093: You Want One Person to Do All That?! Real Talk on Marketing Jobs in 2025
What started as a frustrated student’s question turns into two powerful interviews about the chaos of modern marketing job descriptions.
Danny Gavin sits down with PPC experts Navah Hopkins and Sarah Stemen to expose the gap between what companies want and what one human can realistically do, especially at a part-time salary.
From overloaded listings to mental burnout, this episode is packed with practical hiring tips, career strategies, and real talk for both marketers and employers. Whether you’re hiring, job hunting, or redefining roles within your team, these conversations offer essential clarity.
Key Points + Topics:
Part 1: Navah Hopkins – From Job Post Frustrations to Solutions
- [03:06] Navah kicks off with blunt honesty: rage. Rage for the job seeker, and for the shoddy work that results from overloaded job listings.
- [03:47] She urges empathy: many employers simply don’t know how much time tasks take—and may not realize their job posts are unrealistic.
- [04:29] AI-written job descriptions are part of the problem, and Navah highlights how tools like ChatGPT can balloon roles with unnecessary responsibilities.
- [06:03] How to spot red flags: if the hours don’t align with the listed tasks, the position is flawed. Example: community management alone is often a full-time job.
- [07:47] Design is one of the hottest commodities—and most marketers aren’t trained designers. Asking for design chops in every role? Unrealistic.
- [08:50] Navah offers a great interview question for job seekers: ask employers to name the top 3 objectives for the role. Push back on task lists and speak the language of outcomes.
- [11:21] Navah emphasizes that all experience counts: internships, volunteer work—even high school. Build a story that highlights your real strengths.
- [12:53] She advises looking out for turnover warning signs synch as short tenures, chaotic listings, and bad onboarding processes, all clues to toxic environments.
- [14:04] Her three power questions to ask in interviews:
- “What haven’t I asked yet?”
- “What’s your favorite innovation in the past six months?”
- “Teach me something—anything.”
- “What haven’t I asked yet?”
- [16:17] Her message to employers: before hiring, ask if the job is better served by a person, software, or an agency. Be realistic about what you’re staffing for.
- [17:54] She’s found that most companies think they need a “community manager”—but don’t clearly define if that means content creation or engagement.
- [18:45] Navah warns that fractional CMOs aren’t cheap. If you’re dreaming of one hire to do it all, you better be ready to pay for it—or consider scalable tools instead.
- [19:22] Using a metaphor about rescue puppies, Navah explains that onboarding takes time. A full 6 months for someone to prove themselves, and a year to settle in.
- [20:27] Marketing is accountable for a lot—but often lacks control. If other departments aren’t collaborating, marketing can’t succeed.
- [21:50] Can one person manage Google and Meta ads? Yes, but expect to pay $70–90K+ for that kind of hybrid expert.
- [23:42] Final words of advice from Navah: if the jobs don’t fit, create your own. Freelancing or consulting can offer more control, satisfaction, and growth than chasing misaligned roles.
Part 2: Sarah Stemen – Strategy Over Stretch: Why Depth Wins in Digital
- [27:56] Sarah shares the post that sparked her invite: a job listing for $45K asking for a full-stack marketer to do everything.
- [28:42] PPC alone requires 10 distinct skills—from A/B testing to data analysis—and they each require deep focus to master.
- [30:10] Sarah explains why keeping up with platform updates like Performance Max and Google Ads changes is a job in itself – PPC isn’t just “set it and forget it.”
- [30:48] She sees the real disconnect in job listings isn’t malice—it’s ignorance. Business owners often don’t realize what they’re asking for.
- [31:45] PPC isn’t a 9-to-5 task. Sarah calls it a job that requires mental bandwidth and constant strategic thought.
- [32:43] It’s not about money—it’s about capacity. She believes that even if employers offer $200K, one person still can’t do ten full-time roles well.
- [34:16] Juniors may not recognize red flags in listings, and Sarah encourages them to still interview, ask questions, and treat it as a learning opportunity.
- [36:02] For small businesses needing “everything,” she recommends hiring an agency over one overwhelmed marketing generalist.
- [37:06] Sarah’s Pro tip: even a one-hour consultation with an agency like Optidge can help companies scope their needs before hiring.
- [39:04] Her Final wish for employers and hiring managers: rewrite job descriptions to match real-world expertise—not fantasy lists. HR checklists often miss the best candidates.
