118: Spend It Like It’s Your Own Money: Aashna Makin on the Habit That Defines Great Media Buyers

Danny Gavin (Host): 00:05

Hello, I’m Danny Gavin, founder of Optidge, Marketing Professor, and the host of the Digital Marketing Mentor. Today I’m excited to welcome Aashna Makin, a senior paid ad specialist and founder of her own practice with more than eight years running paid media on Google and Meta. She’s worked across 150 business niches in North America and has profitably managed over $75 million in ad spend, which is crazy. What sets her apart is that she doesn’t just run campaigns, she builds full funnel strategies, obsesses over lead quality, and ties every dollar back to actual business growth. She’s also one of the panelists alongside me at SMX Advanced in Boston next week, where we’ll be discussing ItGainTick PPC. Today we’re talking about paid ads that actually drive growth, lead gen for service businesses, and her philosophy of leaving things better than she found them. Aashna, welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 01:17

Thank you. So excited to be doing this with you finally.

Danny Gavin (Host): 01:20

Me too. It’s so cool that we met each other. It’s a meant to be. We’re going to be in person next week, but uh it’s so cool that we get to dive deeper. So I’ll get to learn more about you, which is so cool.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 01:30

Likewise, yeah.

Danny Gavin (Host): 01:31

So you’ve built a career spanning so many niches and a lot of ad spend. Where did your marketing journey begin? And what first drew you to paid media?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 01:40

Going back to eight years, uh, I first started my career right off school. I uh right off like graduation school and stuff like that. I started off actually as a sales executive. And I did that role for one month and a half year. And I think that still helps me because it teaches you a lot of patience. It gives you insights on what happens, like how sales processes work. I did that role for one year, and the crazy part is when we were like having discussions and I was going to be promoted to the next level, it’s the same day during that meeting, I told my boss, like, I’m resigning. So that’s one of the craziest uh days of my career. Is there is a meeting to give me a promotion, but I’m like, hey, I’m done with sales job. This is not what I want to do because it’s like working weekends, and like, you know, there are just some crazy expectations around sales.

Danny Gavin (Host): 02:30

Were they very surprised like when they heard that?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 02:34

Oh yeah, yeah, I think they were very surprised because I think this is the first time that was happening within their organization, something like this. But uh, of course, I had this uh plan long back in my mind, and digital like was trying to. I’m from India, so uh like digital did exist, but uh it was like companies were trying to transition over there. We still had like uh traditional media going on and like all those things. So there was this uh one uh webinar, or you can say one that had attended in my college where they were speaking about uh digital marketing being like the next big thing, and luckily it has been. So I left my job, I took a course for like three months, and I think most of us will agree, most of us are going to agree over here, and that’s how it has been on through years. Finding that right course or finding that right mem mentorship in digital marketing, especially when it comes to pay dad, is very difficult. Like, I have literally invested and wasted thousands of dollars going to fancy institutes only to be like learning everything theoretically, like they did not even open like good, good, I’m talking about good three, four months reputed institutes, they are not even opening Google Ads Manager. What I am being taught is totally different from what I actually did on my job, and I was like done. I again spent some time finding in that right program. There was a very small local institute back then, and now I think it’s become too big and crazy. So I really wanted to be like, hey, I need some practical hands-on training because that’s how I learned, that’s how I’m as a human being. I need to practically do it, I need to visualize it. I’m a visual lady. I tell everyone in every space, I’m a visual lady. If you’re talking to me, like I need to see it on the screen. Even when I’m discussing ad copies and stuff like that with my clients, I’m like, I need something on the screen, I need to view it before I do it. So this is like uh, you know, like a training program that it took for three months, completely hands-on, right from like logging into Google Ads, creating that ads manager or like Google Ads platform, creating campaigns, running stuff. One thing that really helped me uh as my career progressed is um anybody who reaches out to me on LinkedIn and is looking for advice. I always tell them initial two to three years of your career, you should definitely work in an agency environment. Because that is something that has really helped me. Like, even land a good job when I came to Canada as an immigrant. That that is something that has really helped me, and that is something that I see missing with like media buyer or fresh talent these days, and that like coming back to my journey, working in the agency life for two and a half, three years really, really helped me. You need to, I like I always say, you need to put in those extra hours. Like agencies will come with that demand. Put in those extra hours, but they are really going to pay off on through your career. That’s one thing about me. I’d really like to go over and above my job duties and see how I can improve. And the only downside is then if I don’t see growth beyond that, I quit and I move to something else because that’s how I am. I need to see growth. I need to see myself, you know, doing more things. I need to be adding value to your business. Otherwise, like I want to do some interesting project. And that’s what I tell my clients. Yeah.

