Digital advertising often means pouring money into online ads, but are we really getting our pennies back? It’s one of the fastest-growing avenues for business growth, yet the landscape is increasingly complex. Evolving algorithms, confusing jargon, and rising ad spend create a challenging environment. Small business owners chasing initial leads need a clear strategy, while experienced ad buyers looking to scale still face the same demand for actionable plans.
In this episode of The Best Business Podcast, host Daryl Urbanski sits down with paid traffic expert Justin Brooke. He's a trailblazer in media buying. Known as “the traffic guy,” Justin founded AdSkills, trained over 11,000 clients and ad buyers, and built a reputation for turning small investments into massive wins. From turning $60 into six figures in 2007 to scaling campaigns that generated $65,000 a day profitably, Justin’s step-by-step guide to profitable advertising is battle-tested. Together, they explore how to avoid beginner mistakes, test smarter, and unlock long-term scaling strategies.
You’ll learn how to launch, test, optimize, and scale online ads across Google, Facebook, YouTube, and more. Expect practical insights that will boost conversion rates, sharpen your targeting to reach the right target audience, and provide actionable ideas you can apply directly to your website, sales funnels, or seller lists. Beyond ads, you’ll discover how supporting content like articles, a weekly newsletter, and even smart SEO can make your campaigns matter more.
This conversation is packed with strategies to make your advertising smarter, safer, and more profitable. Whether you’re running a local service business or an e-commerce brand, the insights apply. And if you want to stay ahead of the curve, consider implementing these tactics into your website content, your weekly newsletter, and even your sales articles so every piece of your digital presence works together.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:
- Discover how to launch high-performing ad campaigns even on a tight budget using Justin Brooke’s “$5 a day” method from AdSkills. It's perfect for anyone aiming to teach their media buying skills.
- Learn the crucial steps every media buyer should know to fix underperforming ads, from click-through rates to cart abandonment. Get better results for your clients.
- Gain insights into how today’s ad algorithms work on platforms like Google and how to train them for profitable automation.
Resources
- Justin Brooke: LinkedIn | Facebook | X | Medium | YouTube | Instagram
- AdSkills: Website | LinkedIn| YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
- Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
- Ca$hvertising: How to Use More Than 100 Secrets of Ad-Agency Psychology to Make BIG MONEY Selling Anything to Anyone by Drew Eric Whitman
- Best Business Podcast with Daryl Urbanski - Where you can find more insightful interviews like this one.
Episode Highlights
Laying the Foundation for Profitable Ads with Justin Brooke
Diving into paid media presents challenges due to its many variables and complexities, including hidden costs.
Strategic campaign structure often determines success more than budget size alone, and poor spend allocation can derail results.
Justin Brooke, founder of AdSkills, joins as a seasoned expert who scaled campaigns to $65,000/day, reaching millions of impressions.
His ideas managed to guide businesses to navigate and profit from online advertising effectively, sharing a story that proves results matter.
Mapping the Paid Media Landscape
Facebook and Google remain the two dominant ad platforms, with Google leading in inventory and scalability for videos and many others.
Facebook’s algorithm, while powerful, favors small-scale advertisers, often making scaling challenging without advanced strategies.
YouTube Ads are currently a hotbed for opportunity, offering wide reach and cost-effective traffic.
However, this window won’t last forever. Therefore, spend wisely.
For mass-market offers, native advertising excels, but for niche-driven businesses, platforms like YouTube or targeted Facebook campaigns are recommended.
Starting Small, Winning Big: The “Smart Start” Strategy
Justin outlines the importance of starting with branded search campaigns on Google.
This means targeting your company name, product names, and your own name. It's a secret to cheaper conversions.
Retargeting is the next step to capture people who've visited your site but didn't buy, like a safety net for lost traffic and money.
Content-driven discovery campaigns (as little as $5/day) should follow, building awareness and trust before the hard sell, and helping you create momentum.
This layered structure supports a more forgiving budget and allows businesses to test effectively without blowing their spend.
Avoiding Common Newbie Mistakes
Launching one large campaign with broad targeting wastes budget and muddies results, even if you’ve taken courses.
Beginners often add too many keywords or interests, making it hard to pinpoint what works.
A smarter approach is to break your budget into chunks (e.g., five $200 budgets from $1,000) and test narrowly, almost like an internship in real-world ad practice.
Focus on isolating successful elements before scaling to avoid costly missteps.
The Five-by-Three-by-Two Framework
- Test five audience segments or keyword groups with three ad creatives and two landing pages.
- This structure reveals which audience, message, and offer drive the best conversions, similar to testing responses in real time.
- Not every variable needs to make a winner, look for ratios and conversion clusters to inform what to scale.
- Starting with this structured experimentation provides the “data gold” needed to optimize for real ROI.
When a Campaign Flops: Diagnostic Thinking
- Most campaigns fail initially, even for experts, but success lies in diagnosing issues.
- Justin compares troubleshooting campaigns to car diagnostics.
- You don’t replace the car; you look under the hood, sometimes just adding better analytics.
- Examine micro-conversions like impressions, CTRs, time on page, add-to-carts, and cart abandonment.
- Low page load speeds and high cart abandonment rates are often the hidden killers of otherwise strong campaigns.
Unlocking the Power of Google’s Smart Display Campaigns
Google’s Smart Display Campaigns automate creative testing and optimization using machine learning to help you secure better returns.
After 100 conversions, Target CPA unlocks; after 200, you can pay per sale.
Suited for proven offers with a $100/day minimum, these require a 14-day learning period.
Monitor for issues like irrelevant traffic from coupon sites to maintain lead quality, and argue for only the best traffic sources.
When & Why to Add a Phone Sales Funnel
Combining ads with phone sales boosts conversions by adding a human connection.
Businesses scaling past seven figures use phone teams to upsell and build trust, sometimes climbing best seller lists.
Online leads closed offline via calls yield higher average order values.
This hybrid approach reduces reliance on landing pages alone for conversions, while giving prospects direct access to your team.
Crafting Effective Copy and Landing Pages
Use the Problem-Agitate-Solution formula to hook audiences and drive action.
Test ad angles: one toward pleasure, one away from pain, and one contrarian.
Keep messaging clear and direct, avoiding cleverness to resonate with the market.
Study market awareness levels, as Eugene Schwartz advises, to tailor offers effectively, just like a copywriting library of proven techniques.
The Data Game of the Future
Privacy regulations push advertising toward automated, black-box algorithms.
Future success hinges on feeding clean conversion data to ad platforms.
Learn terms like pixels, event triggers, and tag managers to stay competitive, or risk losing in one day what took months to build.
Technical marketers who understand data will thrive as targeting options diminish.
Building Toward the Black Belt Level with AdSkills
Advertising, like martial arts, requires mastering basics before adding complexity.
Serve both beginners and pros by creating dual brands, like “Move for Less” and “Frank the Mover,” supported by courses.
AdSkills started with advanced buyers and now offers beginner-friendly programs.
Precision in campaign structure, not complexity, enables easier scaling.
Justin Brooke: Survive Today, Thrive Tomorrow
Paid advertising rewards skill development with compounding returns over time, much like building a career.
Hands-on testing in small, strategic campaigns builds real-world expertise.
Justin Brooke’s approach emphasizes practical execution over theoretical knowledge, often talking directly about what works.
Mastering these skills equips businesses to leverage advertising for massive growth, giving them the sign they’re ready for the next level.