EP326 - When Best Practices Backfire ft Aashna Makin

Anu Adegbola (00:05.125)

Hello and welcome to PPC Live, podcast formerly known as PPC Chat Roundup. My name is Anu, founder of PPC Live. And if you're used to hearing from PPC experts about how to ensure that we're keeping up with the ever-changing landscape, don't worry, you are still in the right place. Where instead of me relaying what the PPC experts are saying, I'm going to be bringing the PPC experts to you. Every week, I'm going to be speaking to a different PPC expert about their biggest f up 

Anu Adegbola (00:33.189)

but also how they turned things around. We'll share what has been disappointing and just what has been surprising, what really was the turnaround and what's the thing that was the fix so that you know not to make the same mistake. So yeah, today we're gonna be speaking to the wonderful Aashna Makin who talks about how she excluded a term that made sense. You'll hear about that and you're literally like, yeah, I do that as well. But you'll see about how that mistake, how that excluding that term led. 

Anu Adegbola (01:02.821)

to some quite bad performance, unexpected performance. So yeah, look out for those things. You never know, sometimes best practices are not best practices after all, when you look at your actual accounts. So yeah, let's go and speak to Aashna 

Anu Adegbola (01:17.424)

Hello Aashna welcome to PPC Live the podcast. Hi. Yeah, so for those who don't know Aashna Makin is a senior paid ad specialist with over eight years experience working in over 150 different businesses, especially in North America, generating very high quality leads, especially using Google ads and Facebook. She's worked with startups, agencies, in-house teams, managing campaigns, 

Aashna (01:20.341)

Hey. 

Anu Adegbola (01:46.978)

over $2 million a month even across industries from real estate, healthcare to photography and e-commerce. So yeah, always trying to learn the ins and outs of paid ads because she also loves to teach through one-on-one course training sessions and speaking at marketing events. And I had the delight, I literally was telling her before this recording, I just got back from San Diego like an hour ago. 

Anu Adegbola (02:13.89)

where I went to see Aashna talk at Brighton SEO on their HeroConf stage in San Diego. It was such a beautiful time. I feel like they've, they get spoiled with summer weather for much longer than the rest of us. It was still hot. It was still like a beach weather. You could go into the water. I did. I love that. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. It was really great to meet Aashna and see her talk. Fun fact. 

Aashna (02:27.72)

Yeah. 

Aashna (02:34.716)

it's moving. 

Anu Adegbola (02:42.294)

Lord, I I'm very, you know, well, this is a, this podcast is about being brave. Even this one fight. If it was, if I was her, I might not have shared this, but she's 

Anu Adegbola (02:53.622)

openly shared that especially when she's in a new place, she has to have all the lights on. she has to have the TV on because it's like new unfamiliar, which I totally understand for me. It's more that I'll sleep with the lights [off] but I'll wake up the next morning or sometimes even in the middle of the night and be all like, 

Anu Adegbola (03:11.591)

Wait, where am I? Where am I? A little bit scared. And then I'm like, oh wait, I'm in a different country. Yeah. And then I fall back to sleep. But oh my Lord. So yeah, bless you that you do. So, so has that just been, when did you first figure it out that you're like, oh God, when you're in a new place? 

Aashna (03:12.341)

I'm gonna wait. 

Aashna (03:17.296)

You 

Aashna (03:27.43)

Since childhood 

Aashna (03:28.441)

I would say, yeah, I would say since childhood there was not a day that I was left alone because everybody in my family knew I'm scared as a kid and as I mentioned I'm almost turning 30 this December. Things haven't changed. I still have to stick with all lights on if I'm in a new unknown place or I'm you know like alone so that's not changing. 

Anu Adegbola (03:36.41)

Anu Adegbola (03:41.753)

bless. 

Anu Adegbola (03:49.066)

No, 

Anu Adegbola (03:49.466)

well, fair enough. Hey, we all have our quirks. I was saying there's some quirks that I'm not brave enough to even share because people will be like, really, really? I mean, yeah, so this is the this is a stage for my guests to be brave about what they experience. But yeah, talking about brave, this is what this whole podcast is about. Really grateful that Aashna is just been so willing to share a mistake that she experienced early in her career. 

