDaniel

I have scaled my work up and down more times than I can count at this point (27 years of doing my own thing). I am so grateful to have been able to do that as life outside of work was demanding in one way or another. @NeptuneMoon

Lean on the network you have here (and build it up if you’re new to this community!). There are so many wonderful people here who truly want to help others in their day-to-day and in their career development. @NeptuneMoon

Networking is the easiest, most valuable skill that people are so horrified of. Nobody is BAD at networking, they’re just scared of it. they shouldn’t be. @Aaronlevy

My goal was to be a CMO at a fortune 500. Then I realized:

I didn’t like managing people as much as people’s money. I didn’t like working with/or for large companies (bureaucracy + showboating) I enjoyed smaller teams. I enjoyed doing whatever was needed without worrying about people’s toes. Suffice to say, I’m happy now. But it took a sec to realize my 21 year old version didn’t have the perception of knowing what he wanted. @timmhalloran

Adding to what @Aaronlevy said – especially women – ask for connections and reach out! I swear my LinkedIn connection requests are easily 80% men. Which is fine, but ladies… you should absolutely do it too! @NeptuneMoon

I realize titles don’t necessarily mean anything in and of themselves. Evaluate each role on its own merits. @revaminkoff

@timmhalloran self-reflection is so important! I did the same thing but arrived at the opposite conclusion – I want infrastructure, I prefer specialising to running a business, I like cool, weird problems to solve – all this led me to enterprise, and both are the right answer. @JuliaVyse

preach!!! @NeptuneMoon us dudes got the memo (perhaps a little too firmly) that you should  never say no for someone else.@Aaronlevy

@revaminkoff Always ask yourself: is this what I want to do all day every day. title be damned! @JuliaVyse

I honestly think that men are not socialized to think past – I want to connect with this person so I am going to send a request. And women are socialized to overthink if that is ok, why would they want to connect with me, etc. (Of course this a generalized observation/thought) Ladies – just do it! You have my permission (not that you actually need it) @NeptuneMoon

same! Please reach out to me! I love to hear more perspectives @JuliaVyse

Q5: Is there anything in your PPC career or experience that you wish you could “do over”? If so, what is it and what would you do differently now?

Hm, I wish I had gone to more out-of-country conferences in the mid to late 2010s, mostly as an excuse to travel on the company dime LOL. Most of the good ones were in my state, so I never checked out further ones when it would have made sense to. @ynotweb

The phrase “if you’re not growing, you’re rotting” was a huge factor in the first ~15 years of my career, which led to TORCH fire lava cinder level burnout. cars have cruise control; why don’t you??? know when it’s time to take it easy vs. when it’s time to push yourself @Aaronlevy

Don’t stay in a bad situation hoping it will get better. Save your money, and plan exits. Your own wellbeing is worth it. @JuliaVyse

Trust your gut. I have learned that whenever I talked myself into taking on a client that I had concerns about, my gut was right. And having bad clients can really just suck the life out of you and make it harder to find better ones! @NeptuneMoon

Stick to SEO @DanThies

@DanThies the state of SEO is NOT any better.  LOL @ynotweb

In order (for me):

1. Manage my time better, learn how to triage. Spending 3 hours digging into SQRs with less than 100 impressions isn’t useful if you’re ignoring fire drills happening in other accounts.
2. Show up, be present, be consistent. Consistent with meetings, reports, optimization work. Consistency was a difficult one early on. I would flitter from one cool thing to the next sometimes forgetting foundational tasks.
3. Work on your teaching, find opportunities. Even if you don’t want to be a speaker, it helps with communicating ideas during client calls or internally. It took about 6 years before I took this seriously and I wish I would’ve started sooner.

I “castled” too much early on. I’d get in the zone, put on my headphones, and silo till I finished whatever it is I needed to do. If I would have spent more time collaborating/communicating, I’d have been in touch with internal/external priorities a lot faster. @timmhalloran

chiming in late – I would have kept my resume up to date so it wasn’t 11 years old when I was unexpectedly laid off in 2023. But I am so glad I did all the hard work of networking in the years leading up to that point as I was able to line up a new gig fairly quickly and am really happy. But it’s not fun adding 11 years of work to a resume, lol @beyondthepaid

I’d maybe do more without waiting for “permission”. @AnthonyMcDaniel

Live in New Zealand for a year and run ads. Otherwise, would not change a thing. It all lead to where it should. @duanebrown

Toxic clients are never worth it. Prioritise your mental and emotional wellbeing over the bottom dollar. No matter what you do – you’ll never make them happy. @Susan Richards-Benson

Spend time working for yourself, whether it’s volunteering, networking, or freelancing, don’t commit all your professional time to someone else’s goals. @Chriskostecki

PPCChat Participants

• Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
• Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
• Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
• Chris Kostecki @Chriskostecki
• Timothy Halloran @timmhalloran
• Susan Richards-Benson @Susan Richards-Benson
• Peter Bowen @Pete_Bowen
• Lawrence Chasse @Ichasse
• Duane Brown @duanebrown
• Anthony McDaniel @AnthonyMcDaniel
• Boggs @williamhboggs
• Navah Hopkins @navahhopkins
• Aaron Levy @Aaronlevy
• Kammy Caruss @ynotweb
• Melissa L Mackey @beyondthepaid
• Dan Thies @DanThies

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