The Digital Marketing Mentor

097: From Power Tools to Paid Media: Jack Hepp’s Blueprint for Local Ads Success

• Danny Gavin • Episode 97

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0:00 | 40:25

Before he was building ad campaigns, Jack Hepp was building houses. Now he runs Industrious Marketing, helping local businesses grow through hands-on paid media advertising strategy. 

In this episode, Jack shares how getting fired early shaped his marketing career, discusses the mentors who sharpened his skills, and why clear pricing and clean strategy always win over smoke and mirrors, specifically in regard to local businesses and Google Local Services ads (LSAs). 

Episode Highlights: 

  • Jack Hepp’s background in construction and mentorship shaped his approach to marketing, emphasizing responsibility, adaptability, and long-term thinking in paid media strategies.  
  • He advocates for a “listen first” approach in client interactions, and stresses the importance of honest, constructive feedback. 
  • Jack discusses the value of Local Service Ads (LSAs) for certain industries, but warns they should be complemented with traditional campaigns for consistent lead generation. 
  • He prefers transparent, tiered pricing models based on ad spend, and emphasizes that clear scope, reporting, and communication are essential for building trust and setting expectations with clients. 

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Introduction to Jack Hansen

Danny Gavin

Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor. I'm your host, danny Gavin, and, together with industry leaders and marketing experts, we'll explore the meeting point of mentorship and marketing. We'll discover how these connections have affected careers, marketing strategies and lives. Now get ready to get human strategy. Jack has a proven track record of helping businesses of all sizes optimize their online presence and achieve measurable results. Today, we're going to be talking about mentorship, what Jack learned from his first agency job, all things Google Ads, particularly when working with local businesses, and finally, the main reason why we're here today is pricing models and strategies for paid advertising, a topic that caught my eye on LinkedIn recently. Jack, how are you? I'm doing good, how are you Doing really well. We were talking about earlier that we kind of met at Brighton SEO, but really what you know? I've been watching you on LinkedIn, being very active and providing really great content, and it just made sense, reached out to you and I'm so glad that you're here today.

Jack Hepp

Yeah, I'm excited. I really appreciate you having me on and excited to chat with you.

Danny Gavin

All right. So where did you go to school and what did you study?

Jack Hepp

So I went to Montana State University in Billings, Montana, which is where I live now. I studied business administration. Then they had like options where you could focus in marketing and management. So that's I originally actually was going into management, but I had my first marketing class and really liked it and so I added that on. And here we are, 10 plus years later.

Danny Gavin

That's awesome, and you also. I think you worked for your family's construction business as well.

Jack Hepp

Yeah, so my dad had a construction company and he started it when I was a young kid and so worked. In that I mean there's pictures of me at three, four years old outside with a hammer with my dad and worked all through college doing that and learned a lot of things that apply to marketing, even though it seems kind of odd.

Danny Gavin

No, it's cool. I think everyone not everyone is blessed to have a family business, and it doesn't mean you have to stay there, but at least having that opportunity to be in that environment and to learn. I've had that with my family as well, so I think you're lucky to have that experience in your life.

Jack Hepp

I work with a lot of small businesses and always have and my dad had a small business, so I have an affection for small businesses. Just growing up in that, I understand the challenges and what that's like, and so it definitely had a big impact.

Danny Gavin

So, when looking back at college in particular, are there any moments there, whether it's inside or outside the classroom, that paved your path today?

Jack Hepp

The first thing that comes to mind would be my very first marketing class. I think it was just Marketing 101 or something like that. But really marketing wasn't even necessarily on my radar up to that point. Like I said, I went to school for management. I don't know that. I had a path in my mind. That was just kind of where I thought I was going to start. And I took that marketing class and immediately mind that was just kind of where I thought I was going to start. And I took that marketing class and immediately after that added you know that to my degree and took a bunch more marketing classes and so that was a big piece of it. And I had a wonderful marketing professor, my I think I first had her class my second year. That definitely kind of helped push that as well, and so that those were probably the biggest things that kind of pushed me towards the path I want today.

Danny Gavin

Love it and you know it's interesting. I speak on a panel every year to think about 100 or 200 business students in the undergrad at University of Houston and there's a panel of people just so that they can get an idea, a better idea, of what everything is. And it's really interesting because most, a lot of undergrad business students, when you talk about marketing, they just think it's sales. They don't realize it's like this whole other world, and so that theme is really common and, thank God, like you were, you figured out. Okay, wow, there is this thing marketing me and never thought about it.