Guest + Episode Links:
Full Episode Transcript
Danny Gavin Host
00:05
Hey everyone, welcome back to The Digital Marketing Mentor. I’m your host, Danny Gavin.
Today’s episode is a special one—it actually started with a single question from one of my Odeo Academy students:
“I really have an issue when companies are looking for part-time marketers with an endless list of responsibilities. Maybe you wanna talk about this?”
That one question sparked not one, but two amazing conversations. In part one, you’ll hear from Navah Hopkins, a paid media expert and industry leader who has seen hiring challenges from both sides—agency and in-house. We talk about why these unrealistic listings happen, how job seekers can respond, and what employers should be thinking about when hiring smart marketers on a budget.
Then in part two, I sit down with Sarah Stemen, a brilliant PPC strategist, to dive deep into just how much skill it really takes to do PPC well—and why tacking it onto a long job description for $45K a year isn’t just unrealistic, it’s counterproductive.
Whether you’re a marketer navigating your next role, or a business owner writing your next job post, this episode is packed with practical advice, tough love, and a whole lot of clarity.
If you want even more from today’s guests:
Navah was also featured in Episode 41, where she shared her journey from aspiring English teacher to digital marketing leader. We explored how her mentors shaped her, the future of marketing, data privacy concerns, and takeaways from Optmyzer’s latest study.
Sarah joined me in Episode 53, where she opened up about her transition from programming to in-house marketing to running her own PPC consultancy. We talked about agency challenges, Google Ads strategy, and what makes mentorship truly impactful.
For now, let’s dive in—starting with Navah Hopkins.
Navah is someone I deeply respect for her experience, empathy, and honesty. She’s been a speaker, strategist, educator—and most importantly, an advocate for fair hiring and realistic marketing expectations.
Here’s our conversation.
02:23
So, Navah, thank you for being here. Before we dive in, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear about a part-time marketing role with an endless list of responsibilities?
Navah Hopkins Guest
03:06
Honest answer: rage. Rage for the job seeker, rage for the projects that are going to be unfortunately done instead of beautifully done. There’s a lot of rage, but once we get past the rage, there is a desire to unpack how we got here. So, did we get here because we don’t understand the amount of time that tasks take? Did we get here because we haven’t fully committed to investing in an in-house practitioner? Did we get here because we don’t have the budget and we’re just doing the best we can and we don’t know what we don’t know? We’re just doing the best we can and we don’t know what we don’t know.
03:47
There’s a whole bunch of things that could go into that. So my first bit of advice is to look at every single one of these job postings as an opportunity, instead of the employer doing intentional harm. Now, if the employer hears this episode or is made aware of how much they’re missing the mark and still does it, then yeah, we can be upset with the employer or the prospective employer. But until that time, we want to approach this from a standpoint of let’s unpack the tasks, let’s unpack the expectations and then we can go from there.
Danny Gavin Host
04:20
Yeah, I love it. I think it’s important to judge people favorably and therefore we should give the benefit of the doubt and therefore, if someone does see a job posting like this, let’s.
Navah Hopkins Guest
04:29
Let’s be clear here AI does not sleep AI does not eat except for electricity. Like there, there is a lot that could be added onto a job description that isn’t actually necessary but was put there because the person doesn’t know. So they asked Gemini or Copilot or ChatGPT or Cloud or Perplexity or any one of the various AIs. Make me a job description for this role and, given that marketing in particular has evolved so much to encapsulate so many things, it is very easy for that part-time marketing position that probably was meant to be a community management position, where the goal was to specifically manage social communities and be that part-time person there which is fair or that part-time person to do email marketing, to respond to customers or customer marketing Totally fair, totally fair and said, is the community manager and the email marketer and the paid person and the SEO person and the content person and the video editor and all these various tasks that the company might not even actually need.
Danny Gavin Host
05:55
So how can candidates gauge if a part-time role is actually realistic or if it’s setting them up for burnout or undervaluing their skill set?
