Leveling the Playing Field: AI, Google Ads & Small Business Success with David Green (Part 1)

In this episode of The Simple and Smart SEO Show, I'm sitting down with David Green, founder of Devs Love, to talk about the major shifts happening in digital marketing! 

Fresh after BrightonSEO, David shared insights from his strategic planning retreat, where AI disruption was front and center. 

We discuss how AI levels the playing field for small agencies, the shift in Google Search, and why omni-channel marketing is no longer optional. 

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

💡 AI’s Role in Leveling the Playing Field – How small businesses can leverage AI to compete with big agencies.
🔍 Google Search vs. Perplexity AI – Why experts say Google Search is in trouble.
📈 YouTube Ads & Brand Growth – How tracking search impressions can prove ad impact.
🧠 Strategic Planning for 2025 – What small businesses need to focus on in the age of AI.
🙌 The Human Factor in Marketing – Why staying close to your customers is more critical than ever.

Memorable Quotes:

🗣️ "AI is disrupting marketing at the same level as when smartphones changed how people buy." – David Green
🗣️ "ChatGPT writes really good code—just tell it what you want!" – David Green
🗣️ "Omni-channel marketing isn’t the future—it’s the now." – Crystal Waddell
🗣️ "Tech companies that ignore their core users? That’s how they lose them." – Crystal Waddell

Listener Action Items:

✅ Experiment with AI tools like ChatGPT to automate and optimize marketing.
 ✅ Diversify your traffic sources—don’t rely solely on Google.
 ✅ Re-evaluate your ad strategies with a long-term view.
 ✅ Stay engaged with your customers to understand their needs in real-time.
 ✅ Tune in for Part 2, where David dives deep into Google Ads for small businesses!

📌 Stay Connected:
🎙️ Listen & Subscribe: podcast.simpleandsmartseo.com
💬 Follow Crystal: SimpleandSmartSEO.com
👥 Connect with David Green: DevsLove.com LinkedIn

Don’t miss Part 2, where we unlock the secrets of Google Ads for small businesses! 🎧

Chapters

• 0:00 As many small agency owners know.
• 0:50 Introduction and Guest Welcome
• 1:03 David Green's Background and Brighton SEO Experience
• 1:45 Strategic Retreat Insights and AI Disruption
• 2:57 Founding Devs Love and Transition to Google Ads
• 4:13 Learning to Code and Digital Marketing Journey
• 5:02 ChatGPT and Automation in Digital Marketing
• 6:11 Brighton SEO Conference Highlights
• 7:36 Google Search and AI Evolution
• 9:55 Strategic Planning for 2025
• 14:17 Omni-Channel Marketing and Customer Engagement
• 16:06 Human Interaction in Marketing
• 17:07 Challenges with Tech Companies and Customer Needs

Transcript

David Green: [00:00:00] As many small agency owners know. There's this challenges of you're going to get so much done in a day. 

Your team going to get so much done, and and bigger agencies have more resources and capacity to just service clients in different ways that you can't. 

ChatGPT now, I think. Balances the playing field. 

Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast, where we talk all things, brand building, SEO, helping you connect with your audience, elevate your visibility and grow your business. 

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success. By bringing you insights, stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond. 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or SEO enthusiast, this is your place to learn, share, and build a brand that stands out. 

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business. 

Introduction and Guest Welcome

Crystal Waddell: welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast. I'm so excited to be here with a new buddy I met at Brighton SEO. 

His name is David Green.

He is [00:01:00] from Toronto, and he is the founder of DevsLove. 

David Green's Background and Brighton SEO Experience

Crystal Waddell: I wanted to pick his brain all about Google ads. 

So David, thank you so much for being here. 

Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast. 

David Green: Thank you for having me, Crystal.

I'm excited to have a chat today. 

Crystal Waddell: And I told you when we met in San Diego, you remind me of my cousin, Marlon. 

And my cousin Marlon every once in a while listens to the show. So I'm going to have to quiz him and say, Hey, did you hear David? 

Because he laughs just like you. 

You had mentioned in our pre chat that from reflecting on your planning for next year. 

