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A
What are the other Google Ad types that you're seeing a lot of great results with or just things that people should be paying attention to?
B
I think the. The biggest one that I've focused on the last couple of years is it's how I've made most of the money at my agency and we found most of our clients by running ads, YouTube ads.
A
What is the best advice you've ever gotten from someone when it comes to Google Ads?
B
The best advice I probably got, have it on a piece of paper and show it in your video and it will actually help improve your conversion rates, improve the number of people that will to take you up on it. What?
A
Oh, that's cool.
B
My favorite thing that I've been running as to recently is I've helped generate
A
over 50 million podcast downloads and work with over 250 different podcasts. And the great thing about that is that I get to use all that information to share at least one helpful tip every single week to help you grow your influence and your online presence with video podcasting. Hey, my name is Louis Diaz. I run a company called Top 10 Podcasts and this show is dedicated to helping you learn at least one helpful tip every single episode to help you grow your influence and your online presence with video podcasting. So that sounds good. Let's get into it. Reuben, you are the one guy I have paid multiple times to coach me and walk me through YouTube ads, Google Ads. Just like, what the heck am I are we doing in there? So I'm super thankful one, for you for like all the stuff I've learned from you and a consulting capacity, but also two, just for being a great friend and a go giver and, and, and hence why you're on this, on this podcast.
B
I appreciate that. Happy to help.
A
Yeah, yeah, dude. No, it's been, it's been fun learning from you, I think. I did a Facebook post about you the other day and I was like, I. The. The gist of it was for people listening. It was like, I screwed up big time. When I first started YouTube ads on my own and I kind of torched my YouTube channel and it said turn to bring it back now. But I didn't do a good job of managing that. And then I watched and then I spoke to you at a Mastermind. You were like showing. You were telling me how you were doing it with clients and I was like, oh, so there is a way to, to blend organic and paid in a way that's not going to get you a bunch of cheap, you know, just Wrong. Fit people on your YouTube channel and also generate sales and leads and, and through learning and kind of seeing what you're doing behind the scenes, it's really helped me and it's helped a lot of our clients too. So I don't know that Facebook. It's either LinkedIn or a Facebook post, but it's. Anyways, dude, I want to jump in with you because you are the number one guy I know of for, for YouTube ads when it comes to like growing YouTube channels but also getting. Generating leads. In 2026, we'll. We'll jump in here. What is like the biggest thing you, you think people should stop doing or that maybe just doesn't work anymore when it comes to Google Google Ads?
B
I think honestly the biggest thing I see people doing wrong with Google Ads these days is still just running search. Just running search ads. I think a lot of people have been stuck on search ads for years because that's what you think of when you think of Google Ads. People go to Google, they, they look for something and you put your ad in front of them. Obviously we're going to talk more about YouTube ads today. We're heavy into YouTube ads. We're heavy into. Into Google's other ad types as well. Google has a whole ecosystem of ad formats that work extremely well right now. And most people, when they go to Google, they just look at search or they try to make search work, and if they can't make that work, they give up, leaving a ton of money on the table. There's so many other campaign types you can explore now, and they're. They're amazing.
A
Interesting. Oh, I want to get into those in a second. But just for clarification reasons, search is like, hey, we want to show up in the top search results. When people type in like Best Skate, Best Movie Theater in Des Moines, like you want to show up in the paid results or like the number one listing. Basically that's what we're. We're saying know with AI search too. Like there's some chat GBT ads. I don't know if you've experimented with those at all yet, but unfortunately I've
B
really wanted to get into the chat GPT ads for our local clients, but we haven't done it yet. We've been getting a little more into the, you know, the AEO kind of world and getting folks recommended by, by AIs, but not so much on the paid side yet.
A
We, we'll chat about that in a second. Before I lose my train of thought, what are the other Google Ad types that are, you're seeing a lot of great results with or just things that people should be paying attention to.
B
Yeah, I think the, the biggest one that I've focused on the last couple of years is demand gen and I'm finally hearing more people talking about demand gen, which is great because I've been screaming about demand gen in back rooms and masterminds for the last couple of years. It's how I've made most of the money at my agency. I mean we found most of our clients by running demand gen ads and YouTube ads and those types of things. We don't run a lot of search, but the demand gen ads are just fabulous. And if you think about that, if you think about it like meta ads but on the Google Ads network, that's kind of how it works. So I think a lot of people are missing it because they're, they're so focused on meta, they don't realize they can actually port a lot of their successful meta creatives over to Google and make them work with a demand gen campaign. That's probably the biggest campaign type that I've been focused on lately. But I also have to mention performance max too because I think a lot of people thought that was a joke when it came out or they tested it, they saw bad results, poor quality leads and they just kind of shut it off. For local especially, my team has been really, really leveraging PMAX for the last year. We've tested the lead quality. It's gotten so much better. And if you're not messing with PMAX right now, I really think you're missing out on that too.
A
I'm, I'm not messing around with pmax. I see it, I'm like, I don't know what that is. Like, probably like most people, if they've never met, seen it or heard of it and I want to get into how like what's the difference between the man gen and PMAX here in a second. But like for me, I'm like, well, if I click that button, I have no idea where it's going to take me. I have no idea what it's going to ask me to put in, what kind of creative fits there. So it is this kind of like a scary thing when I'm setting up a campaign. I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't touch that because I don't know what's going to happen after that.
B
It does seem a little more overwhelming, but it's like, it's overwhelming in a good way. When you actually start to build the performance max and the demand gen ads, Google will give you a preview of the ads that you're creating and you can see different placements, different, you know, ad formats that you would get from performance max and demand gen. So you kind of get the satisfaction of how these ads are going to look before we even finish building the campaign. I would get in there and start, and start playing with it just because it's kind of satisfying to build these visual ads in Google and see how
A
they look and just because I'm super ignorant. Can you do video? Can you like? So if I'm trying to grow a YouTube channel, would performance max be something at all relevant or.
