How to Get Seen Without Posting Daily. All About Paid Ads with Lisa Raehsler

In this powerhouse episode of The Visibility Impact Show, we’re diving deep into AI-driven paid ads and what’s actually working now in a world where algorithms change overnight.

Crissy is joined by Lisa Raehsler, founder of Big Click Co., who has helped hundreds of businesses scale their growth through strategic paid media. Together, they unpack:

• Why AI-powered ads could save you hours of content creation
• The biggest ad mistakes entrepreneurs make (and how to avoid them)
• Which ad platforms to choose based on your audience
• How to run lean, effective ads even with a small budget
• What’s changing in Google and Microsoft ads with AI search
• And how paid ads can make you look bigger than you are, especially locally

This episode is a must-listen for women entrepreneurs, coaches, and service providers who are ready to stop guessing and start growing through smart, streamlined paid advertising.

Connect with Lisa: https://www.bigclickco.com/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisarockssem/

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OMNI is your group coaching experience where you learn how to create visibility that works harder than you do. A strategic blueprint to become discoverable on the feed, search and AI. https://thevisibleceo.com/omni 

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Transcript

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0:01

Welcome back to the visibility impact show. Today we have a guest and we have not had a guest on that talked about this in a really long time. I'm talking about years. So I know that this is the perfect time to bring a guest on with this expertise. So I'm excited to introduce you to Lisa wrestler who is the founder of big click company where she's helped hundreds of companies achieve their brand and growth goals through cutting edge ad strategies. including paid search, social and audience audience targeting. She's here to demystify the future of paid ads, especially now that AI is changing the game. Lisa, welcome to the visibility impact show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. How did you get into paid ads? take me the quick path on how you got to where you are now. how I got to paid ads. I started out as a digital marketer, online marketer, and I basically just started playing around with Google ads and it was challenging. And this was like 18 years ago. And you know, was in its infancy. I just thought it was really cool. It was very challenging. I couldn't figure it out. So of course then I had to figure it out. And I decided after a while that I just wanted to focus exclusively on PBC. And I love that it's technical and creative. That's what keeps me going and it's always changing. So yeah, I love that. and it was a challenge, so you took it head on. Yes, I love, yes, exactly. Yeah. I like to, I like to do that and say, I cannot figure this out. So I want to do it even more now. Yeah, absolutely. So we had a pre-chat, a pre-interview, and you said something really powerful in that conversation. And you said that AI-powered ads are the key to getting seen by the right audience without needing to post every day. Can we dig into that a little bit? without needing to post every day, without needing to create new ads every day? Well, most of the platforms have some sort of platform native AI tools that are in there. So they're using ad types that are... constantly creating different versions of the ads for the headlines, the descriptions. Sometimes they're even picking out the landing pages for the ads when you click through to land on. And so all of this is happening where I'm not going to say you can just sit back and relax, but you don't have to create 10 different versions of the ad. These are dynamic ads. So What the PPC manager's job is, is to either check in on these, make sure the messaging is looking good, and look at some of the reporting on where they're showing. But backing up a tiny bit is what, you know, one of the other huge jobs that we have is to make sure that we give the AI these quality assets to create the ads from. they'll They'll take it from the website. They'll take it from our initial copy of these headlines and descriptions. But basically it's taking what we give it and putting it all together and serving it to sometimes audiences that we don't even need to choose. So I used to run ads years ago for my clients. And that was one of the biggest things was figuring out the targeting and figuring out the audience. So you're saying with AI, it's a lot easier now. Yeah, it's a lot easier. are some campaign types where Google will use the data that they know from your conversions that are in your account. So it's learning from the behavior of the people who are clicking and what they're converting on. And they're building, they're using all of these data points to build a persona that they're going to be targeting for you. It is, it is very interesting. So those are called signals. So, you know, they, they know that I, I like dogs and I like outdoors and, where I live and, they're going to know where to serve ads to me, but they also know where I click, websites I go to, how long I stay on them. And a lot of other signals that help to target those ads automatically without us having to pick out every single. detailed that I just rattled off. Yeah, that's fascinating. So fascinating. So what do you feel like most entrepreneurs get wrong when they go to use paid media for additional visibility? What do they get wrong? I think one of the things that they get wrong is thinking that they can do everything themselves. And because what this can lead to is really stretching your, stretching your energy and your resources thin, possibly risking that you're going to set it up wrong or not, not be a 100 % uh trained on the technical aspect and then you could waste money. You could be running these ads and maybe you're getting visibility but you're not getting any conversions or leads or the traffic quality is bad. So I think that's one of the biggest mistakes is get somebody who could at least consult with you at the beginning and can help guide you in the right direction for targeting. If possible, work with somebody on a regular basis so that if you're not the expert in that, you know, get the expert. I think that's one of the biggest mistakes or trying to do the second big mistake is trying to do too much at once. think trying to target everything, setting up a lot of campaigns and just putting everything in there, just basically clicking all the buttons and putting all the targeting in there. And it really needs to be focused. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that we used to talk about all the time when I ran ads was that I think a lot of people think, well this, this program or this offer or product isn't converting. So I'm going to throw money behind it because I think it will start converting. Is that still like a big misconception or does that work in today's world since it's a little different with AI? Well, if it's not converting, then you probably don't want to put more money behind it. If it is, you should put more money behind it. I just said that in a funny way. But yeah, I mean, if something's working, that's where you want to focus your budget on gradually to test that more so it's lower risk. Yeah, if it's not working, don't really, we don't know why it's not, unless, we don't know why it's not working. It could not be working because the targeting is off. Maybe the messaging is, it could be so many different reasons why it's not working. So I would want to take a look at and try to, try to figure out what's going on with it before investing any, it might not be the product. Yeah. So for entrepreneurs with smaller ad budgets, like what are the first steps for them to get visible where they can kind of streamline it and not waste money? Like what would the steps be that you would tell them to take? look at realistically what you can afford to spend and invest in your business. I would look at what you want to focus on as a priority. ah Like I said, one of the biggest mistakes is trying to do too many things at once. So do you want visibility, traffic, branding awareness? What are your goals? Just really focus in on that goal and not not try to do everything at once. So that's where I would start. So you can do that one thing really good. If you have to change direction later and try to do another thing, that's fine. But I would only focus on doing one thing at a time. Absolutely. So how could someone choose or how do you direct them to choose whether or not to do a Google ad a Facebook ad a LinkedIn ad a Pinterest ad like how do you direct them on where to go to spend their ad money? That is one of the fun parts. So it depends on what your business is and where your audience is. If you are a B2B manufacturer, your audience is likely going to be on LinkedIn. If you're selling some sort of a consumer product to moms, you might find them on Pinterest. So you want to go where your audience is and... you know, where your product is most in alignment with. that is really the, that is really the fun part. Yeah. Do you have a favorite platform that you love to run ads on? And that's like picking your favorite child. I had to ask. I think, you they all have their own personality. They're, you know, it's, it's unique. love, I love taking a product and being able to try a different variety of platforms. So maybe you're doing Microsoft video ads and some CTV there, and then maybe you're doing some video on Pinterest and then on YouTube. mean that is you know, that's something that's that's super fun You know, you're doing you're doing video, but I also love doing B2B stuff where we're really focused in on LinkedIn I mean the targeting there is just amazing and you know, it's so exciting when you can just see what audiences are available to you and The different variety of ad types there Would you say that across all platforms is video the best like ad traffic driver or does it just depend? It does just depend because when you are looking at search, obviously that's changing a lot with AI, but when you're looking at search, someone's using keywords because they're looking for the answer to something and they're not looking as much to find video instruction. They will usually go straight to YouTube. to look up the video instruction because they know that already. I mean, we are in 2025. So, right, so it does depend, but I was listening to one of your other episodes and you were talking about some of the social channels that you've experimented with. A lot of those social channels, video is very popular and ads can really help to layer with those social efforts. So that's like this. That's an awesome bonus that you can throw in. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think if you're already converting, right, you're already have converting offers, and you're already like, attracting followers that just almost adds fuel to what you're already doing. Right, right. Yep. Definitely every, all of those efforts are multiple touch points for the customer. And that's, that's been one of the challenges for, you know, digital marketing since the beginning is trying, how do you, you know, how do you show how each of these channels is contributing, but they really do. And you can get a lot of that through analytics, but yeah, all of those efforts are really compounding. by the touches to that consumer. So. What are some of the visibility wins that you would, that you've had or experienced either with yourself or your clients where maybe they weren't doing very well organically because they couldn't get outside, but they had like a great product or a great service. And then you took them and got them running ads and I don't know if blow them up is the right word, but you know what I mean? Like had them see so much increased visibility to the paid aspect of it. You know, what just popped into my head is one thing that people forget is unless you're in New York, you know, in a very, very large city, it is, it's not hard to be a big fish in a small pond. Almost every local campaign in metro area, you can put a certain amount into it that's targeted locally where you can get a lot of visibility. not only get a lot of visibility, but look bigger than you are. Yeah. So you could be