Aashna (03:57.394)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (04:16.19)

and how she turned it around, as you've heard, she has continued to, you know, run millions of dollars of account does training. So that error did not stop her in any way from succeeding in her career. So yeah, please take notes, please take lessons here. but without further ado, let me, let's pass it over to Aashna. Aashna What F up would you like to share with us today? 

Aashna (04:40.98)

So yeah, as you're discussing the biggest F up and it was quite early in my career. I was very scared. I was like, and that was my first job into SEM Managers, just managing Google ads. Yeah, straight out of college, I had a sales job for a year, which I didn't want to continue. So I moved to digital and I'm glad that I did that. So it was my first month or so with the agency and I was managing a portfolio of somewhere around 70, 80 campaigns in a month. 

Anu Adegbola (04:50.458)

Hmm. 

Aashna (05:10.277)

and dating events happened to be one of the client-vertical. I was reviewing the search terms and I'm talking seven, eight years back when we had all the control possible and there was no AI, was no automation that time. So you have to manually go check in reports, manually check search terms, locations and all these other little things that make a big impact. 

Anu Adegbola (05:21.52)

Sure. 

Anu Adegbola (05:25.638)

All right. All right. 

Anu Adegbola (05:35.333)

Mmm. 

Aashna (05:36.34)

I found a search term which was meet up, which was a competitor to what my client was doing. And I happened to add that as negative, learning from all the training that was given to me, all the best practices, were supposed to isolate competitors, them as negatives if needed and stuff like that. And I did add that as negatives to around seven to eight campaigns in the same vertical. 

Aashna (06:03.624)

And when I came back, think I had to go for a training or something again. And when I came back after a week, I get a note from my client success manager. That time I was just starting off, so I was an SEM analyst. I definitely had people above me who were more responsible to answering the clients. And she went and she said, can you look into the campaign? The leads have suddenly dropped. 

Aashna (06:27.954)

week over week and this has never happened before. So it's not seasonality, it's nothing to do with your offer or you know, I mean, it's just an evergreen campaign, it performs well all the time. And I go and looking into and I remember this, was like, I was all happy feeling good. I've had this negative, you know, everything's going to change and efficiency exactly. was efficiency at that time. And I was like, a pretty good job, you know, and I 

Anu Adegbola (06:30.541)

Right. 

Anu Adegbola (06:47.608)

Yes, efficiency. Yeah. Yeah. 

Aashna (06:55.934)

Why didn't anybody catch it before me? Right? Like it's right and when you open the search term report, it's right on the front and Turned out to be that was the reason I had not made any other changes to the campaign so yeah, that was the biggest F up and I ensure now I'm checking all the search terms that I'm adding twice the rise researching more about it And if they are closely related now with broads being all over phrases also being all 

Anu Adegbola (07:18.029)

Awesome. Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (07:24.206)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (07:25.011)

Yeah. 

Aashna (07:25.555)

So yeah, that was 

Aashna (07:26.517)

the biggest effort that I did in the first year of my career. 

Anu Adegbola (07:30.674)

wow. Yeah. So that is something I think like that's the kind of mistake, the whole terms of like putting down the, you know, the wrong negatives or putting around, especially you said it's a compact was a competitor. So yeah. So in everything, in all the sense of the word but it made sense to do that. Right. 

Aashna (07:42.355)

Yeah, was a complicated job. 

Aashna (07:51.189)

Do that. 

Anu Adegbola (07:52.71)

But obviously then we turn, we look at it and we turned out, okay, that's a mistake. That's not something should have been done. So who found it out? It was your manager that found out the error. Oh. 

Aashna (08:00.725)

I found it out and I immediately 

Aashna (08:02.907)

informed my manager saying that this is what I have done and she was very good. She's one of the great managers I've worked with. I've worked with all three years when I was with that agency and she went like, it's okay. And I was like, sorry for feeling bad, scared because that was my first job into digital. So I was like, my God, I didn't know what to do next. But I was like, I'd own it up. And I think that's the best thing that 

Anu Adegbola (08:04.816)

Okay. 