Navah Hopkins Guest
06:03
The first thing I would think about is the amount of time the employer is claiming to ask of you. So in a part-time role you’re thinking maybe 10, 15 hours, at most 20 hours a week, and then look at the tasks and see could you complete all those tasks realistically in the time? So when I mentioned the community manager position, a community manager position if you’re really being a true community manager probably takes that full 40 to 50 hours a week. But say you’re doing this in shifts or you’re testing out running a community or it’s a smaller community you could in theory do that in 10 to 20 hours, but that would be the role and all of the tasks would flow into that. So, for example, you would see descriptions around liaising with customers, with being a knowledge expert in the various fields so that you could respond intelligently on brand tone. That you would partner with the other parts of the marketing team or with other stakeholders to relay important information. That’s what you would expect. You would not expect to see to run analytics for the website. You would not expect to see Photoshop for the sales organization, like there’s. Just there’s certain tasks that you would expect and not expect to see. And then the other thing that’s important to note is that not everyone realizes that design is one of the hottest commodities, but most marketers actually don’t have design chops. They rely very heavily on their graphic design friends or digital artist friends or, in the AI era, depending on your feelings on using AI and your company policy leaning on AI feelings on using AI and your company policy leaning on AI.
07:47
So I would really think about whether the tasks fit the amount of hours and are you confident in those tasks? So, for example, I am an English major. When I was first getting started on the SEO and PPC path, everything took me longer, because I process things in stories, not in math, not in spreadsheets like that. That was my least favorite part, and so, even though I ended up becoming much better at it and I gained mastery, it took hours and hours and hours of figuring that out. So, for an internship position that was totally fair because it was realistic that I would be learning on the job I would take a little bit more time. For a two to three year out from college, where you, in theory, have a little bit more experience, it’s expected that if you’re taking on a job, you have the efficiency that comes with, if not mastery, confidence. You’ve done the work. You know what to expect.
Danny Gavin Host
08:42
So if someone’s still interested in the job, how might someone respectfully push back or ask clarifying questions during the interview process?
Navah Hopkins Guest
08:50
The first thing is to confirm if you actually like these people. Before you even worry about the job, see if you like the team. Because if you like the team you can kind of figure out what is a comfortable way to set boundaries. Do you want to work with these people? You can kind of figure out what is a comfortable way to set boundaries. Do you want to work with these people? If you don’t like the people, it doesn’t matter how much the job might look sort of interesting, it’s not going to be a good fit. So I actually encourage everyone to take these interviews as practice, just to see what’s going on. Cut your teeth on just interviewing where there’s no stakes, because you don’t actually care whether you get it. But it is also worthwhile for the employer to hear those conversations because then they can get a sense of oh wow, I could have had this amazing person. But I was asking them to do way too much and I scared them away or it didn’t feel right. So that’s the kind of preface information In terms of if you’re sitting there in the interview position you need to push back, I would ask the question.
09:51
It seems like this role is trying to do a lot. If you had to pick the top three major objectives you want this role to achieve on a regular basis. What are those three objectives? And those? You’ll notice I said objectives, not tasks, because tasks are that could be anything You’ll hit a laundry list. They’re not going to actually know what to say.
10:08
But if you hear the objective and the objective is teach our customers what to actually do when they interact with us, that there’s better communication between the teams, that there’s understanding of what this department’s doing, that there’s better average sales or whatever like whatever the objective is then you can start to say, okay, it seems like there are some tasks on here that don’t actually relate to the objective. This is what I’m understanding. These are the things I’m super confident and super excited to bring to this role. Does that sound like it aligns with your vision? And have that sort of conversation and pivot it from tasks, which they might not even realize that they’re asking for too much, to objectives, which then you’re already talking their language. You’re talking bottom line, you’re talking growth and how they can start to see that you’re looking at how you can fit and that’s the best sort of impression you can give.
Danny Gavin Host
11:04
Because most of these organizations are small businesses, I’d imagine they know there’s this thing called SEO, ppc, but they don’t necessarily know how it all fits together. So as long as you’re fulfilling the objective, the way you get it done really isn’t that important. They just don’t know what else to put on there, would you say. That’s true.
Navah Hopkins Guest
11:21
Oh for sure, and it’s also important to note that you are absolutely allowed to include your internship experience, your high school experience, your volunteer experience, as part of your experience. A lot of these things will help you build your confidence in interfacing with stakeholders or C-suite, whatever the case might be. A lot of it will help you build presentations just because you maybe had one internship during college or you’re still in college and you haven’t actually had a real job yet in the working world. Don’t discount your experiences. Create the story and think about the tasks that you enjoy the most. So, for example, I shared that the math and the Excel spreadsheets were really not my thing, but I made myself get comfortable with marketing and the data tasks there by turning data into stories and looking for stories and data. So think about the things that you love the most, about the sort of job you’re going to take, and lean into how your previous experiences support your confidence there. So if the job is 10 hours and has 100 things that it’s expecting, that’s probably the bad of the owner or whoever put the job description together that they just don’t know what they’re asking. If the job has 10 hours and has 10 things and those 10. Things seem all really, really important, but they seem like they belong to three people.