Danny Gavin (Host): 05:56

So is that what led you to go out on your own and find your own practice?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 06:00

Yeah. So uh yeah, like uh two, two and a half years in a very well-established big name agency in the US. Like I was in India, but we were managing campaigns uh for the North American clients, so that gave me an added advantage. After that, this six months, uh, I moved to another startup agency in Bombay, now a superflow agency. This is where my career changed 360 degree. I was no more a platform specialist, like a Google media expert or like a media buyer. This is where I learned everything that I do these days, like fun and looking at uh revenue metrics, looking at like everything, like from the start to the end, and not just speak about like keyword bidding or like the next fancy strategy or the next big P Max, AI Max coming into that. So this like these six months literally changed how I look at like marketing or paid ads as an acquisition channel right now. And uh after that, like having good solid experience of four, four and a half years now into agency, I made um like careful decisions that now I just want to work in-house because I was like, I have this exposure, I have spent that extra time, you know, dealing with clients, working with agencies. I mean, then after that, it’s been a very strategic decision of only working in-house. And I love that as of uh Fed Jan Feb is when I started venturing into full-time. So even when I was working uh full-time, I used to do consulting on the side, I used to conduct a lot of training programs and stuff like that. But yeah, like now is the time when I have gone on my own and and I really like it. Yeah, it’s it’s a great journey.

Danny Gavin (Host): 07:36

A lot of businesses treat paid ads as a traffic tap. You turn it on, you get visitors, you hope for conversion. What’s the fundamental mindset shift that separates businesses that grow from paid ads from those that just spend money?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 07:48

So one thing is having a repeatable and a predictable system in place. What I have been able to do in the last eight years is have a predictable system so that even if like I do not show up tomorrow, anybody can use that document and they are able to create a good successful campaign strategy. And like that’s what I break it down in my training programs. Like, even before you think about that campaign, like there has to be a lot of business strategy. Like, one thing that I like just today morning, I was thinking about myself as a career. It’s like the eight years back every morning, it just used to be like keywords, ads, keywords, ads. But right now, my you know, work as a campaign manager starts from what is going to be the bottom line impact revenue, what is going to be the impact on the business, how can I prioritize this task so that you know like the 80-20 rule is what I follow. Like, what is going to be the biggest impact for my clients’ business, and then somewhere second comes like the campaign planning and those predictable systems that I spoke about. So that is what that differentiates uh, you know, companies who are running profitable uh paid ads versus who are like just on tap, on and off, like stop. This is what was my talk in Hero Conference two years back, like stop getting out of the on and off cycle. And this is something that I mostly see people doing with Meta. Google uh maybe less, which is good, but like meta is always like on and off, run it for two weeks off, then you start stuff like that, and uh the right mindset, like you need to have an expectation that Google ads work very differently, they can be very profitable if you do the right things and give it the right amount of time. Like if you’re considering to add Google Ads as a predictable system, you give you have to give it 60-90 days of like learning period, like testing, and like you need to give it time rather than being like, oh, like I’m losing a dollar each day on paid ads, like then sorry. Like I and I openly tell them like your dollars are then better invested in an organic channel. And and what surprises me, often businesses who have never run paid ads come up with questions like how much sales can we expect, how much revenue can we expect, but you do not even have a benchmark conversion rate of your website. And uh the second biggest mistake people do is considering the traffic from paid ads, like irrespective of Google, Meta or any other publisher, they expect it to do the same things that maybe an organic channel is doing, or maybe an email marketing is doing for them. So that’s what I like to like discuss with the clients up front is that paid ads, the intent, the brand visibility, the trust, everything is very different compared to people who have already, you know, interacted with your brand, someone who’s receiving and has opted to get your email newsletters, is going to be very different from someone who found you on social. So that is one thing. Like having that expectations right is something that really helps me uh get there with you know like successful campaigns versus non-success, like unsuccessful campaigns.

