Financial Freedom Podcast: When Are You Really Ready for Paid Ads?

Jeremy Yang, founder of Digital Goliath, joined Dr. Christopher Loo on The Financial Freedom Podcast to talk through the question every service business and medical practice is asking: when are you actually ready for paid ads — and what does it take to make them work?

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Introducing Jeremy Yang & Digital Goliath

Dr. Chris: Hey guys, welcome to the Financial Freedom Podcast — joining us from Australia, I’ve got Jeremy Yang, the digital online ads guy. Jeremy, welcome.

Jeremy: Thanks man, great to be here.

Dr. Chris: Introduce yourself, your company, and we’ll dive into the questions.

Jeremy: Jeremy Yang from Sydney. Started Digital Goliath, my agency specializing in Google, Facebook, Instagram ads, started in 2019. I’m currently managing 450,000 monthly ad spend, the highest rated agency in Sydney. Half my business is probably service, other half e-commerce.

Is It Too Late to Get Started with Paid Ads?

Dr. Chris: You specialize in Google and Meta ads. The number one question on the audience mind — is it too late to get started? Cause they’re so expensive.

Jeremy: It’s expensive for a reason because they work. A lot of your listeners and clientele is medical, medical practices and the kind of services that cost per click is really high. Sometimes $35, $45 is frightening. However, if you have the back end system worked out, you can get cost back position at the right prices.

But now in the medical space they’re making everything a bit more franchised, systematic — bankroll practices driving out the prices. If you’re a local business and your competitor around you, where you’re really targeting, very pin drop location, if they’re not that fierce, then you have a chance. If you’re among fierce competitors, you’ll be very different whether or not it’s as affordable.

What Stage Should a Business Be At Before Starting Ads?

Dr. Chris: You mentioned 50% service business. What stage of the business — in terms of revenue — works with you?

Jeremy: If you’re talking about typical chiropractor, dentist level, they need to be aware they are already converting leads. They must have track record reviews. They’re already established in the community. They have to have somebody who’s answering the phones who has a booking system. They’re in a position where they’re able to hand off work. There are two, three people inside the practice doing it. That’s probably a good level to start getting to ads.

How Do You Know When a Business Is Ready for Paid Ads?

Dr. Chris: The audience listening have six to seven figure businesses. How do you know when a business is ready for paid ads?

Jeremy: I think that goes back to the offer. The medical is hard because they’ve never done it before. It takes planning around it. It takes creativity. They put themselves out there — sometimes they’re not comfortable coming up with an offer. That’s something we can work through.

You definitely wouldn’t start with advertising. Because once they see you on the ad, that’s a cold touch point. They might go, let me find out what this guy’s about. If that back end is weak, you’re going to say the ads don’t work — but the ads worked. The back end didn’t.

What’s the Right Ad Budget Before Hiring an Agency?

Dr. Chris: What’s the right ad budget before someone hires an agency or ad manager?

Jeremy: I would say go with a hundred USD a day, at least, spend in mind before you go hire an ads agency, an ad professional. Before that, I always recommend clients who don’t have that budget learn how to do a little bit themselves. It’s really important. Even if you do a little bit yourself and later on you hand it off, you know exactly who you’re looking for and you can interview them to see if they know what they’re talking about.

In-House, Freelancer, or Agency — Which Is Right?

Dr. Chris: In-house versus freelancer versus agency.

Jeremy: In-house, you’re going to need a marketing manager who has experience doing that. Otherwise that person is going to talk to you about outsourcing. Freelance is hard because you don’t get to talk to them when you want to. Freelance is a temp solution. If they are good value for money, you’re the stepping stone — they’re going to have a conversation, I’m packed out, we have to increase prices. That’s going to be a tough conversation because that can come any time.

If you’re to hire agency, it’s got to be the right size — whatever your business has to be the right size to match up. Talk to the agency about who’s running the ads. If they are outsourcing it, then you’re back in the same bad position.