B
No?
A
It's for like more for sales and Legion.
B
I use performance max heavily for local clients. So when we were doing local lead generation, like for local campaign plumber, carpet cleaner or something like that, we run performance max campaigns almost every single time. Mostly because they, they generally improve the results on our search campaign. If you're trying to improve the results on your YouTube channel, you're, you know, a YouTube creator or somebody who's focused on growing your audience. On the YouTube side of things, Performance max might not be the best fit. I actually would probably recommend you just straight up YouTube ads, right? Google video ads. Because you can pay for views, you can pay for engagement subscriptions, but you can also run Google's demand gen campaigns. Those are also available as a video ad format. Demand gen is what I recommend if you're wanting to take your YouTube content and not just drive views with it, but actually drive leads or sales signups.
A
Right.
B
Conversions. If you're looking for, for that kind of ad format, Demand gen is what you're looking for. That can definitely boost your YouTube channel. It can get you more views, get in front of the right people, but it's really designed for leads. So demand gen, if you're looking for leads, that's where you want to be.
A
Love it. Yeah, we've started to see more leads trickle in because of the demand gen campaigns we're running for. For some clients on YouTube, it's always been something I'm kind of like afraid of. I'm like, I don't know how this is going to work. I don't. I've never done not a huge pay to media guy, but with some of your guidance we've started to see some success in that. So that's been pretty cool. What are. Yeah. Thank you. So all credits to you, dude. Um, what are some of the prerequisites for like, okay, I have a YouTube channel, I have a business and I have a. Let's just say I'm. I'm doing long form content once a week, like one podcast a week. Would it make sense for me if I have a, if I have a lead magnet to start to test that lead magnet out on demand gen? Or is there a step before that that I should do? If, like, I have a. We have a podcast, you know, growth agency. So like, maybe we have like a 27 page checklist of how do you grow your podcast? Would that be something, you know, we could just take today and go and put on demand gen, set up a demand gen campaign and start testing? Or do you recommend something, I guess, before that step?
B
So you absolutely could take it and just test it on demand gen right away. I usually would recommend testing it organically first. Um, and this is what I personally did. So if you have a lead magnet or something that you're trying to use to grow your list, take people off your YouTube channel and put them on your email list or move them to another channel somewhere or into the dms. Right. I think we even have direct Messages available on YouTube now as of last week, so. Direct messages?
A
What?
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. YouTube is rolling out direct message functionality in the last couple days here. We've just started to get it on a couple of our channels.
A
Oh, man, that's huge.
B
Oh, okay, okay. We can get way off topic with that here. But I generally would recommend promote your lead magnets in your content organically first. Um, when I first started posting on YouTube, I was making content just to try to reach my audience, just try to, to try to help my audience. I realized very quickly I needed a lead magnet. I needed to try to get them to sign up, give me some information about themselves, email, phone number, whatever. And I made a checklist just like you did. The way I promoted that checklist at first, I didn't just run out and start running ads to it. I actually just started mentioning it at the end of every single one of my videos. I would say, by the way, if you want to get the carpet cleaning marketing checklist that I put together for your car, your carpet cleaning business, go to this URL. And I would just mention it in every video organically. That started to trickle in of people signing up for it. And once I had kind of proven out the lead magnet, found that people were interested in it, then I put more money behind it. If you want to test faster, obviously you could just run ads and test your lead magnets. And try two or three and find the one that works. But I found it useful to just promote that in my content organically. I started getting leads from it organically. And quick tip, if you're gonna promote a lead magnet like a checklist or something, I highly recommend just print it out, right? If it's a digital product, print the thing out, have it on a piece of paper and show it in your video. And it will actually help improve your conversion rates, improve the number of people that will take you up on it. And then when you go to run those videos as ads later, then you know your ads will perform a lot better because you're actually showing them the checklist that they're gonna get when they, when they click through and download. So I promote organically, first put the checklist in your videos and then, you know, then you can go add fuel to the flame with paid ads.
A
Would. So I love this. I'm trying to find. I'm on your YouTube channel right now. I'm trying to find the, the ad because I've seen this ad you're talking about.
B
I want to show it for people.
A
The one where you're like walking and you've got like the paper, you got like the checklist. Like, hey, if you want my free guide on how to grow a cleaning business, go here. I'm like, that's genius. That is genius. I'm like, is it on the Reuben Rock YouTube channel?
B
It's probably on the book Cleaning jobs channel. And I am struggling to find it too, because there's a bunch of versions of it. I do a lot of the walking around kind of face to camera or yapping videos or whatever you want to call them these days, right? I really like that video format. And just for me, because I'm already doing that format to print out the checklist and just show it in the video. It's really nice as like a kind of a visual hook too, right?
A
Yeah, you've got it right here on the homepage and I'll actually pull it up. People, if you're watching this on the YouTube or, you know, we've got Apple video now, whatnot. So I'm going to share my screen and then y' all can see what I'm looking at here.
B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
A
Without free mustache. Yeah, this is pre mustache Reuben. So you've got this really look good looking like checklist here. It's like green and it's got little check boxes and I'm not gonna play it, but I can just see it's like, grab the cheat sheet. This free cheat sheet. Go to bookcleanjobs.com. yeah, this is just like simply, just a straight up, like, hey, get my free thing. And it's a video format.
B
Yeah. So I started mentioning this checklist in my longer videos. I would mention it either in the middle of the video or at the end and people started signing up for it. So I realized it was, it was a good lead magnet. I was onto something one day I actually just shot probably 15 videos in vertical format, in horizontal format of me holding up the checklist and trying different hooks, trying different, you know, different lines, try to get people to download this checklist. I ran every single one of those videos as an ad. And actually that is what kicked off my ad account, my successful ad account for my own agency is these were some of the first ads I ran that actually brought me leads, brought me clients, and, and this is one of the first campaigns that actually worked for me as an agency ad campaign. I know that's something a lot of agencies struggle with, like running ads for themselves to bring in clients. This, this is literally what worked for me, is just starting with a cheat sheet.