Danny Gavin (Host): 10:48

I spend a lot of time in the world of lead gen. I know you do too. So, especially when in a world of lead gen as well as AI, there’s a lot of campaign performance that’s influenced by what happens beyond the ads themselves, like the landing pages, the messaging, lead quality. So, can you walk us through a real situation where fixing something off-platform completely changed the actual performance of the campaign?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 11:12

Yeah, like this is very recent. Like, yeah, I am currently consulting with a client who is into the B2B space. They offer uh team building events across like North America, Australia, UK, and all these markets. So, what we’ve realized is uh that, you know, and this is something I like to see whenever I’m taking any consulting projects on or I’m working with any clients, is how much pressure do you have on that one paid media campaign or the one paid media team? Like, what I see is that people often in their uh you know marketing sales meeting will always say that marketing campaigns are not performing, we’re not getting the right quality of needs that we need. But like, this is like a very blank statement. So, to put context to it with a recent example, is like I asked the client, like, you need to break down those metrics for me when you mean need quality is an issue. What exactly is the issue? Is the number of people an issue? Is their budget an issue? Is the product that you are offering, like, are they looking for something else? Is price a concern? Like, there are so many XYZ reasons. I told them I need to get that exact reason of like why do you think that this campaign is not doing what it wants it to do? And then when I break down the numbers, I found out that the campaign is quite profitable. We are getting the leads that we want, we have the leads to meetings, so like there are two metrics with lead gen now these days. We are tracking is like just the lead form, how the lead scoring is working, and how many people are actually booking meetings out of it. On the campaign level, everything works great. What I found in the back end is they do not have enough calendar availability to be like, you know, tackling this issue here. And so, like it sounds so simple, right? Like, I’m just telling you, hey, hey, Danny, just open more of your calendar slots. But those processes to actually get to that issue, that’s a lot of back and forth, that’s a lot of dashboards, that’s a lot of data, especially where we are transitioning from like Excel sheets and meetings to like be an AI-driven company. So I think that’s that’s one of those uh things with Legion. And this is something I tell my clients like, year on year, average CPC for Google is going to go up. Like, paid ads is no more like uh oh, only the premium businesses are running ads. Now everybody is running paid ads. So you can expect your average CPC to definitely go up year over year. What are we doing on the back end to convert that traffic better? Has become my conversations. Like, no more I speak about what the CTR is, what the CPL is, what the you know, uh ad strength and all those things have become they are quite important, no doubt, but they have become so off the conversation. Now it’s really about business impact. Like, how many hours can we open on the calendar? So actually, trying to understand the pattern. What I found out is on Friday, their lead to meeting booking rate was like above the average target and like one of the top power in the industry average. The reason is because you have more calendar availability, your sales calendar are so widely open for the next week that you know the same traffic. I’m not changing anything on Friday, same campaign, same budgets, everything same, but you are seeing this excellent performance. So there’s a lot of steps that uh you know go in finding the problem, especially when it’s outside of uh paid ads uh platform.

Danny Gavin (Host): 14:28

We have a client who’s in the moving business, and they were complaining that you know just not seeing the ROAS was not enough for them. But then you actually go in and like, okay, but you can’t handle anymore. Yeah, it’s just your calendar is booked, and that is what it is. You need to add more. So yeah, it’s it’s crazy. And I think it’s it brings up an interesting point. Like the world of PPC for Lee Gen and the world for PPC for e-commerce is so different. With Lee Gen, like you said, not every form fill that we get is equal, and we really have to look at it after the fact. Um, but in e-com, like a purchase is a purchase. Obviously, you’ll have certain purchases of higher value, higher cart, and things like that. But like people don’t realize there’s a lot more work that is required to do a good job when it comes to lead gen, because it’s very easy for it just to say, oh, look, look at how many leads I’m bringing. But really, it it could, like you said, like there are so many areas, like the the pipeline, the stages where things could break down, where the problem exists, it exists so much more, right? Like we think of like an e-commerce shopping cart and like add to carp, you product. But this this shopping cart, it’s a lot, it’s a lot bigger. Any other points that like when you’ve seen, like you like to explain to people the difference between lead gen and e-com when it comes to uh paid search?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 15:42