12:53
That’s when there’s really an important question you have to ask yourself: Does it seem like there’s high turnover at this organization? Does this organization burn and churn teams? That’s where there’s great resources, like Glassdoor, to give you access to reviews. Feel free to ask questions about the culture fit. Take a look at the average duration of the people that are working there. Are people staying there for a year? Are people staying there for five years? Are people staying there for six months? And then piecing out, get a sense for what the turnover is, because then you’ll have an understanding of how much the company actually cares about getting the right talent and growing them, versus we’ll just take whatever we can get and we’ll just keep taking whatever we can get.
Danny Gavin Host
13:39
I think what’s so cool is so obviously now that you’ve had a lot of experience with different organizations, but your average someone who’s been like two, three years and they don’t realize that when they come into an interview they can actually ask these questions and how important it is right. So everything that you’ve listened to before like it’s okay, right, even if you have maybe this is your second job or even your first job, but to go in and ask these questions to make sure it’s the right fit is really important and you have the permission to do.
Navah Hopkins Guest
14:04
I want to make sure that for the recording, I give you all one of my favorite questions for the person being interviewed to ask, which is what haven’t I asked, or is there anything else you’re curious about? And what’s really useful about that question is that it shows that you’re curious, you want to know, but you might not know, and so you’re relying on the interviewer to kind of help you fill in that gap. Now, obviously you should have some prepped really useful questions that sound super smart, that precede this, but it’s a really powerful kind of question towards the end of the interview question. And one question I would typically ask folks when I would be interviewing folks is what is your favorite innovation from the past six months? And the reason why I liked it is that it would tell me how cued in clued in the person is to the industry, kind of what stands out to them, what makes them excited and hearing the strategist. But that’s because I’m interviewing for strategy positions, for design things. There might be a whole other set of questions for customer success.
15:13
One of my favorite things to ask people to do was I would ask them to teach me something. Teach me whatever you want. It can be, whatever. Some people would teach me how to tie shoelaces, some people would teach me how to install an app on my phone, like whatever they wanted, and what was useful about that is that it would showcase the skill without requiring the pressure of whatever the industry is. So for those of you that are interviewing, look for comfortable questions that will let you get at the heart of who the person is that you’re interviewing, without putting them in the spotlight that they have to know everything about your industry Because, to be honest, even someone who’s been doing this 10, 15 years, there are different cultural fits for every different organization and they might know something in their way that might be different than how you think about it, but if you let them communicate in the way that they feel comfortable, you can get it, their confidence, what their skill sets are, things like that.
Danny Gavin Host
16:08
Very cool. So now that we’re talking about the employer side, what’s a better way for companies to scope part-time roles in marketing, especially if they have limited resources?
Navah Hopkins Guest
16:17
So the first consideration is should you actually be hiring internally or should you be partnering with an external agency or software? The basic consideration here is agency or software. The basic consideration here is will you have enough work to give to the person for the specific role to justify the internal hire and all the fees that come with it? Because you should be paying them as a W-2, they should not be a 1099. If you’re paying them as a 1099, unless they have consented and have asked for that, that is probably not ideal. You want to make sure that they’re being set up for tax success. Horrible story One of my earlier employers actually switched my tax status on me from W-2 to 1099, back to W-2. And so not only did they cut my salary, they saddled me with a pretty sizable tax bill at the end. So please don’t do that. Please be upfront with your prospective employees. The next consideration is, candidly, what can you afford? Can you afford someone who thinks about you nonstop and is totally invested in your processes? Can you afford an agency who integrates with your systems and you kind of tell them what your goals are and then they do their thing? Can you afford a software where you have to do some of the work, but ultimately a lot of it is automated. If the answer is, I really can’t afford much, I’m just like doing the best I can, which I’m just like doing the best I can, pick two major objectives each year that you really want to solve. So I mentioned community at the beginning.