A
I love it. Okay, so quick, quick question on, on this. Did you ever. This is 10 seconds long. Did you take this 10 second clip and just like slap it on the back of like all of your videos or.
B
Yeah, I tried that. I also tried just naturally mentioning it in my videos and that kind of worked a little bit better. I call that, I, I used to kind of call that my Frank Kern. Call to action is Frank Kern the way he, he makes videos. Right. I grew up kind of watching him in the marketing world, but he was just like, he's such a cool guy. He'd be teaching you something. Like, he just, it seemed like he was your friend and you were really into the video and oh yeah, by the way, I have this thing for you, this free resource. If you want to grab that, it's over here. You can get it if you want to. He was so chill with his cta. Like, it was so like, low pressure that I tried to emulate that in my videos. Just like, by the way, I threw together this checklist. If you want it, you can go grab it. That cta, that kind of format actually works better for me. I think just mixing it in naturally with your content does a little better than getting in people's spaces. But when you go to run ads, when you're doing this organically, just mention it, be casual about it. I think you'll get better results that way. Don't be in people's faces with, with your lead magnet. When you go to run ads, the game changes. You have to be a little bit more in people's faces if you want them to take action. And that's what I figured out with those videos that the cheat sheet is. You have to just say, hey, if you're a carpet cleaning business owner and you're trying to grow your business, get a copy of this carpet cleaning marketing cheat sheet. Go to this website, get the cheat sheet. Right. Be straight with them direct to the point. Those videos are 10 seconds long. I'm showing them the cheat sheet. That's it. You'll get better results with that when you run ads.
A
Okay. All right, cool. My. So I, I feel like I vaguely remember you telling me this. You were doing, like, view campaigns, and I can be completely lying on my ass here. So I'm just wanting to, just want to clarify when, when you, you do view campaigns, like, you optimize for getting views, but you would have the call to action that said, hey, go to book my, you know, get this free cheat sheet. So technically, like, you're paying for views, but people are seeing it and they're like, oh, like, I want to get that free cheat sheet. And the URL is super simple to guess. You're kind of like getting leads without paying for them.
B
Pretty much, in a sense, yeah.
A
Genius.
B
Okay, cool. Yeah. And we, I, I like paying for views, by the way. A lot of people don't. But as long as you're targeting the right audiences, I think it's a good idea. You can get in front of new people and then remarket them and then also come back and hit them with your offers later. Get them on a cheat sheet, get them on a webinar, get them, whatever. Right. But like, as long as you can reach people on YouTube, then you can follow up to them with offers. Video views, ads are probably the best way to do that because the organic algorithm on YouTube is just, it's. It's too hard for most people to figure out how to reach their audience quickly and how to get more views. You can just pay for it. It's cheap.
A
Yeah. Especially if you have a very specific market, a very specific offer that you help people with. I think it's much, I think it's somewhat easier. Not all the targeting capability. Like, if you target something that's a little bit taboo. Like, you know, I remember talking to somebody and they were kind of like, had like an escort, like a semi legal Escort business. And I was like, what is. Like there's no way you're gonna do any kind of marketing with that.
B
Like I know who you're talking about and unfortunately I thought that was a really interesting case. That's a tough one.
A
Yeah. For.
B
Right?
A
Yeah, exactly. Like there's certain areas you just can't. There's just, you just can't. But for a niche business, if you serve a very specific problem, like you're, you're working with a lot of carpet cleaners, right? Like that's a very specific niche. You have a very specific problem you're helping them with. So I think it's in those scenarios, like yeah, it's, you're, you're going to have a very small accessible market who cares about your organic content. So you're never going to grow huge, but you can definitely spend some money to target them with a very focused ad value driven ad like this and you can, you can generate leads with relatively small budget. So I think that's pretty cool. I want to take a quick pivot here and ask you what is the best advice you've ever gotten from someone when it comes to Google Ads?
B
The best advice I probably got. I'm not sure if anyone even really gave me this advice straight up. I just kind of picked it up. But I feel like the best advice I got was run your, run ads for your own offer. Run ads with your own money. Because it's a lot different than running ads for a client with a client's money when obviously when you're running it with your own funds and it's your own offer and if it doesn't work, you know, you have to fix it or you have to pay for it anyways. It, it kind of lights a fire under your ass. When I first started out running ads, the very first offer I ever promoted was my own offer on Google Ads. I didn't go out and promote anything else as an affiliate or anything like that. I didn't take on a client and run their ads. I actually created my own product, built my own sales page, did all of that and that just so that I could run some ads on Google. I had found out about Google Ads and I wanted to run them, but I didn't have anything to run the ads to. So I made my own offer and ran ads to it. That was probably the best lesson I ever had in Google Ads. Because when it's your own money going out the door, you will figure it out fast, right? If you're motivated, you'll Figure out how to make that thing profitable. And I did. Within 30 days, my first campaign was profitable. And this was like the early days of Google Ads. So this was, you know, back then, it was, it was a cakewalk. In 2007, 2006 or whenever it was, it was easy to get results on Google Ads if you could just figure it out and, and connect it to a page and do conversion tracking and all that stuff. But most people, they're scared to spend their own money. They're scared to lose their own money. And I think because of that, they don't learn the, the real lessons that they could. At this point, I have no idea how much of my own money I've spent on Google Ads. I know that I spend thousands a month on ads for my own brands, for my own personal brand, for my own agencies, for my own offers. I don't even know the amount that I spend right now because we've been just trying to increase it, increase it. I knew we weren't spending enough. There was a point at which I looked at our ad spend and I wasn't spending enough. And I want to spend more because we learn more the more of our own money that we spend. It's just different when it's your own money, your own offers. So I highly recommend, even if you run ads for other people, get something of your own, that you can run ads to get your own skin in the game. And I think it'll increase your, your skill level. Seriously?