Anu Adegbola (08:09.978)

Fantastic. 

Anu Adegbola (08:21.25)

Yes, yeah. 

Aashna (08:28.789)

I have done through my career be it into digital or sales or know any of any parts of my life that way is going to be owning it up and I did inform her that this has happened and she's like no worries you can just remove it as a negative now and I think immediately after two three days we started that lead volume coming in back so the impact was short-lived but yes I had to inform my manager that this is happening. 

Anu Adegbola (08:29.155)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (08:37.627)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (08:48.834)

Okay. 

Anu Adegbola (08:55.786)

Okay, so and then looking back now as yourself, as your older, wiser self kind of thing, what would you say you feel like that you didn't do that you definitely now do that would have avoided that error? 

Aashna (09:10.998)

I would say spending more time in understanding the client industry overall. Everybody has a checklist, everybody has a process in place. We do all that and we keep perfecting it over a period of time. But I would say there are certain industries like this, this is like events and like dating kind of a campaign 

Anu Adegbola (09:25.359)

Hmm. 

Aashna (09:33.491)

wherein there is no brand loyalty as such people are you looking for different different options on the flip side if it was like a doctor campaign where you know somebody wanted to see that specific doctor yes i think that would have made sense to add a competitor there as a negative over there so my learning from that and i and 

Aashna (09:52.427)

i follow that all through right now is go deep into understanding the client vertical 

Aashna (09:57.491)

How do people perform? Are they open to other options? If yes, then I don't think it makes a difference. You can let them be or you can actually talk to them as a separate ad group or a different campaign and see how it goes from there. Rather than just being like, this is what I was thought and I have to add it as a negative. No, so and I think that comes with experience. You start questioning things a lot. Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (10:17.05)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (10:20.449)

Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's 

Anu Adegbola (10:22.71)

a very great point as to the whole idea of like best practice. Everybody has wants to give like the best practice you do. And on the surface, yes, best practice, know, send bad in a negative of a competitive term sounds like best practice, but time is time again, I think what I've really one of the biggest lessons I've talked about even on this podcast with previous guests, but also that I talked to people that have managed in the past is like, 

Aashna (10:27.091)

Yes. 

Anu Adegbola (10:48.218)

Don't just look at a best practice and implement it without really understanding how it will affect your client's account, your client's brand and what to do. Best practices are changing with AI, especially best practices, what should be done are totally changing. What was the wrong strategy to do? Let's say a couple of years ago is now the good strategies. What actually you should do and then vice versa. What used to work now doesn't work. 

Aashna (10:49.513)

best practices. 

Aashna (11:02.482)

changing. 

Aashna (11:09.939)

Go check it. Exactly. 

Aashna (11:14.9)

Now that's a 

Aashna (11:15.652)

real piss. 

Anu Adegbola (11:16.41)

So we really, really need to be on top of that for sure. And what's your advice, let's say to any folks out there who's like made this kind of mistake. They've literally, they've just come back from, let's say a holiday, they've come back from a conference, a training thing, they're all giddy and then they see that they put a negative in place that has lost themselves. What's your advice to them? 

Aashna (11:39.317)

So this is something that was even I think we discussed in one of the talks at the conference was never make changes on a Friday because you're gone for two days. So I would say never make those big and especially changes that you're unsure about do not make them on a Friday or if you're going on vacation and they will be left unmonitored for good two, three days. I mean, come on, when you start looking at these campaigns and spends even two days is a lot of time for them to, you know, have its bigger impact. 

Anu Adegbola (11:47.841)

Yes! Yes! 

Anu Adegbola (11:54.81)

Yes. 

Anu Adegbola (12:05.722)

Yes. 

Aashna (12:08.989)

So that's my piece of, and that's what I follow. is like, if you email me after, you know, 12 noon on a Friday, I did it on Monday. not think that I am going to action those things right now. No, like I know, and this is especially even to do with budgets. Like I've been very careful in managing daily budgets and all those things when, you know, automation, all those things were not into place. Budgets is one thing that can go off rail. 