This is a huge time of disruption. 

A time to take a sobering look at our business.

So not to start us off on a down note. But. 

I was hoping you could just explain that real quick before we got started. 

Strategic Retreat Insights and AI Disruption

David Green: Yeah. 

So this was this came out of a strategic retreat. 

That myself and another agency owner Austin Becker did. 

And we have done this for 3 years now. 

This is our 3rd year and we just really looked back at. What we [00:02:00] did last year. So you look at our notes. 

We look at all our plans we had. 

Things we didn't execute on. And we just look back and we try to take that and bring it into this year. 

And it was crazy to see that AI was not mentioned once. In any of our planning notes from last year, September.

That means September, 2023. 

To now November, 2024. That's about 14 months. 

And it wasn't even on our radar: AI. 

And this also echoes things I've heard from keynotes at the conference. As well as other sessions. 

I think we are in major times of disruption. To the effect of when smartphones came along. 

It just changes how people buy now. What social media. Those types of big changes, I think we're in.

In one right now. And it's exciting. But it's also a little nerve wracking. 

Because you know It's a create a lot of uncertainty. 

And you have to figure out to deal with that uncertainty. Such is life. 

So those are some of my thoughts on that. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay. i'd love to follow up with that. 

Founding Devs Love and Transition to Google Ads

Crystal Waddell: But first. I want to know like your company Devs [00:03:00] Love. 

Yeah. 

How did you come about founding that company? And what do you do there? 

David Green: Yeah, good question. So I was in sales corporate until about 2016. 

And during that time I taught myself how to write code. 

And decided I want to go out on my own. 

And then I just quit my job. 

And wrote thousands and thousands of lines of code. And built a website. And just tried to find anybody that would pay me a nickel to do anything. To get experience.

At the same time, I learned about digital marketing, specifically Google ads. And as time progressed and I developed a bit more skills. 

I really just enjoyed the paid ad space as a whole. So it's Google ads. Was the main driver. Microsoft ads, LinkedIn ads. 

We've expanded into as well.

But I enjoyed paid ads.

I enjoyed the psychology of seeing people making buying decisions based on ads. 

Or campaigns you put out. I found that fascinating. So I decided to plant my flag there. 

I stopped writing code. 

And decided that I don't want to spend, my days and nights [00:04:00] writing copious lines of code.

So here I am right now, and we are now eight years in. 

And it's been a fun journey with ups and downs. 

But it's been really good being able to serve clients and to help businesses grow and have some good success stories. 

Learning to Code and Digital Marketing Journey

Crystal Waddell: I feel like there's some sort of divine intervention here. Speaking to me. Because like my newest dream is to write code. And then I'm hearing you say. 

Don't do that. Do this. 

I actually listened to a Python book on Audible. So I listened to the entire book because I'm one of those people that prior knowledge is really important to me.

Crystal Waddell: Like I need to be able to connect. Something with something else in order to be able to learn it. 

And so I listened to the book and then I was going to start doing some projects. 

The app that I actually want to build is for Shopify. 

And so I spoke with someone else at the conference and they were like, Ooh. It's not Python that you want to use.

It's the other one. Is it JavaScript? Is that the other one? 

David Green: JavaScript, yeah.

Crystal Waddell: Yeah. 

And so I was like, Oh my gosh. He probably saved me a [00:05:00] lot of time. 

David Green: So can I add to that? 

Crystal Waddell: Sure.

ChatGPT and Automation in Digital Marketing

David Green: I'd love for you to, who I think would give you great advice, first name, chat, last name, GPT. 

both (2): Oh yes, 

David Green: He or she gives pretty good advice. Specifically on code. And there's one thing he writes really well. 

So just for context. So for automation is one thing we've been trying to do with our client accounts. To automate simple tasks.

So if we're bidding too much of that that keyword automated based on rules. 

And drop bid or increased bids, whatever it may be. Versus having to manually do this over the years. 

We've now set up these scripts using JavaScript. 

You can go to Chat GPT, say this is what I want to do. 

It goes, it pulls the Google ads API and knows all like how to write code. 