A
No, that's super helpful. I run my own ads on and off, but it's never. Yeah, like I turn them on, turn it off, turn on, turn off. Depending on what we're doing. I want to know from you right now, currently, what are you running ads to for your own. Like what are you spending your own money on and what kind of campaigns and what kind of offers are you guys pushing to?
B
I love to do lead magnet campaigns. They still work these days. But my favorite thing that I've been running as to recently is quiz funnels. I know those are not new by any means. People have been using quiz funnels forever. But I've been running quiz funnels from meta ads, from YouTube ads. They've been working extremely well. I especially like it on the Google side because you can target very, very niche audiences. You can go after people who own specific business types or have specific avatars. Ask them to fill out a quiz. First of all, it's a great lead magnet. It's a great way to get them to fill out their information. And tell you more about themselves. But with a quiz, they go really deep. You can ask them things like how much money do you make? How long have you been in business? What types of solutions have you tried in the past? What, what worked, what failed? You can go deep with people, right? And so I, I've really liked running quizzes lately. That's been really good for us. I'm actually, right now I'm running a couple of campaigns for lead magnets. I run a couple of campaigns for video views specifically actually. So let me say this in the reverse order. I run campaigns at the top of the funnel for video views, right? Because we want to reach people in our different audiences before they're even ready to buy. If they're just researching things, we want to put videos and content in front of them to help educate them, warm them up, introduce me or our brands and try to build some, some trust there. So I pay for video views to just put my best content in front of people.
A
Okay. So it's like educational content that's like, you know, about your agency, like what you guys help people with, which is like maybe like Google Ads and meta and stuff like that.
B
Okay. So yeah, if you go look at my YouTube channel for book cleaning jobs, there are a bunch of kind of medium length and long, long videos on there. I pay to promote some of those. Some of them are like an hour long, right. I have hour long coaching calls and stuff on here. So some of these, we just put them into our video views campaign. We, we show the videos to the ideal customer using custom segments on Google Ads. You can really, really hone in and target the exact people that you want to target. So I pay for views on videos that are like interviews, videos that are tutorials, like educational videos, coaching call recordings, all kinds of different video formats just to. Because you never know what's going to hook somebody, what they're going to stop and watch. So I pay to promote different types of content just to get views on them. They're called true views by the way. That's what you're looking for on, on YouTube. Gotcha. Videos you want to run for true views. TrueView is just, it just means they watched the video for longer. They stopped and actually watched it. They didn't hit skip after six, six seconds. So yeah, we're paying for a lot of those. Then we run like demand gen display, PMAX campaigns for our lead magnets. Those are usually cheat sheets, checklists, SOPs, just quick downloads. Sometimes it's videos like a video on a specific Topic where I'm teaching something specific. I have a campaign for something called Instant Authority Vortex Method, which is something I was teaching last year, showing people how to gain more authority using YouTube ads. Get in front of their, their best audience. And that's probably relevant to this conversation. If anybody that go look up Instant Authority Vortex and, and you should be able to find me, there's a presentation I did on it. It's on YouTube. You can go check that out. So lead magnets like that. And then we straight up run ads to promote. Like book a call with us or to promote actually before we get to the booker, call ads still kind of mid funnel.
A
Right now.
B
We promote case studies. That's the other thing that we promote. And I don't want to leave that out because we started making video case studies about our clients at our marketing agency last year and then we started promoting those as ads. And they've done really well for us. So we'll make a case study talking about, you know, this, this carpet cleaner came on board last month. They had never run ads before. We set up a website, we set up ads. Here's the results they got. We run videos like that, case study videos like that as ads. They do really well. And then we, we try to get people to book a call with us. So it's kind of a full funnel ad setup from view, warming them up all the way down into booking a call. Bunch of different campaigns. I do that for book cleaning jobs, which is my marketing agency for cleaning companies. We're starting to do it for search party marketing, which is my other agency that works with other types of companies. We have new offers that we're starting to promote there. One of them is an audit. So that's a new campaign my team's building right now. And then for my personal brand for Ruben Rock, I run the Instant Authority vortex. I run some video views campaigns. Like I just, I do this for every, every brand that I own.
A
I think, yeah, I, I think you're right on the Instant authority vortex is definitely relevant to this conversation because one of my questions is going to be, Ruben, if you are building or how are you building your, your personal brand on the back of YouTube ads? Like what kind of campaigns are you running, what kind of creatives, and roughly how much are you spending?
B
So I spend a couple thousand bucks a month per, per channel, usually between three and $5,000 a month per business. Right now I'm not spending enough. And that's, that's what I, what I've realized in the Last year I should probably be spending more like 10 to 20 thousand dollars a month per. Per business. And I'm just not there yet. Mostly because of lack of, lack of proven campaigns and creative. We're having to build out more and more creative and, and more lead magnets and stuff to actually make these ads work. You can't just run the same offer and scale it up forever. Especially with a small audience like carpet cleaners, it starts to wear out really fast. They've seen it before. You got to hit them with something new. So we're only spending a couple grand a month on the ads. And then what was the specific. What was your question again?
A
What kind of campaigns? Like, yeah, for personal brands specifically. Like a lot of people here have a video, have. Have a YouTube channel presence. Yep. And they are business owners, but they. And they know that they have to build a presence. Personal brand organic's great, but it's a lot, it's a lot slower. So like, how, how can we leverage or layer in the YouTube ad side to accelerate that process? And what are you doing specifically? What kind of.