17:54
Most businesses that want marketing help want a community manager. That’s typically the role that they’re hiring in, for. That is someone who will be able to manage the social media channels where you are present, where you are active, where your customers are. You do not necessarily need to be on all of them, but you do want to make sure that you’re asking for the right things and when you hire for a community manager role, you’re very clear on whether they need to be a content generator or just a communicator. A content generator typically needs to be equipped with tools like Descript to help with video editing, with Canva to help with visuals, things like that, and these are all relatively inexpensive tools. If what you’re hiring for is like a fractional CMO, that’s a very expensive task, so you better have the strategic needs.
18:45
The best way to actually think about it is ChatGPT introduced a PhD level version of its tool for 20 grand a month. A lot of people were like, oh my God, 20 grand a month. There’s no way that’s useful. But 20 grand a month is for $5,000 a month employees, which is a very normal salary for someone in marketing. It’s like an entry-level job. So just think about why you are hiring for the role that you’re hiring, think about what tasks they’re going to complete and think about the runway time you have.
19:22
So a new hire typically takes six months to fully prove themselves out. The best way to actually think about new hires is to think about them like rescuing a puppy, and when you rescue a puppy there’s the 3-3-3 rule Three days to decompress, three weeks to get used to your workflow and three months to fully become themselves, to get out of their abuse mindset shell. So if you make a decision about a new hire in a month and you hire them in and then fire them because they didn’t get your processes, that’s more of you failing than them failing. You didn’t onboard them properly. You didn’t give them the chance to really learn your systems. If you’re going to hire an internal person, at least six months for them to prove themselves out and a full year for them to make their mark of whether they’re staying or going.
Danny Gavin Host
20:15
So really, typically we hear languages like 30, 60, 90. But what you’re saying is really that 30, 60, 90 should be spread out over six months and then really, and then after a year, you would know whether this is the right person or not.
Navah Hopkins Guest
20:27
One of the really fascinating things about marketing roles is that marketing roles tend to be how do I put this?
20:38
We take on a lot because we feel accountable for a lot, but we actually have very little control over a lot of the moving parts, and have very little control over a lot of the moving parts. So someone who’s hired into a marketing role, if their job is in part to liaise with customer success but customer success isn’t giving them the tools that they need to create case studies, you can’t hold the marketing person accountable for the fact that there’s no case studies if customer success didn’t give them the case studies. If sales is asking for updated sales decks but they’re not inviting marketing to join sales calls to shadow those calls, you can’t really be upset if the content doesn’t quite meet the mark. So just be mindful how much your other teams are interfacing with marketing. And if it’s a part-time role, which means they don’t even get the full amount of time, it’s only part-time you want to make sure that you build in enough of those hours and you pay them for those hours to interface with the other teams.
Danny Gavin Host
21:38
So I’m going to throw in a bonus question. It’s related, but it’s a little bit extra. But sometimes you see people who are hiring and they’re looking for someone who is a Google Ads expert as well as a meta ads expert.
Navah Hopkins Guest
21:50
That is a fair ask In today’s ecosystem. It is a fair ask.
Danny Gavin Host
21:53
Awesome. Explain why.
Navah Hopkins Guest
21:55
So Google in the ye old days of like 2008, 2010,. Yeah, you could just be a Google ads expert and that was it. That was all you needed to do. If you are a Google ads expert and a meta expert, you now have a secret power weapon where you have empathy for how audiences work. You have empathy for how creative works and the rules of engagement of Google ads and meta ads. Once you learn them, they’re different, but it’s fairly easy to keep them in their row. The more important part, though, is understanding conversion events and how they interface. So Google and Meta will actually give you reporting on how Google helps Meta and Meta helps Google.
22:40
They see each other as comparable, so it is fair to ask for that, but I will warn you to hire someone who is good at both. Even if it’s part-time, you should expect to pay at least $40,000, $50,000. You might end up working full-time closer to that 80 to 90. Now the reason why it’s 40 to 50 for part-time seems like it’s actually cheaper to do full-time for entry level. That’s because you’re asking someone to find more work, so they have to kind of hedge their bets. So it needs to be interesting enough for them to say yes to you. If you truly need someone for Google and meta, you may actually want an agency. That typically is a safer bet, unless you’re hiring and this is where I would make it actually a full-time hire, someone who knows your brand inside and out, and then again that would be closer to that $70,000 or $80,000 salaried position minimum.