Gives you back the script or the code base. And then you have to maybe tweak it here and there.

If it doesn't work, you say, this doesn't work, figure out why. 

But I'll tell you Crystal. 

It writes really good code. Yeah. And if you tell what you want to do, it'll help you a lot. 

That's my food for thought. 

Crystal Waddell: You know what? I didn't think about, giving those [00:06:00] perspectives to chat. 

And then, seeing what the feedback would be. 

But you're right. Speed up the process. I'm all about iteration. So yes. I hear you, David. Thank you so much. 

I'm receiving the download.

Okay. 

Brighton SEO Conference Highlights

Crystal Waddell: So what about your experience at Brighton really stood out to you? 

Because I know that you went to the Hero conference side. 

Whereas I was SEO side. So what was that like for, people who run ad agencies and work in ads? 

David Green: Yeah, so the ad side was some good sessions that got to the nitty gritty details on specific platforms, whether it be Facebook, Google, LinkedIn.

So some good sessions. 

Some advanced learns and specific themes. 

I found that the biggest takeaway, though. 

I actually switched off of the PPC side, the paid side. 

And went to the SEO side. For the keynote on the end of day one, which was Wil Reynolds. 

And I'm very happy I made that decision.

I like the way Wil Reynolds thinks. So I'll come back to that. But on the PPC side. 

The [00:07:00] second day of the keynote was with Frederick Valais. So Frederick Valais, he was, I don't know, like 24th employee at Google. 

He's one of the first guys who helped Google ads launch out of Google like 20 years ago.

He left. Started his own software company.

So he knows Google ads, paid ads, really well. And he said, The first time in his 20 year career. Or 20 years in the space. 

He says that he thinks Google search is in trouble.

I've never heard that before. But that's what he said. 

And I've read both his books and he's a guy I would trust in this topic. And he just gave us a breakdown of why. 

Google Search and AI Evolution

David Green: And if you think about it, have you used Perplexity? 

Crystal Waddell: I have, it's one of those things. It's not one of my workflows. 

Like I even just using it yesterday and it was just, I'm not paying for it. 

But please tell me about Perplexity. 

David Green: The other thing Perplexity is one example. 

But I just find the experience. To be better. 

It's a different workflow right now. And I appreciate that. 

But I find myself now going, do I wanna [00:08:00] go to search for this question? Or I wanna go to Perplexity.

And a year ago there wasn't even a thought. 

It was like, it's gonna go to Google, or I'm gonna go to Bing. I'm not going to Bing... So we all know that. 

But now it's am I going to Google? Or am I gonna go Perplexity? 

Because. Google, for good and bad. 

You're going through the ads at the top. And then you're going through individual links. 

And the experience hasn't really evolved well over the last few years. 

As AI is starting to evolve. And now you can see they're trying to put in these AI overviews at the top of their pages. 

So to get up to the time, but I think some other platforms are like into the market now. 

And they're creating these better experiences that people will go hey, that will help me out.

Crystal Waddell: I switched my default search engine to chat GPT. So that forced a change in my workflow. But. Sometimes chat reminds me of SEO where it like over delivers information. 

Say, I want to stopwatch. I use stopwatches a lot, to track my time for clients. 

So it's like I Google Stopwatch and I'm so used to that Google Stopwatch just [00:09:00] popping up. And that's what I want. Uhhuh.

But then here comes online stopwatch with a long definition of what it is. 

And then a link to it so I can click it. 

But I find myself then going google.com because I'm like, oh yeah. 

I know where to find certain things with Google.

So I think that's something you have to overcome. 

David Green: Interesting.

So you're saying you're looking for a stopwatch, like literally not to buy a physical one. 

You're saying the function of stopwatch, the timer. 

Ah. So you go to Google, it knows instantly what you want. So you go in there, it gives you the stopwatch, you press the start.

And it's done versus the other one. It's probably giving you an AI overview of the benefits of a stopwatch. 

Are... something like that. Exactly. 

both (2): The history of a stopwatch. I'm like, I don't care. I just want to know how long I've been working, 

David Green: okay. Yeah. I got you. Interesting. 