B
For personal brand videos, I think the only thing I'm really doing different from other people, and I know other people are doing this. Don't think that I believe I invented this, but I just like to get out from behind my desk. So most people, when they're shooting personal brand videos, they'll start out shooting right here at their desk with their webcam. Right. Because it's easy and they have all their stuff here. They can look on their screen, they can screen share. It just makes people comfortable because they've done zoom calls and stuff before. If you want to get uncomfortable and pump up the value of your videos a little bit, catch people's attention and position yourself a little bit differently. Get outside, go walk around somewhere. I wish I had it right next to me, but I have a, like a gimbal from dji. I bought it on Amazon. It wasn't expensive. You can hook your phone up to it. And this gimbal, all it does is it's like a selfie stick. You hold it out in front of you and it just holds your phone steady. So as you're walking around, the phone stays pointed at your face. You don't have to control it or anything. You just hold onto it. Go get one of these things. It's like an amazing tool, but get that. And then go walk around outside and do the same videos that you would do at your desk, but do it in a different setting. That's that's the main format that I use when I'm doing kind of personal branding videos or, you know, even for like my lead magnets and stuff, or book a call. The whole instant authority vortex method is kind of based around that concept. So get out, walk around, shoot videos outdoors, shoot them in your car, shoot them walking in different settings. I really like to do that because first of all, it catches people's attention. They don't see you sitting at a desk. They see you outside somewhere sunny or at the beach or downtown in a city with people walking by or whatever. Right. And then second of all, you get to spend a little bit of time walking with people and talking kind of casually, and it starts to feel unscripted, and that draws people in. If people feel like they're watching a scripted video, sometimes they feel like they're being led down a certain path. They feel like this. This was written to make me think a certain way, feel a certain way by a certain thing. But if you just watch somebody who's posted a video on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, you're just watching somebody talk on came camera about an experience they had, it feels way more natural. It feels like a personal connection. That's the kind of videos that I've been shooting a lot more of lately. Because they tend to work for organic and for paid ads. They catch people off guard. When you run those as paid ads, you put a video like that up as a paid ad and people just get sucked into it right away for 20 minutes. So that's. That is what I'm shooting a lot of. In addition to, you know, just like the. I record all my coaching calls and cut those up into shorts and. And media links and stuff like that. We run those as. As creative too.
A
Okay, that's a great point. I need to get a gimbal so I can bring this show with me or I can bring it outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I've got a couch over here that I sometimes shoot reels from, but I think it's still kind of a very safe environment. That could be. We just go outside and just. It's beautiful day out here. I live in Iowa, as you know, so plenty of corn fields. I could go into that. That would be great for that.
B
So one of my top videos is in my car. Try that one too. I didn't think the car would work. I actually thought the riding around in your car making a video was kind of first of all dangerous, and second of all, maybe a little cheesy. Right. Because I See guys in their Rolls Royce and that kind of thing. But I did one, and it's now one of the top videos on my channel. I was kind of blown away by it because I have the. I shot the same video in my car and walking around my neighborhood and walking around in downtown Tacoma, which is near where I live. And the car version won out. Everyone liked the car version. It got probably five times as many views as the other ones.
A
Yeah, that's. That makes sense. I like the car, too, because you don't have to worry about wind. You don't have to worry about, like, other things flying around, people laughing at
B
you because you got a selfie stick and you're walking around outside, lady walking
A
by, and the dog with a dog, like, looking at you like, what the hell are you doing? You know what I mean? None of that. So you're in the car in kind of a. A safe environment, but a different environment. Completely different from what people would expect you shooting a business video for. So. So it totally, totally makes sense. And it's the same content. Like, you're saying, like, the. The content itself doesn't change. The. The format does. I don't know if you've ever seen this podcast. There's one. There's a podcast. My wife always sends me clips of it, and I always, like, if I. I go and, like, sit on the couch next to her, she's probably, you know. You know, a couple times a week, she's watching these people. It's these dudes who shoot this. This podcast on the subway in New York.
B
Oh, yeah, I've seen it.
A
Yeah. You see it? Okay. Okay. It's pretty popular. I'm pretty sure. The guy's probably got to be like,
B
they got the street comedian Mike like this, and they pass it around.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just like.
B
It's hard, right? The subway card, the subway car.
A
I'm like, what the hell is that? It took me a while to figure out it's a subway card. Yeah. Embarrassingly enough, you know, I don't do a lot of public transport in Ireland. No. Yeah, no, not a thing. But it's the.
B
This.
A
The format of it. It's a podcast, but it's in a freaking subway on a moving. On a moving subway card. So it's just. It throws you off. Also, they're pretty funny. They talk about random stuff. So I think that kind of. I think even if you did a lot of people even modeling the Joe Rogan thing, like, they. They do an AI video and they Put the red backdrop to make it look like they're Rogan, which is, I think is another thing. But yeah, this, the creative aspect of this, I think you're right around like getting out of your office, even just shooting it outside or in your car or, you know, on a subway maybe, or in a bus.
B
I sit in my backyard sometimes and shoot there.
A
That's a good point.
B
Just to get out of the house in a different environment. That's literally all it takes.
A
Yeah. Yeah. I annoyingly don't like my new. I have a Google Pixel phone and the iPhone camera is better. Much better on it.
B
I thought the Pixel was supposed to have a better camera.
A
I have the wide. The. When you fold open. Okay. Fold. Yeah. And it does not. They. They sacrifice the camera quality for it being able to fold, which I just picked up.
B
You work on?
A
Yeah. Oh, dude. Yeah. What kind of. Yeah, I've got a Instalink360.
B
Yeah. This is the new DJI Osmo Nano. It disconnects from the screen so you get like a remote. It's magnetic. You can hook it up to. It also hooks up to these DJI microphones automatically, like seamlessly. It's pretty sick. I just got this. This week I'm gonna start testing it
A
out and shooting your content on that versus the phone.
