Mastering Digital Marketing with Zaid Ammari

Zaid Ammari [00:00:00] Ed Watters: To overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all Dead America, we can all learn something. To learn, we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others, however, some of the best conversations happen with ourselves. Reach out and challenge yourself; let's dive in and learn something new right now. [00:00:53] Today we are speaking with Zaid Ammari, he is the founder of PPC Masterminds. Zaid, could you please introduce yourself? Let people know just a little more about you, please. [00:01:06] Zaid Ammari: Uh, sure. Uh, first, thanks for having me. Uh, I am a founder of PPC Masterminds, a, uh, digital marketing agency. I started off, uh, working as a minimum wage, a bank employee, uh, almost fifteen years ago. And, um, during my time I, uh, decided that I needed to do, I wasn't happy. I needed to do something different. And I thought about opening a website and trying to build my own thing. And that worked out, that worked out a little bit. Uh, I was, uh, hustling every day, trying to, uh, grow my own website. I was actually selling, um, [00:01:50] it was a website showing cars for sale. So I had to go to different car shops and ask them to put, put up their ads on my website. Uh, so there was a lot of hitting new ground and eventually I sold it and decided to move to California to, to learn more about the advertising space because that was the most difficult part of building a website. [00:02:14] Ed Watters: Interesting. So you work online, could you tell us more about the services that you offer? So we understand what we're going to talk about today. [00:02:26] Zaid Ammari: Absolutely. We do digital marketing, specifically paid media. So whenever you have to pay for traffic, uh, we specialize in Google ads, Facebook ads, uh, Pinterest ads, Bing ads, that sort of thing, YouTube ads. So our focus is to, uh, get our clients a good return on investment from their budget every month. [00:02:54] Ed Watters: So do you, is everything pay [00:03:00] per click that you do or is there a more, uh, stable type of mechanism that you use for advertising? [00:03:13] Zaid Ammari: Uh, it depends on the channel and what's best for the client. So for example, if you're doing YouTube ads, uh, you, you, you can pay per view. Uh, if, if you're doing, you know, Google ads, usually you pay per click. Uh, most of the, most of the channels, they're, they're pay per click, but, uh, what we do is anything that has to do with paid, uh, media. So, uh, if you have to pay to get the traffic from that source, we kind of manage that for you because we look at all the data and we analyze it. And then we come up with actionable insights from that data that would improve your, your account. So our, our goal is to, you know, for every dollar you spend, we want to maximize how much, how many dollars you get back. So, uh, if you spend one dollar, uh, optimally, we want to get you back, you know, five dollars. [00:04:06] Ed Watters: So what type of traffic is it? The, uh, organic type traffic or. [00:04:15] Zaid Ammari: It's, uh, so there's the organic type of traffic, you don't have to pay for the click. Obviously you would, uh, do SEO, uh, you would pay, the thing, the difference between organic and paid is, uh, organic, you would have to spend a lot of time to build up your website reputation, build links, write content, uh, engage on social media and push traffic to your website. So it's, it's more of a time investment. Uh, with, with paid media, you're, you're cutting the time short. [00:04:48] So with SEO, for example, you would take like six months to a year to start getting a high volume of traffic. With paid media, because you're paying them, like, for example, if you pay Google, you can get traffic the next day. So, uh, it's just like, would you, would you prefer to spend a lot of time and wait a lot of time to get traffic or pay for traffic and get it immediately? And then, uh, work on improving it to get a return on investment. [00:05:20] Ed Watters: So if you make the investment and use paid advertising for your site, will that help build the organic traffic for your website? [00:05:34] Zaid Ammari: Not, not, not directly, no. Um, Google doesn't care if you're spending money on their ads. So they're not going to help you, uh, rank organically if you spend money. But, uh, indirectly it, it does help a little bit because, uh, if you have, for example, Google analytics installed, which is a Google product, which tracks the traffic on your website, uh, [00:06:00] they would know that there's more traffic coming to your website. [00:06:02] And, uh, the more people that start recognizing your brand from, uh, from the paid media, they might just start