Jack Hepp

And yeah, even if maybe you didn't get into it right away, but it like planted those seeds to get there eventually, yeah, yeah, exactly Like I said I, it wasn't even something that was necessarily on my radar, and you know, and I took that class and then it was. You know, at that point in time, social media and digital marketing was really still kind of early, you know. I mean, it'd been around for a while but it was still early on. So it was my job barely even had started existing at that point and there I was in college getting directed on the path to it.

Danny Gavin

So, jack, how would you define a mentor?

Jack Hepp

Someone who's willing to you know provide you advice, guidance, but even just be, you know, open to you know giving you an ear to listen, you know reinforcing things where you need it, but maybe giving you some feedback in other areas as well, and kind of somebody that'll help direct you on a path or help you find the way that you should go.

Danny Gavin

So let's talk about Amy Bishop. You shared that she was instrumental in your endeavor to start a business. Can you elaborate on your relationship with Amy and how she inspired you to go out on your own?

Jack Hepp

I had worked for a couple different agencies here in Billings Montana. They were more full-service agencies and I had been the only digital person at those agencies, so I was totally self-taught. I built up the digital side myself and had figured it out along the way. So I first met Amy through Twitter I think it was in maybe 2020, 2021. And I posted about going out on my own and she reached out and just gave me this huge list of things that she learned when she went out on her own and how you know, like just tips and guidance and things to think about and you know, a lot of stuff that I never would even have even considered.

Jack Hepp

And then, the way that fate works out, I guess about six months after that, she reached back out and said that she was hiring and needed somebody to join her team and asked if I was interested.

Jack Hepp

And I was in a place where I was ready to leave the position I was at and joined Amy and spent about a year working with her and learned a lot from her. I finally had somebody else that was doing Google Ads that I could learn from, and somebody that was extremely knowledgeable and had a lot of experience, and so I was able to learn a lot from her for a year and stuff. And then ultimately she had some other opportunities that she was going to pursue and was ready to slow down her agency a little bit. And at that point in time she reached out and asked if I'd be interested in taking on some of the clients that I manage and going out on my own. And you know, always had been a goal of mine to end up out on my own and and Amy you know very graciously provided me my first clients and gave me, you know, some guidance and help and helped me launch out on my own and and I I definitely wouldn't be sitting where I'm at today if it wasn't for her.

Danny Gavin

So how special. I mean wow. Most people don't get that opportunity Do you still speak with her.

Jack Hepp

You know I haven't been in touch with her for a while. I keep thinking I need to reach back out and, just, you know, say hi, and and and I, you know I always feel immensely grateful for what she did Cause, like you said, very few people get an opportunity like that and I will always be forever grateful that you people get an opportunity like that and I will always be forever grateful that you know that she, you know, passed those clients on to me and gave me that opportunity, so cool.

Danny Gavin

Well, hopefully she's gonna watch this episode and she'll be like okay, let's definitely chat. Well, you also mentioned a professor. I assume it was Brenda Dockery. How did she help you prepare for professional life after college?

Jack Hepp

I can't quite remember what the what the marketing class. So she had a huge background in sales and then had done some marketing and became a professor at my college and the first class I took with her we had to cold call businesses in order to try to get donations for the school. Actually, and that was the first time I'd ever had a cold call like that. That was the first time I'd ever had a cold call like that and it was terrifying, but it was a great experience. She brought so much just real-world experience to her classes that a lot of other professors just didn't necessarily have, Even if they had a background in it.

Jack Hepp

It was very rigid school and stuff and hers was always just very real life. That helped prepare me a lot for, I think, the real world after school. And then on top of that, she remained a mentor of mine for several years afterwards and it was just always there to give me advice, hear me out and even push back. Within a year after school, I think, I went to her and told her that I wanted to go out on my own and have my own marketing business and she very wisely talked me into pursuing a different direction and I think that, you know, I think it saved me probably a lot of heartache at that time.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, and you know, you're a real life example of two things that I push all the time specifically for people who go to college. Number one taking those classes that are really practical, because theoretical is good, but, man, if you can get some practical experience within the classroom, why not? So that that is so cool. And number two all you need is that one or two professors that you have that connection with, because having them outside of the classroom, even when you graduate, it can make a world of a difference. And I'm not saying that's the only reason that you're successful today, Jack, but it's cool to see that. Two things which I personally feel are really important, those were also, you know, big things in your life.