B
I'm gonna try shooting content on this. I'm. I'm also trying to get more into like kind of vlogging content and stuff. If you look at my. My personal YouTube channel, you'll think I'm insane because there's so much stuff on this channel that's not marketing related. It's like cheap watches from Amazon bike videos, like just random product reviews and stuff. I put all this random stuff on my YouTube and I know everybody says not to do that to stay focused on one thing, but I just want to bring it up for one reason. This is my. This is my stupid experiment that I've been doing. My YouTube channel, the RubinRock channel. I teach a lot of marketing stuff and Google Ads stuff on there now. But I also have a ton of personal content. A ton of stuff that's just me and like things. I like things that I do my life. You could even find my family on here. Podcast interviews, that kind of stuff. So I do that for a reason. I'm actually like trying to put a little more. A little more of myself out there so that people have a little more to bite into. It makes you more of a real person. This is my theory anyways, that people will connect with you a little bit more because you have hobbies, you have things about you that make you look real. Like I'm showing with the mushroom coffee that I drink and the, the watches that I like and just, you know, my bass guitars and the music I like. So that if people are watching my channel and seeing other stuff, they have some other sense that I'm a real person and they can get to know
A
me a little bit more.
B
I, I've been experimenting with this and I've, I've found it kind of interesting that that's part of why I got this new camera. I'm gonna try to shoot more like vlog style content and show a little bit more of my life over the next year on YouTube and see how that does for my business, see if it improves things a little bit. I've seen other people do this. There's a guy named Miles Beckler who I really like. I followed his stuff for a long time. He was influential for me and he showed off like his family life, how he's, he's built his business around having a happy family life and a stable schedule and not, not like grinding it out constantly going from conference to conference, you know, I, that was influential for me. So I kind of want to show off a little more of, of me, my life, my business and stuff on YouTube. I'm gonna try that, do that in the next year. So you can follow along if you want to. But otherwise, if you want to know what I'm doing, strategy wise, content wise, that's what I'm working on is just showing more of my personal life and myself and then mixing that in with the business stuff.
A
Are you linking this YouTube channel, like the Reuben Rock Channel, to the book cleaning jobs? People can say like, oh, this is like the other. Because like, you know, on YouTube, even on Spotify now you can link channels to get together.
B
I have not started doing it yet. I really need to. Yeah, I have not started doing it yet. My plan was to start doing it now because we, Kelly and I, my wife, Kelly and I, we just bought a house cleaning business like 60 days ago. And I was going to start posting videos about that and putting them on my personal channel and then linking that over to book cleaning shops because obviously it's relevant. Like if you're watching videos about how we bought a house cleaning business, if you own a house cleaning business, I have a company that can help you with marketing.
A
Yeah, that makes sense. That that's a super good. I mean, yeah, I like. Well, one of the things I Think you're. Makes it easier, like, to know you're in the right spots because you have the same picture on the Reuben Rock site. Then also, also on the book cleaning jobs YouTube channel. Like, they're both the same picture, so I know it's you. And then, yeah, I would personally, I would link them. And people are curious on the book. Like, they're on bookcleaningjobs.com the YouTube channel. And then they see, like, your personal. Like, oh, I want to go see what this guy's up to. Like, what. What is it that makes him different and unique? And that's all those little wrinkles you talked about, like the music watches, the. All the experiments you're doing. Helps with just building out a bigger profile in their brain on you.
B
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for putting words on that. I've had this theory in my mind for a while that I should be showing off more of myself online because I think a lot of people did. They just put out the business stuff. That's it.
A
I. I do. I. I do. And I'm trying to, like, weave in other parts of me. Yeah. Yes. It's. It's weird. It's definitely a personal preference thing, too, because there's a part of me that just, like, I just want to figure out how. How to make money and not be online, period. End of story. Man.
B
I hear that. I hear that. I wish I could do that, dude. I have to be honest. It's, like, easier to make money if you put your face on it. It's so hard to make money anonymously online these days.
A
Yes, yes, exactly. And I'm like. I'm like, man, me, a couple years, I've been like this. I'm like, I hit this. If I hit a certain number, I'm out of here. Like, I. I love all my friends on online, but I probably would never talk to them again. Peace.
B
I hear you.
A
Lewis is somewhere in Europe.
B
My first businesses were all anonymous, and I. I loved it. Those are just the best years of my life, running businesses that my name was not on. And then as social media and reviews took over and everything, you know, now, like, everyone knows who owns what company, what product, they'll. And then there's like, the TikTok detectives. If you try to, you know, run an anonymous brand, somebody could figure you out.
A
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, this is part was off topic. And I'll get. I'll get to my last question here in a second, but this is why I bought a. I started, like, a. A vending machine business. Cuz I'm like it is completely faceless. Like nobody cares about a personal brand when it comes to a vending machine. They want the snack and they want to leave and that's it. The, it's convenience. That's it. And there's no employees. I mean there's, there's, that comes up. Like there's problems. You still got to deal with people. But it's such a different model from personal brand building what we do online. And it's just like a nice, a nice pivot. So yeah, so yeah.
B
That's awesome. The vending machine was so cool. That was one of the first businesses I heard about when I was a kid that I was like man, I got, I gotta be an entrepreneur someday, dude.
A
I didn't hear about until I was 30 years old. Really had no idea of the thing.
B
I didn't know what infomercial. There was an infomercial in the late 90s or something that was about buying candy, candy vending machines and putting them in stores or something like that. It was late night. I used to watch every, every infomercial as a kid. I just was obsessed with infomercials for some reason.
A
That's why you're a marketer.
B
Exactly.
