ABOUT
I got into this sideways, and I think that helped.
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Before any of this
I spent 2.5years working as an SEO specialist for a German company. It wasn’t a bad job. It just had a ceiling I could see from where I was standing, and I kept finding the most interesting part of my week was the bit nobody had asked me to do — which, at the time, was figuring out why the company’s Facebook page was getting attention but no enquiries.
The first account I ever touched
A friend ran [REPLACE: the business type] and had £[X] a month to spend. I offered to help, mostly out of curiosity. I burned through the first two months with almost nothing to show for it — too many ad sets, budgets changed every day, no tracking worth the name.
The turning point wasn’t a tactic. It was writing an ad that said the thing customers actually complained about, in their words. Cost per lead halved in a week and I finally understood that the platform is not the hard part.
How I work now
I take on a small number of accounts so I can be in them properly. I set up tracking before I spend anything meaningful. I test one idea at a time and I say clearly when something failed. Most weeks you’ll get a short note from me rather than a report — what we spent, what came back, what I’m changing.
I’m not the right fit for everyone. If you want someone to run twenty campaigns and send a colourful deck every Friday, there are people who do that well.
Going full-time, and the year that was rough
I quit in [REPLACE: year] with two small clients and a lot of confidence that turned out to be premature. I lost one of them within four months because I over-promised on a timeline, and I spent a while doing work I wasn’t proud of just to keep the lights on.
What fixed it was being more direct. Saying “this offer isn’t strong enough for cold traffic” up front, instead of quietly hoping the creative would carry it. I lost a couple of prospects that way. The ones who stayed became long-term clients.
Going full-time, and the year that was rough
I quit in [REPLACE: year] with two small clients and a lot of confidence that turned out to be premature. I lost one of them within four months because I over-promised on a timeline, and I spent a while doing work I wasn’t proud of just to keep the lights on.
What fixed it was being more direct. Saying “this offer isn’t strong enough for cold traffic” up front, instead of quietly hoping the creative would carry it. I lost a couple of prospects that way. The ones who stayed became long-term clients.
What I'd tell someone starting out
Get access to a real account with real money in it, even if it’s tiny and unpaid at first. Courses teach you the buttons; only spend teaches you judgement. Learn to write before you learn to optimise. And get comfortable saying “that didn’t work” out loud — the people worth working with will trust you more for it.
If any of that sounds like the kind of person you want in your ad account, say hello.