Jack Hepp

I fully think that those are two pieces that helped me find success after school. You know, I had other professors that pushed real life experience, even other ones that I stayed in touch with for a few years after school. And you know, when you first get out of school it feels like the Wild West and you have no idea what you're doing or where you're going, and it's nice to have people that are willing to kind of step in and help give you some guidance.

Danny Gavin

So you also shared a few names of recent mentors of yours who have also been guests on our podcast, like Jill Sarah Steeman Akvila DeFazio. They're Sarah Steeman Akvila DeFazio. They're all amazing people.

Early Career and College Influences

Jack Hepp

What kind of advice and feedback from them has been most helpful to you in recent years Lending an ear, to listen, I think, having somebody that you can vent frustrations to or share challenges and they're willing to hear you out and give you what they went through and some of those kind of things. But they've all shared different experiences that they've had, whether, you know, starting businesses or in their careers, generating content or just Google ads issues and things like that. You know they've always had a lot of advice and stuff that I feel like I can always turn to any of them with a question and they have great feedback.

Danny Gavin

So some say, being a solopreneur or a freelancer can be, you know, pretty lonely, but I think you've set it up the right way right. You're connecting yourself with other freelancers and one of the beautiful things about our community is there's a lot of people who are willing to just talk and give advice and be there. So just you know people who are listening. Remember that you know if you decide to go down the freelance path, it's important to create that structure, whether it's the mentors on top or the people on the side of you who are also mentors, but just in a different way.

Jack Hepp

Yeah, absolutely, and I think that was something I didn't necessarily figure out immediately. I will say Amy, giving me the step up immediately was extremely helpful, but I also skipped a lot of steps that I think a lot of people that go out on their own have to work through, and I think I kind of was able to. I might have skipped them at first, but then I had to come back and work through some of those things, and that was building a community around me, which has really been. I've been on my own for almost three years now and I really just in the last year, year and a half, have built that community around myself, and so I was missing that early on, finding those people that you can connect with and share. When you have an issue on Google Ads and there's nobody else to talk to, it's very lonely, but if you have other people you can go commiserate with, it feels a lot better.

Danny Gavin

Totally so, like the circle of life. You shared that you often mentor people. Now who connect with you on LinkedIn, you know you being the influencer or the subject matter expert that's out there. So for those who do reach out to you with questions online, how more formal mentoring than I have done up to this point.

Jack Hepp

But my first thing is just always listening first. A lot of times when people reach out, they don't want you to spew your life story to them. They want you to hear out what their challenges are. And so that's kind of my first thing is just listening to people, hearing them out, and then from there it might be providing them with some encouragement or some ideas, be providing them with some encouragement or some ideas, steps, things that they can pursue to chase after, whatever their goals are.

Jack Hepp

Sometimes people just don't know where the next step is, and it's nice to have somebody that's been there and done that and say like, hey, here's the next step I took and you can do that same kind of thing. And then I think the last thing is being willing to give them constructive criticism. Like I said, I've had mentors in my past that stepped in and were like maybe you should rethink that or maybe here's an alternative you should consider and that can be really powerful. It's hard to you don't know what, you don't know a lot of times when you're working through your career, and somebody else that can step in and push back a little bit and say, hey, reconsider some of these things or think about some of this other stuff that might be out there. It can be really powerful, even if it's not always the most fun thing to hear.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, and sometimes it's hard to give that constructive criticism. What's your approach? Do you find it easy, hard? Is it something you've had to work on?

Jack Hepp

It's definitely something I find hard and, honestly, there's probably times where I could have been better with it than I am, and so I'm always trying to improve. And people talk about the compliment sandwich kind of thing here's a good thing, here's a bad thing, here's a good thing. My approach is very much like I don't want to tell people that this is a terrible idea. Don't do it. That's not my goal. My goal is to say here's some alternatives that you might want to consider and some challenges that you could run into, why these things could be issues. Here's challenges I ran into in my career that you might experience if you go on this route and some of those kind of things, because people find success through all sorts of different avenues news, and so just because I didn't experience it that way doesn't mean it's wrong, but it is good to have go into something with full knowledge and say, like this could be bad, but maybe you'll find a way to work through it too.

