EP331 - The £15,000 Landing Page Mistake ft Dale Olorenshaw

Anu Adegbola (00:05)
Hello and welcome to PPC Live the podcast. I'm your host Anu and I'm the founder of PPC Live. And if you're used to hearing advice 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. But instead of 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 but also how they turn things around and remain.

a trusted expert in their field, in their company, and amongst their colleagues, especially. Today, I have the extreme pleasure of speaking to Dale Olorenshaw of Strategic IQ, who talks about even being a lead of his team, he made an error that did not align with what the proper QA process should be, and being the process that should be. know as someone who has worked with agencies, sometimes I hear about, you know,

the process that we have to go through with doing things. I'm all like, oh, those processes, they're so limiting and they just, you know, they, withhold creativity, but actually some of those processes are actually the key to ensuring you set a campaign live with all the right settings and you don't waste a client's budget. Um, so yeah, a lot of money was lost in this particular mistake that could have been avoided. Um, or a mistake that could have been avoided by

following some career processes, but Dale tells us how the team was so supportive, the client was supportive and how they really turn things around. So yeah, let's go speak to Dale.

Anu Adegbola (01:38)
Hello Dale, Welcome to PPC Live the podcast.

Dale Olorenshaw (01:41)
Hi Anu, Thanks for having me.

Anu Adegbola (01:43)
My absolute pleasure. I know like us knowing each other has not been for too long, but as soon as we had the fantastic, a good friend of mine, Russ MacAthy put me in touch with James Bavington who's like, know, like the owner of like your strategic IQ and brought that in. It's just been amazing so far.

Dale Olorenshaw (01:59)
over us.

Anu Adegbola (02:06)
I wouldn't jump the gun into why our meetup was so important just yet. I'll leave that till near the end. But first of all, I'd love to introduce you guys to the fantastic Dale Olorenshaw And I'm sure I said that name slowly because I was just telling Dale earlier on that.

Dale Olorenshaw (02:22)
Thank

Anu Adegbola (02:24)
If that was O-L-U, was in Olu Rancho, was like, that could be someone who was like my uncle, because that sounds like a Nigerian name, but it's Olu, right? never know. So Dale Olorenshaw is an experienced performance and growth marketer with very much demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. He's skilled over PPC and SEO and digital strategy, digital.

Dale Olorenshaw (02:32)
Who knows, maybe in another life.

That's right.

Anu Adegbola (02:50)
digital analytics and insights, customer relationship management, social media management, account management, you know, and has got very strong professional background with a degree in marketing even, with over 15 years of experience in both agency and freelance. And now is the head of paid search, paid media and search at strategic IQ, a brilliant company that are based in London. Is it just London that you have offices in or do you have offices elsewhere?

Dale Olorenshaw (03:17)
No, we used to have offices scattered across the country, but we've all consolidated and now we've got one big London hub, is, yeah, everyone's excited. It's still quite new. Been here just shy of the year, but the buzz of the atmosphere and being in London is brilliant.

Anu Adegbola (03:30)
Right.

It really is, it really is. Especially in the location where you guys are based, like our Liverpool streets, shortage area, there's so much to do. So, you know, you go into office and then after there's always somewhere great to go for lunch, great to hang out with after, after work, you know, for a drink or so. yeah, it's, it's a great venue. And Dale's fun fact really blew me away. absolutely love this fun fact of Dale's in a previous life. He was a professional UK.

Dale Olorenshaw (03:50)
It's brilliant. It's brilliant.

Anu Adegbola (04:01)
wrestler like you know like the rock that kind of like personality like the rock he was he was the rock of UK

Dale Olorenshaw (04:05)
Wasn't as big as they were on both fame and height perspective.

Anu Adegbola (04:10)
you did it for 10 years and what, why, why did that career path and have to come to an end?

Dale Olorenshaw (04:13)
That's right.

Yeah, unfortunately it's due to injury. I injured both my knees. So that's why in this day and age, I can only play football once a week and then I'm hobbling around for about a week before I could play again. But no, it was good fun whilst it, whilst it lasted.

Anu Adegbola (04:20)
⁓ lord.