Danny Gavin Host
23:40
Navah any closing thoughts.
Navah Hopkins Guest
23:42
Give people grace. This is a very crazy time. It’s a very crazy job market for people looking for jobs. If you are not finding the right employer, be empowered to start your own freelancing consultancy. There is nothing stopping you from just taking on clients, and sometimes that’s actually easier than getting hired full time. That was part of how I got there. My start was just knocking on doors and saying like, hey, I’ll help you with your Google ads and they would rather do that than have to hire in full time. So know that there’s a lot more pressure. There’s a lot more whether that’s deserved. There’s a lot more pressure on hiring full time. So if you’re really struggling in the job market, you’re. Setting up your own agency isn’t terribly challenging. Just make sure you find a good CPA, because you want your taxes to be in good order.
24:29
If you’re an employer, be mindful that to find the right person, it is sometimes worth paying a little bit more or compromising on how much you’re asking them to do. The true, right hire is a godsend. They make everything better. They make life just easy, and it is worth investing a little bit more to get the perfect person and to ensure that they’re super happy with the roles that they are assigned and they have a clear roadmap of exactly what they’re expected to do. Leaving it wishy-washy is not good. Leaving any of it on the table that maybe you can get them at a discount, it’s it’s. You’re going to lose them and your competitor will get them. Being conscious about what you need, and if you find the right person that meets that need, go for it. Don’t, don’t hold anything back Navah.
25:22
This was so awesome. You’re so awesome for having this conversation.
Danny Gavin Host
25:28
Navah brought so much insight into why these unrealistic job listings show up, and how we can approach them with curiosity and clarity—both as job seekers and employers.
But there was still more to unpack. Just a few days after recording with Navah, I saw a powerful LinkedIn post by Sarah Stemen. In it, she laid out ten specialized skills required just to be good at PPC.
It hit home and made me realize: we need to go even deeper into what it really means when a company asks one person to “do everything”—especially when PPC is involved.
So I invited Sarah on for part two of the conversation. Let’s jump into it.
Sarah. First off, thank you for joining. Can you walk us through what inspired your post? Was there a particular job listing that pushed you over the edge?
Sarah Stemen Guest
27:56
Yeah, I was probably just on LinkedIn doing what I do, kind of trying to ruffle some feathers, and I saw a posting and I see these constantly that was just a fullback marketer, right. So they wanted SEO, ppc, facebook, everything and had a salary of $40,000 to $50,000. And it just prompted me to say what I thought, and a lot of the best posts for me are just that, what I think in that moment, and then I love doing what you do and digging into that.
Danny Gavin Host
28:29
Awesome. So your post listed 10 distinct skills just for PPC alone. For those who might not be familiar, could you quickly walk us through some of those and why they matter in the context of a successful PPC campaign?
Sarah Stemen Guest
28:42
I can’t remember everyone that I, because it was, like I said, from the heart, but like, if you think about it, like, the data analysis piece, and sometimes you can’t get into that real depth of this but I mean we look at data. We look at data every single morning when we wake up. We start to get a feel for that data. We know how our particular account responds. There is an intuitive nature behind the data.
29:05
When I say data analysis is a skill that you have to have, it is different between SEO, email, facebook and Google. My account may have a certain click-through rate that I’m comfortable with in Google, but I also look at Google accounts all day versus Facebook ads and then getting into ad types might have a different one versus site links and the different things with SEO. So I know Google data really well across the breadth of clients. So it goes so deep within each of the 10 things the A-B testing. It’s how to set it up, how to do it, when to stop it, how to set up a test so it’s even working within the interface. Do you do the test inside the interface or outside the interface? So each one of these particular skill sets has just a lot of meat to it.
29:56
I would also say the tactical being able to navigate around Google Ads, being able to pay attention to the changes in the industry and what the documentation says versus what actually happens, keeping up with the engine changes. So, like Performance Max just added, the ability to use negatives are those in your accounts. There’s just so many particular skills that you have to have within just that PPC side that when you start to introduce the different aspects of marketing, it becomes a lot for one person.
Danny Gavin Host
30:33
And do you think part of the problem is, you know, from the outside it’s easy to think PPC is just like setting it and forgetting it. So there’s something about these hiring managers, or just the people writing the job descriptions, that don’t realize how much actual ongoing work PPC requires.