Danny Gavin

So, as we shift the conversation towards your marketing expertise, I thought it might be interesting to talk about the time that you spent in the agency world. I'm sure this was hard, but could you share with us the story of how you got fired from your first agency job?

Jack Hepp

I got my first agency job. I'd been out of college about a year, I think, and that had been my goal since the time I left was to get into an agency, and so I finally had an opportunity, and when I first joined I was more of a project manager would probably be a good description of what my job was and I very much was trying to just learn and figure out as many things as I want. And so about a year into it, the agency started wanting to offer digital marketing and they'd had some outside vendors that they'd used at the time. Basically, it was hey, you're 23. You know what social media is, come, do all our digital marketing, and I'd played around with it a little bit on my own and had some interest in it and had learned about it, but it was very little experience and, honestly, probably took on more than I should have at the time. Just because I was willing, I wanted to say yes and I wanted to do whatever I could, and so I was the digital marketing person for about six months and started running some challenges, specifically with one of the vendors wasn't handling campaigns in the way that they should have, but I didn't do a good job of communicating and controlling some of that kind of stuff and sharing the challenges back with clients and with the internal team members and things like that, and so ultimately, ads weren't getting run and money wasn't getting spent and the client came back and was upset and blamed us for lost revenue and things of that nature.

Jack Hepp

And I was the person in the middle of it all and they decided at that time to let me go About a year and a half into my professional career. I had been fired and it was funny. At the time none of my friends actually believed that that could have been fired and it was funny. At the time nobody actually none of my friends actually believed that that could have been true. They thought I was joking with them and there was no way that Jack was fired from a job. So it was not fun and I thought I would never be in digital marketing ever again.

Jack Hepp

But I found another job through a connection about three months later and spent four and a half years at that agency doing digital marketing. At the time I was angry and blamed a lot of people, but looking back on it now, I learned a lot from the experience and there were probably things that could have been handled differently on either side of that. One of the biggest takeaways I got from it was just how valuable communication is in marketing and it's something that we should understand as marketers because it's really a big piece of our job. But I was trying to fix things myself and not communicating well and not dealing with the issues that are there, and if I'd been better at communicating and handling some of those things, I think I probably would have ran into less issues at that point in time.

Danny Gavin

So I often have students who come up to me and say Danny, I've got like two job opportunities in front of me One where I'm going to come in and they want me to do everything, but I'm not going to really have that much like there's no one going to be overseeing me, I'm not going to really have someone that I can ask questions to. Or I have another position where you know it's more of like I've got that mentor or that person who has the experience and I'm gonna be able to learn from them and I can ask questions. Now, naturally, if people who like different situations better, like they wanna do it all themselves or they need more help. Looking back at that first situation that you had, I mean there's pros and cons of the environment you were in, but do you have advice that you would give to someone on what's a better place to start off at?

Mentorship Experiences and Impact

Jack Hepp

I think, early in your career, you need to ask for help when you need it, and I've always been somebody that just wants to take it and do it myself and, to a fault, not asking for help. And I think that was really, you know, ultimately, where I ran into problems was I wasn't reaching out for help and I wasn't finding ways to, you know, avoid these situations. I just thought I could, you know, work harder and faster and do it myself, and none of that was ultimately going to fix it Because, like I said, I had very little experience at the time. You know, I didn't know what I didn't know, to be honest, and I think I could have avoided a lot of heartache if I'd just been better at asking for help or even being willing to say like, hey, honestly, I don't know how to do this and we may need to find somebody else that can help us figure this out, because I just don't have that experience.

Danny Gavin

So pivoting to local. You specialize in managing Google Ads for local businesses. What are some common misconceptions that local owners have about using Google Ads?

Jack Hepp

The biggest one is always around budget. It's a challenging conversation for small businesses because it's hard to spend money and hope you get a result and not know what it is. A lot of times what I find is small businesses they want to. Well, we're actually willing to spend. Here's our set timeline. Let's actually give it a real try. We can't just dip our toes in the water and hope it works. We need to actually put some real budget into this and see what's going to happen.

Danny Gavin

So, when we're talking about local business owners, what is a reasonable budget that you recommend, and what about duration? So is there a certain amount of time that you feel like, hey, you need to try this for at least this amount of time, or else it's not going to be worth it.

