Agency insights
Thoughts and lessons on client selection, burnout, pricing, and modernising legacy accounts, from someone who's run a Google Ads for years.
Published April 2021. Last updated July 2026.
Question was asked on Quora
Background: I’ve used the AdWords API since 2009 do research, build campaigns and generate reports.
Bad news: there are relatively few programmers available who have used the AdWords API extensively.
Good news is that you don’t a programmer who is an expert at the AdWords API because the programming constructs that the API uses are well known. For instance, the API uses OAuth for authentication which is very common. There are code libraries and examples in many programming languages. You can point any decent developer to https://github.com/googleads and they should be able to figure things out.
There are some things that you should be aware of if you’re going to invest in custom programming for your business.
Thoughts and lessons on client selection, burnout, pricing, and modernising legacy accounts, from someone who's run a Google Ads for years.
Understand what happens after someone clicks your advert. Subjects include offline conversions, CRM integration, attribution, auditability and marketing instrumentation.
Articles about marketing, engineering, AI and problem solving that don't fit neatly into the other topics. These are some of the ideas and experiences that have shaped how I think.
Learn how to use Google Ads to generate profitable leads. Subjects include campaign strategy, bidding, targeting, optimisation and the challenges of running lead generation campaigns.
Things I've learned about high-converting landing pages. Subjects include copywriting, page structure, forms, trust, conversion rate optimisation and user experience.
Understand why some leads become customers while others don't. Subjects include diagnosing poor leads, qualification, filtering junk leads and improving the feedback you send to Google Ads.
What happens after a lead has been generated determines if Google Ads is profitable. Subjects include first contact, follow-up, quoting, lead nurturing and turning more enquiries into customers.