Sarah Stemen Guest
30:48
Yeah, I absolutely do. I don’t think that people are doing this to be mean or to cheat other humans. But I’m the type of person who believes people are inherently good. So I don’t believe people come at this and say, oh, I’m going to put up this job listing and essentially ask for someone to know everything. They’re not doing it to be mean, they’re doing it with lack of knowledge. I’ve even seen that sometimes when I work directly with agencies, maybe the owner is a really good business person or is really good in a certain vertical and then decided to start a marketing agency and then says, oh, I need a marketer who can do all this, hire someone, and then doesn’t know the depths of what they’re asking for. So I think that’s where that comes from.
Danny Gavin Host
31:30
Including this listing that I think inspired you for this post. You’ve seen listings where PPC is just one bullet point in a long list of organic social email SEO. What do you think is most misunderstood about the focus that’s required for PPC to be successful?
Sarah Stemen Guest
31:45
I always go back to this because I did manage accounts for so long, the fact that it’s not a clock in, clock out job, that I will look at my account and then I’ll be thinking about it at midnight. This isn’t a lever pulling job, even though we like to break it down to that in a lot of our content. This is a thoughtful job that takes time and effort and brain power and I think I talk sometimes about the mental load of a job and I mean at the end of the day, especially in Google, we are so close to someone’s revenue and livelihood that then, when you add in those other factors, how do I have the brainpower to worry about Facebook and SEO at the same time?
Danny Gavin Host
32:33
So you mentioned that roles with huge expectations are often offered, let’s say, $45,000 a year. What’s a more realistic compensation range for someone expected to own PPC at a high level?
Sarah Stemen Guest
32:43
So I love that question because I would not do a full stack job like that for $200,000. And I think that when I comment on these posts, what I really mean is that it’s not the money. At a certain point you can’t pay me a million dollars to be capable of doing all the things. It’s not money, it’s time, brain power and the capabilities of one person. It’s like asking a surgeon who specializes in plastics, you know, to then come over and do like vascular. It’s not the money, it’s the specialization and the years put into that. So when, like if you were to say how much for a high level PPC or who’s been doing this for 20 years, I mean you really are looking in the hundred thousand dollar range at this point. That’s what it is, that’s the market value.
Danny Gavin Host
33:36
I’m so glad how you spin the answer to that question because it’s so true, right, when you are a specialist at what you do, that’s what you love, that’s what you’re doing. So if someone’s just going to say, hey, add this on and this on and we’ll pay you an additional 10, 20, 30, at that point you don’t really want it. When I’m focusing on something, that’s what I want to be right. When I’m focusing on something, that’s what I want to, you know, keep my eye on, which is a really cool perspective. So if someone sees a listing like the one you described too many responsibilities, too little pay what should they do? Should they walk away? Should they ask for clarification? Should they use it as leverage to start a different conversation?
Sarah Stemen Guest
34:16
How would you approach it? So, unfortunately, the type of person that’s going to see this and not recognize it for what it is is unfortunately going to be someone who is more junior. I see this and I’ll relate this back to PPC too, where I will see companies, agencies, bring in someone new and we’ve talked about it. You obviously don’t sack people with like 50 or 100 accounts. You know, and somebody more junior wouldn’t know like that. It is not possible to give your time and attention to 50 paid search accounts at one time.
34:38
When you come across this and I think that’s sort of one of the greater goals of what you do as a mentor in a mentoring podcast the best thing to do is to walk away. But if you are not in a position to walk away, I would say take that interview, have that interview, talk with that business owner and again, because you’re young and inexperienced and 45 is a great starting salary, you don’t have that leverage yet. But it may be a situation where you know in the back of your mind this isn’t ideal. You have an interview, you interview them, see what they know and then, as you get into that job and start to build that rapport, work into that education piece. It is not bad to be a full stack marketer.
35:22
If I had to, could I get into Facebook? I really wouldn’t want to, but yeah, I could. Being a journalist is a great place to start your career. But to do those all well, and I would also add to that the chances are that the person who wrote that job description probably doesn’t need all that. I mean, can you think of one company that needs like no?
Danny Gavin Host
35:47
Usually not, and so that really ties into my next question really well. So let’s say a small business does want to run Google Ads, Meta Ads, email social, but they can only afford one hire. What would you recommend they prioritize and how should they frame the role so it’s set up for success, not frustration?