Jack Hepp

Three months is kind of my default, and I think probably a lot of people will say three months. Some of it's just an experience thing. That third month sometimes just seems to be where things finally take off.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, so for those who have tried Google Ads before but didn't see the results they expected, especially when we're talking about local businesses and maybe smaller budgets, what are some common issues that can go wrong?

Jack Hepp

Especially for local businesses and small budgets, the biggest challenges are the limited data that you have a lot of times to use things like smart bidding and AI and whatever you want to say.

Jack Hepp

But the bigger problem a lot of times is what their actual offer is and what they're trying to get people to do. They tend to just like, hey, we're going to send them to the website, it's got a phone number and a form and people will fill it out, and rarely do people actually work that way, and so a lot of times what I find is they didn't have a good offer, they didn't have a good landing page, they didn't have a really good foundation to build their campaign on. That would actually give people a reason to take the actions that they wanted to do Really started to lead with that. A lot of times now I'm like we need to have a good offer, we got to have a good landing page, we need to know what our goals are and what we're trying to do, and if we don't have all those things figured out and aligned, there's no point in us even starting this campaign until we know what that is.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, I think it connects to the fact that, in order to advertise, you have to have a product or a business, and if it's not set up correctly, whatever you're going to do, it's not going to help. So do you mind sharing with our audience what is, or what are, local service ads, and how can a local company use those?

Jack Hepp

Local service ads are.

Jack Hepp

They're targeted towards service-based businesses.

Jack Hepp

So think of, you know, hvac or plumbing, barbers, all those sorts there's a whole list of lawyers is a big one All those sorts of kind of local businesses that tend to offer a service within a set area.

Jack Hepp

You know, they don't necessarily, they're not a national company or something like that, and so local service ads are probably the most unique Google Ads type that there is. In fact, they have their own platform that's connected to a Google Ads account, but you don't actually run them inside of your typical Google Ads account. So basically, they're connected to your Google business profile and you set a budget and Google will serve your ads. At the top of the typically at the top of the page, there's usually an image, business name, the ability to message or call, and then you only pay for leads that actually come through, so you don't pay for clicks on the ad like traditional ads. And then outside of that, there's not a ton of optimizations to be done like you would find in a normal campaign. You gotta have a good Google profile and there's some various things you can do, but they're definitely a unique type of ad.

Danny Gavin

So the local service ad format is that something that you recommend to your clients? Also, you wanna talk a little bit about? I recently saw on LinkedIn, you know, some people feel like all I need to do is local service ads. I don't even have to touch the regular Google ads. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Jack Hepp

I recommend local service ads to businesses that qualify for them. They take a little longer to set up than a normal account, so there's a little bit of back. You got to like a background check and upload like insurance information and different things. It varies by the industry, but they can be a really valuable ad type because they are almost always at the very top of the search results and, like I said, somebody's clicking on it and they're calling you and you have this person on the phone. You're not hoping they go to the website and then take the action. There's definitely a lot of value in local service ads and I recommend them to almost any business that operates in that area. Most of the businesses that I run that I help with locals because there's not a lot to do with a local service. If somebody's charging you a large monthly fee to run local service ads start asking questions because there's not a lot that they're probably doing. Spoiler alert yeah, yes, exactly. So for most of my clients that I help them on local service ads, we're running a traditional Google account and campaigns along with it, and so I do think that there's a lot of value to both and, honestly, anthony Higman had a great post on this on LinkedIn the other day, and so I'm probably going to steal some of that because he put it so simply. I just I have to use it.

Jack Hepp

Local service ads don't serve on every single search, like they're not always guaranteed to serve when somebody is searching for whatever your services may be. So if they're not serving, those are potential customers that you could completely miss without a traditional campaign that might be serving on those additional searches. And then, additionally, people aren't necessarily going to always click on a local service ad. A lot of people know that it's an ad and they quickly scroll past it. They might be looking at a map format and see a different ad in the maps, especially for local businesses. So there's a lot of value in having those alternate ad types out there as well.