Anu Adegbola (12:19.513)

Yeah. 

Aashna (12:37.299)

similar situation like this. Yes, so be very careful when you are doing all these changes. Do not make them. And if you know you have backup or somebody's covering up for you, inform them you've done these changes so that they can follow through while you're away. 

Anu Adegbola (12:38.096)

so easily. 

Anu Adegbola (12:51.682)

Okay. But even like in that state of the mistake has happened and they are right in the middle of it. This is not an advice for how do you avoid making the mistake? This is like, what's your advice for someone who the mistake has already happened? They're panicked. What do you, what would you tell them? 

Aashna (13:12.328)

I would say whether be it if you are an agency and you you have to let the client know I would say inform them much like you know before rather than trying to investigate trying to cover it up and stuff like that. I think people overall in our industry are very good. They understand things like this happen mistakes like this definitely happen and people are understanding. I mean I've been very lucky I've been I always luck out with great bosses. 

Aashna (13:40.521)

And she has been very, I mean, at that point in time, she was very, very supportive. And it didn't even feel like a big mistake at that time. But I quickly learned and I ensured that I never repeated. So for anybody who's done a mistake, it's happened I think just own it up and provide a clarification and a justification to the client or if you're working in house. 

Anu Adegbola (13:40.742)

Thanks 

Anu Adegbola (13:46.534)

Mmm. 

Aashna (14:02.965)

In-house it's a bit more controlled because you're not answerable to a third party outside. I know in agencies, people will start asking for refunds and credits and works on different agencies. So I mean, but the best thing is to inform the client or your manager that something like this has happened so that you can move to the next step rather than trying to find out what happened, why. And everybody getting involved in the same thing, it's better to be upfront. 

Anu Adegbola (14:07.866)

Mmm. 

Anu Adegbola (14:12.837)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (14:28.646)

Absolutely, absolutely. I totally agree with that. like now, like what's your one lesson just before we move on to talking about mistakes we see outside, what's your one like piece of advice you wanna leave people with about that story in terms of like, you know, their mindset, what their mindset should be about mistakes and how to do things moving forward. 

Aashna (14:29.885)

I talked to you. 

Anu Adegbola (14:54.306)

Aashna (14:54.837)

I would say take ownership. I always consider all the budgets and all the campaigns that I'm managing as if it was going from my bank account. So I definitely take ownership of all these campaigns, all these clients that I'm working on. And that naturally just helps me be on the top of my art all the time. I'm looking at this campaign even if process-wise I'm not supposed to look at them daily, sure. 

Anu Adegbola (15:04.102)

Mm. 

Aashna (15:20.82)

But I still ensure that if I've made something like this or I've made any changes, I go in and look into it daily. So one thing is take ownership of the account. really makes a big, difference. Whether it's a small ad account, even if you're managing big budgets, it does not matter. But I think you're taking ownership so that things like this are caught much before. 

Anu Adegbola (15:43.768)

Absolutely care care about the work that you're doing, know, yeah, you know, make sure that's not you're not like you don't just see it as a paycheck care about it. Like that's the point of being in this industry. 

Aashna (15:45.684)

He's scared, scared, he's scared of other people. 

Aashna (15:52.82)

Yeah, exactly. Like 

Aashna (15:55.363)

at this point, think I saw a post on LinkedIn from someone in our PPC community post about it, like, are you a good media buyer? Or are you just good at, you know, inefficiently managing other people's money? And I was like, this makes so much of sense, right? It's like, it really puts you into buckets, like, which one do you fall into? That was a really good post. 

Anu Adegbola (16:07.896)

Yeah. Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (16:16.632)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (16:17.923)

Yeah, absolutely. No, I totally agree. okay. Now let's move on to our industry and maybe F-ups that you've seen. said that you've, you know, you've managed about $2 million, you know, dollars of, of advertising spend of like monthly advertising spend. And I'm sure you've seen some like, my God, like, you know, what is going on there? whether it's AI automation or non automation stuff, what is like one of the one or two of the most common like errors? 