coming to your website, uh, organically. You know, they might remember, like, might remember your brand name and type it into Google and come back and click. And so indirectly it could get you more visitors, but not, it's not like a, there's no correlation, there's no direct correlation between the two. [00:06:30] Ed Watters: Okay. So it really doesn't help build your authority level on your website then? [00:06:38] Zaid Ammari: No, no. You're just, you're just, yeah, you're just targeting, uh, you're basically, like if you do Google ads, you're telling Google, okay, if someone types in this keyword, uh, please send them to my page, right? And you can send them to whatever page you want. And so you're, you're just getting high, uh, you know, highly targeted traffic. On the up, on the other side, if you do an SEO, you have to wait for your page to even show up on the first page of Google. And even then you might not get that traffic, you need to be in like the top three positions. [00:07:21] Ed Watters: Okay. And it is still based on keyword approach to sending the traffic to your website? [00:07:33] Zaid Ammari: Uh, there's different approaches. So if, uh, depending on your business type. So if you, if you're selling a product, you would do something called, uh, shopping ads. Which if you go into Google and you type in, you know, bicycle or, uh, t shirt, um, you know, whatever products you buy, you can see those sponsored ads with the image at the top. [00:07:54] Those are, those are shopping ads. So for those, you wouldn't have to tell Google, you know, this is the keyword I'm going after. You would just upload, you would just kind of connect your store to something called Google Merchant Center. And then they would automatically kind of figure out, okay, this person typed in t shirt, you know, blue t shirt, Kung Fu imprint, whatever. [00:08:17] And then they'll show, uh, t shirts that have a Kung Fu imprint or like, uh, you know what I mean? Like the color that they choose, the size, is it men's? Is it women's? Um, all that stuff. On the, on the other hand, if you're doing a lead generation, which is for service businesses, then you would have to tell Google the keyword that you want the person to type in for them to see your ad. [00:08:44] Ed Watters: So what is the difference between keywords and tags? [00:08:52] Zaid Ammari: Uh, tags are not necessarily used on, uh, Google Ads like paid, [00:09:00] uh, I feel like tags are more like social, social media, uh, social media things. Like you would put in your posts on social media so that if someone types in a tag, they'll find that post. Uh, but on Google ads, they don't, they just work on keyword basis [00:09:17] if you're doing search ads and, um, if you're doing shopping ads. They just automatically find the product based on what they think the person is looking for and based on what they have as inventory for you from your store. So, so tags are just, uh, mostly for like, um, I guess like YouTube videos and social media, uh, posts. But [00:09:40] Ed Watters: Okay. But, but they will help drive the search traffic to your site? [00:09:52] Zaid Ammari: Uh, tags, uh, I mean, they're, they're useful. Um, uh, they're, they're useful in, uh, letting people find you, I guess, if they search for tags on different social media channels. Uh, so, um, you, you could use them on, on your posts, but for, for paid, uh, ads, they're, they're not important. [00:10:13] Ed Watters: So you, you don't add tags to your advertisements that you see on Google or Facebook, any of that? [00:10:26] Zaid Ammari: Not, no, not necessarily. Like they wouldn't help, uh, your targeting, but if you're running some sort of, uh, uh, if, if you're trying to get people to remember your hashtag, like if you do an ad advertising specifically for people to look for a specific hashtag, then sure, then you would want to be like, you know, uh, use this hashtag to find, to find us. But not a lot, not a lot of people do that. You know, like every, mostly everyone, they're just focusing on getting, generating leads or getting sales. [00:11:02] Ed Watters: And, and what is the average rate to get started with ads? [00:11:12] Zaid Ammari: Uh, if, if you're a business owner and you have time, I mean, you could, you could set up your, your own ads, right? But obviously you wouldn't get the same results as hiring a professional. Um, you, the average time to set them up varies by, by, you know, by the business. Uh, e, e commerce, for example, uh, they have different, they need to take different steps to set up their Google ads account. [00:11:41] Uh, if you're doing lead generation, there's completely different steps because, uh, of how you're tracking your, uh, your sales. So for, for e commerce, it's easier for them to