Just thinking out loud - is there any way to create a profitable Google Ad campaign without sinking thousands of money ramping up and learning?

It doesn't appear so.

I haven't fully validated this idea yet, but I ran a Google ad campaign for $5 a day for a mailing list signup page that I was planning a business around. Click through rates were around 2.5%, which seems to be the baseline, i.e. a 2.5% click through rate basically means no engagement. One thing that was interesting, however, is that certain keywords had click through rates around 7%. I wanted to try re-targeting the campaign to just those keywords but I lost motivation.

Was this a long time ago, or for a totally empty niche? I ask, because I'm lucky if I can buy a single click through for $5, and it's been like that for several years now.

This was a few months ago. I don't think it was totally niche. It was about $1 per click through and I run the campaign for 2 months, which was an accident. I meant to pause a lot sooner.

I think it is possible, but you can't do it on the freemium model, or very aggressive paywalls for premium features.

The best way to learn is to become a PPC expert at some marketing company, you'll still burn through thousands learning all the tricks, but at least they won't be your thousands.

"is there any way to create a profitable Google Ad campaign without sinking thousands of money ramping up and learning?"

Yes, it's called hiring an expert with a track record who will get you profitable a lot faster than you probably could yourself (assuming you are inexperienced).

Where do you find these experts? I've tried managing campaigns myself and concluded the same thing you did, but have struggled to find an expert. There are so many people online who claim they can run your campaign but I have a hard time separating the real experts from the "fake it til you make it" types.

It’s very hard to find good talent under $5k/mo. At those rates and above usually finding a referral works.

UpWork is spotty.

It's difficult to find, especially when you are working with a limited ad spend. Why would someone skilled run a 30K month campaign for you, when they could make a lot more money running a 300K per month campaign for someone else.

When working with smaller numbers, you are going to be working with someone who is a little less experienced, more than likely. So, finding someone who can share a solid, provable track record may be a little harder. Figuring out a compensation scheme that takes their inexperience into account and shifts some of the risk to them as a result of this is key. You cannot enter a deal in which they just take a percentage of ad spend, because if they don't produce sales, then they get their money and you lose big.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you need to focus on the actual "deal" that you make with the person running your CPA campaigns to ensure that the risk is a bit more balanced and incentives are aligned...

How do you prove out their track record?

Generally yes, it's just a different approach. Most people in the Google Ads space actually get their start with warm intros to companies and/or individuals that want to get into digital marketing, and just get a percentage of their monthly ad-spend for contribution. You can haggle with price per lead or revenue share from the leads that convert, but you still need capital to initially launch those campaigns.

When I started out in lead-generation using Google Ads for ACA coverage, Final Expense insurance, roofing and solar installs, I did it in this order:

1.) Reached out to insurance agencies & roofing companies I already knew, convinced them I could do their digital marketing campaigns for a percentage of their monthly ad spend;

2.) Got upfront capital through that ad spend percentage and had the clients manage the ad spend for their own campaigns, and used the ad spend percentage capital to build cost per-lead campaigns for other clients. These were far more lucrative in investment, but cost a lot of money upfront.

3.) Proved my merit for clients in both approaches, and used my second quarter audit to "upgrade" the clients in number 1 to a cost per-lead, and negotiated with clients in number 2 to a revenue share for converted leads.

It's a grind, it's hard, but it can be done.

They can work well for B2C, wouldn't expect the same for B2B businesses.

I have spent a few $00 possible $000 on Google Ads and had nothing to show from it. Lots of traffic no sign ups. I then emailed a list and got a 4% conversion, so it isnt the product, it must be the targetting. As Bob Hoffman (a contrarian ad thinker) says do you want to die wasteful (spend $ on analogue advertising) or unknown (spend $ on line advertising)

Their biggest problem was not doing research. Conversions are hard, usually a percent or two. But what is a conversion? It's getting a user to respond to your CTA. In this case, the CTA was to get people to see the ad and click through to a "preorder" page. They got what they bought. The problems were they expected a greater response, didn't know what they were getting into, and spend $$$ on ads before anyone could get the product. That was the real killer, that's why the money was wasted. They thought they were spending 20k for installs, they were actually spending 20k on were clicks to an app no one could get.

Don't spend money on preorders if you're not collecting payment data now and authorization to charge it later. Anything else isn't a preorder, it's a waste of time.

> Anything else isn't a preorder, it's a waste of time.

cept for tesla, they charged $100 for a "pre-order" (of the cybertruck).

It's smart, because they managed to get an interest free loan off these customers, and also gauged interest at the same time!

So yes, the CTA must include a form of payment - otherwise, you're not getting a customer for your spend, you're just getting eyeballs.