First Agency Job Challenges

Jack Hepp

And then the last thing with local service ads is Google's in control of everything with them, right? So there's not necessarily a way for me to make sure my ad's always number one. Google is typically rotating through these, and Anthony put it the best way on LinkedIn is Google has to get all of these businesses running local service ads leads or they're going to leave. The only way that people are going to continue running these ads and spending money is if they're all getting some sort of leads. So Google's going to be rotating people through rotating who's at top, who's getting leads, and I'm sure that they have rankings and different things that they take into account with those. But ultimately there's very little control over where and how often your ad shows, and so if you want to have that control, make sure your ads are available. You need traditional campaigns running alongside those.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, I think you presented it perfectly, thank you. So, segueing to paid media pricing models and strategies, so you've recently shared about the importance of understanding pricing models for paid advertising. Can you walk us through some common pricing models in digital advertising?

Jack Hepp

Probably the most well-known and common one is percent of ad spend. You know where an agency will take. You know basically some sort of percentage of however much ad spend that they're using. You know there's kind of a hybrid off of that, which is actually the model I use. You have I'd spend tiers based on the budget.

Jack Hepp

If you're spending within this range, this is my set management fee. If you bump up into the next range, my fee goes up. I think that there's more control and more understanding for the business and for me. I know as long as your spend's in this range, here's how much I'm making. I'm not having to try to calculate things every time. And then I see people run hourly, where they just charge a set hourly fee and they track their time. I see people run just a set fee per month that doesn't take into account ad spend. And then there are performance-based models out there too, based on maybe a percent of revenue or based on leads and some of those sorts of things as well. Those are more complex and, honestly, I think, risky for everybody, but those exist as well.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, I feel like whenever a potential client comes to me with an idea of performance, it's kind of like well, I still need to pay my people. That's always a hard one.

Jack Hepp

Yeah, and I understand it from a business standpoint I'm going to pay you and you get me results, but also I delivered a service. It may have worked. It may not have worked. There's a lot of things in the online world that are out of my control, like your website, how well your salespeople close and so those kind of things, and so those are difficult clothes and some of those kind of things and so those are difficult. And then there's a lot of ability to manipulate things in the digital ad world. I could just run up brand spend and make your performance look great, but you're not going to be happy when you run out of customers.

Danny Gavin

So how do you think businesses should evaluate whether a pricing model is fair and aligned with the value that they're receiving.

Jack Hepp

That can play a big piece in it. E-commerce tends to have a little bit more of that ability. There People have to step back and look at like, okay, these people are running a business and they need to get paid for the service that they provide and I want some sort of assurance that I'm going to get some results out of my ad spend, and so I think that makes people lean towards the performance model. But I think if you find that a business aligns with your goals and they have the referrals and stuff like that and they're willing to work on a tiered system or something like that, and that ad spend fits within your goals and what you need as a business, I think that is a good place to look at. You have to look at your margins and things like that as well, like you know what's the cost going to be on these and you know how does that fit into whether or not we're going to make money and how much we have to sell to make money and some of those kind of things.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, I'll just add two other points, I think. Number one, with the agency itself. Working with an agency that's very transparent, right, like that's very transparent, right, like you said. Like if you have an agency that's just going to throw a brand in together with things and not actually be clear, or you know they're looking at the lead but they're not really looking at what turned into a sale, like there's different levels. So I think if you work with a partner who's like we're going to be transparent, right, and we're going to we want to see exactly what's happening as much as you do, I think that also helps understand that relationship. I think that's a big one. Naturally, you have to take that fee into account with the potential revenue and you have to see if the numbers all make sense, right. If, when you add the fee on, you're still making money, you're still doing that, obviously that makes sense. If not, then naturally it may not work and either you can negotiate another fee or maybe it might not be the right provider for you.

Google Ads for Local Businesses

Jack Hepp

Right, and I think I'll add on to the transparency. One's a big one. One of the biggest criticisms of the percent of ad spend or something like that is well, the agency is just. They're incentivized to just spend more and more and more, regardless. If you have an agency doing that again you should start asking questions, because they shouldn't be just running your ad spend up for no reason whatsoever. And with my clients we have a set budget. In fact I have a clause in my pricing where I say if our budget is in this tier and I accidentally run our ad spend up into the next tier, I'm not going to charge you that level of pricing, because that wasn't the approved budget. That's on me, and so you need to find a partner that's going to be transparent. And then that model is a lot less scary because people aren't going to run up ad spend for no reason.

