TPE #110: How I mastered Google Ads faster by specializing in Ecom

Read time: 3 minutes

Let’s get real: Google Ads is hard.

It took me years to deeply understand the game we all play and love.

(I’m still learning every day)

And now that I’ve gotten to a solid level, my job transformed into making it as easy as possible for -you- to deliver the best possible results to your clients.

You see, true mastery of Google Ads takes time…

But there is one thing I did in my career that allowed me to get to mastery faster than most people:

Specialize in 1 client type (Ecommerce).

And coincidentally, Bob also did this early on in his career (Lead Gen).

By specializing, I was able to:

• Master Google Ads faster.
• Productize my service delivery (and get results faster).
• Make more money as a Google Ads Specialist.

Today, I’ll share my personal story and 3 reasons why specializing in Ecommerce has been the best move for my career.

At the end, I’ll list the most important takeaways you can apply to your specific case.

Reason 1: Specializing in Ecom accelerated my learning.

When I started my career, I worked at an agency for 2.5 years.

As a trainee, I had a diverse portfolio of clients across different verticals:

• Some Lead Gen.
• Some Ecom.

Back then, my goal was to launch my own Ecommerce brand, so I fought hard internally to get a 100% Ecom portfolio (so I could learn the skills I needed to grow my own brand).

It took a year of politely, yet frequently, asking my manager to exchange my Lead Gen clients for Ecom clients.

Looking back, I realize that was the reason I mastered Google Ads relatively quickly.

Not because I'm a genius, but because I worked with clients who were all facing the same set of challenges.

And example:

• For one client, I encountered (and solved) attribution issues.
• For another client, I encountered (and solved) margin-related issues.

As a result, I could implement those solutions instantly for other similar clients without an additional learning curve.

This accelerated my learning because everything I did compounded.

If I had a portfolio with 50% Lead Gen clients, I would’ve never learned so fast, because their challenges are often completely different from Ecom.

By specializing, I increased my value in the eyes of my Dream Clients: Ecom brands.

Reason 2: Specializing in Ecom increased my value in the marketplace.

Ultimately, we get paid to get results and solve problems for our clients.

The bigger the problems you solve, the more you can get paid.

Because I specialized in Ecom, I only encountered Ecom problems (which are often totally different from Lead Gen problems).

And the better I got, the bigger the problems I was able to solve.

I remember the first time I implemented profit tracking (POAS) and how that increased my perceived value in the eyes of my clients.

We were suddenly talking about PROFIT, not just revenue.

And that’s what most Ecom brand owners are after in the end: more profit.

Since then, I added profit tracking, implementation, and optimization to my toolbox.

And whenever I heard a new client talk about issues with low profit margins, I instantly knew how to help them.

And the second time I implemented profit data, my understanding of it became deeper — increasing my value in the marketplace even further.

Had I also done Lead Gen, I would’ve never learned so fast, and my value in the marketplace would’ve been much lower (because I would’ve been forced to also learn about Lead Gen client challenges around lead quality, Offline Conversion Tracking, Lead Scoring, Lead Nurturing, Lead-to-Sale ratios etc.).

Reason 3: Specializing in Ecom allowed me to productize my service delivery (and get results faster).

Here’s a huge benefit that I haven’t seen many people talk about:

By specializing in Google Ads for Ecom clients, I was able to productize my service delivery.

Since all of my clients faced similar issues, I could create systems and processes around what drives results.

And because of that:

• Driving results became easier (because I just needed to follow my systems).
• I had way less stress (we do performance marketing, so better results = less stress — that’s just a fact).
• My clients were happier (because they trusted me and my process).

I could easily “pitch” my services to new clients because I had a proven system/growth plan that I tailored to their specific business and goals.

And by showing past results of clients that are similar to them, they trusted me to help them get the job done (another demonstration of the compound effect specialization had for me).

What you can learn from my story.

I shared my story to inspire you, but I don’t want to tell you what you should do.

• Want to specialize in Lead Gen or Ecom? → Fantastic! (you now know the benefits)
• Don’t want to specialize in Lead Gen or Ecom? → Also fantastic! (you now know the pitfalls)

You see, I won’t say you should ONLY do Ecom or Lead Gen…

That’s for you to decide.

But, from my own experience, I know for a fact that your learning curve is shorter when you specialize, and your value in the market increases because it becomes easy to understand who you can help and how.

But, with that said…

Plenty of people in The PPC Hub love the challenges a diverse client portfolio brings.

If you’re ok with a longer learning curve, or if you have no say over your own client portfolio: don’t specialize.

But if your goal is mastery of Google Ads in as short of a time period as possible: I recommend specializing.

Take the insights from my career into consideration for your decisions.

Specializing leads to:

• Faster learnings.
• Faster results.
• Higher value in the marketplace.

But ultimately, do what makes you happy.

A last note: we’re currently developing a new program for The PPC Hub that’s gonna help you deeply master Google Ads for Ecom or Lead Gen clients (or both if you have a diversified portfolio).

It contains everything you need to deliver the best possible results with advanced strategies and tactics around Goalsetting, Conversion Tracking, Search, Performance Max, Google Shopping, Bids & Budgets, Optimization, Reporting, & more.

It’s gonna be our best training program to date — for PPC Freelancers and Agencies.

(You could almost say this is a college degree in advanced Google Ads!)

If everything goes according to plan, we aim to launch this program in Q1 of 2025 (free for all members of The PPC Hub).

Feel free to get on our Interest List to get more updates and be the first to get notified when enrollment opens!

I hope this was helpful!

What are your thoughts about specialization? Let me know by hitting reply to this email, I’d love to hear from you.

See you again next week!

Cheers,

Miles (& Bob)