⁓ amazing. Well, we're glad, very much so glad that you did make that switch. And despite it being a painful switch actually for you, but like, yeah, you add so much to our industry and you're really glad to hear the story that you're going to share with us today about, know, f-up that has been made. It's like a recent one, Dale said that he's going to share. So really grateful that, you know, you're willing to share that. Cause some people are like, no, sometimes

some stories are just a bit too raw and it's it's not even about being brave. get it. I get it. It's not this too raw. You want to wait a while before even talking about it. So thank you so much, Dale, for coming on the show today to talk about this. And ⁓ yeah, really glad to really excited to hear about how we got turned around, how you rebuild that your trust with the clients and with on this journey. So let's get to it. Dale, what F up would you like to share with us today?

Dale Olorenshaw (05:25)
Well, like you alluded to, I think we've all made plenty of mistakes over our career, but the one I wanted to share today was just the most fresh for me. was earlier on in the year, you know, we're talking nine months ago, but mistakes still hurt, you know, a few months later down the line. And it was quite a basic mistake I made. It was using the wrong landing page for a campaign I launched and that

Anu Adegbola (05:39)
Oof.

Dale Olorenshaw (05:53)
campaign also had a dedicated £15,000 budget to test and by the end of the month the test didn't go according to plan because of my eff-up shall we say.

Anu Adegbola (06:05)
Oh,

that sounds like that would be painful. it took you a month to figure out that it was the landing page, but what are checks that weren't being happening that took a month?

Dale Olorenshaw (06:13)
Very cool.

Anu Adegbola (06:28)
Apologies for saying that. don't want to beat you with a stick with like, how did you let that happen? But more like, you get a lot of speaking with managers of like, there's weekly checks. There must be like weekly checks and several things that you do in place. So how did that get missed for a month?

Dale Olorenshaw (06:34)
no.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And we have our own QA process where different members of the team QA one another's work, especially bigger campaigns tests. Um, and I guess this mistake has a few sub layer mistakes to it as well. And this is one where, I head up the team, I took this client on myself. There's a lot going through the business and the team. I thought, come on, then let's take this on.

Anu Adegbola (06:49)
Tour!

Dale Olorenshaw (07:12)
That's the first mistake is not adhering to our own processes. And because I took it on myself, the keyword there myself, there wasn't it when over the QA checks and dedicated landing pages had been built for this test. And unfortunately, in the heat of the moment still can't explain why I took the website's organic page instead of the landing page test.

Anu Adegbola (07:13)
Mmm.

Mm. Mm.

Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (07:37)
⁓ and yeah, it

was one of those where over the month results weren't going according to plan. And what I mean by results is we were expecting conversions from this campaign and the top level metrics were good. Click through rate was good. Engagement was good, but the conversions and engagement actually on the website weren't following. And I did have a gut feeling that

Anu Adegbola (07:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Dale Olorenshaw (08:04)
There's something not right here. And another mistake to layer in is that I didn't go with my gut feeling. I didn't look into it. And I was sort of telling myself, it's early days, it's a test, you know. And I guess then the biggest element which hurts from this whole experience is that, and I hate it when this happens, but the client noticed first and decided to investigate.

Anu Adegbola (08:10)
Yeah.

Ohhhh

Dale Olorenshaw (08:32)
That's what I take a lot of pride me and my team here that be proactive, make sure you're feeding the client's information before they come to you. And on this occasion, I remember it perfectly. It was about half six in the evening, still checking my emails and I got the email from the client basically telling me what the F up had been. And we've all been there where all of a sudden you feel your heart heart rate double in

Anu Adegbola (08:56)
Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (09:00)
in speed, those beads of sweat coming down your head and you know immediately that your gut feeling was right all along and you know it was your fault as well there's no escaping it and I think that's the whole element so yeah there's a few sub layers of mistakes to that and just not following my gut feeling and not following our QA checks is what ultimately is the biggest mistake here

Anu Adegbola (09:05)
Yup.

Yeah!

Yeah.

Oh, bless, still, I feel like giving you a hug right now in this moment, because yeah, all of those things, you know, you just, it's like, you know, it, you know, it, and then the knowing and the doing is like that, that pool, like it's knowing is not, is not enough. think that's something, a big lesson that we should really, you know, put, listen to adhere to. and you already take, it's not even what 10 minutes into this podcast. That's already a big lesson of like knowing and practical.