Danny Gavin

Exactly. And then when they do come to you, they'll have a reason like, hey, we see this and that I really think we need to go into the next tier. And if it logically makes sense and you have a trustworthy partner, you can see that, yes, they will benefit from that increase, but that's just the benefit, like the added option, it's not the reason that they're pushing it. So you mentioned in a post and I think that was the post that sparked everything about bringing you on that what's included in a management fee. Right, it can vary widely. So what should businesses look at when they're assessing what's included, what's not included? And I think the big thing that I wanted to like bring up was you know, yes, there's managing Google ads, but then there's also like building landing pages or, you know, monitoring or managing a CRM. You know, and some people feel like that's taken for granted. Obviously they're going to do this or they're not. So I'd love your opinion on the matter. And you know what, what? What do you think about?

Jack Hepp

this. It's a transparency thing. Somebody might be way more expensive for me, but maybe they include way more services than I do Traditionally. I think that in a Google Ads management, you should expect somebody to fully manage the campaign, and I include tracking in that. I think that getting tracking set up and managed is a big piece of what you need to do as a Google Ads manager to find success, improve success, and so I think that that's a big piece of it.

Jack Hepp

Beyond that, currently I don't think that Google Ads management a lot of times includes things like landing pages or CRM management or something like that, unless those are explicitly stated things. However, I think that the future could be very different for that. As Google Ads and how we manage things change, those may become much more important in a manager, but it should be everything from campaign setup, strategy, day-to-day optimizations, meetings and reports. I think everybody should have some sort of reporting included. That shouldn't be an add-on, extra cost, and I'm also a big proponent of businesses owning their own accounts and handling ad spend outside of that relationship as well.

Danny Gavin

So naturally it would be safe to say that if, whether it's a freelancer or an agency providing landing pages or other sort of services outside of what we discussed, if they're going to charge extra for that, that's not out of the world, right? It's not crazy.

Jack Hepp

Yeah, I think that those are totally fair things that you can add on either as an add-on or they could be part of your base fee if that's what you're doing. They're all really related and there's been more than one time where I wish that I was doing more landing page stuff, because the landing pages I have to work with are rough at best and that can be a big piece of how successful your campaigns are.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, and I think, going back to the provider, naturally, if you're working with an agency, they might have the skills or more than one person who can help with each one of those areas.

Danny Gavin

When you're dealing with a freelancer, they may not themselves have the skills for all of that, but what they are doing is really really good and therefore it just depends. But that's why I think the point we're getting here is it's really about transparency. It's kind of like understand what you're getting and then sometimes it's even good to say what you're not getting right. And if you're not getting that, it doesn't mean it's bad, it's just a realistic sort of situation. And if it's something you want and your freelancer doesn't provide it, that doesn't mean that he can't help you. He or she can't help you. Find that as well right, it may not be with them, but it could be with another person. So it's really about communication and I think what's nice about our general circle is it feels like whether it's the freelancers or the agencies, we try to be as honest and transparent as possible and that way, you know, people feel good working with people like us.

Jack Hepp

Because one of the biggest things I run into with local businesses is they don't understand the difference between SEO and PPC at all, and that's a conversation that I have to have very early on, or we're going to have wildly different expectations of what's going to happen with this campaign.

Danny Gavin

And it's crazy because you think by now people would know the difference. But they don't right. And they might come to you and say, hey, jack, can you help me with some SEO work, and so right away you'd have to be like you don't email them back saying, hey, I don't provide it. It's more like, hey, let's have a chat. Do you know what you want?

Jack Hepp

Yes, yes, that is because they think SEO is PPC or vice versa or whatever it is. So it's like let's talk about this and get down to what are you hoping to have? Okay, here's what that actually is.

Danny Gavin

It's a different world on the local, smaller business side, but it's very rewarding because you can actually see the difference that you're making to these people's lives or to their businesses or families. It's cool, so you're in a good place, jack.

Jack Hepp

Yes, yeah, like I said, the client I started working with last fall, they actually just hired two employees to help with their growth. Huge, yeah. So it's cool to see that you know like our ads have helped them grow and now they're bringing on people and that's it's really that makes it a lot more fun, even though there's some additional challenges that come with local.

Danny Gavin

Yeah, they say you're doing a good job in two ways. One is that they make you turn off the campaigns, but it's rather the second one, which you just said, right, they actually go and hire more people and you can see that they're growing. You'd rather have number two, but it's nice to say that I'm doing so well that they can't even handle it.