People are one side, but as an industry, I want to speak that there are so many resources, good quality resources for e-com, but there are a very few when it comes to lead gen. Like I think people, lead gen marketers are so busy fixing issues and scaling that we do not have time to create those good quality resources or like any quality resources. Like with lead gen, I often struggle with e-commerce. I know I could be purchasing some really good CRO experiments, but UI is uh a person like he’s amazing for B2C. I follow him for all my B2C clients, but yeah, for on the legend side, I always struggle. So that that’s a difference. Um, and again, like I think no two businesses are the same when you said like how B2C and B2B work. Like even in the N gen uh space, the same, like as you mentioned about a moving company. Your moving company client campaign can be so can perform so differently compared to my moving client company, same industry, but the services that they offer, where do they offer those services? Like, how much is their credibility in the market? Like all these XYZ factors matter so much in need run businesses compared to e-commerce, where like everything is just available online, like people go based on reviews and like all those, all those fancy items. So it’s easy to sell B2C as compared to like scaling B2B because it requires strategy, it requires human resources, it requires staffing. There’s so much of planning that goes in B2B. Like B2C is like okay, you put extra products on your uh website, and like uh like definitely there’s inventory and all those things that goes on B2C side, but I think that’s much easy to handle as compared to having to solve a B2B problem. From a paid dance point of view, what I have seen definitely is there’s going to be seasonality uh affecting B2C and like B2 or B like knee gen campaigns a lot. So that is also a big factor for an e-commerce thing, seasonality does not last for more than a week or so. Like you see that upward trend coming, those campaigns picking up, like there just has to be a long weekend or like a Mother’s Day or Christmas, Valentine’s Day coming, and you see an exponential growth. However, when it comes to Nij, seasonality, something I have seen, it goes in like for two, three months because it’s so like weather-driven. For example, like moving, okay, people do not want to move in winters, okay. So, like good to three months is something that you would not expect that good performance. Wherein for any e-commerce uh client that I have worked for or I’m working currently, like seasonality is just one, two weeks, and then you start seeing the campaign performance pick up from there.

Danny Gavin (Host): 18:12

Yeah, and what you mentioned is something something I noticed also recently, just like in so I recently created created a claw dashboard. We’ve got four clients that are in the same industry. Most of them are they’re in separate regions, but some of them are in the same region. So I’ve created a dashboard, it’s I call it like my industry dashboard. I want to see all of these clients in one place and looking. And it is crazy to think that one client, their CPCs are like could be 50% higher, their conversion rates different. And it’s literally like the same thing, but it but like that that rings so true. Like you could be the same exact business advertising in the same exact area, but it’s totally different because of all the so many factors that that affect not just putting an ad on Google.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 18:55

And yeah, exactly. And I think with uh B2C or like e-commerce, you can uh test a lot of ad copy angles. You can test, you can run a lot of uh landing page uh experiments, but when it comes to Legion, like you have to stick to a certain kind of messaging. There’s a very limited test that you can be like running and

Aashna Makin (Guest): 19:12

 doing.

Danny Gavin (Host): 19:13

It’s interesting you mentioned messaging. So, messaging, I find, is often where service businesses struggle because people like to talk about themselves rather than the client’s pain. How do you help clients find the angle that actually resonates with them?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 19:28

This is definitely, I again come back to the sales uh feedback. Like uh if you like what is that pain point? Like, why are people not converting when they’ve put in the effort to click on your clicking ad is easy, like take in that effort to fill a form, show up on that demo meeting call with you. So, why in the end are they not converting? One reason, like to give you a life example on how I changed the ad copy is why I found that you know, like this plan that I spoke about for B2B, they were getting a lot of clients for uh like field trips, for uh school events activities and stuff like that. So it’s still one of those things that they do. What I realized is our ads were not very clear. They spoke about team building events, they spoke about you know like group activities, but what uh a change that I did was like I added build for corporate teams, like specifically to be focused in age to so that all the ads people know that okay, even though we are team building, because that’s how people are going to search, like team building events, Toronto. But uh, what different like for me to attract only the corporates, I have to say that in the ad. So this is something this is a big bit that people miss is they do not uh like speak properly in their ads, as we’ve uh discussed. So I think that also comes from a lot of uh analysis on why people are like say’s feedback, why people are not converting me.