I got to take that back to my own, my my laboratory, my mind.

That makes sense though. Okay. 

Crystal Waddell: Okay. 

Strategic Planning for 2025

Crystal Waddell: So after the conference, after you've had a chance to assimilate some of the stuff you [00:10:00] learn ed. 

You sat down and you had your strategic session. And the planning session. 

And you mentioned that,AI I wasn't even in the conversation from your last strategic plan. 

What did you take away from this year to put in for 2025? 

David Green: Yeah. Good question. 

I think we were really looking at as much as AI is going to create some disruption. 

For every industry or most industries, I should say. And we don't know what that looks like, exactly. It also creates opportunities. 

I like to think of myself as someone who's relatively resourceful. 

Like I connect the dots and find ways to get things done. 

And, 

As many small agency owners know. 

There's this challenges of you're going to get so much done in a day. 

Your team going to get so much done, and and bigger agencies have more resources and capacity to just service clients in different ways that you can't. 

ChatGPT now, I think. Balances the playing field. 

Crystal Waddell: I am so glad you said that. I am so glad you said that because I feel the same way. 

David Green: [00:11:00] We just had a client, for example. Where we try to focus a lot on YouTube ads.

YouTube ads, videos going to keep on growing everyone knows that. Tiktok emerged and YouTube and other platforms emerging as well. 

And we want to show value for YouTube ads. But anybody who's run a YouTube ad before can tell you that you don't see direct correlation between somebody's seeing YouTube ad. 

Go to a website, make it a purchase, that purchase conversion coming back to Google Ads and saying, Yay, we've made money from that one.

That doesn't happen cleanly. 

It's a, it's more of a upper funnel play. Someone sees it, you build some awareness. 

You retargeted them for a while. They might buy a month down the line, you never know. 

But what we can track is data in terms of. 

Does that brand's search impressions go up? 

So if you start running large amounts of YouTube ads. 

And all of a sudden that brand, ABC brand, now is getting searched in Google a lot more frequently than they were three months ago. 

We can assume that to some degree of certainty that YouTube ads impacted that. 

But now I could take literally data from Google ads. 

I can give it to ChatGPT [00:12:00] and go, can you find correlations between these two things? 

And it came back and goes. Yes, we can. 

Or no, we can't. I go back to a client and go, Hey, here's the data and my brain, or no one could compute this that easily at all.

We can't. 

But I can now give it to a system and within minutes, it can give me data that can bring value back to our clients. 

So that's just one example. 

There's a bunch of other ones. But it's just the ability to to demonstrate. 

To test things out a little faster and plan a bit more effectively for clients. 

How about you? What did you, what was the key thing that you saw? 

Crystal Waddell: Oh, man.

I hate to say this out loud. Because. As a smaller entrepreneur who does everything herself. Yeah. 

There's a lot of things that I have been able to see from an organic perspective. That either work or don't work. Very quickly. 

I was an early adopter of Jasper. 

And I spoke in my black Friday episode about how I had to finally end my relationship with Jasper. 

It was really hard. It was [00:13:00] almost like a relationship with a person.

I had to let him go! Because chat GPT has given me so much more functionality.

And I'm creating my own GPTs. 

Those are things that I could possibly monetize later. 

So as much as I loved Jasper, I had to let Jasper go. 

But I've been using Jasper. I've been using Surfer SEO. 

I've been using some of these LLM slash AI model driven tools. For a while. 

And so to hear a lot of the larger companies make this shift to " omni channel marketing is important."

That "the conversion isn't so easy to pinpoint." 

Because I've seen it. 

Even from like GA4 analytics. I love it for e commerce.

A lot of people have really given it like a bad rap or whatever.

For my purposes, which are very, narrow in scope. 

It's been great because I get these insights that say, Hey, It takes six touch points before you get a conversion. 

And this percentage of [00:14:00] your conversions were driven by organic search.

There's different things that I'm doing that I'm actually seeing, the, like the success of. Or at least a path to say, Oh, okay. 

Six conversions. Where are these people coming from? 