Sarah Stemen Guest
36:02
So I’m coming at it as a business owner and I feel like I need a jack of all trades. I think one route would be to consider an agency that’s going to be able to do that better at scale, right, so like if they came to your agency to opt-in, you have all those people. The cost to be able to trial out different parts and pieces is less than getting one person. You know. It’s sort of a this or that. I think that’s a safer way to do that and that’s sort of why agencies were invented, because you can have 10% Facebook time, 50% Google. That’s what I would do.
Danny Gavin Host
36:40
And then another one that just popped in my head get some education about the different and figure out, like what your business really needs, and then you might say, okay, for our business Google ads will really be, will have at least the best shot for us to generate more income and so on and so forth. So once you figure that out then you’re like, okay, if Google Ads is really the main player, let me focus now on getting someone who will prioritize on Google Ads. So I think that would be another approach.
Sarah Stemen Guest
37:06
Yeah, yeah, and I mean this is a terrible idea because you and I would not recommend this. We know what happens. So let’s just say it, go get a proposal from an agency and they essentially tell you what they plan on doing. And then you kind of know like, oh, they’re heavy on this side or that.
Danny Gavin Host
37:22
Yeah, you and I would definitely not push that, but yes, you could do it. Research helps.
Sarah Stemen Guest
37:29
Research helps yeah. Well, we’re just you. Research helps Research helps, yeah. Or just like you and I and I think that, like a lot of people who don’t know this about agencies, like calling Danny for an hour of his consulting time and saying this is what I think I want if I’m going to go in-house, you know. Or like calling the agency and saying I think I want to hire someone in-house, this is what I think I’m looking for. Maybe I will start out with their agency with plans to bring it in-house. Can your agency do that? I think that that is the benefit of going with. I would say do you consider yourself a small, mid-sized agency at this point?
38:03
Yeah, I think we’re still in that area, you will build a solution for your client. That’s what’s beautiful. You’re not just going to come at it and say, well, oh, I can’t do that. No, if it’s a year where we manage it and we’re teaching you, you would build something out like that and maintain that relationship going forward.
Danny Gavin Host
38:22
Yeah, I agree, I mean we have certain, I would say, minimums. If someone’s coming to us and saying, build a campaign and run it for three months and then we’ll hand it off, we like to be with someone for at least three to six months. But I think the main thing is just that transparency, right, like we appreciate when someone says hey, like we know we need to start with an agency, but long-term we want to bring it in house and we’ve had some wonderful relationships that way. And yes, larger agencies may not provide that offer to you. Larger agencies may not provide that offer to you, but I think small to midsize would be more open to that sort of relationship.
38:53
Yeah, yeah, that’s why we love being in this. So if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about how companies write job listings or marketing roles, what would?
Sarah Stemen Guest
39:04
it be what you’re actually hiring for and what that expertise looks like, and that it doesn’t. You know, look like I’m certified in Google Ads, like. So I think there’s a bit of a disconnect. I think hiring managers grew up through HR, grew up in a job description world and that often looks different than the realities of the people actually working. So you’re probably missing the best candidate by sticking in your vertical.
Danny Gavin Host
39:38
Well, Sarah, thank you so much for breaking this down with such clarity. It’s really eye-opening to see just how much depth, strategy and precision goes into PPC and why it’s not something that can just be tacked onto a job description as an afterthought. If you listened to last week’s episode with Navah, we talked about how many job listings are created out of good intentions but often lack of understanding.
Today, Sarah helped us see exactly what gets lost when we oversimplify a role like PPC. So whether you’re a job seeker feeling overwhelmed or undervalued or an employer trying to figure out what kind of marketing support you really need, it all comes back to clarity, respect for the craft and setting realistic expectations. So thanks again for tuning into the Digital Marketing Mentor. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend or, even better, share it with someone hiring for a marketing unicorn. They just might thank you for it, Sarah. Thank you so much and we’ll catch you next time.
40:27
Thanks so much for tuning in to this special edition of The Digital Marketing Mentor. What started as one question turned into two powerful conversations—and I hope it’s sparked new thinking for you, whether you’re hiring, applying, or just trying to grow your team or your career the right way.
If you found this helpful, share it with a friend—or even better, send it to someone who might be hiring their next marketing “unicorn.” They just might thank you for it.
Until next time—keep mentoring and keep growing.
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