Danny Gavin (Host): 20:49

So Asha, are you a big believer of pinning headlines?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 20:53

I am a big believer, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I am not comfortable giving control to Google. And as a personality, I’m a very control freak woman. Like, I I need to have the last say. But uh I I don’t know, even with AI and all, I haven’t been comfortable giving complete control to Google, especially when it comes to lead gen businesses.

Danny Gavin (Host): 21:12

Some of our listeners, they don’t necessarily understand this. So I’m just gonna quickly break it down. But bottom line is that when it comes to Google ads, currently the type of ads that we run are responsive. So you put a whole bunch of headlines, you put a bunch of descriptions, and Google finds the best combination. But when you think about it, in a world of lead gen, like Ashna said, it’s like uh we do team building, but we specifically do corporate. So imagine if that headline is like one of the 15, Google decides, okay, we don’t really like that headline, we’re not gonna use it. And we’re getting leads, but then it’s like, okay, but are those leads actually corporate? So really, I need to make sure that every single time this ad shows up, it always says corporate. And so you have the ability to pin that actual headline, but the problem is when you pin something, you limit the AI functionality. And therefore, the people who are like, We need to lean into AI to say don’t pin things. But on the other hand, you can see that for certain businesses, especially when the keywords that they’re targeting are very general and open, if you don’t stop them, like Ashon was beautifully explained, if you don’t stop them at that ad level, the click level, it can result into a lot of um waste of travel.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 22:18

Waste of spend. Yeah. Yeah.

Danny Gavin (Host): 22:20

So I think it’s important because most people like I like I’m a big believer in leaning into AI, but there are very clear cases where, you know, sometimes you can’t because Google just doesn’t know enough in order to make the right decision.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 22:34

Going back to my last uh full-time job that I had was like a luxury travel company. So Google did try, and like we were spending upwards of two, three million dollars a month. So Google did try us to convince, like, hey, unthing your headlines and do this and do that. And we were like, no, like luxury as a term is so important in the ads for us. And like, even after mentioning, because luxury could mean very different for two people. Like, luxury to me is a different price point. Luxury to someone else is a very different price point. So I like Visa, like, imagine not having luxury at all. Even though we have luxury pin and like this is what a conversion rate looks like. We cannot be testing, like, not having any control on our ad copies, like even with like descriptions. Like, I even pin my descriptions, like, forget about headlines. Like, I don’t know what to give. That’s why I’m not a big fan of FMAX campaign, and it has not proven to be a successful channel, I think, in the Legion overall for anybody, like all the talks that I have seen on LinkedIn or anywhere. I Max is the big next big thing, which I’m excited, and I’m testing few campaigns. But yeah, that’s why I wasn’t a fan of FMAX, is like no control at all. Like, I cannot live in that way. Like, that’s the last thing in AI. I cannot live in that world where I have no control on the messaging.

Danny Gavin (Host): 23:48

Like, you know, yeah, and and P Max in general has its own issues when it comes to leadership. It’s gonna be interesting from an AI Max perspective of where that goes. So let’s move over to mentorship. Uh, we we touched upon it lightly before, but obviously on this podcast we talk a lot about mentorship. So, how would you define a mentor?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 24:08