the top company without really being the top company based on this visibility in a local area. You're not going to do it nationally. You're not Cheetos or a serial company, but you know what I mean? you, think that's when you talk about local businesses, say you're looking at like a remodeling company. For example, they can be the top remodeling company in that Metro if they can focus on getting the visibility and they'll be seen everywhere, especially with the tactic that we have in using remarketing. And as a reminder, that's when someone will go to the advertiser's website. and then they'll see the ad sort of follow them around, is the only way to say it, around the internet. So they'll see that ad serve to them continuously. So then it gives you this impression that that company is just huge and they have ads everywhere. Well, they do on you. So I think those are all really great tactics to increase your visibility. Yeah, absolutely. So what are some of the biggest challenges that advertisers are facing, especially when it comes to adopting AI driven ad platforms and how can they overcome them? So the biggest challenges, think right now two of the big challenges is the uncertainty, just a general uncertainty in the economy. things don't sometimes, well, day to day, sometimes things don't feel very stable. So it's important to kind of stay the course and to focus and don't do anything, don't make any sudden moves. And the... Second one is to learn about the AI tools and learn about the specific actions that you need to take to enable it to make it more effective. So for example, defining what ROIs you want, what ROAS numbers you want, getting the data in there so that it will run the most effectively. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you were talking about like the economy and things like that. I remember when I was I was running ads for myself in 2020. And I remember everybody pulling back their money. And I remember how less expensive ads got and it was like, I know there's a quote about like when everybody else is pulling money out of their marketing, it's the best time to like put money in your marketing. But can we talk about that a little bit? Like why is now like a really good time to continue to do paid ads? When you quit, you lose momentum. You really do. just even technically, because you're reducing the data that you're giving Google, you're just reducing your opportunity to be out there. Now, people may be taking longer to make their decisions. They may be navigating the purchase funnel a little bit differently, but they're more... most likely still there. So being flexible and able to change with that is very important. And right, when there's less competition in any of the ad platforms, the people that are still advertising are getting cheaper cost per clicks because there's less competition there. So there's increased visibility to the outside, but on the on the inside of the platform, you'll see cheaper costs. Yeah, and if you quit, lose all that testing, you lose all that data, and yeah, it's like starting cold turkey coming back in. Right. Yes, exactly. Looking at are people taking, know, why, what's going on? If there's no, if there's isn't any decline in your business, there's no reason to pull back at all. If you are seeing it, why is that? they taking longer to decide? People are more thinking more about their purchases. So I did some posts on that a couple of months ago and it was kind of popular because the first thing people want to do is start, you know, start pushing buttons. And it seems to me that what people are doing is just really taking longer, being more thoughtful. So I mean, one way you could work with that is provide more information about your product or service so that they feel more confident, uh maybe focus on discounts if you think it's like a price sensitivity thing. mean, there's a lot of ways that you can kind of tweak it and still stay in the game and keep your momentum going. Yeah, absolutely. So what are some trends that advertisers should watch for in the next six to 12 months in search advertising? There's a lot of things going on in search advertising with Google and Microsoft and integrating the AI tools, Copilot and Gemini into the search results. And they're doing so much experimentation. It's just, it's really hard for me to give you an answer. And I wish we knew the answer and people are trying to like figure out, figure out the system. How can we. work with it, think just to keep your eyes open for sure and stay on top of it. But what we're seeing is with the AI searches, there's more answers more frequently and more information in the search results rather than the searchers having to click through for their answer, leading to less traffic to your website. So, you know, one thing that you can do is actually, you know, check your analytics and see if you're getting, you know, how the traffic is coming through from that. But also try to optimize as much in SEO, which I'm not an expert for the chat bots, but also in on the horizon, the ad platforms are going to have different ad types that will be in the, in the AI platforms. And yeah, and co and Microsoft co-pilot is already sort of doing that. They've been testing that where they're serving the ads in that interface, not just based on keywords, but by the whole intent of the chat with the AI bot. So it's going to lead to even more relevant ads. in the future. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we always say, I know it used to be like seven times now I think it's like 24 times that people have to see you before they're comfortable. It might be more than that before they're ready to buy. But does ads like using ads and paid advertising does that like decrease that any because it's more specifically targeted. would say, I don't know what that number is. I wouldn't know what that number is anymore because we do have that ability to use AI to get to the answer a lot faster. But I mean, it's going to depend on the product and where and how you go through the sales funnel, because there are so many products and businesses where this is like an instant purchase. There's not much research and there are some that, you know, are taking that take months to convert. So, and then with those really long sales funnels, we're looking at reaching people with different messaging and different offers at each. point. So I wrote this article about not ignoring the mid funnel and looking at downloads and informational type of conversion actions to kind of guide those people through. Mm-hmm. It's fascinating to me. There's a lot of options. There's a lot of options. Well, and I don't think before I talk to you that I even ever heard of anybody running Microsoft ads. Like I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, they have some really cool features similar to Google. They have a pretty strong uh CTV offering, which is the connected TV ads, which are the ones that you can see in Netflix, your streaming channels. Whereas Google is more YouTube oriented, obviously. Yeah, they all have, it's like the platforms all have their own little fun advantages. Yeah, it's fascinating to me, fascinating to me. And I'm sure there's a ton more to that places that you can run ads, but I think it's, it's interesting just how much it's grown. And it's growing because people are willing to spend the money to get their face out there or their brand out there even more. Right. Yeah. And I do love that so many of the social ads can be layered with your social organic posts and then with ads. And LinkedIn even has that feature where you make the post and it says, do you want to boost it? I don't know if that's very, I don't think that's very efficient for getting conversions, but it definitely helps with some visibility if you just want, you know, a low. less expensive way to get impressions and eyeballs on your message. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This has been like the best conversation because I'm a geek when it comes to this stuff. Even though I don't run ads for anybody else right now. It's still like it's just still a cool conversation to have. So I would like to shift for a second into some fun rapid fire questions. If you're if you're ready for them. They're easy. They're easy. Okay. what is your favorite all time go to book? Book. Book. Oh, I really like positioning the, do I have it in here? The classic advertising book on positioning. Do you know who wrote that? Did I ask you too fast? Yes. And I don't have it on my shelf. I just looked over there. Yeah. It's a it's like a traditional kind of advertising book, which I think is it's a great foundational um positioning the battle for your mind. by L. Rise. Okay, that sounds very, very interesting. It's like my kind of book. So I love that. Do you have a favorite hype song to like get your morning started or to get you like pumped up to do something? You know, I don't have like a pump up method. I have like a centering method. Yes, like a grounding or centering method of breathing and relaxation. And then from that comes my energy burst. that. That's a great answer because I never even thought about that. But yes, grounding is like so good. Like I love the centering part. coffee or tea? Are you a morning person or evening person? I am now a morning person. I feel like there's a story there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think mornings became my thing because it was my alone time and I'm an introvert and I loved my alone time. So it was like, if I want alone time, get up earlier. And so it's just been thing forever. yeah, there's a beautiful nugget golden time in the morning where no one's up yet. Yeah. What's something that's on your bucket list? On my bucket list? On my bucket list. I want to go on a road trip to Mount Rushmore. Oh, nice. That will be fun. Yes. Yes. I love road trips. I actually am one of those people that doesn't. I don't mind long airplane, like flights and I don't mind long car rides. I just I love the, you can't multitask. You have to focus on something. So I love that aspect of it. So Lisa, when you think of visibility, paid or organic, like what would you say it's done for you and your business personally? enables me to meet new people and to... grasp new opportunities that I might not have been exposed to if I didn't have the visibility. But I think it's really like taking a risk for that visibility to reaching out from doing organic posts to just reaching out to somebody personally. And all kinds of opportunities have come up for me. from doing that to being invited to conferences or podcasts or being referred business. it's, people that you knew people knew things and that's what I love about it. I love that. I love that. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for being on our show. If our audience wants to connect with you, where can they find you? I would love to connect on LinkedIn and they can just search for my name or they can connect on my website, bigclickco.com. All right, I love it, I love it. Is there anything that you would like to share that maybe we didn't go over or anything you'd like to reiterate when it comes to paid media for my audience? think paid media is changing rapidly right now. And I don't think you have to feel pressured about having, knowing everything about what's going on, being an expert in it, but just keep your eyes and ears open to what is going on. Don't be afraid to ask for help, expertise, guidance, more training, you know, with all of the AI features that are in the platform and external, it's a learning curve for everybody. Nobody is. you know, waking up as an expert in those areas. So, and it's a good opportunity to look at it with, you know, positive opportunity eyes rather than, you know, fear, fear of the robots. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I think that's awesome. Embrace it is what you're saying. I love that. I love that. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for being on the show. If you love this episode, make sure you share it or tag someone who would also uh be very interested in this connect with Lisa will drop all of her links into the show notes on how you can connect with her. connect with her on LinkedIn, her website and all of those things. And again, share this episode with someone who you know could benefit from it and we will see you on the next one.