So ads definitely, I feel like it's a missing opportunity for my business personally.

Omni-Channel Marketing and Customer Engagement

Crystal Waddell: And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs. 

But for me, the big takeaway was just yeah, yeah. But I think for bigger companies. It's so much more difficult to change strategies. And direction. When you've been doing certain things. In a commoditized way for so long. And it's now okay, how are we going to shift this?

David Green: I think you're spot on the omni channel piece. I think the old days of that, almost a clean funnel. 

Where it was like a person sees brand. They warm up to brand. They purchase. All the 7 touch points. 

I think all those things still apply. 

But the landscape changed [00:15:00] so much now.

And like you said, Omnichannel so important. 

that where I don't think you can as confidently be overly reliant on just Google. Or just paid ads. Or just paid social. 

I think you have to start experimenting with different channels. 

Different verticals. But it could be Reddit ads, now. It could be Perplexity ads will be out at some point. So I think just being open to change in times, as you just said, I think it's gonna be important. 

And bigger companies are going to have challenges to that. 

But they also have the resources if they want to, right? 

Crystal Waddell: Exactly. So a lot of larger companies, they're so disconnected from that end consumer. Yeah. 

This is just such an important time to stay close to your customer. And your customer service. Agents, if if you have a company that actually has a department with customer service. 

That would be who I would be talking to on a daily basis. 

Because it's like, are you guys seeing, what are you guys hearing? 

And how can we, integrate that into our workflows? 

Because that's how you're going to make the transition.

You've got to [00:16:00] experience the technology as your customers experience it. 

And then you understand how to reach them better.

David Green: I agree with you so much there. 

Human Interaction in Marketing

David Green: You like, on the head with just people. 

We've gotten so consumed with, even in my space. 

It's like see words and trying to make sure that, the right keywords, align with the right person what their looking for. 

And we've taken some of the just pure human experience out of a lot of this. 

And Wil does a really good job with that.

I've seen him over the years. Just speak on different themes along these lines. 

And I like the way he thinks. And it's like this bigger picture. 

And if you could think bigger picture about like, how does this human interact with your business, your brand? 

 These interactions are going to matter more and more. 

Because I think we're craving that. We don't even know it yet, but we're craving that. We're craving more of this human interactions. 

It's not robots or somebody giving me a corporate script back as to what they can do. 

All these software companies changing their pricing. And the way they communicate is come on. 

I can understand it, but don't lie to me. 

So [00:17:00] anyways, I just think the human touch, like you said, is huge. 

Crystal Waddell: And if we're venting about software companies for a second. One of my favorite software companies.

Challenges with Tech Companies and Customer Needs

Crystal Waddell: I'm not going to mention who they are. They had a product that was great for their audience. 

And then they saw a shift in the market and, shifted their offer. They're missing it.

Because I told him, I said, Hey, look, I have these client accounts. 

I don't manage their social media. I manage one thing. 

And that's their Pinterest account. I need more Pinterest accounts.

And their response back, it was a human, which I appreciate. But it was, Hey, we sell these in, whatever they call like profile packs.

And I'm like, I need you to listen to me. I don't want that. Sell me this. 

I will buy, I'll buy. But guess what? I'm now looking somewhere else.

 For this product, I just need an account for Pinterest. And they're like dead set. 

Like we are going to offer what this other company is already giving you. And that's what we want to offer too. 

And I'm like they're missing a piece, but guess what? As soon as they get that piece, yeah. 

I'm [00:18:00] moving. So I think that's going to be really important for tech companies moving forward. 

David Green: Yeah, I agree with you. I echo everything you're saying.

I think the tech companies get consumed. Or they get bought by another company or they merge. 

I don't know if you've seen that. Sometimes when that happens. It's ah, the good old days when they were small and like agile, and they cared. 

Crystal Waddell: They lose their identity. It's like, when you have such a passionate group of core users, that's so important. 

Thanks for joining us today. This is part one of two of my conversation with David Green, owner of the Devs Love Agency, and he'll be back in the next episode to talk all about Google Ads for small business. See you then.