Aashna (16:41.662)

Yes. 

Anu Adegbola (16:46.606)

and F-ups that you see like others advertisers making like before, like when you like get takeover in account, that previous agency has run, what's the one common thing that you see? 

Aashna (16:50.782)

See you later. 

Aashna (16:54.652)

Yes. 

Aashna (16:58.838)

So one thing I have definitely seen is mismatch of landing pages. Like if the ad is talking about one specific product or service, the 404 landing page error has been very common. But now Google has got smart and your ads get disapproved. So you're covered in that way. The landing pages aren't working. It's not loading. But I do see things like this happening. And the most annoying part is that I do not do a lot of e-commerce, but 

Anu Adegbola (17:18.202)

Very chillin'. 

Aashna (17:26.161)

anybody who does e-commerce media buying, please send me to the product page that I've looked for. I do not want to go to a home page and find that perfect heels that I just saw. I want that product. I get so irritated. I am like, I wanted those pair of heels and I'm not going to spend time finding that on the website. And for niche and business is the same thing. I understand if you're testing a generic home page versus a services page and stuff like that, but have something 

Anu Adegbola (17:39.62)

Yeah 

Anu Adegbola (17:45.934)

Yeah... 

Aashna (17:55.381)

you know, related to the ad, like what the ad is talking about. So that is definitely, and it's difficult to control with PMAX and you know, not having controls over headlines and all these things. But I think we should need to be like, your language still needs to be very relevant to what your ad is showcasing. The other thing I always see is outdated promotions and ads like in, you know, 2026 as it begins, we might still see ads of 2025. 

Anu Adegbola (17:59.748)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (18:11.12)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (18:21.862)

Ay! 

Aashna (18:21.971)

then 

Aashna (18:22.962)

there are certain ads that come and this is not common on google but on my instagram on my facebook is events that have ended promotions that have ended they're no longer you know available on the website i'm like no like sometimes i'm like i want to email their marketing team that you guys are doing this i think i've that couple of times i think i've reached out to somebody saying that yeah just saw your dad it was a bigger brand 

Anu Adegbola (18:33.178)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (18:40.588)

Like who's done this? 

Aashna (18:47.253)

And I was sure there was some agency or someone running, don't think in-house would have afforded to make that mistake. yeah, that's one thing I'd like to be sure of. And you know, with all this AI and all, cannot leave everything onto automation. You need to have some kind of control, some kind of quality to keep all these things in mind. 

Anu Adegbola (18:55.204)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (19:08.806)

So 

Anu Adegbola (19:10.17)

sorry, but like for yourself as well, so like that kind of error, this kind of mistake, what kind of automation would you advise to put in place? 

Aashna (19:18.597)

So I would say that you this is where best practices and templates come into place right like whenever you are uploading some new ads or you know, you are Optimizing you've taken over a new account and stuff like that I have an exhaustive checklist that I check is you know Checking all these small things sometimes even there's problem with cycling score extensions add copies as I mentioned So always like I mean there is just one way 

Anu Adegbola (19:23.75)

Mm. 

Aashna (19:45.001)

have quality in your work whenever you are doing these ads and stuff like that. Ensure that they are written properly. I mean, there's no other automation tool that I use or I can vouch for when it comes to ad copies. I don't trust Google's AI and all those things. Now for ads, I like to have some control over messaging rather than just leaving it up on the platforms. 

Anu Adegbola (19:59.686)

Okay. 

Anu Adegbola (20:10.022)

Okay, so when it comes to like ad copy, you stay away from using doing it automated. 

Aashna (20:13.381)

Yes, I away 

Aashna (20:14.632)

from using it. have had campaigns where I tested AI, AI Max and like all these things, but they did really did not do well. And I was happy about it. I said, good. Like I didn't want to give away control and messaging for the PMAX. I don't know what to give away or control because I like this is what I don't like about PMAX is because you cannot pin the headline. So you have to say the same things in different, five different ways. And then when it 

Anu Adegbola (20:27.33)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (20:41.307)

Yeah. 