A
That's funny. Oh dude. Okay, last, last question here. And this kind of touches on because we talked a lot about personal brands, talked a lot about the creative that you're doing. And now like with Google or with Meta, they have the whole Meta Andromeda thing that creates like all of your creative for you. And it kind of seems like AI is going to basically run, set up your ad account, run your ad account, optimize the ads, review the ads, pivot the budget, depending on what's performing best. It seems like AI is going to take over all this stuff eventually. At least for the parts that we can semi control right now, which I think is creative. What is the biggest mistake you see people making with creative when it comes to Google paid media?
B
It's literally making one video and expecting that to carry your whole effort. I have a lot of clients that do this and they're smart, they're smart people. But it's hard to put together a project, it's hard to put together a new offer and put it out there. So sometimes what we have clients do is they'll make one video, like one vsl, one video to promote their thing and they send us that and they're like okay, let's go, let's promote this. And then when that one video doesn't work out or it gets rejected by Google for policy violations or something. Then they freeze up, they clam up and they, it's weeks before they can get another video shot because they, they just weren't planning to have to shoot more than one video. So I think the biggest mistake is hanging your hat on one piece of creative and only shooting one thing and making a big deal out of it. That's probably the bigger mistake people make is making a big deal out of shooting the video. The thing that I see my successful clients do is they will turn out video after video after video and if I come back and tell them Google rejected this one, they didn't like what you said at 22 seconds, my client will just go, no problem, let me get my. I'll shoot the video again right now. They just do it again. And they don't worry about mistakes stumbling over their words. They don't worry about sounding silly or not looking perfect. They just make the content and get it out there.
A
Right.
B
So the clients that make more and more creative, they do a lot better. The folks who run one video and then if, and this is even worse, if that one video works and they never make another one again, they're like, bye, I'm out. Yes, I want to fire you as a client. Please send me more videos. This one worked. Just shoot the exact same video and change the hook. Change something about the video. I don't care what you change, just give me more, more versions of it. So don't, don't run one video and hope that's gonna carry your whole business. Make more than one.
A
Yeah. You know, an interesting hack to that and I've discovered literally this week is Riverside. And this is not a plug to them because they're not my favorite. Like I like them, but they're not my favorite company, which told me wicker with a better software, but they do a really good job with repurposing content. So after this interview I will have, I will be able to go in and make like 10, 15 different. Create short form videos. I can also create like 5 to 10 different thumbnails within 45 minutes. I can have probably enough creative to like to. I probably have like 30 or 40 pieces of content that I.
B
We can Riverside then. Yeah, do an interview, get Riverside, cut the clip, use the long videos, use the short clips, run that as your creative and you're good to go.
A
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's crazy. It's crazy. And, and the one thing I'm most impressive is like the thumbnail Creative is actually pretty decent.
B
Really.
A
So I'll send, I'll send you some after this interview. Of. Of what? Like without any me. Without me tweaking or really optimizing anything. The out of the box creative that it makes for, for thumbnails is really good. So kudos to them. And then if you want. I don't know if I can even get paid for this, but if you use my name, Lewis, you get 15% off. Yeah, Lou L U I S so hopefully I'll get a check in the mail, but. But anyone listening to this, give that a shot.
B
I. Everyone that I know who's doing podcasts, seriously, they're all using Riverside. All of my friends from Driven are using Riverside. So it's obviously very popular software. It's getting the job done, people.
A
It definitely is. Yeah. There's still some human element. If you want the Eclipse to be really good, like you pump out 15. Some of them are going to be super random or like just incomplete. But yeah, what you get from a base level is good enough to tweak a little bit and get something out there. So I have a video editor who
B
does a really good job for me because I found a lot of the clipping software didn't get it done exactly the way I wanted. I finally just had to pull in a human being. She does an amazing job. She's in the Philippines, works full time for us and handles all of our video projects for ourselves and for our clients. So, man, that's. That's worked for me.
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, I. Yeah, there's a, there's a def. There has to be a human element. I'm trying to figure out how do we layer on a ton of speed from AI to then give the humans, give the humans much more leverage to do the, the, the final 20% to make the video really good. Whether that's changing the hook, altering like the voice or messing with the, the B roll, that kind of stuff. So, dude, is there anything we didn't cover from a. A value perspective that somebody could really benefit from that you want to share?
B
If you're running ads on meta and you have a successful campaign on meta, you could absolutely port that campaign over to Google. If you don't know how to do it, find someone who can help you with it. You're looking for a campaign type called Demand Gen. I'm not going to stop talking about this campaign type until I hear everybody running it. Take your meta ads, test them out on Google, especially your video ads. Go try them out. Go See how they work. I feel like Google, Google Ads is still an untapped channel for a lot of companies. And the reason it's untapped is because they simply couldn't figure it out, couldn't make it work or just never even tried. They went to meta first. Man, quit leaving that money on the table. Google's got such a huge audience. YouTube has a huge audience. Go run a demand gen campaign. It's actually, it is easier to set up than a search campaign. Yes, you can still screw it up. Yes, you can still target the wrong people, make the ad, say the wrong thing. You could accidentally target the wrong country or something like that, or set the wrong budget. Sure there's mistakes you could make, but as long as you're willing to go in and, and play around and work on the audience targeting and just like type some different headlines, type some different descriptions like it's not that hard to build a demand gen campaign. Go get into your Google Ads account, hit the blue plus button, create a new campaign and do demand gen. Just try it out. Look at the ads as you're building them. They show you a preview. It's very satisfying to see your ads built out in front of you as you're typing in the headlines and, and attaching images and stuff. I promise you it's not very hard. Go do that. If anybody watches this and goes and takes a meta campaign, ports it over to a Google to ban gen campaign and is successful with it. After watching this video, even one person, I'll feel like I did my job today. I just feel like enough people are not doing this.