Dale Olorenshaw (09:29)
Thank

Anu Adegbola (09:54)
two different things and make sure you are, you have both, you have both and you're putting both in place. So, okay, let's, let's, let's move on to like that client, like that client's reaction of that client, you know, picking that up. How, how did that go? Was it a very, very tough, how heavy handed did they come on you?

Dale Olorenshaw (10:16)
because it was a test and their average monthly budget was below that 15,000 pounds. So was a big investment. And, know, I always tell my team, treat a client's money as your own. again, I wasn't following our own best practice with, with that. they did come down quite hard that they had spotted it and we hadn't spotted it. And how come it's taken a month for it to be spotted, which was all

Anu Adegbola (10:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (10:43)
fair questions. I went back with a placeholder, know, let me investigate, let me get the figures, the facts before we jump into this. And you know, I couldn't really sleep that night. I was thinking about it. But I needed to digest the information myself and double check like, yeah, this is on me. There's no escaping this. wouldn't want to escape it anyway. But the next morning, every account here at strategic has an account director.

Anu Adegbola (10:59)
Of

Mm-hmm.

Dale Olorenshaw (11:09)
as well alongside

the specialists and the HODs [head of departments]. And I remember calling the account director very first thing in the morning, you know, hi, good morning. How are you doing? I just went straight into look, I've effed up and they were like, okay, tell me what's happened. And I think they're there. The honesty of just coming out and saying, look, made this problem, holding my hands up there. They were behind me all the way. They're like, right, come on, let's, let's solve this. Let's put a solution together.

Anu Adegbola (11:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (11:39)
⁓ and yeah, it was just good knowing that we had a team behind us. There's no blame culture or anything. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone knows that. So it's just a case of let's own up, let's solve it. And let's work with the clients on how we can, you know, the relationship hadn't been broken, but it's like, look, how do we, how do we fix it?

Anu Adegbola (11:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure, sure. mean, look, if you blame yourself, if you put your hand up and go, I was the one that did it, it gives no one else any stance to be like, yeah, let's point fingers at someone you've owned up to it. You want to be part of the solution. And the best decision in those times of situations is let's move on and let's try to win the client back. So what was the process of?

Dale Olorenshaw (12:03)
100 %

Anu Adegbola (12:27)
winning the client back. I mean, obviously we, the URL got changed to the right landing page. ⁓ That's an easy, like what happened to turn things around? You fix that. But what was, how's the relationship even with the client till now? it, is that you guys still on good terms?

Dale Olorenshaw (12:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, with this client we've it's not just with PPC, but we do a lot of other service lines of this client and the relationship's always been good. We've won a few UK search awards and European search awards for this particular client, but you know, there was no again hiding from it. at the end of the day, was £15,000 for a test. So how do we make up that £15,000 to do another test? Because the test was supposed to only run for a month and the month.

Anu Adegbola (12:51)
Sure.

All right, nice.

sure.

Dale Olorenshaw (13:15)
come to an end. So we did come to an agreement of right, we'll reconcile some of the budget. There was another stream of work coming through at the same time we said, look, this is on us, let us do this free of charge. And then the next campaign, we also did it at reduced fee as well. So all things considered that made up the media spend that we had spent that mistaken altogether that allowed us to come together and

Anu Adegbola (13:33)
and that's

Sure.

Dale Olorenshaw (13:43)
push on with that campaign again. So it was a few different elements of a bit of value and a bit more time here and there. It wasn't a simple case of we'll just run it again. So, which the client did appreciate.

Anu Adegbola (13:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And like, you know, that's really, really great to hear that, you know, opinion and viewpoint from the clients. But another aspect of these stories that I like to get is your team and even like the account director that you spoke to, you've already alluded to the fact that, you know, it wasn't a blink or so they had, but like really what part of, you know, them

either supporting was that actually he's all said that everybody was great. Was there anyone who maybe, you know, like, you know, dug in more than they should have and just wouldn't some letting go or was just really everybody got on board board with your manager and everything.

Dale Olorenshaw (14:32)
Yeah, everyone just got behind one another and I think that because we've got good relationships with all of our clients, really, I think anyone's going to say that. But, you know, this is true and they're aware people make mistakes, not everyone's perfect and mistakes haven't really occurred much with this client in the past. So I think it was the case of, look, we can't escape it from a business point of view. So we do need to find a solution, but

Anu Adegbola (14:52)
Sure.