The Biggest Mistakes Businesses Make When Starting Ads

Dr. Chris: When businesses start ads, what are the biggest mistakes they make?

Jeremy: Biggest mistake is not spending enough. If cost per click is $12, $15, and their daily budget are $20, you’re only going to get one click. You’re going to be very disappointed in what you’re doing. They don’t take fees of the agency into consideration. If you’re only spending a thousand dollars a month on ads and the guy’s going to cost you a thousand dollars — you just doubled your own cost per conversion. You just made it impossible for this thing to work.

But if you’re spending $10,000 on ads and the guy costs a thousand dollars — now you have a great chance. You’re getting more coming through each month, a few good leads, few lessons. Whereas if you spend a thousand dollars for that whole month and got nothing — all of a sudden ads don’t work anymore. The proportion of the fee has to make sense to the total marketing budget. And it falls on deaf ears.

What Should Businesses Expect to Pay an Ads Manager?

Dr. Chris: What should a business owner expect to pay an ads manager — in-house, freelancer, or agency?

Jeremy: Freelancers getting expensive. Back then, Fiverr and Upwork used to be pretty good. The skill level has always been variable, but they used to be good because Fiverr used to be $5 an hour. Now it’s gone up a lot more. If you’re paying an agency that’s local in the USA, looking at about a thousand a month. What that person should be able to do is help you with scripting, competitive analysis, setting up ads tracking, meeting you fortnightly — that’s about the right cadence — writing ads, reporting at the end, and recommendations.

You have to find out who’s touching that account. That might not be the person you’re talking to. Be very careful because the moonlighting game is strong these days everywhere — you’re not getting the full person. Our standard fee at Digital Goliath is anywhere between 770 AUD to about 1100 AUD monthly. It’s about 700 USD a month.

Google Ads vs. Meta Ads — How to Decide

Dr. Chris: The elephant in the room — Google versus Meta ads, or both?

Jeremy: Google versus Meta ads depends on your product or service. If your product or service is novel, it’s got a surprising factor to it — it would be better on Meta because it has to be visual, it has to give people the recognition. If your product or offer is hard to articulate with words, it’s definitely a lot more budget on Meta. But if your offer is very straightforward — chiropractor, dentist, near-me searches — it can be mostly Google and you can spend maybe 10% on Meta on remarketing. That’s how I would put it. When you have an agency that does both, you have to go fluid based on the reports coming out.

Why Not TikTok, LinkedIn, or Twitter?

Dr. Chris: You specialize in Google and Meta ads. Why don’t you focus on TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn?

Jeremy: We have tried it. It’s not reliable. The consistency is not there. LinkedIn is really expensive — the CPM is super high. TikTok is good for organic TikTok shops and e-commerce. Service businesses struggle there. I don’t think they’re in the habit of pulling out their wallets on those platforms.

For Reddit — we’ve tried it. Per conversion was 10 times what we got on Facebook, Instagram. Facebook, Instagram were doing cost per lead for about $2. Reddit was like $28. But if the goal is to be omnichannel and be seen everywhere, you should be on all these things. The time saving part is that the assets are already there — you can definitely pass them around.

The Real Needle-Movers for Ad Performance

Dr. Chris: What are the real needle movers when it comes to ads?

Jeremy: For individuals, the needle mover is going to be face to camera videos. If they’re at face to camera videos, they have a really strong shot. If they’re relying on the back of AI — tricks, hype, secret email lists — all of that stuff is rubbish. That definitely won’t work. In the world of how quickly AI is moving, putting face and personality is very important. If the founder or owner is the front man and they’re pretty good, they actually perform pretty well.

What Do Great Clients Do Differently?

Dr. Chris: What do great clients do differently from the average ones?

Jeremy: They sit down and they meet regularly. They don’t palm off the work. They already have the belief that digital marketing is important. The conflict — you go to a client and you start talking to them and they’re like, oh, I don’t like Zuckerberg, I don’t like this. It’s a necessary evil feeling. That’s not the right attitude. They should embrace it. Meeting regularly, knowing, asking questions about reporting — those are the characteristics. Stay long and get performance. That’s what I’m finding. You can see examples of this working in our client results and case studies.