track, you know, how much money they made because someone buys a product and they, they know that product, for example, costs, you know, [00:12:00] 150 bucks or whatever. [00:12:01] So they can tell, okay, well, you know, I paid, I paid fifty dollars in traffic and I got 150 dollars in sales. So I made a hundred dollars in profit. But if, if you're running a service business, like, uh, you know, roofers, uh, just contractors, um, anybody would like a, a form submit, any service related, uh, business. Uh, they, it's harder for them to track how much money they made from the sale because someone would have to contact them first. [00:12:33] Then they would have to close that person. You know, like they'll get on a sales call, close that person, and then they would bill them for the invoice. So the time between someone filling out the form and then you closing them as a sale, there's a huge time gap. And then some, you know, it's, it's just harder to track the, how much money you made, or how much money you spend, how much profit you made from Google ads in that regard. So there's different ways of how you set it up. [00:13:01] Ed Watters: Yeah, it gets very confusing, uh, when you get back into the Google backend. It's, it's, uh, one of those things, if you don't know a lot about it, you can get lost pretty quick. So that's why a lot of people go to the professionals in the first place. What got you started in providing these services to people? [00:13:31] Zaid Ammari: Uh, yeah. I, at first, I agree with what you just said. I mean, if you log into Google ads, uh, it's, it's kind of overwhelming. Uh, because just so many options and so many places you can click on. And some of the words, you know, uh, just don't make sense. Um, I mean, they don't, they don't make it super easy. [00:13:50] That's for sure. Um, I, I got started because, uh, the website that I first, that I got into in the beginning, like fifteen years ago, uh, I had a tough time getting traffic to it. And so when I first started in this, in this, in this industry, I thought, you know, the, the most difficult thing would be like building a website and having it work correctly. [00:14:17] But then I built a website and it works great, but then how are you going to get people to it? So, you know, that's the, that's the thing with, with, with advertising. It's like, if you have an amazing website and there's no traffic going to it, then what, you know, what are you doing? So that's kind of how I, that's how I found, you know, I realized that's why it's so important [00:14:42] and that's why I got into it. I wanted to learn how to drive traffic to my own website. And kind of actually tested Google ads with my own money for a little bit and failed miserably. And then I moved to California and, you know, worked at an agency, uh, and kind of learned from the ground [00:15:00] up, uh, how they did it. And then I opened up my own agency after that. [00:15:04] Ed Watters: Interesting. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. All of this new, Google is always changing, you know, and every time you look, there's something new. So it gets very confusing if you're not doing it day to day, every day. So how, how is AI fitting into the picture with what you're doing? And is it projected to help people or is it one of those things that you say stay away from? [00:15:41] Zaid Ammari: Uh, no. I wouldn't say, um, stay away from it. Um, I mean, I would use it to, to help me, but I wouldn't rely on it a hundred percent. Uh, you know, like use it as a, as a support tool, but not, you know, to completely run your, your day to day or anything like that. [00:16:02] Absolutely not. Um, I mean, I just read an article about, uh, uh, it's, it's from a, it's from a SEO forum and they found out that, uh, if you're looking, someone typed in, uh, how to, how to clean kidney stones and Google AI recommended they drink their own urine. So, you know what I mean? I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's the best thing to do. But, [00:16:24] uh, yeah. So, uh, they do use, um, they do use AI in Google ads, but, uh, I wouldn't say it's, um, I wouldn't say like, it's, it's a hundred percent there yet. So just be, be careful if, if, if you like, don't trust Google ads completely, uh, with their AI tool and have them, you know, run your ads on automatic. You still have to check it [00:16:55] uh, manually and do your own adjustments. Because at the end of the day, you're the business owner and you know, uh, better than, you know, Google ads. Uh, Google ads is how Google makes money, right? So at the end of the day, they, they just want you to spend more money, uh, on, on their, uh, on it and not necessarily, uh, looking out for your best interest all the time. [00:17:19] So I just