Dale Olorenshaw (14:57)
No, honestly, everyone, even on the client side, pulled together to find the solution. They weren't looking to hang us out to dry. We just wanted to help them. They wanted to help us as well. ⁓ yeah, I think everyone played an equal role in getting over that, ⁓ mistake.

Anu Adegbola (15:02)
Nice. Fantastic.

Amazing.

Yeah. Do you

guys have like a client services team within strategic? Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (15:20)
We

do. We, we coin it the growth team here because we, they're the ones that are holistic marketers and are able to help the client with all of their business decisions and pull together those marketing plans. And then that's where the specialists come in with their own personal experience to add from a PPC programmatic social media customer experience.

Anu Adegbola (15:23)
Right.

Sure, exactly.

huh.

Yeah.

⁓

Dale Olorenshaw (15:44)
point of view. So yeah, we do and we call them the growth team here.

Anu Adegbola (15:48)
Yeah, they were also quite supportive in the process because in past stories when when I asked who was the who was the one with this most surprising reactions is always like a client service team member who is like, yeah, you guys we need to you know, there is like they're in the client, you know, like side instead of being part of the team that will help.

Go to solution says really good to have that even they, in this case, we're on board with you guys and we're on your side to get the solution from the sounds of it.

Dale Olorenshaw (16:18)
Yeah, no, everyone's on board there. You know, everyone was down to earth. They're like, look, we need to do what's best for the client, but also do what's best for us as well. No, I said earlier, no one's was hanging anyone out to to dry. So it's how do we move forward where both parties win and learn from this experience, which is the most important thing.

Anu Adegbola (16:27)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Totally agree with you with that one. so what advice, so if there's, there's someone going through this process right now, like literally they've gotten that email. Let's, let's take that, that, that evening of getting the email from the client, they've gotten it. And I almost like kind of know what you're probably going to say because you've already alluded to it. What's, what's your advice to someone in that evening of just seeing the email and a bit of a panicked beads of sweat just rolling down.

Dale Olorenshaw (16:50)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Anu Adegbola (17:07)
You know,

they know it's there for what's your advice to them.

Dale Olorenshaw (17:11)
I'd say definitely take a step back, take a deep breath, know, gather your thoughts, don't make any rash decisions here and there. It can be so easy to immediately quickly respond and say, don't know why this has happened. We'll get to the bottom of it. Blah, blah. I would even encourage to don't immediately...

investigate it there and then give yourself an hour, take the dog for a walk, get some fresh air to just to gather your thoughts because you'll end up wanting to respond too sooner than you should do. You won't give yourself enough time mentally or physically to pull all that information together. Definitely sleep on it. It would be hard to, and then at the end of the day, just be honest and rally yourself with the right people who

you know, can be impartial to that scenario to help you and the client get to the next step.

Anu Adegbola (18:08)
Absolutely, I think that's very important. Even when you were saying the, know, giving the story the first time, like, you know, three minutes ago, you first mentioned that, seeing the email. I think what really stuck out to me as well was the fact that you didn't kind of, you know, you wrote an email saying, I will investigate this. It wasn't like an email of like, already promising. You clearly said that, like, look, you knew they were right, but still, it's good to not show your panic.

on that first few moments, you know, it's very important not to show your panic. mean, sure, let the panic motivate you to find a solution, but don't make sure the client doesn't see that panic in that moment and gather yourself and go back and make sure you come back after you've done the proper investigation. No, I think that's... ⁓

Dale Olorenshaw (18:36)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, panic

spreads panic. So don't show clients your panic here, nor that it's, could end up being a bigger situation than what it actually is.

Anu Adegbola (18:56)
rights.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So now based on that story, what has been the biggest learning for yourself in terms of like turning point of like what you now do very differently because of that? I'm sure there's several things, but what's the, what's the things that you do very different now because of that thing that happened.

Dale Olorenshaw (19:20)
the biggest thing is just following processes, internal processes, QAing. I think just outside of this scenario, this year for me has been about that. Just making sure that the basics are bulletproof across all of your accounts, all of your campaigns, just to ensure that you're doing all the foundational stuff right into the best of that ability.

Anu Adegbola (19:24)
Yeah.

Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (19:46)
More often than not, that's enough to help your clients get to the next level and help them grow. If you get the basics right, it gives you more time to be doing the call innovation stuff and R &D stuff. But certainly it's just a dead processes, QAing elements. And even though I head up the department, you know, I follow that. And when we've had new clients join this year and they have landed on my desk, you know, I've

Anu Adegbola (19:56)
yes.

Mmm.

Dale Olorenshaw (20:15)
I've

asked other members of the team, some of our execs, some of our managers to say, look guys, I've just pulled this campaign structure together. Appreciate second pair of eyes. And sometimes they even may be thinking you head up the department. You should be able to do what you want, but it's not about that. It's about just make sure. Cause you know, we're all staring at Google ads, Bing ads, Amazon ads all day, every day that it all becomes camouflaged.

Anu Adegbola (20:25)
Yeah. Right.

Nah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (20:41)
and everything looks the same and you do end up missing stuff so yeah QAing is just so important

Anu Adegbola (20:48)
amazing. I think also even that if you, you know, if you go to a teammate to be like, can you QA my work and you're someone who's the, you know, the head, head of paid and head of paid side, it inspires them to be like, well, if Dale is even doing this with his work, there's no good reason why I shouldn't as well. I shouldn't then go to somebody else and be like, Hey, you know, can you check my work? Because, you know, someone like Dale, who's amazing, who's the head of department still thinks that other people should check my work.

I probably need to get my work checked as well. And I think that's just, it's, you know, it's, think the things like that, especially where people can get a little bit like defensive with their work and be like, Hey, I did this. I know I got it right. You know, you just need a bit of humility and seeing that someone else, other people do it. There's, there's wanting to someone to tell you to do someone, but actually showing them that you, you do the thing that you're asking them to do.

Dale Olorenshaw (21:29)
and jump inside.

Anu Adegbola (21:45)
I think goes a lot further. I'm sure your team is inspired by that. So also do the same in terms of like when they do their work to get a second pair of eyes because yeah, you never know.

Dale Olorenshaw (21:54)
Yeah, of course.

It's not all about, you know, catching mistakes. Well, it is, but it's not trying to find them. It's just making sure no one is making any mistakes. So the best work possible is leaving our team and getting in front of the client.

Anu Adegbola (22:04)
Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Totally agree. So we're going to just after this question, we're going to tangent on to like other people's mistakes so that you can, you know, let this mistake leave this out. You know, I hate digging things up like this for people. I'm so grateful that people are so, so, you know, open to to share these kind of stories. So one last one last question about the story and then we'll move on. So what's the one thing you'd like to leave people with? Like, you know, you know about this story, like

you've probably said it, but let's just like wrap it up in one sentence. Like what's the biggest takeaway that people, our audience, our listeners should take on that story you've just shared.

Dale Olorenshaw (22:49)
Yeah, I guess it's three things. Don't be rash. Take time, be honest and just treat a client's budget as if it's your own investment.

Anu Adegbola (22:59)
Amazing. Don't be rash. Be honest. Treat the clients' money like it's your own. I love it. I love it. So let's now move on. I can breathe easy. It's all done. You're good now.

Dale Olorenshaw (23:04)
play.

What else?

Maybe I'll have to revisit that again.

Anu Adegbola (23:13)
Yeah, let's

hope you don't have to. So I'm really grateful that you've shared that. You've chosen us to share that with today. What's something, you know, I'm sure, especially in the past few years, with AI and the revolution of AI and all the AI things that you could do, what are mistakes that you see, you know, people still making, especially when you win a new account and you're like, oh, these guys, that previous agency, I know why that client fired them.

What's a recurring mistake that you see that people are doing on accounts?

Dale Olorenshaw (23:47)
thing I've noticed a lot, certainly this year actually, and with the whole advancement of AI platforms and algorithmic learning and everything, and I guess sometimes it's understanding the foundational stuff. And I'm going to come to add copy with this one. And if we look at RSAs and

Anu Adegbola (23:51)
Okay.

Mm. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Dale Olorenshaw (24:09)
You know, Google's recommendation is always input as many headlines as he can and as many descriptions, because that feeds the algorithms. But if you're working with smaller budgets, smaller businesses, SMBs who don't have massive budgets. If you take a step back and actually think about this for a second, if you create an ad, let's got 10 headlines, two descriptions. Think of how many.