Pricing Models for Paid Advertising

Jack Hepp

Yeah, doing so well you get yourself fired is not as fun as doing so well that they have to hire and grow. Well, let's just say pause Can?

Danny Gavin

you just pause it for a month or two? Yes, but what they don't realize is when you pause campaigns. That could also cause problems. Yeah, that's a conversation I have as well, Outside of any other case study that you're proud of, like oh man, if it's a certain industry, we'd love to hear about it.

Jack Hepp

So I'll do like coaching and consulting work with small businesses as well, especially the smaller the business like that's. If they don't have the, you know, a lot of times if you're spending under five or under $10,000, it may not make sense to hire somebody to run ads for you. And so you do some coaching, consulting. And I worked with a local brand. She's a local kitchen store and sells all kinds of stuff and she was running PMAX and honestly, her PMAX campaign was running incredibly well for her and that was all she had going and stuff. But she was having a ton of luck with it. But I was able to come in and help her a little bit with some tips and some things to try and ways that we could segment things out and stuff like that.

Jack Hepp

I'm going to look really quick to see if I can find. She wrote me a review and had the exact number that actually the impact had. Yeah, so we were able. We helped her sales grow by 60% compared to the last year and, like I said, she was doing really good on her own. There was just some things that, through experience and knowledge and stuff, I was able to help her improve and build on and stuff, and so that's kind of another fun one and again just a small local store that needed a little bit of help.

Danny Gavin

Thank you for sharing that. Alright, it's time for our top three. I will mention a category and then you can tell me what you like about it, or an anecdote, or what you think of All right, Number one gardening. Any specific like? Do you like doing vegetables or flowers?

Jack Hepp

I like both. I love planting flowers because they're just pretty. In fact, I bought too many this year and my wife and I had to get another like planter box to put more flowers in. But I also really enjoy growing vegetables and things as well, even some little fruits. I like to grow stuff that you can't necessarily always get in stores, so I have purple, green beans, every color of pepper and tomato that you could ever imagine, little cute white pumpkins. I got cucumbers that are called salt and pepper cucumbers they're these little yellow ones with black specks all over them. So I just, you know, just unique things that you don't necessarily find in the store that are kind of fun to play with.

What's Included in Management Fees

Jack Hepp

Very cool, you'll have to send me photos. Yeah, absolutely, I've got a. I've got a ton, so cool. Uh, fishing I've been fishing since I was a kid and you know, growing up in wyoming and living in mont, obviously outdoors is a huge part of everything, and so I love fishing. It's something I probably don't do enough, but my dad's always been my best fishing buddy, and so we try to get out and go fishing as much as we can.

Danny Gavin

And finally reffing high school and college soccer.

Jack Hepp

Yeah, so I grew up playing soccer through high school. Actually, when I was younger, my wife and I were just getting started. I first started to join it trying to make a little extra money on the side and have something fun to do, but I really enjoy being around the game and getting to ref high school kids, ref college kids. It's a lot of fun and there's even some mentorship that sneaks in there now and then as well. So it takes up a lot of my fall, but it's a ton of fun.

Danny Gavin

So, jack, where can listeners learn more about you and your business?

Jack Hepp

Probably the best place to learn about me is on LinkedIn. It's where I'm the most active. Find me on Twitter once in a while, not as much, and I don't know. I think I have an Instagram and like a threads and stuff too. I just not not on those as often. Uh and and then. So my website is industriousmarketingco. Um, don't add the M on the end, that's somebody else, um, and so you can find more about my business and got information on my services and ways to get in contact with me and some of those kinds of things.

Danny Gavin

Cool. So, before we wrap, what's next for you, jack? What's the next big thing?

Jack Hepp

More services for small businesses that can't necessarily hire somebody like me. I talk to them all the time and I want to help them more, but we have to make economics work for all of us, right? So I'm hoping this year to have some additional services or courses or coaching kind of things that will help small businesses use and run with Google Ads and I think that some of where Google Ads is evolving may play into that as well and it can ultimately be beneficial for everybody.

Danny Gavin

So once that comes out, let us know so that we can share with everyone. All right, well, jack, thank you so much for being a guest on the Digital Marketing Mentor. This was really awesome, and thank you, listeners. Being a guest on the Digital Marketing Mentor, this was really awesome, and thank you, listeners, for tuning into the Digital Marketing Mentor. We'll speak with you next time. Thanks for having me on 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.

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Danny Gavin

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