Aashna (20:41.959)

shows on Google like even if I search something right now and I can say which is a PMAX ad which is a search ad because I know like nobody in their senses would add combinations like this but now it's PMAX you don't have control over 

Aashna (20:55.216)

your headlines so those things are showing up. 

Anu Adegbola (20:56.23)

No. 

Anu Adegbola (20:58.15)

Yeah, so we've got to be careful. You mentioned AI Max. Have you tested AI Max? 

Aashna (21:04.278)

for a brief period and it did not result good because the campaigns that I worked with do not do good on such partner networks and you know on the other sides which resulted in that kind of traffic so I would say no like it was for a very brief period otherwise I would love to know share a case study or speak more about it but yeah I mean I am waiting to hear from the industry you know people who are actively testing and it's working for them I would love to learn from them 

Anu Adegbola (21:32.42)

I don't think he should be so hopeful just yet. Like I keep in our PPC live WhatsApp group, there's this group that I created for like AI max specifically. was like, let's talk about how we're testing AI max. And literally as recently as a few days ago, I did, I threw in a message. I was like, guys, what are your results? And yeah, people are like, yeah, we've turned it off. We reverted to DSA. We've done this. And it's just like. 

Aashna (21:35.477)

Okay. 

Anu Adegbola (21:57.638)

AI max, unfortunately guys, those who are listening, who are thinking of testing, it's still a bit of a mess. Maybe still wait a few more months, or if you're testing and you're finding success, please let me know. We'd love to put a case study. I would love to publish you on PPC live to for you to share those insights. Cause people are looking, people are looking to find the opportunity of AI max. Cause yeah, when you're at automation where the season of automation that is not going to die out. 

Aashna (22:08.533)

Yeah. 

Aashna (22:17.727)

looking. 

Anu Adegbola (22:27.618)

Any [time] soon, any [time] soon. Also, I also wanted to, I always like asking my guests about their, because the theme of this podcast is to really bring out the things that we're not doing well. So that even in terms of using AI, even in terms of like our roles, why do you feel it's important for us to talk about mistakes and errors? 

Aashna (22:48.822)

So again, someone had told me earlier in my career and I love the people that I work with. Someone told me that a good MBA school can teach you how to do things right, how to be a good leader, how to be a great example. But very few MBA schools or probably none will teach you what not to do. That is something that you are going to learn only as you are in the role, only as you make those mistakes. 

Aashna (23:14.282)

So I think PPC overall as an industry is great. We see success stories, we see this is working, that is working, but we do not highlight the failures often. And probably the mistake that I'm making right now, somebody else is also making as a media bias, third person is as a but nobody's talking about it, so you do not get to know. And I understand there are reasons to it that we do not highlight the failures. 

Anu Adegbola (23:30.18)

Yeah. 

Aashna (23:38.057)

But I think overall it would be good as an industry if we spoke. And that's why when I was at the conference, I did mention about all the small things that we think is small but who have a major impact overall on the campaigns. So I think it's good to highlight the failure on what's not working is also very important to know. So that's one thing I definitely want more from this industry, from our great PPC team to know. 

Anu Adegbola (23:50.224)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (23:54.597)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (24:03.702)

experts, yeah, 

Anu Adegbola (24:05.223)

to share about and especially those who are still very much succeeding. I had the very great pleasure of speaking to two of the biggest names in our industry, Navah Hopkins, Jyll Saskin Gales you know, but like, yeah, once upon a time they made like a targeting error, lost 50K in budget and not time they made a client error and in terms of like getting the wrong client on board and the wrong client. 

Aashna (24:16.883)

Right. 

Aashna (24:31.006)

Okay. 

Anu Adegbola (24:32.824)

and that lost them, you know, a few grand in terms of like personal business. Like that was her money that she had to part with at some point. So those are mistakes that have happened and people are still succeeding. And yeah, the more interesting ones, the better. That's what this makes this podcast interesting and people, you know, learning the big lessons. Yeah, the big lessons to do. But also how do you now... 