Anu Adegbola (24:13)
show.

Mm-hmm.

Dale Olorenshaw (24:33)
different possibilities that add could be. And I'll give you the answer to that specific example. It's actually 47,000. And if you've got a budget of say 10 to even 50 pounds a day, we'll work out an average cost per click. How many times does each possibility, every variable have to appear before you can actually get good algorithmic learnings about that?

Anu Adegbola (24:47)
Mmm.

Dale Olorenshaw (25:01)
ads and more often than not, lot of those headlines will be surplus to requirements because Google will just catch on to the first thing that's working. So whilst you may be sat there thinking Google's looking at all of my headlines all the time and testing it won't be. So I think it's understanding how much learning can be done with your budgets through the AI learning within the platform itself. So

Anu Adegbola (25:07)
Yeah.

Sure, sure.

Dale Olorenshaw (25:30)
Sometimes it's okay to only have six headlines, two descriptions, you know, as long as you can pull learnings to say, actually this headline or this word is the common denominator towards conversions. Because if you can't do that, then you're not really testing or taking advantage of actually the platform strengths. So that's something I'm still seeing a lot of people falling into that mistake.

Anu Adegbola (25:32)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm.

Interesting. Yeah, that is not, I don't think a, ⁓ that, but I don't think I'm sure that no one else has mentioned something as detailed like that in terms of like, you know, RSAs and I'm really glad you gave an advice for SMBs because a lot of these talks and a lot of these like processes all about how the big retail media folks can, you know, make the most of AI and big budgets. And I think for sure SMBs are really trying to figure out as to how do they fit in.

into this process, but also make it look like if they're making the most of everything. And I think there's just a stage of it. Cause at some stage as you grow, yeah, then it will make more sense to use as many of those headlines as possible. But as you're growing, make sure that you are actually feeding it. What it will need to actually make the most of like using the best that'll work for you because yeah, trying to.

test 15 headlines when you only have like 50, 100 pounds a day budget, it's not gonna make sense. It's not gonna go through all the headlines. So yeah, that's a very, very good point. So I'm very good takeaway for people. Also, I'd like to then like divert back just a little bit back to like, you know, our topic of, you know, just what this podcast is about in terms of talking about mistakes and why that's important because...

Dale Olorenshaw (26:51)
Well, I'll betcha, yeah.

Anu Adegbola (27:13)
I don't know about you. say this all my guys, I don't see people on LinkedIn or any other platform showing that this is the mistake that I made that, you know, this is the lighting. don't know. We're all like, this is my winnings. We got an award with the best client, best thing, you know, I mean, I don't even mind the fact that you did mention earlier on that you guys won an award because you're here to talk about mistake. if you, and it's part of that, it's inserted as, as that's how the story happened. It makes sense, but everybody just does the whole, I want an award. Why is it important for us to talk about?

Dale Olorenshaw (27:20)
That's a needle.

Anu Adegbola (27:43)
when things have gone wrong.

Dale Olorenshaw (27:47)
I mean, I guess it's as simple as how's the next generation of paid media execs, PPC execs going to learn and the social media is so strong and in our faces these days that, know, those that are coming out of university or at university or just have one, two, three years experience, all they're just digesting is all this good stuff, all this good stuff. And then, you know, I guess.

Anu Adegbola (27:55)
Mm.

Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (28:13)
subconsciously they're gonna be thinking if they make a mistake everyone else is doing so much good stuff that even if they make one mistake I can't because everyone else is so good when in reality You know just think how many people see mistakes being made on a daily basis that aren't being shown so I think it's You know, I don't think we should all shout about it because at the end of the day we do have credibility and reputation to uphold but as a community we should feel safe to just be like

Anu Adegbola (28:20)
Done.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Sure!

Dale Olorenshaw (28:40)
made this mistake. This is what they're learning from it. Hope you guys can carry it away and not make the same mistake, which is why I love this podcast. That's what it does.

Anu Adegbola (28:45)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's the thing. I think that's that's what made it such a I was passionate for it to use as the unique selling point. And there's nothing more unique than talking about mistakes in PPC because I don't see any of the community or any other podcast doers. I was like, let me let me get there first. I don't know whether I was I was thinking, will people be bold enough to do it? I'm so grateful I've had

Dale Olorenshaw (29:05)
Thank you.