How Long Before Ads Show Results?

Dr. Chris: How long should someone expect to wait before ads work?

Jeremy: Six weeks. SEO different story, six months. Ads — if you’re not seeing things moving in the right direction in six weeks, you should figure it out. A lot of businesses don’t know the right ROI because ROI depends on who’s calculating it for you. For practices and for that audience, figure out how much you can realistically pay for a qualified lead. As long as the service is recurring, you could pay quite a bit at the start to acquire that initially.

How Is AI Impacting Google and Meta Ads?

Dr. Chris: How is artificial intelligence impacting the Google and Meta ads game?

Jeremy: ChatGPT came out before Google wanted it to come out. So Google had to scramble and recover with AI Mode, AI Overview. Meta — there’s no dramas because I think it helps it. In Meta, the ad copy and hooks has gone more mediocre. Everything sounds the same now because of AI. When AI first came out, I was very excited — we can put Dr. Chris in front of a camera, do one script, edit, make it 20 different ones. But when people sense it’s AI, they turn off straight away. They’re distracted looking at whether this is AI or not. When they ask the question, they’re not looking at the offer anymore.

On Google — the top four spots reserved for advertising, but now AI Overview has to get in and take over that. So Google has to try to work ads back into the AI overview. ChatGPT is trying to get ads into it as well. At the moment, it’s really clunky, but everybody’s holding their breath to see how it develops.

Will AI Search Platforms Become the Next Ad Frontier?

Dr. Chris: Do you see a scenario where ChatGPT becomes a cheaper, undiscovered ad platform — like an early-mover opportunity?

Jeremy: I don’t think so. You won’t be undiscovered. There’s so many people waiting, refreshing browsers to join the trial, some type of beta test. Everybody’s talking about it on the ground. I think as soon as ads go into there, the credibility is going to be questioned. As soon as ads are showing up or try to be blended into some type of answer, people would be going to look for a platform that doesn’t have ads. Sorry to say as an ads guy, that’s what’s going to happen — but that’s what happens.

When YouTube Shorts first came out, they got everyone hooked with no ads. Then of course ads came. Reels. Same thing. ChatGPT is going to be the same. I’ll be running it.

Voice Interfaces and the Future of Advertising

Dr. Chris: How do you envision advertising in a world where it’s a voice only layer — wearables, AI chatbots replacing websites?

Jeremy: I know how advertising was in terms of vision — science fiction movies have done a lot of that. In terms of voice, I can see it making it more convenient as a complementary to the traditional type. Having it as a standalone, it’s very scary. I don’t know if you want to be talking or listening the whole time.

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Key Takeaways

• Ads are expensive because they work — but you need your back-end operations, booking system, and reviews in place first, or you’ll waste every click.
• Have at least $100 USD per day in ad budget before hiring a professional. Below that, learn the basics yourself — it’ll make you a better buyer and a sharper interviewer when the time comes.
• The biggest mistake isn’t the ads — it’s the budget. Underfunding campaigns and then blaming the platform is the number one waste of money Jeremy sees across all clients.
• Face-to-camera video is the single biggest needle-mover for service-based businesses. Authentic founders outperform AI-generated creative every time — audiences have become expert at detecting and dismissing what feels artificial.
• Choose Google vs. Meta based on whether your offer needs explaining. Novel or visual products → Meta. Straightforward, high-intent searches → Google. Stay fluid and let the data guide the split.
• Great clients meet regularly, stay engaged, and embrace digital marketing. The best results come from a genuine partnership — not a set-it-and-forget-it delegation.
• If results aren’t moving in six weeks, something needs to change — whether it’s the offer, the creative, the budget, or the back-end conversion process.

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This conversation is from The Financial Freedom Podcast with Dr. Christopher Loo, MD-PhD — where real-world conversations with business owners, investors, and practitioners explore the path to financial independence. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.