Aashna (24:45.802)

Yeah. 

Aashna (24:50.867)

Yeah, it is good. 

Aashna (24:54.473)

talk about the thing. 

Anu Adegbola (25:01.456)

for What's your main tactic or your strategy for preventing yourself from making mistakes for yourself? Like, what do you want to like anything that tips that for? 

Aashna (25:12.886)

I 

Aashna (25:13.626)

think again following the process definitely because no two campaigns are same even if they are in the same vertical you need to be very diligent when you are setting the map, you are optimizing or you are just onboarding a new client. It's always good to follow a process and go by data, of course take decisions based on data. 

Aashna (25:33.589)

but also add some nod to it. Because none of these tracking platforms, let's be honest, are 100 % true right now. There's so much going on that you cannot blindly trust just GA4 or either just one platform that you want to stick to. Look at, go further deep into it. And I think all these things come when you actually care. So care more. think that's what I do. I care more about the campaigns that I work on. 

Anu Adegbola (25:40.262)

Mmm. 

Anu Adegbola (25:53.52)

Yeah. Yeah. 

Aashna (25:59.141)

so that you know can avoid all these mistakes because I'm someone who takes mistakes very personally so if I know I'm going to make it it's going to stay with me so it's one thing that I avoid all those kind of in the situations later on 

Anu Adegbola (26:04.026)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (26:06.935)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (26:12.898)

Yeah. Care more, you know, be patient, you know, follow a process kind of thing. Yeah, for sure. I think sometimes we get like bored with all the process. It's like so long-winded, but actually that process is going to help you avoid your mistakes. And, it's always important for 

Aashna (26:14.549)

Yes, follow. 

Aashna (26:23.571)

Yeah. 

Aashna (26:29.44)

Yes, right. Well, I've done that, right? 

Aashna (26:32.021)

I think we've all done that in the beginning of my career. For the first two, three years, I was so process-oriented. I even improved the process of the agency that I used to work with. I used to conduct training to deliver the process to people. And then as you get more confident, you start freelancing and all the things. suddenly, you get into that gambling zone. Let me try this. Let me test it. Let me try this. And things can go out of hand. 

Anu Adegbola (26:37.882)

Yeah. Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (26:53.154)

Yeah. 

Aashna (26:57.174)

So it's always good to have some process and some structure to it. Always keep testing, doubt. But I think there should be a process in testing also because when I take over some client accounts or I do consulting, I do find out that there were tests that are going on forever. Nobody is taking. They're just never ending tests. A test is supposed to give you results, but there's no end to it. 

Anu Adegbola (27:13.858)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (27:21.622)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Look, yeah, tests should have like, you know, your, your where your, your, the amount of volume that you're hoping to get to, like amount of spend that you're supposed to get to or, or timeline that you want to do so that even if the volume is not great and you're like, okay, that could actually be your results. The fact that there is no volume in this area because we've let this test for three months and nothing's happening. Don't make a test running indefinitely. Make sure you're getting a learning from it. And 

Aashna (27:45.287)

Yeah, exactly. 

Anu Adegbola (27:51.62)

Yeah, you're getting something from him. 

Aashna (27:52.413)

I mean, there are certain 

Aashna (27:53.633)

tests like when I tested value-based bidding, went for good six months, but it wasn't like, you know, like test it and do nothing about it. were frequently making changes and you know, there were tests within tests happening. So was, yeah, some tests like, you know, value-based bidding specifically is going to last longer. But yeah, like keep an eye on it. Keep, you know, a deadline kind of thing that, this is when, you know, you need to pull back. 

Anu Adegbola (27:56.422)

Mm. 

Anu Adegbola (28:03.653)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (28:06.671)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (28:11.513)

Hmm. 

Anu Adegbola (28:19.278)

Yeah. Yeah. 

Aashna (28:19.391)

things so yeah as far as 

Aashna (28:21.027)

caring about it and you know somebody's watching it you're good. 