A
You're. I'm going to be that person. I, I'm at baseline level. I'm going to be that person. So. So yeah, I love it. Thank you. For those who want to like connect with you or just learn more about what you're doing, what's the best place for them to go?
B
Yeah, I'm on Facebook a lot unfortunately trying to get myself out of the business, but I, I just never seem to get there. You can add me on Facebook if you'd like because I do post a lot there. So just look me up. Ruben, Ruben Rock. And then on YouTube you can find me at book cleaning jobs or at Reuben Rock if you want to. But I'm also, if you just look for my name, Google my name, I'm out there. I have a website, I offer consultations. So if anyone out there is running ads stuck. Even if you're running ads for clients and you feel like it's not going well and you need a second set of eyes. I consult for a whole bunch of p. PC agencies across the country, big names that you've heard of. So I'm happy to take a look at your campaigns as well. Just reach out to me. I do consultations on my website.
A
Love it. We'll link all that below. And I as a person who's paid for those, I found those super valuable, dude. So I appreciate it.
B
Glad to hear that.
A
Happy to help. Thanks. Yeah, I appreciate you being here. And we'll see you soon.
B
Okay, talk soon. Thanks.
A
Hey, just so you know, a couple things. Number one, this is the end of the episode. Number two, I have a completely free, no strings attached, no email opt in required gift for you and it's called the podcast scaling framework. Now this essentially is a Google Doc that lays out the long process as we take clients through from ideation to monetizing. It's going to take you through things like the seven podcast formats that you should test or at Beast consider the five different monetization systems we use for our clients and how to execute them, all the KPIs, all the different types of podcasts you can set up based on your business, your size, your goals, et cetera. The very comprehensive document. Again, I teach my team on this.
B
We also walk through it with our
A
private health and wellness expert clients. We walk them through this and we work with them on this stuff every single month. So it's a living document. You may see me in there sometimes changing things or tweaking things because again, it's a framework that we're constantly updating. But check it out. It's completely free. Again, no email opt in required, which may change in the future, I don't know. So just get it now while it's free. But check that out. Use it, let me know what you think and if we can help in any other way. If you want step by step, more handheld, more of a, you know, a white glove service, then reach out to us@top10podcast.com and would love to chat. Thanks and talk soon.
Host: Luis Diaz
Guest: Reuben Rock
Date: July 17, 2026
In this episode, Luis Diaz dives into actionable strategies for founders and business owners to leverage YouTube Ads—specifically Demand Gen and video campaigns—to both build authority and generate high-quality leads. With expert guest Reuben Rock (agency owner and YouTube Ads specialist), the discussion covers evolving ad types, the intersection of organic and paid media for podcasters and entrepreneurs, and creative tactics for personal brand growth. The episode is packed with practical advice, personal anecdotes, and real-world examples from Reuben’s own campaigns.
Timestamps: 00:00 – 04:01
“[The biggest mistake] is still just running search. There’s so many other campaign types you can explore now, and they're amazing.” — Reuben [02:46]
Timestamps: 04:11 – 07:28
Timestamps: 08:32 – 10:47
“Promote your lead magnets in your content organically first... once I had kind of proven out the lead magnet, then I put more money behind it.” — Reuben [09:06]
Timestamps: 12:13 – 15:47
“I tried to emulate [Frank Kern]: ‘I threw together this checklist—if you want it, you can go grab it, no worries.’ Just mixing it in does a little better than getting in people’s faces.” — Reuben [13:17]
Timestamps: 19:27 – 23:55
Timestamps: 24:14 – 33:56
“If you want to catch people’s attention, position yourself differently. Get outside, walk around, record in your car... those videos work for both organic and paid.” — Reuben [25:18]
“I'm trying to put a little more of myself out there so people have a little more to bite into. Makes you more real.” — Reuben [32:57]
Timestamps: 38:19 – 40:06
“Making one video and expecting that to carry your whole effort. The successful clients turn out video after video after video.” — Reuben [38:19]
Timestamps: 40:06 – 42:10
Timestamps: 42:41 – 44:16
"Google Ads is still an untapped channel...Go run a demand gen campaign. It's easier than search; just play around and try it." — Reuben [43:44]
“When it's your own money going out the door, you will figure it out fast... At this point, I have no idea how much I've spent on Google Ads for my own brands.” — Reuben [17:01]
“Mixing in business stuff with things about you—like music, watches, whatever—makes you more real. I'm betting that will help my business.” — Reuben [32:57]
"Print the thing out, have it on a piece of paper and show it in your video. It'll help improve your conversion rates." — Reuben [08:57]
“Don't run one video and hope that’s gonna carry your whole business. Make more than one.” — Reuben [39:37]
| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Moving beyond search ads—why YouTube and Demand Gen matter | | 04:11 | How Demand Gen & PMAX transform Google ad results | | 08:32 | When and how to test your lead magnet—organic before paid | | 13:17 | High-converting CTAs: the Frank Kern casual style | | 19:27 | What campaigns Reuben runs for his agencies/brands | | 24:14 | Creative strategies for personal brand authority | | 32:57 | Blending business and personal content on YouTube | | 38:19 | Pitfalls: don’t hinge your results on a single video | | 42:41 | Porting successful Meta campaigns into Google Demand Gen | | 43:44 | Call to action: Get started with Demand Gen right now |
Reuben Rock:
Luis Diaz:
This episode is a masterclass for founders and content creators looking to integrate cutting-edge YouTube Ads and Demand Gen tactics into their growth strategies. Luis and Reuben emphasize experimentation, agility in creating content, and combining organic with paid media to build both authority and a pipeline of high-quality leads.
“If anybody listens to this and goes and takes a Meta campaign, ports it over to a Google Demand Gen campaign and is successful—I'll feel like I did my job today.” — Reuben [44:02]
(This summary excludes non-content sections such as advertisements and podcast outro.)