Oh, I would define a mentor uh at different stages of my different uh like in my career. Like when I was starting off, someone, of course, who gave me their first job into marketing, a big thing. And uh that’s why I say like be careful on your first job in marketing because you will learn a lot over there. I learned processes systems, and like there were great mentors who were ready to share their real life campaign experiences because that’s a lot. So, mentorship, uh yes, I would like to have someone as my mentor who is definitely giving me the guidance from a real life or a real campaign point of view. Like, I’ve had leaders and mentors who were there just for people management, they couldn’t themselves log in into Google as Microsoft as they was just there for people management, and that’s how companies operate, bigger companies. Totally get it. But I would like someone to have mentorship from who someone has invested years on like doing all these uh things and irrespective of the platform, like someone who’s handed at marketing and like understands how it how it functions, what’s the importance of all these elements put together. So someone whose experience, hands-on experience is something like like you yourself, like you run an agency. So I’m sure the mentorship uh that you offer to your uh you know, crowd or your students and a lot of other people is definitely going to be coming from your world life experience as opposed to just like learning in a classroom environment. Attending these networking events, speaking at these conferences, interacting with like you know, people doing that real life stuff in these conferences has really helped me like gain a better insight.

Danny Gavin (Host): 25:38

You mentioned that you’ve been heavily influenced by Sabri Subi and Daniel Throssell when it comes to direct response and outcome-focused communication. What’s the one lesson from them that most changed how you write ads or structure campaigns?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 25:52

Sabri Subhi always points about how you will handle that pain point or objection at the ad level and like maybe a mere Google, irrespective of the platform. So, how are you doing that pain point analysis first analysis? Like you cannot write anything you do not know. So, first understanding what is the pain point of that uh market audience, researching different angles on it, and now using like AI, it’s very easy to write all these ad copies. So, definitely, but like having that idea and thought has definitely come from reading his book, like Sell Like Crazy is like a textbook. I still have the physical copy with me. Five years I got the book in like COVID. He like it was shift from Australia and whatnot, but it’s totally worth it. That’s the best investment I have made to be honest. I think it cost $20-25. But the book has traveled continents with me, and uh yeah, like that book is really good. Really following uh those direct response thing has helped like um to give you a real life example. Uh I did follow a lot of his uh you know, like AI content and like AI-driven ad copies that he’s suggesting. And my CTR on Google for a non-branded campaign is like 25%. I think this is the highest for a need gen campaign.

Danny Gavin (Host): 27:03

You’re showing off now.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 27:05

Yeah. I mean, that is going like it was something that I really like. Like, okay, although I don’t focus on these valid metrics like CTR and all, but then I was like, yeah, maybe something.

Danny Gavin (Host): 27:18

It’s still cool.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 27:18

Yeah, it’s still called the ad is doing its job. That’s what Samphi says. The job of your ad is not to make that sale, it’s just to get people interested and clicked, and then you have levers to like convert that traffic and get the right kind of people

Aashna Makin (Guest): 27:30

 that you want.

Danny Gavin (Host): 27:31

So for someone early in their paid media career who wants to be a craftsperson, have the right mindset, do a great job, leave it better the way that you found it, what’s the one habit you’d tell them to start from day one?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 27:42

Take ownership. This is something that I have struggled uh like when I am uh like managing a bunch of fresh candidates and like you know, I’m I was a mentor uh to a few interns more, I think, is uh people do not take enough ownership for the campaigns. Like when I started off my career, and even now, of course, I always act as if the money or the ad spend was going from my own bank account. Then you are I love it. Yeah, yeah, then you are so careful of even the one extra dollar or the one extra click being wasted because it’s your own money, then you are like always on top of your things. So I think taking that ownership and it will really pay off. Like that is something that has really helped me, is like taking that complete ownership, and that shows the way you will have those conversations internally with your clients, like even if you venture out on your own later on, having that ownership mindset is going to be a game. And I think that’s for any industry, but like, yeah, specifically pay-ads because of so much of dollars being invested in a third-party platform like Google or Meta. So I think, yeah, definitely taking ownership. Like it’s my money, it’s going on from my bank account.

Danny Gavin (Host): 28:50

You know what? We’ve had over a hundred episodes, and I haven’t heard that one yet, but it speaks to me the most because I mean, I speak to that all the time. I basically tell people, would you make that decision if it was your money? Right? Like, would you really do that? Or would you know would you have really missed that? Or like I’m not saying people make lots of mistakes, but you’re right, man. With if if you’re looking at it as coming out of your pocket, you are gonna act very differently than if it’s like, okay, you know, it’s yeah, it’s just coming, you know, free.