Anu Adegbola (28:24.632)

Yeah, absolutely. On that note, that has been such a great chat. think we've gotten so much learnings from this Aashna So thank you so much for sharing your fantastic story, your experience, what you're experiencing in terms of what you see from other advertisers and you know, how you continue to succeed in our industry. Now our last question before we wrap up is like a totally fun, non PPCish, you know, tactic question. 

Anu Adegbola (28:54.038)

If your PPC career were a movie, what would be the title? 

Aashna (28:59.092)

I think it won't be answer the universe because that's you keep doing. you're just answering clients. You're just answering if you're working in house, you're answering the stakeholders, you're answering the sales team. And you you're just answering everybody things which are probably not in your control, right? Like these platforms keep on making, they keep on updating that stuff. They keep on making changes. Again, that's not in our hands, but we have to answer our clients and stuff like that. 

Anu Adegbola (29:01.634)

Okay? Okay. 

Anu Adegbola (29:16.112)

Yeah. 

Anu Adegbola (29:20.901)

Mmm. 

Aashna (29:26.353)

And I think, like even on the other end, just keep answering people all the time, why this went wrong, why leads are down, why this is up. Keep answering the universe. Keep communicating. Answer the universe. 

Anu Adegbola (29:26.777)

Adieu. 

Anu Adegbola (29:32.964)

Yeah, keep communicating, keep communicating. Yeah, after the universe, keep communicating. 

Anu Adegbola (29:40.959)

That is fantastic note to leave us off, but yeah. 

Aashna (29:43.742)

And when you make mistakes 

Aashna (29:45.062)

it's like gone girl. gone. Gone, gone. Yeah. Yes. 

Anu Adegbola (29:47.066)

Yeah, yes, I got girl. my God, Gone Girl. That is a movie that kind of traumatized me, but I 

Anu Adegbola (29:54.852)

never knew who I was getting traumatized by. was like, is it the guy? Was it the girl? it, Gone Girl. That's a, that's an interesting one. Anyway, on that fantastic note, thank you Aashna know so much for being a guest on this podcast and thank you guys for listening. And my pleasure. 

Aashna (30:02.121)

Yeah. 

Aashna (30:09.684)

Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Anu Adegbola (30:13.8)

Thank you so much Ashna for sharing that very honest and transparent experience. Yeah, remember best practices are changing and you've got to really know what's going to work for you. Test things out and see how to manipulate, you know, the suggestion to make sure it works and you check your data to make sure that it works. So yeah, for all the information and the full transcript of that fantastic conversation, go to podcast.ppc.live. PPC live event update of 

Anu Adegbola (30:42.168)

course, we've got one coming up in a couple of weeks and we've got free books from Kirk Williams who wrote a book about really like understanding, you know, paid search and this is it right here, go right here, Ponderance of a PPC Professional by Kirk Williams, Revise and Expand, there's something that is latest and it's lessons that will last through time. So yeah, maybe you can see even some of the description here, it's things, of things that will make sense. 

Anu Adegbola (31:10.008)

no matter what AI updates come out in the next few years. So I really think, yeah, if come to a PPC live event, you will. No, really think you will definitely get a view of one of those books. The first 40 or 50 people will get a book. So yeah, make sure you're one of those people that gets a book by going to ppc.live for our next PPC live event. That's October the 22nd. So yeah, please go and check it out. Before I leave you, I'm also delighted to share that I am going to be 

Anu Adegbola (31:38.584)

taken on coaching clients. am taking on coaching clients. I'm not going to be, I am taking on coaching clients for PPC mindset coaching to just help people to understand what it will take from them uniquely from them to exceed and to excel and to go beyond where they are if they feel that they're a bit stuck. So yeah, really happy to help you discuss that. If you just go to themarketinganu.com you'll find out details of being able to support my time. You'll get 

Anu Adegbola (32:06.322)

one free session and then we'll look at what the payment plan will be depending on what you can afford and depending on how much time of my time that you need. So yeah, please, we'd love to hear from you if you my help on themarketingannu.com. So yeah, I hope that you've enjoyed the show and I look forward to bringing more PPC F-UPS and triumphs next week. Thank you. Bye.