Anu Adegbola (29:11)
Several folks, you know, do that and we're always coming up to a year of doing it this way. I'm yeah, people are still very, very like, you know, generous with that. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dale Olorenshaw (29:19)
I think you learn more from mistakes than you do wins. you know,

any aspiring paid media execs or managers looking to take that next step is just don't be afraid to make mistakes. We've no one in the industry will encourage it, but embrace the mistakes because you learn and you'll grow a lot more both professionally and as an individual by learning from those mistakes.

Anu Adegbola (29:31)
Yeah. Yeah. No. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I even feel some part of your story already leads to this, but like how, like head of departments or managers, do we, kind of inspire an environment of like making a mistake or not mean the end of the world. Like, you know, how I like, what's important to instill in or encourage in a culture kind of way so that people

don't feel too scared as to when they make their mistake.

Dale Olorenshaw (30:12)
I think going back to the whole honesty side and knowing and reassuring people that you've got a team behind you. One, I've done this for many years across various agencies and across many teams that I've had the privilege of looking after is that there's this small habit I try to distill within my teams, even when they're writing emails and I see them typing, I will do this or I will get this back to you.

I really encourage and I get them to change it, change that I to we because we're a team, we're together. And that's not to recognition. away recognition. The form, if you're doing good work right now, but there will be a day where you will make a mistake. Cause I think it's a bit foolish to say we're never going to make mistakes, no matter how experienced you are. But when that day comes and the first point of call is always going to email chains communication, what was said, what was agreed.

Anu Adegbola (30:46)
Wee.

Yeah, nah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dale Olorenshaw (31:10)
When there's a common theme of we, we, we, we

promised this, we did this, we actioned this, we reported on this. You're in the trenches with your team then and they'll have your back. And so it's not saying we to shift the blame and other people say, why did you say we? It's because you should be able to trust your team to have your back at the end of the day. And that's what I encourage you with my team that we're all in it together. So just be honest and just know that.

Anu Adegbola (31:19)
your team.

Yes, sure.

Dale Olorenshaw (31:37)
you're going to have backup for if and when that time comes.

Anu Adegbola (31:41)
Amazing. I couldn't say better myself. Yeah. Thanks for that. That, you know, example of, think that's such a practical cause we can, we can give like a nice theoretical answer for like what's important, but that whole practical, what we write in an email, changing that I to we, I hope, I hope managers are listening to that and thinking, I'm going to, I'm going to start doing that with my team. I hope, I hope at least one or two people think to go away and doing that.

Dale, this has been such a fantastic chat. Thank you. You've given us so many learnings left, right and center. So yeah, let's, let's get off the PPC train talk and let's go to a very lovely, like one of like our last question. ⁓ if your PPC career were a movie, what would the title be?

Dale Olorenshaw (32:25)
I've been thinking about this and the one that stood out to me was I've gone with the pursuit of change because our industry just changes so much. don't think a week goes by where something in the platforms changed or they always changed or, know, there's a brand new platform out there or, you know, retail media is completely changing or in the future there's going to be chat GPT ads. I think change is just the

Anu Adegbola (32:26)
you

Okay

I know.

Dale Olorenshaw (32:53)
constant theme and thread of our careers and my career and I couldn't think of anything more suitable than that really.

Anu Adegbola (32:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, the pursuit of change. Yeah, that definitely sounds like it's a good sum up of where we are really right now in most of our careers. So yeah, thank you so much for that Dale. And before you leave us today, where can people find you in terms of like your thoughts and your musings as to how people can still get further in our industry?

Dale Olorenshaw (33:22)
⁓ well, I'm always available on LinkedIn. attend PPC live events. I go to other, ⁓ industry events and partners and friends as well. hosted the paid search round table at Brighton SEO recently just gone. So, you know, if anyone's ever wanting to chat, catch up, make a new industry friend, I'm, available in all those places. So if you're at a conference or not, or you just want to chat online, I'm.

Anu Adegbola (33:37)
Nice.

Dale Olorenshaw (33:52)
I'm available.