have to be careful with that, but I'm not against AI. But I'm not a hundred percent, uh, with using it to do everything on automatic, um, like use it to help you check things and maybe do some research. And even then you have to check the research a little bit. Uh, but yeah, that's, um, that's what I think the best move is. [00:17:44] I, I looked into this, uh, it says that forty-two to forty-three percent of websites out there use WordPress. I'm one of those WordPress users and I use a [00:18:00] SEO plugin and, you know, all of these plugins to help me with all of these technical things. What type of websites do you work with and what, what is your client base like? [00:18:16] So WordPress is great so that I'm glad you're using it. For SEO purposes, it's great. It's easy to use. Um, there's a reason why, you know, forty-five percent of the world uses WordPress. Uh, most of my clients, they use WordPress. Uh, whether it's a lead generation, uh, or, uh, some clients actually use WordPress to sell products. [00:18:39] So they use something called the WooCommerce. Uh, other clients, they use, uh, Shopify. Which is, uh, uh, it's a little less easier to manage than WordPress for, for products in my opinion. Um, but yeah, most of my clients are either WordPress, Shopify, and there's, uh, very few are using, um, like Magento if you're familiar with this for like, uh, e commerce and, uh, yeah. [00:19:06] So but yeah, um, mostly WordPress is great. I mean, I'm very familiar with it and I'm sure, uh, you are familiar with it and it's just easy to use. And, um, uh, there's so many plugins, you know, you, you can add onto yourself. You wouldn't need a developer to do anything for you. So, [00:19:25] Ed Watters: Yeah, it's definitely a time saver. And, and, you know, since I've been using WordPress, I've lost so much of my knowledge about websites, you know, it's just one of those time savers, and I'm, I'm thrilled about it, so I, I really don't dive deep into that anymore. But are there certain plugins that website users use for advertising and managing these things in their WordPress background? [00:20:09] Zaid Ammari: Yes. Uh, you could use plugins to help you track, uh, conversions if you're a lead generation company. Uh, for example, you could use a Google tag manager plugin, uh, which could help you, uh, you know, set up the Google tag manager code on your website. And then you would use Google tag manager, uh, to kind of, uh, like it acts as a hub for all your codes and all your tracking. [00:20:39] Um, but yeah, there's, there's a ton of tools that you could use. You could, uh, use, um, for example, Thrive Themes is, is a good theme. You could use it to set up, uh, AB testing, so you could test different landing pages and designs and figure out which design does better in terms of generating leads. [00:21:00] Um, yeah. There, there's some plugins that would, uh, help you show the keyword that the person typed into Google on the landing page. [00:21:10] So it kind of increases their, uh, it's kind of like personalized, uh, to them. So that also increases the chances that they convert. Uh, I mean, you know, you can go on and on, but there's so many plugins out there. Um, I, I personally try to use the least amount of plugins, uh, so I find the most useful ones. [00:21:30] And if there's one plugin that does, you know, the job of three plugins, I would rather just use that than, you know, have, have ten different plugins. Cause it's just, it's just easier to manage. [00:21:44] Ed Watters: And, and, and that does affect your site speed and, uh, it can mess your site up if you get those cross plugins where you have the same plugin doing the same thing, it can get confusing also for individuals. So what's the top three things a website owner should be doing to manage their website properly? [00:22:20] Zaid Ammari: I would say make sure that their plugins are updated, um, all the time, because you don't want any, uh, security issues. Because a lot of, uh, hacking goes, happens on, uh, you know, little holes that are found in the plugins so they always release updates to them. You know, a lot of people think like, Oh, I need to update my password. [00:22:44] But most of WordPress gets hacked because of the, because some plugin, uh, has a back door or something like that. So, uh, that would be number one. And then, uh, number two is, make sure that your messaging is clear. And that if someone has complete, like if someone has no idea what you do and they land on your homepage, they should know exactly what you're offering and why they should, you know, choose you. [00:23:12] I see a lot of websites, uh, they assume that, you know, when someone, and, um, uh, I, I found this track too, right? Like if you go to, um, some websites, you land