259: Jacob Baadsgaard: Disrupting The Digital Advertising Agency

After growing one of his first PPC clients from 25 to 250 employees, Jacob (Jake) Baadsgaard realized he had a gift for using pay-per-click marketing to drive dramatic business results. To help more companies succeed online, Jake founded Disruptive Advertising, a PPC and CRO management agency, and in a few short years has grown the company to over 90 employees and a run rate of over $12 million – placing it #145 on the 2017 Inc 500 list.

While most business leaders focus on personal financial gain, Jacob Baadsgaard reinvests a fair amount of his profits back into his employees and the community; donating 10% of his salary to his church every month, spending upwards of $1k a week on snacks for the office, donating monthly to a charity cause his employees choose, and developing employees with no experience into leadership roles within his company that earn six figure salaries.

He is a regular contributor in prominent publications including Forbes, Entrepreneur, SearchEngineLand, MarketingLand, SearchEngineJournal, Unbounce and KissMetrics.

In our conversation today, Jake shares his perspective on entrepreneurship and why he has no intention of selling his company anytime soon. An advocate of personal leadership development, he not only challenges himself regularly to be better and do better, he facilitates an optional course on personal leadership for his employees, which has been well-attended by staff members, despite it being held in the early morning, prior to working hours.

Given Jake’s expertise in digital advertising, we also explore the common mistakes that businesses make when engaging in digital advertising, and the best way to get started, and how to make the most of your investment.

Key Takeaways

1. You don’t need to build your business to sell it. You can be the one to reap the long-term benefits from your business being successful.
2. Develop a really good skill-set before venturing off on your own. Otherwise you just don’t have that much to offer to potential clients.
3. Often when there’s a certain measure of professional success, we use that as a justification to forgive bad habits and assume we are making a difference in the other areas of our life too.
4. As a leader, work on yourself rather than try to fix others.
5. 76% of adwords and Facebook ad budgets are wasted.
6. When done correctly, PPC is very trackable to actual revenue.
7. One mistake businesses often make when it comes to PPC is starting with a really small budget and a really broad marketing campaign.
8. If you don’t have sustainable revenue and profits, paid advertising might not be the right place to start.
9. If marketing is done correctly, every single thing is a victory – because you learn just as much from what didn’t work as what did work. As long as you go about it in the right way.
10. If you’re new to digital advertising, you have to commit to it long term (12-18 months) and do the right things in order to see progress along the way, and get to the consistent ROI you’re looking for.

Episode Show Notes: https://leadersoftransformation.com/podcast/business/259-jacob-baadsgaard-disrupting-the-digital-advertising-industry 

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