Anu Adegbola (33:53)
Amazing. And yeah, I love that. Like Dale like snuck that in. comes to PPC live events and not, not, not just that very good support. And they're going to be doing their biggest support in terms of strategic IQ are going to be hosting us on February the 5th They've got the most lovely of offices. I walked in there and I was just like, my God, how have I not been in here earlier than this? Yeah, you know, and it's going to be, it's their offices actually where

Dale Olorenshaw (34:14)
exciting times

Anu Adegbola (34:22)
Dragon's Den, one of the first few seasons was shot. So guys, we're going to be in a historical space here. So if you want to see, you know, do like photo shoots of like, you know, of yourself and selfies of like, this is where Dragon's Den was first shot. You want to be at the next PPC live event on February the 5th. Early birth ticket sales are already live. So go to ppc.live for that. But yeah, we're so excited.

Dale Olorenshaw (34:25)
That's right.

Mm-hmm.

Anu Adegbola (34:48)
You'll have to have a chance to even chat with Dale as well and talk a bit more about his experience. So please ⁓ join us for that. ⁓ But for now, Dale, thank you so much for being on this podcast and to share with us. You've been such a great, great to like learn and give so much of your knowledge to our audience. So yeah, very, very grateful for that. Thank you.

Dale Olorenshaw (35:05)
No, thank

you. Like I said, huge admirer and glad I finally made it on. ⁓

Anu Adegbola (35:10)
I'm

glad, I'm so glad too. All right, cool. We'll see you later.

Dale Olorenshaw (35:13)
All right,

thanks a Anu.

Anu Adegbola (35:15)
Thank you so much, Dale, for sharing that very honest and transparent experience. And yeah, of course you're to be transparent when your advice to people is to be transparent, to lead by example. It's one thing to tell your team to be going around to be like, yeah, you need to QA your work. You need to make sure someone else looks at, you know, the piece of settings that you've put live. And another thing to actually be doing it yourself so that they know what they should be doing from example, honestly, managers, leaders, I think the best thing to do is always to lead.

by example. So for all the information and the full transcript of that fantastic discussion, please go to podcast.ppc.live for all the updates for that. So no longer talking about October 22nd, or at our last event of 2025, we are now going on to talking about February 5th, 2026, our first event of next year. And yeah, I can tell you that we've got some three fantastic speakers, especially

especially the master of Google ad scripts. We've got Nils Rooijmans sorry Nils if I'm always getting your last name wrong, but Nils, you would have heard his name from, know, all the different kinds of scripts at SMX advanced and, different conferences around the world. He's always talking about how to use scripts to ensure we're staying ahead. He's been doing scripts from like way ahead for like over 10 years now, even with the advancements of AI and automation, he's still making it useful for him to actually add scripts.

into the systems and he's doing it very well. yeah, that is happening on February the 5th. We are going to be at strategic IQ's offices where they've got a fantastic space. They used to actually have Dragon's Den recorded there. I think you would have caught that in my conversation with Dale. So yeah, if you want to have like really great photo of the place where Dragon's Den was recorded as well as of course, primarily to

Learn more about how to do paid search ads, you know, effectively speak to other paid search advertisers to understand what their struggles are so that you feel like you're not alone and just get great insights and add your voice to, know, how people can do better because our panel sessions are next to none where everybody gets involved in that. So yeah, go to ppc.live for your early bird ticket sales for that. That could be a nice Christmas present for someone. So yeah, make sure you save that money. It's going to, it's right now it's only 33 pounds.

So before you spend all your money on those Christmas presents, just save about 33 pounds for a fantastic event happening on February the 5th of next year. So yeah, I hope you can join us for that. Before I leave you, I'm also delighted to share that I am looking, taking on coaching clients, you know, and just to help you deal with your imposter syndrome, deal with the challenges that you face, deal with the, you know, just a block, a wall that you just feel like you're coming against with every time that you wanna.

push ahead, know, helping with salary promotion, with promotions and salary negotiations. Very happy to help you with that, especially take you to the process of how I was able to secure one for myself this year at a time where redundancies were being made. It's if you can show your value.

you can have the confidence to ask for that salary increase and knowing that you're going to say get a yes in response. So yeah, go to themarketinganu.com to get more information as to how we can work together and I'd love to help you on your career journey, especially for 2026. So yeah, I hope you have enjoyed the show and I look forward to bringing more PPCF ups and triumphs next week. Thank you. Bye.