Aashna Makin (Guest): 29:20

We’re testing, it’s just a weekend. Like, I don’t know. This was running, like, this is all the answers that I’ve heard in the past. Like, oh, I don’t know that so it’s like, no, no.

Danny Gavin (Host): 29:29

I was not expecting that, but I’m so happy you mentioned it. Thank you. It’s time for a lightning round. I’m gonna ask uh quick question and uh you’re gonna think about what pops into your mind. And if you want to talk about a little bit, that’s fine. Uh, but we’ll kind of move through these relatively quickly. All right. What’s one paid ads tool, not an AI tool, that you could not run accounts without?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 29:50

I think of course uh like um Google like, yeah, of course a Google Ads platform. And then I uh before these dashboards and AI exist existed, I was heavily dependent on Google Sheets for my pivots and like whatnot. So like Google Sheets and Pivots is something I used to run on. So yeah.

Danny Gavin (Host): 30:08

For sure. Uh I think a paid media marketer needs to know their sheets and pivots. Um good thing. What’s the most recent thing you said yes to before you felt 100% ready?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 30:18

Uh growth expansion plans, you know, geography where they have seen limited success with. And for some reason, I was like, I think I can make that profitable for you. So let’s see how nice. Yeah.

Danny Gavin (Host): 30:29

What’s one book, marketer, or resource that completely changed how you think about direct response or conversion or paid media?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 30:36

Because happy show we sell like crazy is really a must to buy for anyone. And uh apart from that, uh like as I mentioned, uh, Jacob, he he I think he’s also based out of Toronto. Uh, he is a good UI guy. His CRO experiments are great. Like all the clients that I have spoken to, they’ve ended up buying his subscription or hiding and like working with him one-on-one. And I have worked with him previously uh in my last full time employment. So the insights that he gives, he works like a team, like he is the one who takes the ownership on the CRO side. He really works as a team, and your dollars are well invested. Like all his tests pay for his cost himself, like they are that profitable, and he’s that invested in new tests.

Danny Gavin (Host): 31:18

Outside of ownership, in one word, what’s the most important quality for a paid media specialist in 2026?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 31:25

Learning. Like, this is a space that is evolving, it will evolve. You can see posts like SEO is dead, pay dads is dead, nobody’s profitable. Then how do you run your marketing, right? So it’s always like nothing is dead, everything is alive. You just need to be like continuously improving. Do not be stuck in your systems and your old methodologies. That’s where you will be like complaining and like not having enough exposure. Do not uh worry on uh, you know, getting that next uh salary bracket. That is something that that’s a mistake that even I have done in early in my career. Look for initially at least look for that opportunity that’s going to give you maximum learning, maximum now AI tools, a company who’s like AI enabled. And uh like so continuously keep learning, learning, learning is like one big thing for fade hands. Keep evolving.

Danny Gavin (Host): 32:12

Yeah, 100%. And then finally, you’re about to go on stage at SMX Advanced to talk about Agentic PPC. What’s the one thing you hope that the audience walks away with believing that they don’t believe right now?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 32:24

AI is great. You need to start using and automating a lot of your daily tasks, all the data that you need is uh something that AI will give. Again, do not blindly follow it. Like I’m a big fan of codecs these days, so I use codex a lot. Do not blindly follow it, uh, pick paths of where you think like it could work and still utilize your human brain for where you know you when it comes to implementation, use human brain. When it comes to like ideas, pick up all those good things from AI. So I think there needs to be a balance between the two for sure.

Danny Gavin (Host): 32:56

So, Ashna, where can listeners find you and reach out?

Aashna Makin (Guest): 32:59

LinkedIn. Like these days I’m quite active only on LinkedIn, on none of the social other social channels. LinkedIn is totally active. Or you can like reach out to me via my email, hello at reachashna.com.

Danny Gavin (Host): 33:10

Super, and we’ll include those in the episode notes. Well, Aashna, thank you so much for joining us and for helping us think more clearly about what it actually takes to make paid ads drive real business growth, and for reminding us that the goal was never more clicks, it is always about better outcomes. Thank you for listening to the Digital Marketing Mentor Podcast. Be sure to check us out online at thedor.com and at the DM Mentor on Instagram. And don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts for more marketing mentor magic. See you next time.