on the homepage, uh, you don't clearly understand like what, what they, what they're doing or like, uh, what their benefit is. So that's really important. [00:23:35] And, um, the third thing to manage the, um, website would be, uh, definitely have backups, uh, depending on how active you are. I, uh, some clients of mine have daily backups, some clients have weekly, uh, some have monthly, and some have all three, right? So you just have different, uh, times that you go back to and restore depending [00:24:00] on how active you are. [00:24:01] If you're not posting every day, I wouldn't back up, you know, every day. But if, if you're posting daily and more than once a day, then definitely daily backups are, uh, necessary. Because it's a pain if something happens and you have to go back and write your content that, you know, that's much more time consuming than restoring your website. [00:24:24] Ed Watters: Yeah. Yeah, it sure is. Yeah, you learn those little things as you, uh, build your website and it crashes and, you know, you, you dive in, you learn, or you hire somebody. It's one of those things. So Zaid, is there anything that we should talk about that you want our listeners to know about you? [00:24:51] Zaid Ammari: Oh, I think I, I think I covered everything they need to know about me. I mean, I, um, I love helping people. Uh, that's why I got into this business because there's a lot of business owners who, um, either don't have time, um, or, you know, they're just looking for help to, to get more sales or both. And, you know, I try to use my experience and, um, uh, I, I kind of, uh, empathize with them because I've been in their, in the same spot. And I am a business owner myself so I always, you know, treat my clients like I would, I would treat myself and my family. So, um, that's, that's, that's pretty much it. I mean, [00:25:38] Ed Watters: That's always a good practice, you know, because, especially in today's world, we get autonomized. And we, we've kind of feel like we're drones. And a little bit of personal touch and that personal behavior, it sure does help a company grow. What are your plans for your company? [00:26:06] Zaid Ammari: Uh, my plans for my company is just like any other company, right? Like try to, um, try to grow and, um, try to, uh, get some, uh, you know, uh, good clients. Uh, uh, I'm a little picky with, with, uh, uh, some, some of the clients that I work with, because I've had very bad experiences with some clients that were, you know, too needy. [00:26:30] There's some like, uh, some people just like toxic personalities and they, you know, they, they weighed me down. Um, you know, I, I, in my, I, I try to, I try to please everybody and I feel like that's kind of a negative. So, uh, I'm just trying to work with people who appreciate, you know, uh, what we do and, uh, that we're trying to help them. [00:26:53] And, um, I, when I used to work for the agency, you know, I used to be the one doing all the, [00:27:00] all the work. And I had, you know, project manager, and account manager, and things like that. Um, I'm trying to change that in my agency so I personally work with, uh, all my clients. So I'm on the monthly calls, um, I email them, [00:27:15] um, weekly, you know what I mean? Uh, so I, I like to be hands on with the clients and not just like pass it on to someone else to, to manage it and then, you know, I, I show up every, uh, you know, once a year, like, Hey, what's happening? [00:27:30] Ed Watters: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I've, I've seen that. Uh, do you have a call to action for our listeners today? [00:27:42] Zaid Ammari: Uh, yeah. Uh, if, uh, anybody is running any, uh, Google ads account, I'll be happy to do a free audit for them and I'll send them a video, uh, of exactly what they need to fix in their account. [00:27:56] Ed Watters: All right. And what is the best way for people to get in touch with you? [00:28:02] Zaid Ammari: Uh, you can go to my website, uh, ppcmasterminds.com or, uh, you can find me on LinkedIn @zaidammari. [00:28:08] Ed Watters: It's always good to get help with your website, especially with people that know what they're doing. So thank you for being on the show and sharing your skills and your services with us. And most of all, thank you for being part of the Dead America Podcast family. [00:28:34] Zaid Ammari: Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it. And I hope I was able to add value. [00:28:41] Ed Watters: Thank you for joining us today. If you found this podcast enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way, please share, like, subscribe, and join us right back here next week for another great episode of Dead America Podcast. I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you may be.